Political
Parties First
Two-Party System
|
Federalists
v. Republicans, 1780s - 1801 |
| Federalists
Favored
strong central government.
"Loose" interpretation of the Constitution.
Encouragement of commerce and manufacturing.
Strongest in Northeast.
Favored close ties with Britain.
Emphasized order and stability. |
Republicans Emphasized
states' rights.
"Strict" interpretation of the Constitution.
Preference for agriculture and rural life.
Strength in South and West.
Foreign policy sympathized with France.
Stressed civil liberties and trust
in the people |
| In
practice, these generalizations were often blurred and sometimes contradicted. |
Second
Two-Party System |
Democrats
v. Whigs, 1836 - 1850 |
| Democrats
The
party of tradition.
Looked backward to the past.
Spoke to the fears
of Americans
Opposed banks and corporations as. state-legislated economic
privilege.
Opposed state-legislated reforms and preferred individual freedom
of choice.
Were Jeffersonian agrarians who favored farms and rural independence
and the right to own slaves.
Favored rapid territorial expansion over space
by purchase or war.
Believed in progress through external growth.
Democratic
ideology of agrarianism, slavery, states rights, territorial expansion was favored
in the South. | Whigs The
party of modernization.
Looked forward to the future.
Spoke to the hopes
of Americans.
Wanted to use federal and state government to promote economic
growth, especially transportation and banks.
Advocated reforms such as temperance
and public schools and prison reform.
Were entrepreneurs who favored industry
and urban growth and free labor.
Favored gradual territorial expansion over
time and opposed the Mexican War.
Believed in progress through internal growth
Whig ideology of urbanization, industrialization, federal rights, commercial
expansion was favored in the North.
|
| In
practice, these generalizations were often blurred and sometimes contradicted. |
Mid-19th Century Political Crisis
| Disputes
over slavery in the territories first erode, then destroy what had become America's
second two-party system. The erosion began in the 1840s as various factions opposed
to the post-Jackson Democratic political coalition begin to form. |
|
Liberty
Party
Run abolitionist candidate James Birney, for president in 1844.
Won only
2% of the vote but drew votes from the Whigs, especially in New York.
|
Free
Soil Party Not
abolitionist but opposed to expansion of slavery in the territories.
Won
10% of the popular vote with Martin Van Buren as their candidate in 1848.
Lost 50% of their support in 1852 when their candidate repudiated the Compromise
of 1850 | |
Whigs
Split over slavery into:
Southern,
"Cotton" Whigs who eventually drifted into the Democratic Party.
Northern, "Conscience" Whigs who moved to new parties, i.e. Free Soil
and, later, into the Republican Party. | American
Party Popularly
known as the "Know Nothing" Party.
Nativist party based on opposition
to immigration and on temperance.
Run Millard Fillmore in 1856 and win 21%
of the popular vote.
Absorbed into the Republican Party after 1856. |
| Republican
Party
Formed in 1854 when a coalition of Independent Democrats, Free Soilers, and Conscience
Whigs united in opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.
Stressed free labor
and opposed the extension of slavery in the territories ("Free Soil, Free
Labor, Free Men!").
Moderates, like Abraham Lincoln, could, therefore,
oppose slavery on "moral" grounds as wrong, while admitting that slavery
had a "right" to exist where the Constitution originally allowed it
to exist.
John C. Fremont was the first Republican presidential candidate
in the election of 1856.
|
The Election of 1860
| Democrats
Split
at its 1860 Convention in Charleston, South Carolina when a platform defending
slavery was defeated and Deep South delegates walked out.
At a splinter convention
held at Baltimore, Maryland, Stephen Douglas of Illinois was nominated as presidential
candidate on a platform opposing any Congressional interference with slavery..
Southern delegates met and nominated John Breckenridge of Kentucky as a candidate
on a pro-slavery platform. |
Republicans
The
Republicans, by this time a overtly sectional and decidedly opposed to slavery
draw in most northerners with a platform favoring a homestead act, a protective
tariff, and transportation improvements.
The platform opposed the extension
of slavery but defended the right of states to control their own "domestic
institutions."
Abraham Lincoln is nominated presidential candidate on
the third ballot. |
Politics of
the Gilded Age
|
Republicans
& Democrats | Party
differences blur during this period with loyalties determined by region, religious,
and ethnic differences.
Voter turnout for presidential elections averaged
over 78 percent of eligible voters; 60 to 80 percent in non-presidential years.
Both parties were pro-business.
Both parties were opposed to any type
of economic radicalism or reform.
Both parties advocated a "sound currency"
and supported the status quo in the existing financial system.
Federal government
and, to some extent, state governments tended to do very little.
Republicans
dominate the Senate; Democrats dominate the House of Representatives.
Republican
Party splinter groups during this period: Stalwarts, Halfbreeds, Mugwumps. |
| Populist
Party | Formed
in 1891 by remnants of the Farmers' Alliances.
Big government party with
a healthy list of demands that included:
free coinage of silver,
government
ownership of the railroads, telegraphs, and telephone lines,
graduated income
tax,
direct election of U. S. senators,
the use of initiative, referendum,
and recall
The party eventually fades because farmers' situation improved
in the late 1890s and because their political agenda was assumed by the major
parties.
|
1900 -1920
| Progressive
Era Politics | Spanned
the period 1900-1920 and the presidencies of three "Progressive" Presidents:
Theodore Roosevelt (Republican), William Howard Taft (Republican), and Woodrow
Wilson (Democrat).
Believed that the laissez-faire system was obsolete, yet
supported capitalism.
Believed in the idea of progress and that reformed
institutions would replace corrupt power.
Applied the principles of science
and efficiency to all economic, social, and political instituting.
Viewed
government as a key player in creating an orderly, stable, and improved society.
Believed that government had the power to combat special interests and work
for the good of the community, state, or nation.
Political parties were singled
out as corrupt, undemocratic, outmoded, and inefficient.
Power of corrupt
government could be diminished by increasing the power of the people and by putting
more power in the hands of non-elective, nonpartisan, professional officials.
The progressives eventually co-opt many of the Populist demands such as referendum,
initiative, direct election of Senators, etc. Some of these are incorporated in
the "Progressive" Amendments to the U. S. Constitution: 16th, 17th,
18th, and 19th Amendments.
| | 1921
to 1933 | | The
Republican Era | From
1921 to 1933 both the presidency and congress were dominated by Republicans (Presidents
Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover).
The position of the government was decidedly
pro-business.
Though conservative, the government experimented with new approaches
to public policy and was an active agent of economic change to respond to an American
culture increasingly urban, industrial, and consumer-oriented.
Conflicts
surfaced regarding immigration restriction, Prohibition, and race relations.
Generally, this period was a transitional one in which consumption and leisure
were replacing older "traditional" American values of self-denial and
the work ethic. | | 1933-1952 |
| The
Political Legacy of the New Deal | Created
a Democratic party coalition that would dominate American politics for many years
(1933-1952).
Included ethnic groups, city dwellers, organized labor, blacks,
as well as a broad section of the middle class.
Awakened voter interest in
economic matters and increased expectations and acceptance of government involvement
in American life.
The New Deal coalition made the federal government a protector
of interest groups and a mediator of the competition among them.
"Activists"
role for government in regulating American business to protect it from the excesses
and problems of the past.
Fair Deal of the post-war Truman administration
continued the trend in governmental involvement: i.e. advocated expanding Social
Security benefits, increasing the minimum wage, a full employment program, slum
clearance, public housing, and government sponsorship of scientific research.
In 1948, the "liberal" or Democratic coalition split into two branches:
| |
States'
Rights | Progressive
Party | Southern
conservative Democrats known as "Dixiecrats."
Opposed the civil
rights plank in the Democratic platform.
Nominated South Carolina Governor
Strom Thurmond for President. | "Liberal"
Democrats who favored gradual socialism, the abolition of racial segregation,
and a conciliatory attitude toward Russia.
Nominated Henry A. Wallace for
president.
|
Post-World War 2 Politics
| Democrats
The
Democrats maintain what by this time had become their "traditional"
power base of organized labor, urban voters, and immigrants.
In the 1952
election, the Democrats run Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, a candidate favored
by "liberals" and intellectuals.
As the post-World War 2 period
progresses, the Democratic Party takes "big government" positions advocating
larger roles for the federal government in regulating business and by the 1960s
advocate extensive governmental involvement in social issues like education, urban
renewal, and other social issues.
The Democratic Party very early associates
itself with the growing civil rights movements and will champion the Civil Rights
Act and the Voting Rights Act. |
Republicans
In
1952, the pro-business Republican Party ran General Dwight D. Eisenhower for president.
The Republicans accuse the Democrats of being "soft" on communism.
Republicans promise to end the Korean War.
Conservative Southern Democrats,
the "Dixiecrats," increasingly associate themselves with Republican
candidates who oppose civil rights legislation.
| Late
60's and Early 70s
| Democrats
The Democratic Party by the late 1960s is deeply fragmented and seemingly incapable
of dealing with the violence and turmoil, social and political, caused by the
Vietnam War.
In 1968, the Democratic Party candidate is Vice President Hubert
Humphrey.
In the post-Vietnam War period, Democrats advocate a range of "liberal"
social issues including the extension of civil rights, support for "reproductive
rights" (i.e. birth control and abortion rights), fair housing legislation,
etc.
|
Republicans
Opposition
to the War in Vietnam and to growing federal social programs "converts"
southern Democrats to vote Republican in increasing numbers.
Republicans
run former Vice President Richard Nixon for president in 1968. He runs on a small-government,
anti-war campaign as a defender of the "silent majority."
Nixon
advocated a policy of cutting back Federal power and returning that power to the
states. This was known as the "New Federalism." |
1980's
|
Reagan
and the "New Right" |
| Democrats
Strongly support environmental legislation, limiting economic development,
halting the production of nuclear weapons and power plants.
Pro-choice movement
emerged during the 1980s to defend a woman's right to choose whether and when
to bear a child.
Affirmative Action, the use of racial quotas to "balance"
the workforce, to one degree or another, becomes an issue of political disagreement
with Democrats favoring it and Republicans opposing it. |
Republicans
Fueled
by the increasingly "liberal" social agenda of the Democrats and spurred
on by the rise of a militant and extremely well-organized Evangelical Christianity,
most southern states begin voting Republican in considerable majorities.
Conservative Christians, Southern whites, affluent ethnic suburbanites, and young
conservatives form a "New Right" that supported Ronald Reagan in 1980
on a "law and order" platform that advocated
stricter laws against
crime, drugs, and pornography,
opposition to easy-access abortions,
and an increase in defense spending,
a cut in tax rates.
While Reagan
curbed the expansion of the Federal Government, he did not reduce its size or
the scope of its powers. |
|