The two-party system as we know and love (?) it

The Republican Party was founded as an anti-slavery party in the 1850s. The honor of being the birthplace of the party is usually claimed by Ripon, Wisconsin (I acknowledge that any Democrats among my readers will perhaps question how much of an “honor” that is) which, according to the party’s website, hosted “the first informal meeting of the party”. However, “the first official Republican meeting took place on July 6th, 1854 in Jackson, Michigan”.

In 1856 the Republicans made John C. Fremont their first presidential nominee. He lost that election to Democrat James Buchanan, but thereafter the Republicans were recognized as a major party in the new two-party system, opposing the Democrats. Republican Abraham Lincoln’s victory in the 1860 presidential election was the spark that set off the conflagration of civil war. The Republicans were the dominant party at the federal level from that point, until Franklin Roosevelt’s first presidential inauguration in 1933. The presidency was in Republican hands for 56 out of the 72 years between 1861 and 1933.

For many years following its emergence as an anti-slavery party, the Republicans were the party of choice for most African Americans. However, of course, many African Americans, especially in the south, were preventing from voting from the end of Reconstruction in the 1870s, until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. During Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency, many African Americans began to support the Democratic Party, a trend that has accelerated in the meantime.

One key Republican economic policy during the period between the Civil War and World War II was support for high tariffs on imported goods. Another indicator of how parties evolve is that this sort of “protectionist” position on international trade has, subsequent to World War II, been more often championed by Democrats. However, members of Congress from both parties are often pressured into a protectionist position by economic interests in their constituencies, while presidents of both parties have leaned more toward a free trade position.

Democrats had a virtual monopoly on politics in southern states during this period. Under the motto of “states’ rights”, they resisted federal action to end their “Jim Crow” system of legal racial discrimination. After World War II, there was increasing tension within the party, as northern Democrats increasingly favored federal action to end discrimination. President Truman, for instance, issued an executive order that integrated the armed forces in 1948.

While Democrats had majorities in both houses of Congress during most of the post-war period, the so-called “conservative coalition” of Republicans and conservative Democrats blocked much of the liberal agenda. Then, conservative southerners began voting Republican in the 1960s. In 1961, John Tower won a special election to the U.S. Senate seat from Texas that was vacated when Lyndon Johnson became vice president. That was a harbinger of further Republican gains in the south until, by the time that Republican majorities in both houses of Congress were restored in 1994 for the first time in 40 years, Republicans had become the dominant party in much of the south.

After that 1994 victory, the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress for almost all of the 12 years that followed. In an odd result, the 2000 elections left the Senate in a 50-50 tie. The vice president as president of the Senate is constitutionally entitled to cast a tie-breaking vote. When the new Congress convened in early January of 2001, Democrat Al Gore was still vice president. That gave the Democrats a short-lived majority, lasting only until Republican Dick Cheney was inaugurated as vice president on January 20, 2001. Later that year, the Democrats regained their majority when Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont left the Republican party to sit in the Senate as an independent, caucusing with the Democrats.

At the mid-term congressional election of 2006, the Democrats regained majorities in both houses, at a time when Republican President George W. Bush was unpopular, due in large part to his 2003 decision to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Image: Architect of the Capitol