Party Politics

Party Politics

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Political Parties

Birth of the Democrats

Birth of the Republicans

Political Parties From Bygone Eras

Political Parties
By Denis Mueller

At first there were no political parties. In fact the founding fathers warned against them. These were called factional disputes. But as time wore on factions did indeed develop and our first political parties, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, were born. While they were in dispute often, and over important issues, they were not parties as we know them today. But the bitter disagreements over the War of 1812 found the Democratic Republicans, led by the Jefferson-Madison faction, prevailing over the discredited Federalists.

Parties, as we know them today, come out of the end of this period. The factions surrounding Andrew Jackson became known as the Democrats. Their opponents were called the Whigs. It is important to understand that each party had a national following that extended to all regions in the country. Henry Clay of Kentucky was a Whig as was Daniel Webster and Abraham Lincoln. The Democrats believed in smaller government and the Whigs believed that government could help foster growth. The Whigs were more likely to support the building of canals and the infrastructure. Each party had ethnic bases as well. The newly arrived Irish were Democrats and the Scotch-German tended to be Whigs.

This was also an age of intense partisanship. In many ways your identity was formed by which party you belonged to. There was an absolute belief, professed by both parties, that the two party systems was the best form of government possible. This was also an age when politics provided the entertainment of the day. The elections were close and the tide shifted from side to side but that became to unravel in the late 1850s. The Whigs were seen as week and new people were coming into the political system that were opposed to slavery. So a new party was born called the Republican Party.

The Republicans were made up of people from the Know-Nothing Party, former Whigs, Abolitionists, and business interests. The system had been failing and was ready to break. The partisanship of the era made compromise impossible. After the war the republicans tried to form a majority, which would include blacks in the south. Remember that the Whigs were active in all regions in the country so the Republicans sought the aid of former Whigs during reconstruction as well. They were unsuccessful, in large part, because the Democrats sought to redefine their party as the party of whiteness. So blacks in the south, who formed an important part of the GOP, were terrorized by groups like the Klan with the tactic approval of local Democrats.

Parties in the late 19th century saw a drop in voter participation and what was once universal, where nearly 90% of people voted, come down to about 80% and sometimes lower. It was an age of great labor unrest with violent clashes in the streets. It was also the age of immigration. This along with the ill-fated campaign of William Jennings Bryan, whose campaign did not appeal to the new urban classes, caused a major shift in the alignment of the political parties.

Sources: John Silby

Birth of the Democrats

by Steve Sampson

Today's Democratic Party traces its roots to the late 18th century, when a coalition of compatriots led by none other than Thomas Jefferson emerged as one of America's original political parties.

Ironically, the Jeffersonian founders of what has since become the Democratic Party were first known as "Republicans," and then as "Democratic-Republicans." They didn't become just "Democrats" until the 1830s. (Today's Republican Party, which also claims Jefferson as an ideological predecessor, wasn't born until the 1850s.) Still, it's fair to say that the first "Democrat" ever elected president was Thomas Jefferson.

You might think that penning the Declaration of Independence, plus serving as the nation's first secretary of state (under George Washington) and its second vice president (under John Adams), would have made Jefferson a shoo-in for America's highest office. Not so. The Sage of Monticello had plenty of powerful political enemies when he ran for president in 1800, including other founders like John Adams and Alexander Hamilton.

America's founders had always considered political "factions" a serious danger to democracy, but by 1800 two factions were fighting bitterly for control. Jefferson's "Democratic-Republican" party favored local government, agrarian virtues, and individual freedoms--at least for propertied white men. Adams and Hamilton's "Federalist" party favored a strong central government, industrialization, and law and order policies that were often overtly elitist.

Even during George Washington's first administration (in which both Hamilton and Jefferson served), the factions had begun to emerge. By the summer of 1796, when Washington announced his retirement, the two parties existed in everything but name. From 1800 on, America would have a two-party political system, with the party descended from Jefferson battling first the Federalists, then the Whigs, and then the Republicans.

Still, Jefferson himself almost wasn't elected. In 1800, a caucus of congressional Federalists chose incumbent president John Adams and Charles Pinckney for their presidential ticket. Meanwhile, the Jeffersonians nominated Jefferson and Aaron Burr. At the time, the Constitution stipulated that the candidate with the most electoral votes became president, while the runner-up got to be VP. So Adams, Pinckney, Jefferson, and Burr all were officially nominated for the top office. What's more, both caucuses pledged to support each of their candidates equally. Result: Jefferson and Burr won the election with 73 electoral votes apiece--which means, of course, that neither of them won. The election was a tie, and in presidential elections, the House of Representatives breaks ties.

Though everyone knew that Jefferson's party intended for Jefferson to be president, the Federalists had the votes to block him in the House, and many of them thought Jefferson a dangerous radical. But one Federalist, Alexander Hamilton, disliked Aaron Burr even more. While Hamilton once admitted that Jefferson "had some pretensions to character," he called Burr "bankrupt beyond redemption." After 35 deadlocked ballots, Hamilton's influence helped make Jefferson president. Less than four years later, Burr killed Hamilton in a duel. The Federalists would never regain the White House.

Steve Sampson
Copright 2006, KnowledgeNews. All rights reserved.

Birth of the Republicans

by Steve Sampson

Americans remember Abraham Lincoln as one of the most influential presidents in U.S. history. Most forget he hadn't won an election in more than ten years when the Republicans nominated him for president. He was elected to the Illinois legislature four times, serving from 1834 to 1841. Later, he served one term in the U.S. Congress, from 1847 to 1849. That was basically the extent of his government experience.

So why did the Republicans nominate him in 1860? Because Lincoln and his friends came well prepared to capture the nomination. Just as important, Honest Abe had a nationwide reputation on the key issue of his day: slavery.

The Republican Party was born through meetings in New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Michigan in 1853 and 1854. Its founders were linked by their opposition to slavery and to 1854's slavery-extending Kansas-Nebraska Act. Sponsored by Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, the act allowed for the possibility of slavery as far north as Nebraska.

Arguments over the spread of slavery were a major source of tension between "free" and "slave" states. A precarious political balance existed between the two sides, and neither wanted to end up outnumbered when western territories--slave or free--became states in the Union. Douglas hoped the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which gave the territories' residents the right to decide the slavery question, would release the tension. It only increased it.

In 1858, Lincoln, running as a Republican, tried to unseat Douglas. He lost, but gained acclaim through a series of seven debates. Douglas tried to label Lincoln a proponent of racial equality--a radical notion then, even in free states. But Lincoln denied it: "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races." Nor did Lincoln advocate abolishing slavery. He merely argued for containing it.

When the election of 1860 rolled around, Lincoln was a recent election loser, but a shrewd politician. The Republican Party, meanwhile, had become a major contender. In 1856, its first presidential candidate, John C. Fremont, won 11 states and 33 percent of the popular vote. Knowing that the nation was divided, Lincoln summed up his strategy in seven words: "hedge against divisions in the Republican ranks."

The strategy worked, largely because the Democrats couldn't come up with a consensus candidate of their own. Northern Democrats convened and nominated Stephen Douglas, who wasn't sufficiently pro-slavery for southern Democrats. They convened separately and nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. A third party, the Constitutional Union Party, nominated John Bell of Tennessee.

On election day, Lincoln took the North, along with California and Oregon. Breckinridge took the South, while Bell took Texas and a few border states. Douglas managed only Missouri, though he finished second to Lincoln in the popular vote. Less than 3 percent of southerners supported the tall Republican, but he grabbed a decisive majority in the Electoral College. Before inauguration, seven southern states seceded from the Union. Shots were fired in April, and America's Civil War began.

Steve Sampson
Copright 2006, KnowledgeNews. All rights reserved.

Political Parties From Bygone Eras

Are you fed up with all of your current political party options? What it you want to tell Republicans and Democrats alike to take a hike? And what if you don't like Ralph Nader, or smaller groups like the Greens, the Libertarians, or the Constitution Party, either.

Never fear. We've scoured American history to find you four more major political party options. If only you'd been born in another time, you might have found a home in one of these other, now defunct, packs of partisans. Then again, a quick look back might convince you that your current options really aren't the worst imaginable ones.

Anti-Masonic Party

Born: 1826
Died: 1838
Most members became: Whigs

Mission: To stop the purported subversion of America's public institutions by the secretive society of Freemasons, to which President Andrew Jackson belonged (Anti-Masons were generally anti-Jacksonians). The party got its start in a scandal following the mysterious disappearance of a New York bricklayer, who was purportedly preparing to reveal the Freemasons' secrets.

Claim to fame: First "third party" in U.S. history. It was also the first party to hold a national nominating convention and to present voters with a party platform.

Perfect for: People who distrust Microsoft, the CIA, or any other secretive organization that might just be bent on total world domination.

Free-Soil Party

Born: 1848
Died: 1854
Most members became: Republicans

Mission: To prevent the spread of slavery into territories acquired by the United States in the Mexican War (1846-48). In 1846, Pennsylvania congressman David Wilmot introduced his "Wilmot Proviso," which would have banned slavery from the southwest. The proviso never passed Congress, but it helped launch the Free-Soil Party, whose members believed in "free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men."

Claim to fame: The Free-Soilers won multiple congressional seats in 1848 and helped swing that year's presidential election to Whig candidate Zachary Taylor. During the 1850s, the budding Republican Party, which adopted the Free-Soil mission as one of its major planks, largely absorbed the party.

Perfect for: Decent slavery-hating human beings--especially those who know how to farm.

Know-Nothing Party

Born: 1849
Died: 1860
Most members became: Republicans in the North,
Democrats in the South

Mission: To prevent "foreigners" and Catholics--basically, the newly arrived immigrants of the time--from gaining equal rights. In 1849, the anti-immigrant Order of the Star Spangled Banner set up shop in New York City. Soon the secretive order was opening new branches all over the United States. When asked about the organization, members were told to reply that they knew nothing (hence the name).

Claim to fame: Perhaps the largest and most politically effective organization of xenophobes and anti-Catholics in U.S. history. In 1855, 43 members of Congress were Know-Nothings (insert your own joke about how many members of Congress know nothing now). The party was ultimately undone by the same sectarian strife that led to the Civil War.

Perfect for: Racists, xenophobes, and other people who actually know nothing.

Bull Moose Party

Born: 1912
Died: 1916
Most members became: Republicans, when the party's central figure, Teddy Roosevelt, rejoined the GOP.

Mission: To enact the direct election of senators, women's suffrage, controls on monopolies, restrictions on child labor, and tariff reform. The party formed when progressive Republicans split with the more conservative wing of the GOP, led by then-president William Howard Taft.

Claim to fame: Fought for progressive policies that, for the most part, everyone else has since taken up. The Bull Moosers nominated Teddy Roosevelt for president in 1912 and won 25 percent of the popular vote. That was more than enough to split the GOP, and Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson won.

Perfect for: People who are highly progressive by early 20th-century standards (or those who advocate the return of Teddy Roosevelt to politics).

--Steve Sampson

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