II.                   The Rise and Decline of the Political Party

1.       In the beginning of America, there were no political parties, but later, they formed, became very powerful, and then weakened due to reform, and that’s where they are today.

                                                               i.      Four broad periods showing this are: creation of parties (1820s); two-party system emerges (Andrew Jackson’s presidency to Civil War); parties developed comprehensive organizational form and became popular (Civil War to 1930s); reform weakens parties (New Deal to today).

2.       The Founding Fathers thought parties were bad and called them harmful factions; George Washington even warned of the dangers of political factions in his Farewell Address.

                                                               i.      When Thomas Jefferson organized his followers to opposed Alexander Hamilton, Hamilton though Tom was opposing the very concept of gov’t, while Tom thought Hamilton was subverting the Constitution itself.

                                                             ii.      The first organized parties were there Jeffersonian Republicans (today’s Democrats) and the Hamiltonian Federalists, loose caucuses of political notables.

a.       New England tended to be strongly Federalists while the South tended to be Jeffersonian Republican.

                                                            iii.      After Jefferson won the presidency, Federalists feared that he would dismantle all the things that Federalists had done, but Tom instead adopted a policy in which he eventually incorporated many of the Federalists ideas, thus leading to the decline and eventual extinction of the Federalist Party.

                                                            iv.      From Madison’s presidency to past Monroe’s, there was virtually only one party standing—the Jeffersonian Republicans, just as Jefferson had hoped, and during this time, differences in party opinions did not fall on economic lines, but rather, more geographical ones.

3.       In around 1824, Andrew Jackson made his first run for presidency; a decade later, voting requirements had been so stripped that all white males could vote, bringing the total number of voters from 365,000 in 1824 to over 2 million in 1840.

                                                               i.      As time went one, presidential electors were also increasingly chosen by the popular vote rather than by state legislatures.

                                                             ii.      After the caucus system, where a group of chosen representatives chose a “qualified” candidate, was ended in 1824, the party convention, where more people could participate, was invented.

a.       The Anti-Masonic Party held the first convention in 1831, while the first one from a major party was of the anti-Jackson Republicans later that year.

b.       In fact, the party convention was created in order to make America more democratic; practically no other country adopted this method.

4.       After the split over slavery, Whigs and Democrats tried to saddle the issue, but this could not be done, and thus, a new part against slavery emerged: the Republican Party.

                                                               i.      Republicans tended to be Northern and anti-slavery, while Democrats tended to be Southern and pro-slavery, but while Republicans tended to win the presidency and the Senate, they often lost the House of Representatives.

                                                             ii.      William Jennings Bryan also split the Democrats from the South to the West.

                                                            iii.      As a result, states tended to be one-party states, and competition went down to the state level.

                                                            iv.      In the Republican Party, there emerged the Stalwarts, who were professional politicians, called the “Old Guard,” built up party loyalty, and were skilled in organization, negotiation, bargaining, and compromise; and the mugwumps (aka progressives), who wanted to reform politics, disliked party machinery, and wanted to see the party take unpopular stances on issues like free trade.

5.       Progressives began to attack corruption in big business, and big gov’t.

                                                               i.      They wanted more voting rights, stricter voting regulations to reduce voting fraud, nonpartisan elections, primary elections, and civil-service reform to eliminate patronage.

                                                             ii.      In California, progressives found success in Governor Hiram Johnson, who adopted procedures called initiative and referendum so that citizens could vote directly on proposed legislation.

                                                            iii.      These reformists lowered gov’t and political corruption but also weakened political parties, and thus, indirectly lowered the odds of having good, qualified, intelligent candidates.