First Party System

The First Party System is the term historians give to the political system existing in the United States from about 1792 to 1820. It featured two national parties that competed for control of the Presidency, Congress, and the States. They were the Federalist Party (created by Alexander Hamilton) and the Democratic-Republican Party (created by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison). It was replaced in the 1820s by the Second Party System.

Constitution of 1787

Political parties were not discussed in the Constitution. The political system in effect during the Revolutionary War did not allow for parties; a person was either for or against the Congress and independence. In the decade of the 1780s, the new United States of America had a weak central government, and, indeed, relatively weak state governments. Factions existed in each state, with competition between groups for control of the legislature (which was considered the main organ of government), and the governorship. The states controlled their representatives to Congress, and therefore a geographically based factionalism pitting the different states against each other existed in Congress. The factions in the different states had nothing in common; politics did not cross state lines. In the late 1780s, a crisis of self-confidence shook the new nation. Was its government strong enough to guarantee internal cohesion and to provide for the common defense against outside enemies (like Britain and Spain), or indeed to defend against internal revolts (like Shays Rebellion in Massachusetts, in 1786–87)

Leading men called a Constitutional Convention in 1787, which drew up a document that was submitted to the state legislatures for approval. An intense debate pitted the "Federalists" against the "Anti-Federalists," with the former completely successful. The Federalists, led by George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, formed a new government in 1789, with Washington as president. The Anti-Federalists were deeply concerned about the theoretical danger of a strong central government (like Britain's) that some day could usurp the rights of the people and the states. As a condition for ratification, the Federalists agreed to approve a Bill of Rights, which met most of the Anti-Federalist objections. The Anti-Federalists had never comprised an organized national group, and by 1791 its issues were moot.

Washington Administration (1789–1796)

There were no parties in the new government, though factions soon formed around such dominant personalities as Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Washington was re-elected without opposition in 1792. Hamilton was building a network of supporters that emerged about 1792–93 as the Federalist Party. In response Jefferson and James Madison built a network of supporters in Congress and in the states that they called Democratic-Republican Party. In 1793, the first Democratic-Republican Societies were formed and helped the Jeffersonian cause. After Washington denounced them as unrepublican they mostly faded away. An intense national debate broke out in 1793–94 regarding foreign policy toward the French Revolution. Should the new nation side with London conservatism or Parisian radicalism? Washington, Hamilton and Adams (and most merchants and New Englanders) favored London; Jefferson, Madison (and the unchurched) favored Paris. By now both parties had a national network of operatives and newspapers, which attacked each other vehemently. In 1796 Jefferson challenged John Adams for the presidency and lost; factions were more evident, though still in embryo. The Electoral College made the decision, and it was chosen by the state legislatures, which still lacked parties. Meanwhile John J. Beckley of Pennsylvania, an ardent Republican, invented new campaign techniques (such as mass distribution of pamphlets and handwritten ballots) that energized the grass roots and generated unprecedented levels of voter turnout.

Crisis of 1798

With the world thrown into a global warfare, the small nation on the fringe of the European system could barely keep neutral. Hamilton forced the issue by getting Congressional approval to raise a large new army (which he controlled), replete with officers' commissions (which he bestowed on his partisans.) The Alien and Sedition Act (1798) clamped down on dissenters, like pro-Jefferson editors. The Jay Treaty (1794) was denounced as a sell-out to Britain, even as it protected the US from the powerful British fleet. In the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (1798), drafted by Madison and Jefferson, the states challenged the power of the federal government. Madison worked diligently to form party lines inside the Congress, and in building coalitions with sympathetic political factions in each of the states. In 1800, a critical election galvanized the electorate, sweeping the Federalists out of power, and electing Jefferson and his Democratic-Republican Party. Adams made a few last minute appointments, notable Federalist John Marshall as Chief Justice, a post he held for three decades and used to federalize the Constitution, much to Jefferson's dismay.

Jefferson and the Revolution of 1800

As president, Jefferson tried to cleanse the government of Federalist influences. He impeached judges and removed Army officers. The sense that the nation needed two rival parties to balance each other had not been fully accepted. The rhetoric of the day was cataclysmic—election of the opposition meant the enemy would ruin the nation. Jefferson's foreign policy was not exactly pro-Napoleon, but it was aggressively anti-British. By engineering an embargo of trade against Britain, Jefferson and Madison plunged the nation into economic depression, ruined much of the business of Federalist New England, and finally (in 1812) precipitated a war with a much larger party. The Federalists vigorously criticized the government, but gracefully accepted the role of opposition party, save for one blunder in 1814. That year the semi-secret "Hartford Convention" passed resolutions that verged on secession. Their publication ruined the Federalist party. It had been limping along for years, with strength in New England and scattered eastern states, and practically no strength in the West. While Federalists helped invent or develop numerous campaign techniques (like conventions), their upper class style alienated many yeoman farmers and workers, thus allowing the Jeffersonians to claim they represented the true spirit of "Republicanism."

State parties

Because of the importance of foreign policy (decided by the national government), of the sale of national lands, and the patronage controlled by the President, the factions in each state realigned themselves in parallel with the Federalists and Republicans. The United States by 1800 had the first two-party system in the world. The First Party System was built around foreign policy issues that vanished with the defeat of Napoleon and the compromise settlement of the War of 1812. Furthermore, the fears that Federalists were plotting to reintroduce aristocracy dissipated. Thus an "Era of Good Feelings" under James Monroe replaced the high-tension politics of the First Party System about 1816. Personal politics and factional disputes could still get nasty, but Americans no longer thought of themselves in terms of political parties. Historians have debated the exact ending of the system. Most concluded it petered out by 1820. The little state of Delaware, largely isolated from the larger political forces controlling the nation, saw the First Party System continue well into the 1820s, with the Federalists occasionally winning some offices. For the rest of the nation, the contributions of the founding fathers of political parties had been completed—and thus it seems symbolic that Adams and Jefferson died on the same day (4 July 1826), even on their deathbeds acknowledging the other's remarkable contributions.

References

• Encyclopedia of the New American Nation, 1754–1829 ed. by Paul Finkelman (2005), 1600 pp.
• Appleby, Capitalism and a New Social Order (1984)
• Banning, Lance. The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology (1978)
• Banning, Lance. The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic (1995) to 1795
• Banner, James M. To the Hartford Convention: The Federalists and the Origins of Party Politics in Massachusetts, 1789–1815 (1970)
• Ben-Atar, Doron and Barbara B. Oberg, eds. Federalists Reconsidered (1999)
• Beard, Charles A. The Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy (1915)
• Broussard, James H. The Southern Federalists: 1800–1816 (1978)
• Brown; Stuart Gerry. The First Republicans: Political Philosophy and Public Policy in the Party of Jefferson and Madison Syracuse University Press. (1954).
• Buel, Richard. Securing the Revolution: Ideology in American Politics, 1789–1815 (1972)
• Chambers, William Nisbet. Political Parties in a New Nation: The American Experience, 1776–1809 (1963)
• Charles, Joseph. The Origins of the American Party System (1956)
• Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. Jeffersonian Republicans: The formation of Party Organization: 1789–1801 (1957)
• Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. ed. The Making of the American Party System 1789 to 1809 (1965) excerpts from primary sources
• Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. The Jeffersonian Republicans in Power: Party Operations 1801–1809 (1963)
• Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. , "John Beckley: An Early American Party Manager," William and Mary Quarterly, 13 (Jan. 1956), 40-52, in JSTOR
• Elkins, Stanley and Eric McKitrick. The Age of Federalism (1995)
• Fischer, David Hackett. The Revolution of American Conservatism: The Federalist Party in the Era of Jeffersonian Democracy (1965)
• Formisano, Ronald. The Transformation of Political Culture: Massachusetts Parties, 1790s–1840s (1983)
• Goodman, Paul. The Democratic-Republicans of Massachusetts (1964)
• Goodman, Paul. "The First American Party System" in William Nisbet Chambers and Walter Dean Burnham, eds. TheAmerican Party Systems: Stages of Political Development (1967), 56–89.
• Hofstadter, Richard. The Idea of a Party System (1970)
• Humphrey, Carol Sue The Press of the Young Republic, 1783–1833 (1996)
• Kelley, Robert. The Cultural Pattern in American Politics: The First Century (1979)
• Kerber, Linda K. Federalists in Dissent;: Imagery and ideology in Jeffersonian America (1970)
• Leonard, Gerald. The Invention of Party Politics: Federalism, Popular Sovereignty, and Constitutional Development in Jacksonian Illinois (2002)
• McCormick, Richard P. The Second Party System: Party Formation deals with the collapse of the First party System, state by state
• Miller, John C. Alexander Hamilton: Portrait in Paradox (1959)
• Pasley, Jeffrey L. et al eds. Beyond the Founders: New Approaches to the Political History of the Early American Republic (2004), essays by scholars
• Prince, Carl E. New Jersey’s Jeffersonian Republicans: The Genesis of an Early Party Machine, 1789–1817 (1967)
• Schachner, Nathan. Aaron Burr: A Biography (1961)
• Risjord, Norman K. Chesapeake Politics, 1781–1800 (1978)
• Risjord, Norman K. The Old Republicans: Southern Conservatism in the Age of Jefferson (1965)
• Sharp, James Roger. American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis (1993)
• Skeen, Carl Edward. 1816: America Rising (1993)
• Stewart, Donald H. The Opposition Press of the Federalist Era (1968)
• Tinkcom, Harry M. The Republicans and Federalists in Pennsylvania, 1790–1801: A Study in National Stimulus and Local Response (1950)
• Wilentz, Sean. The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. (2005).
• Young, Alfred F. The Democratic Republicans of New York: The Origins, 1763–1797 (1967)

Online Resources

• American Political History Online detailed guide to WWW resources
• Documentary Timeline Lesson plans from NEH