Development of Political Parties in the United States

Development of Political Parties in the United States

The first party system

The first party system existed from 1788 to 1824 and was a result of the differences between the Jeffersonians and the Hamiltonians during the administration of Washington (Schaffner, 2011). These sides evolved into the first American parties: the anti-federalists and the federalists, whereby the anti-federalists later came to be the Democratic-Republicans. This system lasted from the time of Washington’s administration with the Democratic-Republicans winning the presidency 11 times out of 12 elections. This party system reflected sectionalism/regionalism much less compared to the other systems that followed.

The second party system

The second party system dominated politics between 1837 and 1852 in the United States and was spurred by the 1828 presidential elections (Longley, 2020). The party system represented a shift towards the interest of the public in politics. Most of the people voted on election day, the newspaper supported various candidates, political rallies were common, and America experienced a high number of political parties. Not only did the second party system help increase the people’s interest and participation in elections, but it also helped to reduce the sectional tensions that had resulted in the civil war. Following the defeat of Andrew Jackson in 1824, the Democratic-Republicans decided to split into two: the Jacksonian Democrats and National Republicans. The supporters of the two dominant parties from the system were divided along socio-economic and philosophical lines. While the Democratic party was the people’s party, the Whig party represented industrial and business interests. The democrats were the superior party during this era as they won three presidential elections out of five and held the legislature for four years.

The third-party system

Between 1853 and 1896, there were high tensions in the country over slavery to maintain multi-parties. Anti-slavery Democrats and pro-slavery wigs decided a reasonable, single ideological party to terminate slavery was necessary to complete the destruction of social and economic institutions. The Republican Party was formed after the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Michigan and Wisconsin became the first to coordinate nominating conventions, and they fielded a presidential candidate by 1856 (John C. Fremont). This party system became the first to settle on geography after the second party system introduced regionalism. The north became staunch republicans while the south became firmly Democrat

The fourth party system

Commonly known as the progressive era, the Democrats and Republicans included new platforms that supported the industrial society. These parties used progressive reforms that moved America into the twentieth century, including the women enfranchisement, anti-trust legislation, the federal income, and the Federal Reserve System. The leading Republican progressives were Teddy Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Robert La Follette, Jane Adams, and Hiram Johnson. While in the Democratic party, the prominent progressives were William Jennings, James Middleton Cox, Al Smith, and Thomas Marshall. The progressive movement during this period had an intense effect on American parties even though it did not succeed in forming any major political party (“The Party Battle in America”, 2020). It was in this era that the method of nominating candidates known as the direct primary was established.

The fifth party system

The Democrats in the 1930s under president franklin Roosevelt would have a dominant position in politics. The voters who elected president Roosevelt four times included immigrants, low-income voters, union members, southerners, intellectuals, Jews, and urbanites. This coalition, the “New Deal Coalition,” kept Democrats in power for the coming forty years. Franklin brought more to the party that the coalition of voters. He responded to the Great Depression with the New Deal, which was a collection of programs that were designed to create jobs for the unemployed. His followers, like John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, followed Roosevelt’s vision about a federal government, which confronted America’s economic and social issues. Since the 1970s, the political vision of Roosevelt has been altered. ‘New Democrats’ have argued that the government under Ronald Reagan is revitalizing the Republican party. However, both the parties maintained liberal and conservative fictions that allowed for many types of legislative coalitions. The system ended when the conservative southern Democrats and liberal republicans switched party identifications that left the parties more ideologically homogenous.

The modern two-party system

The two-party system is a political system whereby the electorate gives the votes to two major parties in the country (the Democrats and the Republicans). The major influences that favor the two-party system are the prudential system, the single-district system to elect representatives, and the absence of representation proportionally (Kuiper, 2020). This modern party system is believed to promote government stability since a single can win the majority of the parliament representation.

References

Kuiper, K. (2020). Two-party system | politics. Retrieved 10 February 2020, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/two-party-system

Longley, R. (2020). What Was the U.S. Second Party System? History and Significance. Retrieved 10 February 2020, from https://www.thoughtco.com/second-party-system-4163119

Schaffner, B. F. (2011). Politics, parties, and elections in America. Cengage Learning.

The Party Battle in America. (2020). Retrieved 10 February 2020, from https://spot.colorado.edu/~mcguire/partysys.html