Development Of The Two Party System

There may be many reasons why we have problems in the government today, but the only problem we don’t have are about ideas and laws. The reason why it is like that in that particular area is because of the Two-Party System. Despite the several disagreements in the government now, the politics was a lot simpler before. The era I am talking about is the Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian era of politics. This was where the two-party system was formed. The system boosted the government to a higher level of working.

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The system had begun around the late 1770’s and early 1780’s. The system is important because it helps separate ideas and makes it easier to choose which idea would be better. The two-party system was important because it introduced major issues into regular local politics. The creators of the two-party system, The Federalists and Republicans, were men who looked upon parties. The course of American political party development can be broadly divided into three major stages (Chamber 7). The first two-party system was developed between the two opposing groups called the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans. Those who built the first political party system in the 1790’s mistook parties for factions, assuming that those with whom they differed were disloyal to the nation and it’s ideas (Chambers 57). Thomas Jefferson then found the Democratic Party of the United States in 1792, and then was elected as the first Democratic President in the year 1800. Those who had supported the policies of the Washington Administration, which later became known as Federalists because they had supported a strong national government as a stabilizer to the States.

The President’s two prominent advisors, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, were the founders of the Two-Party System. Jefferson, the founder, or more accurately, co-founder, of the first modern popular party, had no use for political parties (Hofstadter 2). Whatever had began as a personal commotion between the two men evolved into the formation as primary political parties. It usually allows government to move forward because, the majority party can take the lead. But it clamps the debate and forces a majorly diverse country to be represented by just two ideologies. Moreover, it creates rupture and tartness as both the two sides battle for the control of the government. While the two-party system has long characterized national politics, it has not invariably marked the politics of the states (Kutler 243). The enraged battle between these two adamant and forceful men was not only a personal battle, but also a political dispute. The principal issue between the two opposing parties was how they had believed the Constitution must be read and elucidated. The Federalists, such as Hamilton, and so forth, were called loose constructionists who had believed that more power and arbitration that was not particularized in the Constitution had to be placed in the palms of the Federal government. By 1840, two major parties, Whigs ad Democrats, roughly equal in strength (Walsh 1). They were also extremely passionate supporters in the idea of a strong central government which would have the power to allocate domestic and foreign pursuits, while having the incomparable authority over the U.S.

Both Hamilton and Jefferson were doubtlessly pledged to individuality, freedom, and equal opportunity. The disagreement between them formed the base of the Two-Party System, with each party more or less characterized and distinguished by its views of the structure in the federal government. The two-party system had cultivated a heightened two-party competition everywhere. Today for example there are no abundant pockets of one-partyism in the U.S. We can count at least six major parties in our history, the Federalists, Jeffersonian Republicans, National Republicans, Democrats, the Whigs, and the Modern Republicans. The Federalist Party was approximately containing only nationalists. Political people like Hamilton endorsed a typically strong federal government, which administered an ally of colonies with a progressive economy based on mundane trade. The Federalists had sought to manipulate this power through a liberal more loose assimilation of the Constitution’s criticism. The Federalists regularly praised from the more financially capable northern states of New England and also in the Mid-Atlantic. They had recommended a powerful government that would assure the interests of the middle class. In fact the fervent Federalist, John Jay was fond of sneering. The United States needed both ascendancies. It was the country’s great prosperity that it had both Jefferson and Hamilton and could, along time, bind and accommodate their philosophies.

One battle between these men, had occurred quickly after Jefferson had taken office as the secretary of state. He had led to a new and extremely important analysis of the Constitution. When Hamilton had introduced his bill to authorize a national bank, Jefferson disagreed. Speaking for those who had accredited in the states’ rights, Jefferson quarreled that the Constitution precisely enumerates all the powers which belonged to the federal government and had reserved all the other powers authority to the states. In 1828, the war-hero Andrew Jackson had become the first President from a political party, the Democrats, what they say about themselves, the true party of the people. With the exception of when the Whigs won their Presidency, the Democrats had held the White House proudly until 1860. The Party had been called the Democratic-Republicans until after 1830 and then initially got established as a Congressional council to strife for people’s rights and to oppose the elite Populist Party. Found in 1854, the Republican Party was classified as an answer to the turmoil that afflicted the many existing political parties in the U.S. The Free Soil Party, asserted that all men had a natural born right to the soil, they demanded that the government should re-evaluate the homesteading legislation and that they should grant land to settlers free of cost. The Conscience Whigs, the radical faction, as they say themselves, of the Whig Party in the North, separated themselves from their Southern counter parties by adopting the anti-slavery position. Two political parties had come of to an age from the Jeffersonian of republicanism age, to the Whigs and the Democrats. The Whigs hung firmly to Jefferson’s ideas about commonality and social conformity, also that they firmly had trusted in the power of the government to advance their goals. The Whigs had saw Jacksonian’s philosophies contemplating the stimulant of the conflict among the classes and the individuals as an enemy. The Democrats, in the other way, were big rivalries of the Jeffersonian’s ideas regarding the states’ rights. The Whigs had favored going back to a Hamiltonian federalism like banking system and being indigent on the federal appraisals and the inner improvement of the institutions. The Whigs were also leading prohibition of liquor and the abolition of slavery, all the things that the Democrats were against more or less. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, which had allowed areas to decide whether slavery should be legal in conformance with popular sovereignty and then thereby abrogate the fundamentals of the Missouri Compromise, which had created a dissension within the Democratic Party. The Whigs and Democrats had started trading elections every four years from 1836 all the way through 1852. In fact not even one president between Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln was reelected. The beginning of the log cabin and hard cider campaign of 1836 elections had started to take the feel of modern politics, bestowing slogans, mudslinging, songs, and rallies to pump up and support the candidates. The Whigs had won only two presidential elections, but in each scenario, the winning Whig president had died and then was succeeded by their Vice-President. Historians still debate why people became democrats or Whigs (Walsh 1).

Finally I would like to conclude on the stand that the Two-Party system was developed by to main men, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Many problems have erupted between the two, which has brought this major impact in Americans lives and America’s government. Despite the fights in the government now, the Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian era of politics is where the two-party system was formed.

Work Cited

1. Walsh, James P. “The Rise of a Two-Party System.” Connecticut’s Heritage Gateway. Web. 14 Apr. 2011. .

2. Kutler, Stanley I. Dictionary of American History. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003. Print.

3. Axelrod, Alan. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to American History; Fifth Edition. New York, NY; Penguin Group, 2009. Print

4. McGeehan R., John. The Everything American History Book; 2nd Edition. Avon, MA; Adams Media, 2007. Print

5. Chambers, William Nisbet. The American Party Systems: Stages of Political Development. New York; Oxford University Press, 1967. Print

6. Hofstadter, Richard. The Idea of a Party System: The Legitimate Opposition in the United States; 1780-1840. Berkeley: University of California, 1969. Print