The first two-party system in the U.S. consisted of the Republicans (also called Jeffersonians or Democratic-Republicans) and the Federalists. Key Republican leaders included Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr and James Madison. Among the leading Federalists were John Adams and Alexander Hamilton.
George Washington was unanimously elected and re-elected to the presidency, serving as the first president under the Constitution, from 1789 to 1797. There was no contest between parties in those elections. However, during Washington’s presidency, other politicians began to split into two parties. The 1796 presidential election came down to the Federalist Adams vs. the Republican Jefferson. Adams prevailed and, in a strange twist, Jefferson became his vice president.
The Constitution originally provided that the runner-up in the presidential race would become the vice president. This was part of the founders' vision of non-partisan politics, as I described in this post. That the original electoral college structure was incompatible with a partisan system became obvious, first in 1796 with bitter partisan rivals joined as president and vice president, and even more so in 1800, when it produced a deadlock that makes the Bush-Gore deadlock in Florida in 2000 seem like child’s play.
In 1800, for the first time, there were established party “tickets” for president, and vice president. Adams’s running mate was Charles Pinckney. The Republican ticket consisted of Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The country was in a “throw the rascals out” mood that year, so more Republican electors were chosen for the electoral college than Federalist electors. At that time, electors voted for two men, without specifying which was to be president and which vice president. All of the Republican electors voted for Jefferson and Burr, so there was a tie. The House of Representatives breaks such a tie, and it took them 36 ballots to choose Jefferson over Burr. As I will discuss at greater length later, the Constitution was then amended to prevent a recurrence of that event. Belatedly (and tacitly), Congress and the states in effect allowed for parties in the Constitution.
The Federalist platform favored a stronger central government than did the Republicans. A fear of the type of chaos that accompanied the French Revolution, which began in 1789, influenced the Federalists. The Jeffersonian Republicans wanted the states to retain more power. However, when Jefferson successfully negotiated the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, that showed that he opposed strong central government more in theory than in practice.
The Federalist Party died a slow death after the 1800 election, never again achieving the presidency for any of its candidates. Rufus King was its last presidential candidate, in 1816.
The Republicans later morphed into the Democratic Party as we know it today. The Whig Party emerged in the two-party system as it existed from the 1830s to the 1850s.
The phrase “internal improvements” was key to the Whig platform. The party favored federal government support of roads, canals, railroads and schools. The Whigs elected two famous generals to the presidency, both of whom died in office, William H. Harrison after one month, and Zachary Taylor after 16 months. They were more of a force in Congress (Henry Clay was the party’s greatest legislative leader), where they originally fought to counter Democrat Andrew Jackson’s strong presidency, from 1829 to 1837.
The Whigs broke up in the 1850s, largely due to a split over slavery between their Northern and Southern wings. As we shall see in a later post, that led to the founding of the Republican Party that exists today.
Image: Library of Congress
No comments:
Post a Comment