266 Chapter 8Chapter 8 || Political PartiesPolitical Partieseach party system, the table gives the names of the two major parties, indicates which
party dominated (won the most presidential elections or controlled Congress), and
describes the principal issues dividing the parties.The Evolution of American Political Parties While most of the Founding Fathers
held a dim view of political parties, many of them participated in the formation of such
parties soon after the Founding of the United States. The Federalists and the Democratic-
Republicans were primarily parties in government that consisted of like-minded legislators:
Federalists wanted a strong central government and a national bank; Democratic-
Republicans took the opposite positions. These political parties were quite different from
their modern counterparts. In particular, there were no national party organizations,
few citizens thought of themselves as party members, and candidates for office did not
campaign as representatives of a party. Even so, the goals of those who developed these
parties were similar to the goals of party leaders today: like-minded individuals banded
together to help enact their preferred policies and defeat their opponents.
For two decades, the two parties were more or less evenly matched in Congress,
although the Federalists did not win a presidential contest after 1800. However,
in the 1814 elections Federalist legislators, who had opposed the War of 1812 and
supported a politically unpopular pay raise for members of Congress, lost most of
their congressional seats.^3 These defeats led to the demise of the Federalist Party
and the start of the Era of Good Feelings, when there was only one political party: the
Democratic-Republican Party. Following the election of President Andrew Jackson in
1828, this party became known as the Democratic Party. At the same time, another new
party, the Whig Party, was formed and the second party system began.
The new Democratic Party cultivated electoral support by building organizations to
mobilize citizens and bind them to the party. The operations of the party reflected two
new concepts: the party principle, the idea that a party is not just a group of elected
officials but an organization that exists apart from its candidates, and the spoils system,
whereby party workers were rewarded with benefits such as federal jobs.^4
In the 1840s, the issue of slavery split the second party system. Most Democratic
politicians either supported slavery outright or wanted to avoid debating the issue.^5
The Whig Party was split between abolitionists, who wanted to end slavery, and
politicians who agreed with the Democrats. Ultimately, antislavery Whigs left the
party and formed the Republican Party, which also attracted antislavery Democrats,
and the Whig Party soon ceased to exist. These changes initiated the third party
system, in which the country was divided into a largely Republican Northeast, a
largely Democratic South, and politically split Midwestern and border states.^6 These
developments illustrate that political parties exist not because the Constitution or
laws say they must, but because elites, politicians, party leaders, and activists want
them to. The Republican Party was created by people who wanted to abolish slavery,
and many other politicians subsequently joined the party because of their ambition:
these politicians believed that their chances of winning political office were higher as
Republicans than as Whigs or Democrats.
After the Civil War, the Republicans and Democrats remained the two prominent
national parties. They were divided over whether the federal government should
help farmers and rural residents or inhabitants of rapidly expanding cities and
whether it should regulate America’s rapidly growing industrial base. Democrats
built a coalition of rural and urban voters by proposing a larger, more active federal
government, as well as other policies that would help both groups. This strategy is
one example of how American political parties have adapted their issue positions
to societal changes and consequently reflect the basic political divisions between
Americans. A similar shift occurred during the transition to the fourth party system,There’s no evidence from decades
of Pew Research surveys that
public opinion, in the aggregate,
is more extreme now than in the
past. But what has changed—
and pretty dramatically—is the
growing tendency of people to
sort themselves into political
parties based on their ideological
differences.— Pew Research Centerparty principle
The idea that a political party exists
as an organization distinct from its
elected officials or party leaders.spoils system
The practice of rewarding party
supporters with benefits like federal
government positions.The Tammany Hall political machine,
depicted here as a rotund version
of one of its leaders, William “Boss”
Tweed, controlled New York City
politics for most of the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. Its strategy
was “honest graft,” rewarding party
workers, contributors, and voters for
their efforts to keep the machine’s
candidates in office.Full_09_APT_64431_ch08_262-295.indd 266 16/11/18 1:39 PM