"In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed, and secondly, it forces it to control itself." - Alexander Hamilton
This piece, the second of a two-part series, are shown in the left part to the demise of the Federalist Party and the rise of Democratic-Republican Party. Next, explore the history of other American political parties until today.
The party system in America was born as the Federalists, for central government and industry, and the Anti-Federalists, in favor of states' rights and agriculture, fighting for power. As part of the agreement that ended with the ratification of the Constitution, the two parties agreed that an elected body to choose the President and Vice President, not the people themselves. This was the method of electing the President until 1824, when the system we have now launched. George Washington was elected unanimously by the electoral vote as the first president and John Adams was his vice president.
The disappearance of the Federalists "was launched in 1790. Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson took opposite sides in the formation of a central bank and the beginning of a national debt. Jefferson became the leader of what became the Democratic-Republican Party denouncing the Federalists no better than the king himself. Washington and Adams were elected again, and hung the Federalists in power. However, the ingredients of the first true American heavyweight fight was taking place. At the corner of the champion, was John Adams for president representing the Federalists. In the challenger's corner, were Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republican Party. Washington decided to retire as his government was harshly criticized by the policy. In the next election, Adams received 71 electoral votes to 68 for Jefferson. For both unanimous choices harmonious political existence! The result was that Adams and Jefferson became president he became Vice President.
In 1800, Republican and Democratic parties remained aligned with the Republican Party getting stronger. As a result, the federal government grew stronger, too. The government was growing in the field of energy as well. The "Sedition Act", which punishes "any written false, scandalous or malicious against the government of the United States, or either House of Congress or the President," was considered an act of despotism. Jefferson and the Republicans won in 1800 and Aaron Burr, the Democratic Party leader, became Vice President. The Federalist Party was gone. The Democratic Republic - Republican Party, for the moment was to reign supreme. The effort to strengthen the central government too much power at the expense of the states had come to nothing, and the Federalists, as a well-defined parts, gradually disappeared from existence.
With the Democratic-Republican Party firmly in power, many laws were repealed unpopular, and the federal government went about their business. Over the next 30 years, the Democratic-Republican Party gradually became two separate parties.
In 1834, as the Republican National Party faded into the background, the Whig Party was born with leaders like Daniel Webster, who favored the power of Congress over presidential power. The Whigs wanted to expand the national government (and country) to the west. In 1840, the first Whig president, William Henry Harrison, was elected. The last Whig president, Zachary Taylor, was elected in 1848. The Whigs were not there for long. Mediocre comedies on television has lasted longer than the Whigs. In 1854, the Republican Party reformed, strengthened by the support of the Whigs and ragged soldiers free and independent.
In 1860, the issue of rights and slavery dominated the political landscape. The country was divided North and South. The Democratic Party, literally split in two, like the nation a year later. Southern Democrats favored federal protection of slavery in western territories, the Northern Democrats were not. They wanted the Supreme Court to handle the problem. This led to the election of a Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, who firmly believed that the Union is held together by the federal government at all costs. His policies and opposing views to the nation's blood was divided, division, four-year civil war that lasted from 1861 to 1865. The years of Reconstruction that followed the southern highlands of losing most of his political power for decades to come.
By the 1890s, Democratic and Republican parties, mostly as we know today were firmly entrenched as the two main political parties that controlled American politics. The Republicans became known as the Conservative Party or the right, and Democrats became known as the Liberal Party or the left. The parties themselves are entrenched in their position, becoming more and more in his philosophy, increasingly concerned about the Republican or Democratic values and less concerned about the values of the American people they governed. The gap between the party's values and American values varied so widely that Teddy Roosevelt broke his own separate party in the elections of 1912.
Teddy Roosevelt was a negative factor very important American presidential election in 1912, four years after he refused to run for president for a period of 3 rd. He found the president's policy of his own party, William Howard Taft, being too conservative for his taste. After a break at the Republican convention, Teddy formed Bull Moose Party and had enough votes to allow Taft Republicans that the Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson won the presidency.
Little in the system of two political parties has changed over the past 100 years since the election of 1912, with the exception of an occasional independent like Ross Perot, who appeared in the 1980 and 1990 to make some noise, until too little. CNBC financial analyst Rick Santelli hit a nerve in a broadcast after the 2008 financial crisis erupted. Annoyed with more successful rescues of people who bought houses they could not afford and those who finance those houses, Santelli said: "We are thinking about having a Chicago Tea Party in July! All you capitalists that want to appear in Lake Michigan I am organizing a party! "
The Tea Party movement was born. Despite Santelli is not affiliated with the Tea Party directly, he said some things that many Americans felt at the time. Many like Santelli vocal tired of big government and special interest politicians taking money from taxes and throw all the problems in the hope of fixing it. Santelli and traders on the floor in the program expressed that they were tired of a government that perpetuates itself for the sake of government rather than for the good of his people. The Founding Fathers were right, the danger of any political system, however well intentioned, is going to grow to a point where your only concern is to maintain political power at any cost.
The Obama administration came in preaching change and are not the problem. Even if they really believed they could meet changed when he took office two-party systems do not. Policy change that would allow a shift in the balance of power. That has not happened in this country since the Whigs threw a curve ball to the grid at the back of this country have a policy framework in 1840. However, the fact is that change can be a good thing. The Founding Fathers called for a change. A new voice or see item could help the country to a new perspective. It is obvious that the Tea Party has gained a lot of people involved in politics who have never participated before. People, plus more to engage with different perspectives and different voices would be better. That's what democracy is all about. Of self-government is also involved and therefore equally represented.
The Tea Party has grown in its ranks, as members of the protests began training a couple of weeks after the Santelli rant. Since then, the fledgling movement has grown rapidly in the United States, sponsoring hundreds of protests, boasting millions of members, and affect the 2010 elections that swung the balance of power, once more than one party, the Democratic Party, two parties. The Tea Party, however, is not yet an official party policy in the United States. The line between autonomy and be ruled by a fine line that makes the project of the founding fathers did to the Constitution so miraculous. However, even they knew it would take an effort, perseverance, vigilance and participation to make a true work Democratic Republic.
As Benjamin Franklin famously said right after the Constitution was ratified, "Well, doctor, what do we have? A republic or a monarchy? A republic, if you can keep. "With greater participation of the American people and more effort on the part of the governed, the United States will remain a republic for many years to come, but it is not politics or political parties that make America strong is the people who make the nation who believe in the freedom struggle and that what is right. Sometimes you only need a new voice to remind each and every one of them.
As to what Ben Franklin would think of the Republic today and if all Americans should be aware of and involved in politics in the nation to maintain, I think Ben might have said, "Let's have a cup of tea and talk about it. With a little good open honest conversation, there's a consensus to find that it can meet all of us! "On the other hand, then, it always was penny wise and pound with intelligence!
I hope that you please consider all this and think about it.
