CHAPTER XX

POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE BALLOT

The parties were made to serve, not to be served.-ESTHER EVerett Lape The short ballot is the key to the whole problem of the restoration of popular government in this country.-WOODROW WILSON

SECTION I. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF POLITICAL PARTIES

Representative government. In the New England town meeting it is possible for all the voters to come together, discuss questions which concern them, and decide problems as they think best. But people who live scattered over a wide area like Pennsylvania or the United States cannot conveniently meet with one another to talk over their problems; even if they could, their enormous numbers would make it impossible for them to carry on a satisfactory discussion. For these reasons the people in every democratic country in the world have found it necessary to select representatives to make and execute the laws in accordance with their will.

Why we have political parties. Now people seldom think alike on any question which comes before them. This fact makes political parties necessary; for, so long as people disagree on public questions, so long will they need to form parties in order to elect representatives who will put their respective views into effect. No other way has yet been found by which a large country can be ruled by the people; representative government, in short, is of necessity party government.

Importance of political parties. Behind almost every important act or recommendation of government officials there is, then, the influence of political parties.

Theoretically, the president nominates officials with the advice and consent of the Senate; but in actual practice the president does not have a free hand in making nominations. Quite to the contrary the nominations for most of the offices are made in close consultation with the members of the president's party in the Senate or in the House of Representatives. Theoretically, the president should formally consult with the Senate on the making of treaties; practically, many an important treaty is settled at a dinner table, where the influential party members in the Senate are present. Theoretically, laws are made by the Senate and House of Representatives; practically, they are made by the party in power, under the direction of the party leaders, and in the actual process of lawmaking there are innumerable joint and separate party caucuses.1

Thus the party controls both the lawmaking and the lawenforcing branches of the government; only in the judicial department is its influence limited.

Origin of American political parties. Even so wise a man as Washington did not realize the necessity and importance of party government. When president, he tried for years to keep both Jefferson and Hamilton in his cabinet long after they had become "like two fighting cocks," as Jefferson put it, because of their differences of opinion on public policies. These differences finally led to the development of the first two political parties in our history; that is, the first since the Constitution went into effect, for the parties of colonial and Revolutionary times lacked the organization usually associated with the term. Of one of these parties, the Federalist, Hamilton became the leader; of the other, the Republican, Jefferson was the acknowledged chief. In spite of having the same name, the Republican party of today does not resemble Jefferson's party and was not an outgrowth from it. Federalists versus Republicans, 1791-1816. The Federalist party believed in a strong national government; it advocated

1C. A. Beard, American Government and Politics, p. 101. Used by permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers.

a liberal construction of the Constitution; it had little faith in the common people; it favored the financial and commercial classes and from them it drew most of its strength. The Republican party, on the other hand, was the defender of the rights of the states; it was opposed to a strong

national government; it advocated a strict con

struction of the Consti

tution; it believed the

welfare of the country depended on agriculture rather than on commerce or manufactures; most of its supporters were small farmers and frontiersmen; it had confidence in the people; it stood for liberty.

During the first twelve years under the Constitution (1789-1801), the Federalists controlled

the national govern

ment. Guided by Ham

ALEXANDER HAMILTON

ilton and Washington,

who finally became a

Federalist, they organized the government, established it on a firm financial basis, and caused it to be respected both at home and abroad. The American people owe much to the Federalist party, but its undemocratic attitude and bitter quarrels within its own ranks made it unpopular and led to its decisive defeat in the election of 1800.

During the next generation the government was in the hands of the Republicans. Now that they were in the saddle they soon gave up many of their earlier ideas about limiting governmental powers. Within ten years they annexed

Louisiana, established an embargo on trade, appropriated money for roads and harbors, and did other things they would have been quick to denounce if done by the Federalists a few years before. The latter, equally inconsistent, adopted many of the narrow ideas formerly held by the Republicans and bitterly opposed their

measures. Finally, the unpatriotic attitude of the Federalists during the War of 1812 proved so unpopular that their organization died soon after the conflict ended. The last national election in which they took part was in 1816, and for the next twelve years the Republicans had everything their own way.

The period of personal politics, 1816-1832. Although there was only one party during the period which followed

THOMAS JEFFERSON

the War of 1812, there were numerous controversies between the rival leaders of the day. These controversies were factional quarrels, however, rather than conflicts between organizations representing different political views. The climax in this era of personal politics came in the election of 1824, when, no candidate having received a majority of the electoral vote, John Quincy Adams was chosen president by the House of Representatives over Andrew Jackson, who had received a larger popular and electoral vote. For the next four years the followers of Jackson, believing he had been cheated out of the presidency, waged a continuous

campaign in his behalf. During the struggle, differences which in the beginning had been largely personal came to rest on deeper grounds. The Adams men gradually came to insist on governmental policies very much like those of

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the old-time Federalists, while the Jackson men increasingly advocated measures which resembled those of the early Republicans.

Whigs versus Democrats, 1832-1854. Out of these contests there slowly developed parties which, although they had new names, corresponded in most of their principles to the parties of Washington's time. By 1832 the Jackson men, dropping the name of "Republican," called . themselves Democrats

and clung stoutly to most of the ideas of Jefferson; by 1834 the Adams men, also discontinuing the name of "Republican," adopted

the title "Whig" and for a generation were the enthusiastic advocates of many of the principles of Alexander Hamilton.

For the next twenty years the Whigs and Democrats were the leading political parties in the United States. During the first part of this period they fought over such questions as banking, the building of roads and canals, and the tariff. The Whigs believed in a national bank; in the building of