Party On!

Political Parties from Hamilton and Jefferson to Trump

John Kenneth White, Matthew R. Kerbel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351593922
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Politik

Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson laid the foundations for today's political debates between Democrats and Republicans. Hamilton believed that freedom must be married with a strong central government and especially an energetic president, while Jefferson believed freedom derived from local civic virtues. Throughout history, Democrats and Republicans have chosen sides in this eternal debate—and sometimes even changed sides. Today, those debates have become sharper and more polarized, as the two parties square off on major issues such as healthcare, taxes, regulation, the role of the federal government, and what discretion should be given to local authorities. The debate can be loud and shrill, even as the public yearns for some accommodation between these two schools of thought. People may generally desire an active government to deal with acute problems, but localism still has widespread appeal, and political dysfunction often results when these outcomes are presented as polar opposites and elections are reduced to zero sum contests. Social media adds to the polarization, as Americans gravitate to websites that often ratify their preexisting points of view. The parties struggle to function in this environment as they try to adapt to the political realities of the social media age and the Trump era.

1

Political Parties in an American Setting

The Framers of the U.S. Constitution were well versed in the writings of Aristotle, Locke, Montesquieu, and other democratic thinkers. From their extensive reading of history, they understood the dangers of unchecked ambition and the necessities of free speech and minority protections so vital in creating a representative democracy. The tripartite system of government they created—consisting of a president, Congress, and judiciary—has endured with only modest revisions to their original work. In the two centuries since the U.S. Constitution was ratified, those who have inhabited the presidential offices have sung its praises. For example, upon leaving the presidency in 1796, George Washington urged that the Constitution “be sacredly maintained—that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue.”¹ Forty-two years later, Abraham Lincoln told the Springfield, Illinois, Young Men’s Lyceum that the Constitution should become “the political religion of the nation.”²

However, while the Framers realized great success in establishing political institutions, they struggled with how to organize elections. Popular, democratic elections were a novel experiment that many believed could not happen without widespread turmoil and violence. One Massachusetts delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia contended that the “evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy.”³ Alexander Hamilton agreed: “The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right.”⁴ By the late twentieth century, however, the “excess of democracy” had become universal. The last time the U.S. Census Bureau counted in 1992, there were 513,200 popularly elected officials. Of these, 493,830 held local positions; 18,828 were state officeholders, with nearly half of them serving as administrative officials and judges.⁵

The Constitution’s Framers were skeptical of political parties, thinking of them as factions to be avoided. So it was to their great astonishment that political parties proved to be the agents that made the document’s provisions and the complex system of elections work. Parties afforded a way of organizing elections, legitimizing opposition, and guaranteeing peaceful transitions of power. Once in office, they helped elected officials work together and bridged some of the differences between and among government institutions. One might assume, therefore, that political parties would be welcome instruments of governance. Quite the contrary. For more than 200 years, Americans have steadfastly refused to embrace party-led government—preferring instead that their leaders act in a nonpartisan manner. In 1956, John F. Kennedy wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage, which extolled those who placed conscience above party.⁶ Sixty years later, Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump took a different tack, this time underscoring the public’s distaste for both major parties: “We look at politicians and think: This one’s owned by this millionaire. That one’s owned by that millionaire, or lobbyist, or special group.”⁷

Given today’s widespread public ambivalence directed at all political parties, it should come as no surprise that American parties have struggled to find their rightful place. The “solutions” to this dilemma have varied from place to place and time to time. For example, parties acquired a degree of public approval at the end of the nineteenth century as America entered the Industrial Age. After the first decade of the twenty-first century, parties have had to search for a place in a new, postindustrial, computer-centric era.

This book explores the evolution and role of political parties in America, and the remainder of this chapter sets the foundation for that discussion. We start by looking at the love-hate relationship Americans have with parties and how this has influenced party development. Next, we address what roles parties play and how they differ from other players in the political system. This chapter ends with a discussion of the disparate perspectives on political parties held by Hamilton and Jefferson, which will help to structure much of the discussion of this book.

Political Parties: Institutions Americans Love to Hate

The Founding Fathers were elitists who wanted to minimize the role citizens would play in choosing their officeholders. They were especially fearful of political parties, arguing that it was necessary, in Madison’s words, to “break and control the violence of faction [meaning parties and other special interest groups].”⁸ James Madison, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson all believed that an enlightened citizenry would have no use for parties. Instead of parties, Madison hoped that other mediating institutions would

refine and enlarge the public views by passing them through the medium of the chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial conditions.⁹

Madison believed that a multitude of interests would proliferate through continental expansion, thus making the development of large, mass-based parties virtually inconceivable:

You make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength and to act in unison with each other.¹⁰

Madison’s belief that parties were unsuited filters for mass expressions of public opinion was based on his reading of history. He thought that human beings were emotional creatures, embracing different religions and political leaders with a zealotry that usually resulted in chaos and violence. Most of Madison’s contemporaries agreed, and they scorned political parties as vehicles that would, inevitably, ignite uncontrollable political passions. George Washington, for example, was especially critical of partisan demagogues whose objective, he claimed, was not to give people the facts from which they could make up their own minds, but to make them followers instead of thinkers. In an early draft of a 1792 speech renouncing a second term (it was never delivered when he had a change of heart), Washington maintained that “we are all children of the same country … [and] that our interest, however diversified in local and smaller matters, is the same in all the great and essential concerns of the nation.”¹¹ Determined to make good on his intention to leave office in 1796, Washington issued his famous farewell address, in which he admonished his fellow citizens to avoid partisanship at any cost:

Let me… warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party… . It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy. The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism… . [The spirit of party] agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; ferments occasional riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government through the channels of party passions.¹²

Washington was hardly alone in admonishing partisanship. In 1790, John Adams bemoaned the drift of the country’s elites toward party politics: “There is nothing I dread so much as a division of the Republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader and converting measures in opposition to each other.”¹³ Abigail Adams, observing the effects of partisan attacks on her husband during his presidency, wrote, “Party spirit is blind, malevolent, un-candid, ungenerous, unjust, and unforgiving.”¹⁴ James Monroe, the nation’s fifth chief executive, urged his backers to obliterate all party divisions. When Abraham Lincoln sought reelection in 1864 under the newly created National Union banner, half a million pamphlets were published bearing titles such as “No Party Now but All for Our Country.”¹⁵

Today’s party leaders also seem skeptical about a place for parties in the American setting. In the keynote address that launched Barack Obama’s national career at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the future president spoke of the ills that stem from dividing the country into partisan groups:

The pundits like to slice and dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.¹⁶

Because this message resonates with so many people, political figures often find it advantageous to downplay political labels. Seeking reelection in 1972, Richard Nixon instructed his staff not to include the word Republican in any of his television advertisements or campaign brochures. Four years later, Gerald R. Ford was bluntly told by his advisors not to campaign for Republican candidates lest his support erode among independents and ticket splitters.¹⁷ Campaigning for the presidency in 2016, Donald Trump mentioned the Republican Party just four times in his acceptance speech: twice to boast about the number of Republican primary votes he received; once to boast of his party’s tax reduction plan; and finally, to scold the party after it applauded his pledge to defend LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) citizens after an Orlando, Florida, massacre.¹⁸ For her part, Hillary Clinton mentioned the Democratic Party just three times: once to say that she will be a president for all people, regardless of party; second to brag that Democrats “are the party of working people,” but then to scold her fellow partisans for not doing “a good enough job showing that we get what you’re going through and that we’re going to do something about it”; and finally to cite Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous 1933 inaugural address warning against the politics of fear.¹⁹ In both instances, the partisan arguments put forth by the major-party candidates were tepid at best.

Students of political parties, however, have a much higher regard for them than do politicians and the public. In his book, Constitutional Government, published in 1908, Woodrow Wilson lauded political parties saying they were “absolutely necessary to hold things thus disconnected and dispersed together and give some coherence to the action of poltical forces.” Without parties, Wilson argued, “i...