After the establishment of a new nation, the task of establishing a democratic form of a republic was taken in hand by those who we have come to be known as the “Founders”. During that period and in the year of 1787, papers of discussion and planning were published. Henry Cabot Lodge, in The Federalist, wrote in New York in 1888 commentary and a compilation of those papers, which has come to be known as the Federalist Papers. …
Between October 1787 and August 1788, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison wrote a series of essays that appeared in various New York newspapers under the pseudonym “Publius.” The Federalist, as the combined essays are called, was written to combat anti-federalism. Hoping to persuade the public of the necessity for the Constitution. Publius gave excellent arguments for adopting it and discarding the Articles[i]. The Federalist stresses the urgent need for an adequate central government and the ease with which the republican form of government would be adopted to the large expanse of territory and widely divergent interests found in the United States. It was immediately recognized as the most powerful defense of the new Constitution and hailed as a classic in constitutional theory. Jefferson called The Federalist “the best commentary on the principles of government which ever was written.” Of the eighty-five essays, John Jay definitely wrote five, Madison twenty-six, and Hamilton fifty-one. The authorship of the other three is in doubt. [ii]
Alexander Hamilton writes in The Federalist No. 1 …
Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every state to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the offices they hold under the state establishments; and the perverted ambition of another class of men who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its union under one government. …
In the course of the preceding observations, I have had an eye, my fellow citizens, to putting you upon your guard against all attempts, from whatever quarter, to influence your decision in a matter of the utmost moment to your welfare, by any impressions other than those which may result from the evidence of truth. … I am clearly of the opinion it is your interest to adopt it. I am convinced that this is the safest course for your liberty, your dignity, and your happiness. …
I propose in a series of papers, to discuss the following particulars: the utility of the Union to your political prosperity; the insufficiency of the present Confederation to preserve the Union; the necessity of a government at least equally energetic with the one proposed; to the attainment of this object; the conformity of the proposed Constitution to be true principles of republican government; its analogy to your own state constitution; and, lastly, the additional security which its adoption will afford to the preservation of that species of government, to liberty, and to property. …
James Madison, Federalist Paper No. 10, in which he discusses the aspects of government officials and how they legislate and who is to be the judges, et cetera.[iii] –
The valuable improvements made by the American constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it would be unwarrantable partiality to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger on this side, as was wished and expected. …
There are two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests. …
Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an ailment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because of imparts to fire its destructive agency. …
As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connections subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other, and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. …
The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment of different leaders ambitiously contending for preeminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them much more disposed to vex for their common good. … The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government. … With equal, nay, with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation but so many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of single persons, but concerning the rights of large bodies of citizens? And what are the different classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they determine? Is a law proposed concerning private debts? … Justice should hold the balance between them. Yet the parties are, and must be, themselves the judges; and the most numerous party or, in other words, the most powerful faction must be expected to prevail.[iv]
Shall domestic manufacturers be encouraged, and in what degree, by restrictions on foreign manufacturers?[v] These are questions which would be differently decided by the landed and the manufacturing classes, and probably by neither with a sole regard to justice and the public good. The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominate party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling[vi] with which they overburden the inferior number is a shilling saved to their own pockets.
It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. …
If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. … To secure the public good of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed. …
From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. …
A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect and promises the cure for which we are seeking. …
The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended. …
In the first place, it is to be remarked that, however small the republic may be, he representatives must be raised to a certain number, in order to guard against the cabals of a few; and that, however large it may be, they must be limited to a certain number, in order to guard against the confusion of a multitude. Hence, the number of representatives in the two cases not being in proportion to that of the two constituents, and being proportionately greater in the small republic, it follows that, if the proportion of fit characters be not less in the large than in the small republic, the former will present a greater option, and consequently a greater probability of a fit choice. … By enlarging too much the number of electors, you render the representative too little acquainted with all their local circumstances and lesser interests; as by reducing it too much, you render him unduly attached to these and too little fit to comprehend and pursue great and national objects. The federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect: the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and the particular to the state legislatures.[vii] …
In the extent, and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government. And according to the degree of pleasure and pride we feel in being republicans, ought to be our zeal in cherishing the spirit and supporting the character of Federalists.
James Madison writes in the Federalist No. 14 …
We have seen the necessity of the Union, as our bulwark against foreign danger, as the conservator of peace among ourselves, s the guardian of our commerce and other common interests, as the only substitute for these military establishments which have subverted the liberties of the Old World, and as the proper antidote for the diseases of faction, which have proved fatal to other popular governments, and of which alarming symptoms have been betrayed by our own. …
Today there are those who complain how long it has taken for the Iraqi government leadership to take to create its constitution; but not realize the length of time it took to draft, assemble and finally ratify the Articles of Confederation and into what we know as the Constitution of the United States today. The document not only had to survive time and circumstance, but it had to be agreed upon by all states of the new Union. Too often today our legislators hurry bills through for passing without really taking the proper time for consideration and the need to examine its short- and long-term impact. And, in other circumstances where a proposed legislation has been carefully reviewed and put through the appropriate committees, it is purposefully left to languish in committee for one reason or another – and most certainly not because the bill is not worth voting upon. A good example of this is the Fair Tax Act, where the present income tax system would be dissolved and replaced with a flat tax collected from sales (new purchases only) and services rendered. It has been lauded by leading economists as a system that would be good for government, the people and business. It would eliminate costly paperwork, limit the government by making the IRS a small auditing agency of the government (and taking away the agency’s dangerous power), and from the money not spent by employers on an unfair, intrusive and expensive tax system to be able to expand the health care system and other employee benefits as well as more money for diversification and investment for business growth. And with a limit on the flat percentage rate of tax and requirement of a two-thirds majority vote to increase that rate or add to the tax base, it is clearly better than the present system. However, there are those politicians and political entities, as well as private interests (such as H&R Block) that have and are lobbying for it not to ever reach the floor for a vote. While the present number of congressional members in favor of the bill and have endorsed it has increased, there are still too many representatives and senators who have chosen to ignore it and hope it will fade away. Meanwhile they obstinately continue to try to pass some form of amnesty concerning illegal immigrants and provide these non-citizen lawbreakers with benefits that should only be afforded to citizens of the United States. But I digress …
Drafting of the Constitution took place in Philadelphia, where the central government was established and the Congress met to perform government business. The nation’s capitol city now in the District of Columbia had not been designed or constructed yet. The draft was the first step in producing a document in order to create “a more perfect Union”, protect the rights of all citizens, to establish regulations concerning the powers of each of the established branches of government, as well as term limits and other important details. Alexander Hamilton noted in his Federalist No. 84 that the Constitution was hollow without a list or a bill of rights that guaranteed that which they had fought so hard to achieve under English rule and later when the Patriots decided and acted during the American Revolution.
The Constitution drafted had now to undergo the process of being ratified by all the states within the Union, a nation called the United States. George Washington wrote, in a letter to Bushrod Washington on November 10th 1787:
The warmest friends and the best supporters the Constitution has, do not contend that it is free from imperfections; but they found them unavoidable and are sensible, if evil is likely to arise therefrom, the remedy must come hereafter, for in the present moment, it is not to be obtained; and, as there is a Constitutional door open it. I think the people (for it is with them to judge) can as they will have the advantage of experience on their side, decided with as much propriety on the alterations and amendments which are necessary as ourselves. I do not think we are more inspired, have more wisdom, or possess more virtue than those who will come after us.
The proceedings of the Convention were not open to the public; however the arguments that were pursued in its drafting appeared in print, such as the aforementioned Federalist Papers. Each of the statesmen would seek to acquaint the public with their personal interpretations and ideas and this was made possible by the newspaper media.
During the ratification process, this debate began to accelerate and the major criticism announced was that the Constitution did not contain a Bill of Rights that assured individuals protection under law – protection from the very government for which the statesmen had and were establishing. The gist of that argument also concerned central government and the fear and distrust of that government becoming like that which they had severed themselves from. The Constitution could not be approved until nine of the 13 states approved/ratified it.
The Annals of America, Volume 3, The Ratification Debate, p. 239-246 …
…This sentiment was strongest in New York, Massachusetts, and Virginia, where state leaders, directing a unified opposition, were intent on protecting the advantage that strong, independent state governments and larger populations gave them.
Delaware became the first state to ratify in December 1787, voting unanimous approval, Pennsylvania followed almost immediately, but it was not until June 1788, when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify, that the necessary majority was achieved. By the end of July, New York and Virginia added their essential support to the new government, and the process of organization began. The remaining two states, North Carolina and Rhode Island, did not join the union until after Washington’s inauguration.
In the Virginia convention the absence of a Bill of Rights in the Constitution was particularly worrisome since these guarantees had already been incorporated into the state constitution. Several of the Virginia delegates at the Constitutional Convention had refused to approve the draft without a Bill of Rights. This absence, combined with a suspicion of central authority, formed the basis of the opposition to ratification articulated by George Mason and Patrick Henry. James Madison, a principal author of the Constitution, was the chief advocate for ratification, and his success in converting Edmund Randolph to the federalist position was the key development insuring passage. As a compromise, a call for the first Congress to pass a Bill of Rights accompanied Virginia’s ratification.
James Iredell publicly announced the objections during the Convention of 1787, a delegate from North Carolina:
Objection: There is no declaration of rights, and the laws of the general government being paramount to the laws and constitutions of the several states, the declarations of rights in the separate states are no security. Nor are the people secured even in the enjoyment of the benefit of the common law, which stands here upon no other foundation than its having been adopted by the respective acts forming the constitutions of the several states.
Just as Alexander Hamilton and others wrote the Federalist Papers, a series of anti-Federalist letters, also written under a pseudonym (Brutus) and appeared in the New York Journal and Weekly Register during the winter of 1787 through 1788. The Brutus rebuttals saw that the national government would have full power over the states, particularly the judiciary branch. The following is excerpted from the New York Journal and Weekly Register, dated January 11th, 1788 entitled Brutus No. 11[viii] …
Much has been said and written down the subject of this new system, on both sides, but I have not met with any writer who has discussed the judicial powers with any degree of accuracy. And yet it is obvious that we can form but very imperfect ideas of the manner in which this government will work or the effect it will have in changing the internal police and mode of distributing justice at present subsisting in the respective states without a thorough investigation of the powers of the judiciary and of the manner in which they will operate. This government is a complete system, not only for making but executing laws. And the courts of law which will be constituted by it are not only to decide upon the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance of it but by officers subordinate to them to execute all their decisions. … It is, moreover, of great importance to examine with care the nature and extent of the judicial power, because those who are to be vested with it are to be placed in a situation altogether unprecedented in a free country. They are to be rendered totally independent, both of the people and the legislature, both with respect to their offices and salaries. No errors they may commit can be corrected by any power above them, if any such power there be, nor can they be removed from office for making ever so many erroneous adjudications. The only causes for which they can be displaced are conviction of treason, bribery, and high crimes and misdemeanors. …
That we may be enabled to form a just opinion on this subject, I shall, in considering it, (1) examine the nature and extent of the judicial powers; and (2) inquire whether the courts who are to exercise them are so constituted as to afford reasonable ground of confidence that they will exercise them for the general good. …
Though I am not competent to give a perfect explanation of the powers granted to this department of the government, I shall yet attempt to trace some of the leading features of it, from which I presume it will appear that they will operate to a total subversion of the state judiciaries, if not to the legislative authority of the states. …
Every adjudication of the Supreme Court on any question that may arise upon the nature and extent of the general government will affect the limits of the state jurisdiction. In proportion as the former enlarge the exercise of their powers will that of the latter be restricted.
That the judicial power of the United States will lean strongly in favor of the general government, and will give such an explanation to the Constitution as will favor an extension of its jurisdiction, is very evident from a variety of considerations. …
This Constitution gives sufficient color for adopting an equitable construction if we consider the great end and design it professedly has in view. There appears from its Preamble to be, “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and posterity.” …
This power in the judicial will enable them to mold the government into almost any shape they please.
As you can see great debates and great changes occurred during the period from 1770s to 1830s. The government transformed, but so did the American society. At best, this period can be described as the upward climb to become the industrial nation and world leader, even as the Civil War approached. After the 1830s, the political parties began to shape itself and form a part of the instituted government and its legal system. The Republicans chose their political leader to be Thomas Jefferson, and during the summer of 1800 a political campaign ensued. It did not resemble even closely the type of campaigning that would evolve later in American history, but nevertheless a presidential campaign. In Randolph, III, pp. 444-446, a letter written by Thomas Jefferson on August 13th, 1800 proclaimed his political position and acceptance to be considered as the third President of the United States …
I received with great pleasure your favor of June 4, and am much comforted by the appearance of a change of opinion in your state; for though we may obtain, and I believe shall obtain, and I believe shall obtain, a majority in the legislation of the United States, attached to the preservation of the federal Constitution, according to its obvious principles and those on which it was known to be received, attached equally to the preservation to the states of those rights unquestionably remaining with them; friends to the freedom of religion, freedom of the press, trail by jury, and to economical government; opposed to standing armies, paper systems, war, and all connection, other than commerce, with any foreign nation; in short, a majority firm in all those principles which we have espoused, and the Federalists have opposed uniformly, still, should the whole body of New England continue to opposition to these principles of government, either knowingly or through delusion, our government will be a very uneasy one. …
Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. …
You have seen the practices by which the public servants have been able to cover their conduct, or, where that could not be done, delusions by which they have varnished it for the eye of their constituents. What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office building, and office hunting would be produced by an assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the general government!
The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the states are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign nations. Let the general government be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of other nations, except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our general government may be reduced to a very simple organization, and a very unexpensive one – a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants.
Thomas Jefferson promoted a simple, inexpensive government, yet efficient. Upon Thomas Jefferson’s inauguration on March 4th, 1801, the city of Washington in the District of Columbia had been built and he was the first president to reside there. He delivered his Inaugural Address in the Senate chamber, which was the only part of the Capitol that had been completed. Along with the Senators there was a portion of federal judges and members of the House of Representatives – as much as the chamber could accommodate. Next to President Jefferson stood his Vice President, Aaron Burr and on his other side stood Chief Justice Marshall, who was a political enemy of Jefferson, appointed by his predecessor.
Thomas Jefferson had spent eight years before the day of his Inauguration in opposition to the Federalists and now was the head of the new Republican administration. His speech reflected that he wanted unification and not political division in handling governmental affairs. He hoped to unite the Federalist and the Republic political faction. In his address, he stated which you will probably never hear from today’s elected officials …
I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional, and your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts.
Politics had evolved through the international crisis taking place of which Thomas Jefferson had tried to refrain from participating from the 1760s to around 1815. America set about putting together the infrastructure of its government and its system, expanding through settlers and immigrants arriving that would increase the populace in territories and make new ones. Market capitalism visibly grew after 1815 and technological inventions began to change the world into an industry – the cotton gin, the steamboat, the railroad, the telegraph, the reaper, and the sewing machine were examples of invention that would change the life and the manner of society forever.
But as far as the economic transformation that coincided with the political evolution there wasn’t a simple reason or cause for its evolvement. The major economic interests – slavery, land and agriculture, commerce and industry all required political representation. But then so did social groups that included those that were founded upon religion. An American nationalist Albert Gallatin described the days after 1815 (the final war against the British) –
The people have now more general objects of attachment with which their pride and political opinions are connected. They are more Americans; they feel and act more like a nation.
American nationalism was born, yet Americans still retained part of its European heritage, despite the fact that Europe still retained much of its monarchial and aristocratic institutions of the Old World. Historians say that this was due to the failed revolutions of 1830 and 1848 that could have spread Democracy in Europe as it had in America. No major European country became a republic until France did in 1871.[ix]
Vienna workingmen demonstrated in the 1890s for voting rights that in America were half a century old.[x]
The only close comparison to the American politic factions were the Whigs and Tories of Victorian England in the 19th century; and in America the politic was expanding, just as the nation physically was across the part of the North American continent that constituted the United States of America.
An electoral system had been established and the popular culture was moving into a wider democratic political posture. Jeffersonian Republicans tried to hurry the process of being an immigrant to the ballot box before they had even completed the required rites of immigration.[xi] New York Federalists looked for the removal of voting restrictions on free blacks of New York, many of whom were servants of the Federalists who sought their vote. Constitutional conventions of revision in New York in 1821 and Virginia in 1829 removed much of the restraints concerning officeholding; and along with this came an increase in the number of public offices. Sheriffs, coroners, district attorneys, city recorders, county clerks, militia offices, road surveyors, inspectors, public notaries, tax assessors, fence watchers, and election officials were now part of the growing political entity of America. By the 1850s, all state senators and governors were publicly elected. By 1828 voters directly chose presidential electors in every state but South Carolina.
In the beginning, presidential candidates were chosen by party caucuses of congressmen, and state and local candidates by state legislators. The first formal state nominating convention was held in Pennsylvania in 1817. And in 1831 the Anti-Masonic party held the first nominating convention for a presidential candidate. What was once thought to be only for the elite in politics and government in general was now part of the public politics. Along with this growth and movement arose new townships, counties, and even states; as well as relocation of county seats and state capitals. State capitals were generally situated in the geographical center of the state for obvious reasons. All this structural change included the change in political culture.
While George Washington was not ashamed of his cultural elite birth and family heritage, later politicians were most popular by claiming they were among the common folks, many growing up in poverty at one level or another. Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun are examples of this frontier background that appealed to the common voter.
Even the political language began to change. Instead of colonial-type proclamations and newspaper essays, politicians began more oratory and verbal discourse – the political soapbox was born. No more newspaper essays signed under pseudonym of “Publius”. Famous among the debates of the time was the Lincoln-Douglas debate. Lincoln held the votes by the people because of his self-educated background and simple family heritage. The people felt he could relate to the circumstance of every day folks. And he did.
However, public officials of the early Republic continued the language of the 18th century, like junto, faction, clique, cabal, interest and so on; while other language of republicanism continued to be heard: liberty, independence, representative, Republic, federal, and union.
It is at this time that when the American political language began to change, evolve, from the Old Republic, Federalist Noah Webster created the American Dictionary of the English Language that was produced to separate American English from “Mother” English within a certain form.
Americans, however, still remembered fresh in their minds the words that introduced the Declaration of Independence:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Law of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Thomas Jefferson was a man who flexed with the times and he favored the “usage” of words over the “grammar”. He said:
The new circumstances under which we are placed call for new words, new phrases, and for the transfer of old words and new objects.
James Madison agreed:
New ideas, such as presented by our novel and unique political system, must be expressed either by new words, or by old words with new definitions.
This new vocabulary was taken from everyday public life – from the farms to the local racetrack, and it was politics that chiefly made this come about. People were involved with politics from the local pub to the elite social clubs in the big cities. And this was OK.[xii]
And with all of this pageantry and social change came the change in social character and corruption. In the beginning of the nation, corruption was an identifier of the old regime of British rule, but now with the increase of the number of offices and the size of government, so did the elements of corruption.[xiii] The Jackson administration showed a new element of corruption that became known as the “spoils system”. It consisted of distributed payoffs within the democratic political entity. The previous republican system of the virtuous leaders that formed the new government and safeguarded it for the people, were now relying on the wisdom and the power of the vote by the people. The old school, well-educated politicians found the whole affair “distasteful”. Indeed it represented the less admirable qualities of American public life. Politics began to form the use of hyperbole and demagoguery. But along with this came the public stimulating election parades, barbecues, and town-hall meetings that became part of the social atmosphere. But the American public were involved, whether ethically or in corruption. Candidates began to receive nicknames: Old Hickory, Old Tippecanoe, Old Rough and Ready, and so on. This seemed make the political candidates more human and down to their social level. Towns and counties were being named after those that formed the nation and the events that took place in its formation – Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Independence, Hope, Freedom, Harmony, et cetera.
Alexis de Tocqueville, when he came to visit America in the early 1830s found a political system that was now run by professional politicians, instead of self-made, planter, farmer, lawyer statesmen that made up the Founders. Tocqueville would write from the prospective of a European visitor about the aspects of political and social life in America – which fascinated him. He writes later:
To take a hand in the regulation of society and to discuss it is the American’s biggest concern and, so to speak, the only pleasure an American knows.
Americans didn’t just discuss politics; it was part of social culture during this period. Today, many people don’t even want to discuss it and if they do it is limited, it seems at times because of their limited knowledge. You would think they would be interested in something that concerns their everyday lives. It concerns them because the people in Washington who were elected are legislating constantly – sometimes legislating your liberties away as often and as quickly as possible. Sometimes it is done with the foundation of a good purpose, but never looking at the long term. They only know that legislation in certain aspects will make the special interest groups or a certain ethnic group happy and thus ensure that they remain in office.
During this period of political history the third party appeared in the form of the Anti-Masons, and then quickly disappeared as in the case of third political parties thereafter. The original founders had Masonic background and in politics it became a quasi-religious affiliation – Washington, Franklin, Jackson and by the 1820s a majority of New York’s office holders. The Anti-Masonry party was the first prime subject oriented political party in that it served or its political platform was of one purpose. When the party dissolved in the 1830s, the members melded into the Whig party – one of the two main accepted parties. There is argument today whether or not it is good or bad for America only functionally having two political parties, but the fact remains that both factions try to dispel third parties from gaining enough popularity to get strong enough to survive the Democratic and Republican parties that still remain, despite its changes in name over the decades and the change in their political platform.
The result was two parties emerging in the new “regime” that was taking place – the Jacksonian Democrats and the Whigs, the world’s first mass-based political parties.[xiv]
Meanwhile a new generation of politicians arose in the succession of President Monroe’s administration – John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay of Kentucky, Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina – all who claimed Republican Party identity. They all agreed on the major aspects of foreign and domestic policy, issues like the Monroe Doctrine, the initiation of a national bank (important after the economic collapse during Jackson’s administration), a protective tariff, and internal improvements required of a growing nation. Yet, Calhoun stated:
I belong to no section or particular interest.
After the War of 1812 politics became the Henry Clay’s American System, a term according to Keller was also used by Thomas Jefferson. Clay’s government called for a program of roads, canals, and tariffs protecting the cotton industry in the South and western grain and cattle in the West, as well as manufacturing in the East. Keller states:
In a sense the Monroe Doctrine and the American System added up to a second declaration of American independence from Europe. The only significant protestors – rather like the Tories and the Federalists – were a diminishing band of old-style Federalists and old-style Virginia Republicans led by John Randolph, John Taylor, Spencer Roane, and Richmond Enquirer editor Thomas Ritchie, alienated from mainstream American politics since Jefferson’s time.[xv]
The elections of 1824 and 1828 provided the foundation for the party politics of the “party-democratic regime”, just as those of 1792 and 1796 had been for republican era. Another interesting aspect of the period from 1788 to 1824 is that presidents voted for had been either vice president or secretary of state before their office as the President. And all had been part of the Founders – Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe.
But soon the Federalists began to disappear and a new American political culture emerged. Most states still chose their electors through their legislatures. As I stated previously, this was the establishment of the two-party system when a single political figure dominated the public scene: Andrew Jackson of Tennessee who had been a war hero (General), Indian fighter and against the political agenda of those of the political past. Jackson won by a popular vote of 56% to 44%. Only two states remained under the old system where legislators picked the presidential electors – Delaware and South Carolina.
Andrew Jackson was a new type of candidate. His predecessors represented honor, service, public virtue and personal self-restraint; while Jackson was an honorable man who had served his country well against the invading British in the War of 1812, but he also came from common roots and often was admonished for his unpolished personality and his tendency to lose his temper in public. He was also admonished for marrying a woman who had not yet been legally divorced. He was the first American president who had been the target of assassination, and his response was to club to death the English attacker who had attempted it. He was a cut from the frontier element of society and this pleased the American voter. Henry Clay, the first candidate of the new Whig Party was his political adversary and was defeated in 1832. Later when Van Buren ran for office, the vote result demonstrated how close the votes were, which means an evenly divided constituent vote for each of the two political parties.
The Whig party was different than the Democrats in that individual candidates mattered more than political party loyalty.[xvi]
Voters themselves had changed in the nature of their politics. Policy once was held as the main issue, while it now was party and personal appeal that swayed voters.[xvii]
In 1840, the Jacksonian Democrats became the Democratic Party, instead of calling itself Republican (Democratic-Republican) that was originally done in honor of Thomas Jefferson. As Morton Keller writes:
Jacksonian class-warfare rhetoric appeals to historians in search if historical validation for a liberal-left tradition in American politics. … But Jacksonian anti-capitalism was encased in an agrarian-yeoman ideal far indeed from a social democratic state. Further muddying the ideological waters was the widespread readiness of the Democrats to temper their populist rhetoric with a healthy respect for enterprise and moneymaking. And as the case was with Jefferson when he was faced with the prospect of acquiring Louisiana, small-government principles readily co-existed with expansionist ambition. When Jackson faced Calhoun’s states’-rights nullification défi in the early 1830s, he fell back on nationalism that the Federalists would have applauded: “Without union our independence and liberty would never have been achieved, without union they can never be maintained.”
The Whigs, earlier form of what later would become the Republican Party, were different when it came to matters of economic and social issues. They supported the expansion of bank credits, government subsidies for internal improvements, protective tariffs, and the distribution of the proceeds of land sales to the states.[xviii]
Andrew Jackson’s 1832 reelection marked the period when he removed federal deposits from the Bank of the United States and he vetoed a congressional attempt to re-charter the Bank. Jackson viewed the Bank issue as a social problem:
A showdown between “the rich and powerful” and “the farmers, mechanics, and laborers”.
He stated that he withdrew federal deposits from the Bank in order
…to preserve the morals of the people, the freedom of the press, and the purity of the elective franchise.[xix]
The Whigs called the action against the Bank of the United States an example of
Democratic hostility to development of Jacksonian autocracy, rapidly tending towards a total change of the pure and republican character of the government and the concentration of all power in the hands of one man.” [xx]
The new-party mentality of the popular culture had emerged, and it remain so until the Civil War era, and yet would continue for at least a hundred years.
The gist of this democratic politic movement by the practice, as aforementioned, coined as the “party-run spoils system”. Morton Keller writes in Chapter Five:
The party-democratic regime not only created a new politics but transformed government and law. The republican approach to governing in the early Republic assumed that elite rules would disinterestedly serve the public interest. In the news regime, “the democratic ideal of popular self-rule was translated into a reality of party government through the medium of yet a third concept – that of the rule of the majority.
And with that I conclude Part 3 of this essay on American politics and its evolvement from the momentous period of the colonial and revolutionary process that created a nation. The continuation of the 1840s era of politics that introduced the politics of the pre-Civil War in Part 4 and on into the period known as Reconstruction, and then into Part 6 as the modern industrial era formed which later became the technological era.
While this subject material is merely a brief description of a talking point that could cover volumes, I hope this passes on some information that explains American politics, a look to where we were, what we have become and what may result if positive changes are not made.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
The Cultural Pattern in American Politics – Robert L. Kelley
Deferential-Participant Politics: The Early Republic – Ralph Formisano
The Republic in Peril: 1812 – Roger H. Brown
The Revolution of American Conservatism – David H. Fischer
America’s Three Regimes – Morton Keller
The American Political Nation – Joel Silbey
The Myth of Class in Jacksonian America – William Gienapp
The Market Revolution in America – Richard E. Ellis
The American Language – H. L. Mencken
The Anti-Masonic Party in the United States – William P. Vaughn
The Presidential Quest: Candidates and Images in American Political Culture – M. J. Heale
The Political Culture of the American Whigs – Daniel W. Howe
The Roots of American Bureaucracy – William E. Nelson
[i] Articles of Confederation.
[ii] Annals of American History, Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 3, 1784-1796, New York/Chicago/London/Toronto/Geneva/Sydney/Tokyo/Manila/Johannesburg/Seoul, 1976.
[iii] In particular note, notice that James Madison was concerned about much of what citizens are concerned for today. He writes about the dangers of special interests, and today those arguments are applicable to what he wrote about in putting together the Constitution.
[iv] Thus today we see those “factions” in the form of the two main political entities that has evolved to what they are today and their primary mission in the eyes of citizens is the power of that political entity, sometimes more important than the well being of our nation and the people within it. These warnings, over the decades, have been ignored. Maybe it should be a requirement that every elected official or those who want to be elected be knowledgeable of the Federalist Papers and the talking points held therein.
[v] Even then, free trade versus protectionism was questioned and examined.
[vi] This is the monetary component that remained from England during the first years of the new government of America before it was changed from shilling to dollar.
[vii] Today this argument prevails as the government has evolved into the practice of interfering with states rights, and indeed this was the issue that led to the American Civil War. Today those arguments are reborn with national governance of the central government in charge of matters that should be left up to the state. For example, the matters of education and establishing and maintaining the school system; whereas local and state government are more apt to know what that localities needs are and act accordingly. The educational system should be returned back to the state government’s responsibilities and further disseminated down to the local school districts. The central, federal government should only be concerned with national standards of education to ensure that all school systems are in tune with the process of required education for youth who will be entering a career field. Certain knowledge is needed to be a well informed and educated citizen, which in turn makes a responsible voter. How can a voter possibly make a logical decision without knowledge of the structure of government and the process of politics? Civics, political history and its infrastructure of processes should be taught beginning in high school – and the basic principles of the American form of government taught before that. Knowledge is power, and the power of the people over the government must prevail, as the Founders and the arguments that ensued in the Federalist Papers clearly demonstrate.
[viii] The Annals of American History, Volume 3, p. 261-264.
[ix] Morton Keller, America’s Three Regimes, Oxford, 2007, p. 69.
[x] Ibid.
[xi] You may have thought today’s issue concerning illegal immigrants was unique and a first-time phenomenon, but the circumstance may have changed but the gist of the issue is the same.
[xii] This two-letter word was an invented Americanism that began politically and then was accepted universally and remains the icon of the roots of American “slang” and colloquial language.
[xiii] Morton Keller, Corruption in America: Continuity and Change (1978).
[xiv] Morton Keller, America’s Three Regimes, The Culture of Democratic Party Politics.
[xv] Morton Keller, America’s Three Regimes, The Culture of Democratic Party Politics, pp. 78-79.
[xvi] Something that the American voter should be exercising today, the main and possibly only way for the two parties of politic to self reform; and the difficulty of this is that because of the extreme cost of running, it is hard to find an independent that can run the gamut of the long and costly campaign for presidency.
[xvii] Once again, we relive history. If it is not party loyalty that sways the voters support, it is the pleasing demeanor, flowery words of promise often not backed up the candidate’s voting record, which too many voters ignore. And then, after the candidate attains office, the voter finds that “politics are as usual” – when in fact it is mainly because they vote for the same people or the same type of people election after election. Political parties, the two main ones that still dominate the scene must reform, but so must the voter. Knowledge is power and so is voting, but the two must interact. The voter must self educate themselves and begin to vote by investigation of voting record, public actions – and not just campaign rhetoric and dog-and-pony show demonstrations on the campaign trail. In addition, today the media and the political elite choose the candidates in the primary, and as I have heard many voters complain that the delegates have more voting power than the people. This is nothing but the return to the birth of American politics when the legislative chose the electors. Americans must stop thinking that there is nothing they can do – the political elite from both sides of the political aisle are counting on that very mood and attitude. As far as the media, they are going to have to learn the hard way that their power has been abused and will no longer be tolerated, and once again it is the American public who must make that lesson clear.
[xviii] David H. Fischer, The Revolution of American Conservatism (1965).
[xix] Richard E. Ellis, The Market Revolution in America (1996)
[xx] Joel Silbey, The American Political Nation, 1838-1893 (1991).
