Read the text and trace the development of the party system through its four periods.

George Washington and many others among the Revolutionary leaders were generally critical of parties. They feared that parties representing narrow interests rather than the general interest of all the people could take over the government. Despite this, the first semblance of national political parties in the United States appeared during the debate over ratifying the Constitution and parties began to form shortly after the Constitution went into effect. The first was formed in the 1790-s by George Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton and took the name “Federalist”. Hamilton, a conservative at heart, pushed policies that promoted: a national Bank of the United States as a repository for the federal treasury; the assumptionof state debts by the federal government as a way of tying the upper-class and the states to the new central government; a protective tariff to keep the infant industries of the United States on firm footing; an overwhelmingly strong federal government based on the strengthening power of the Constitution's elastic clause.

Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and others formed a party in Congress to oppose the Hamilton program of protective tariffs, which they believed hurt the economic interests of many groups in American society. They called their faction Republican, though the Federalists tried to discredit them by calling them Democratic Republicans (the term democratic was a term of derision, not praise in those times).

Jefferson was an idealist. He dreamed of expanding suffrage to the working-class yeoman farmer, the backbone of Jefferson's view of the United States. He therefore supported such beliefs as: the doctrine of nullification, the idea that the states had the right to nullify a federal statute within their own borders; the paying-off of the national debt to free "future generations from its yoke"; an agrarian-based economy to avoid the "corruption" of industry; a weak central government under the 10th Amendment. The Federalists and the Democratic Republicans also were divided sharply on foreign policy. The Federalists, being close to New England and New York merchant and banking interests, favored a policy of trade and good relations with Great Britain. The split between the two parties was widened by their bitter debate over the stance to be taken on the new revolutionary government in France, with Jefferson and the Democratic Republicans favorable to it, and the Federalists hostile. The Federalists were in existence only a short time because of disagreement of the leaders, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton. After the dismantling of the Federalists in the aftermath of the War of 1812, the first two-party system had evolved into a one-party or no-party system, generally known as the “Era of Good Feelings”.

The relative calm of the Era of Good Feelings lasted several years. But, during that time, the old institutions governing American politics began to fade away, opening up a power vacuum for new political parties to be formed. In 1828 the Democratic Republican Party split into the Democrats and the Whigs. The Democrats and the Whigs were parties of a very different sort from those in the first party system. Instead of being loosely organized groups of local dignitaries and public officials, the parties that emerged in the 1830-s were well-organized parties with sharply contrasting programs. Differences between the Democrats and the Whigs were often based on disagreements among various business and economic interests. The Whigs favored a protective tariff, a national bank, and a federal program of internal improvements (roads, canals). The Democrats under the leadership of Andrew Jackson opposed all three. The Democrats wanted the states to have more power and the Whigs wanted a stronger federal government.

From the Civil War to 1896 Republicans and Democrats found themselves roughly balanced in national politics. Between 1876 and 1896 the Democrats managed to control presidency for 8 of 20 years, the Senate for 6 years, the House of Representatives for 14 years. Each party had a strong regional flavor. The Democratic party was primarily a white southern party, though Catholics and many workers in northern urban areas supported it as well. The GOP (another name for the Republican party, meaning “Grand Old Party”) became a party of business, the middle class, and newly enfranchised blacks.

The late 19-th century was a time of very rapid transformation of the American economy and society, with massive disruptionsin the fabric of everyday life. Farmers and workers were especially hard hit, they responded with social protest movements. Workers turned to the strike weapon, while farmers responded by forming third parties (the Greenback party, the People’s party, the Populist party). The Republicans dominated in American politics until the Great Depression and the election of 1932. Between 1896 and 1932, the Republicans won control of both houses of Congress in 15 out of 18 elections, and of the presidency in 7 out of 9.

The Great Depression, the New Deal party system, and the leadership of President Franklin D. Roosevelt fundamentally changed the conception of the proper role of the federal government, the groups aligned with each of the two parties. Elections returns make clear the fundamental shift in party dominance. During the 40 years from 1932 through 1972, the Democrats won 7 out of 11 presidential elections, enjoyed control of the Senate and the House of Representatives for all but 4 years, and prevailed in a substantial majority of governorship and state legislatures across the nation.

The 1936 election was one of those rare campaigns in which the issues were fairly clearcut and the choices between the parties and the presidential candidates were unambiguous. The election was a referendum on the New Deal, Roosevelt’s program to end the Great Depression. The Democrats’ campaign asked the American people to endorse or to reject a new conception of the role of the government: an activist role, in which government would assume broad new economic and social responsibilities. The Republican party position was that the free market economy should be left to work its way out of temporary problems and that relief for the poor and the unemployed should be left mainly to the states and private charity. The 1936 campaign was a heated one, because great issues were at stake.

A Post–New-Deal party system. After R.Reagan’s victories in 1980 and 1984 many people thought that the USA might be in the midst of another major realignment and transition to a new party system, dominated by the Republican party. But in 1992 and 1996 presidential elections Democrats won. The two-party system works, it is not stagnant.

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