158 PART Two • The PolITIcs of AmeRIcAn DemocRAcy
Democratic Party
One of the two major
American political
parties evolving out of
the Republican Party of
Thomas Jefferson.
Whig Party
A major party in the United
States during the first half
of the nineteenth century,
formally established in- The Whig Party was
anti-Jackson and advocated
spending on infrastructure.
Republican Party
One of the two major
American political parties.
It emerged in the 1850s
as an antislavery party
and consisted of former
northern Whigs and
antislavery Democrats.
federalists and Republicans. One party was the Federalists,
which included John Adams, the second president (1797–1801). The
Federalists represented commercial interests such as merchants and
large planters. They supported a strong national government.
Thomas Jefferson led the other party, which came to be called
the Republicans. These Republicans should not be confused with the
later Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln. (To avoid confusion, some
scholars refer to Jefferson’s party as the Democratic Republicans, but
this name was never used during the time that the party existed.)
Jefferson’s Republicans represented artisans and farmers. They
strongly supported states’ rights. In 1800, when Jefferson defeated
Adams in the presidential contest, one of the world’s first peaceful
transfers of power from one party to another was achieved.The one-Party Interlude. From 1800 to 1820, a majority of U.S.
voters regularly elected Jeffersonian Republicans to the presidency and
to Congress. By 1816, the Federalist Party had nearly collapsed, and
two-party competition did not really exist at the national level. Because
there was no real political opposition to the Jeffersonian Republicans
and thus little political debate, the administration of James Monroe
(1817–1825) came to be known as the era of good feelings.Democrats and whigs
Organized two-party politics returned after 1824. Following the elec-
tion of John Quincy Adams as president, the Republican Party split in
two. The supporters of Adams called themselves National Republicans.
The supporters of Andrew Jackson, who defeated Adams in 1828,
formed the Democratic Party. Later, the National Republicans took
the name Whig Party, which had been a traditional name for British
liberals. The Whigs stood for, among other things, federal spend-
ing on “internal improvements,” such as roads. The Democrats opposed this policy. The
Democrats, who were the stronger of the two parties, favored personal liberty and oppor-
tunity for the “common man.” It was understood implicitly that the “common man” was
a white man—hostility toward African Americans was an important force holding the
disparate Democratic groups together.^3The civil war crisis
In the 1850s, hostility between the North and the South over the issue of slavery divided
both parties. The Whigs were the first to split in two. The Whigs had been the party of
an active federal government, but Southerners had come to believe that “a government
strong enough to build roads is a government strong enough to free your slaves.” The
southern Whigs therefore ceased to exist as an organized party. In 1854, the northern
Whigs united with antislavery Democrats and members of the radical antislavery Free Soil
Party to found the modern republican Party.Thomas Jefferson, founder of
the first Republican Party. His election to the
presidency in 1800 was one of the world’s
first peaceful transfers of power from one
party to another through a free election.
(Library of Congress)- Edward Pessen, Jacksonian America: Society, Personality, and Politics (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey
Press, 1969). See especially pages 246–247. The small number of free blacks who could vote were
overwhelmingly Whig.
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