Political eras of the United States

Popular votes to political parties during presidential elections

Political eras of the United States refer to a model of American politics used in history and political science to periodize the political party system existing in the United States.

The United States Constitution is silent on the subject of political parties. The Founding Fathers did not originally intend for American politics to be partisan. In Federalist Papers No. 9 and No. 10, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, respectively, wrote specifically about the dangers of domestic political factions. In addition, the first President of the United States, George Washington, was not a member of any political party at the time of his election or throughout his tenure as president.^[1] Furthermore, he hoped that political parties would not be formed, fearing conflict and stagnation, as outlined in his Farewell Address.^[2]

Generally, the political history of America can be divided into five hegemonic eras, which can be further divided into seven party systems which each follow a realignment. The political hegemonic eras are:

1789-1801: Federalist Era, dominated by the liberal-leaning Pro-Administration Faction & their successors the Federalists in the North.
1801-1861: Democratic Era, dominated by conservative-leaning Democratic-Republicans & their successors the Democrats in the South.
1861-1933: Republican Era, dominated by socially liberal, economically conservative Republicans in the North (and later West).
1933-1969: New Deal Democratic Era, dominated by a coalition of socially conservative Dems in the South and economically progressive Dems in the West and in the North (though the Northern faction in Congress would not solidify until 1958 in the House and 1986 in the Senate).
1969-Present: Divided Government Era, where the Federal Government is commonly divided (between Presidency & Congress) between liberal Democrats in the North and West Coast & conservative Republicans in the Midwest and South (though the Southern faction in Congress would not solidify in the GOP until 1994).

The seven party systems and the realignments which take place within these hegemonic eras are described in detail below:

First Party System: Federalist & Democrat Hegemony

The "First Party System" began in the 1790s with the 1792 re-election of George Washington and the 1796 election of John Adams, and ended in the 1820s with the presidential elections of 1824 and of 1828, resulting in Andrew Jackson's presidency.

George Washington's cabinet

The beginnings of the American two-party system emerged from George Washington's immediate circle of advisers, which split into two camps:

Federalists — John Adams and Alexander Hamilton emerged as leaders of this camp.
Democratic-Republicans — Thomas Jefferson and James Madison emerged as leaders of this camp.

Ironically, Hamilton and Madison wrote the Federalist Papers against political factions, but ended up being the core leaders in this emerging party system. Though distasteful to the participants, by the time John Adams and Thomas Jefferson ran for president in 1796, partisanship in the United States came to being.^[3]^[4]

Era of Good Feelings

The disastrous Panic of 1819 and the Supreme Court's McCulloch v. Maryland reanimated the disputes over the supremacy of state sovereignty and federal power, between strict construction of the US Constitution and loose construction.^[5] The Missouri Crisis in 1820 made the explosive political conflict between slave and free soil open and explicit.^[6] Only through the adroit handling of the legislation by Speaker of the House Henry Clay was a settlement reached and disunion avoided. ^[7]^[8]^[9]

Jacksonian democracy

"Jacksonian democracy" is a term to describe the 19th-century political philosophy that originated with the seventh U.S. president, The United States presidential election of 1824 brought partisan politics to a fever pitch, with General Andrew Jackson 's popular vote victory (and his plurality in the United States Electoral College being overturned in the United States House of Representatives).^{[citation needed]}

With the decline in political consensus, it became imperative to revive Jeffersonian principles on the basis of Southern exceptionalism.^[10]^[11] The agrarian alliance, North and South, would be revived to form Jacksonian Nationalism and the rise of the Democratic-Republican Party.^[12]^[13] As a result, the Democratic-Republican Party split into the Jacksonian faction, which became the modern Democratic Party in the 1830s, and the Henry Clay faction, which was absorbed by Clay's Whig Party.^{[citation needed]} The term "Jacksonian democracy" was in active use by the 1830s.^[14]

Second Party System: Democrat Hegemony

Many historians and political scientists use "Second Party System" to describe American politics between the mid-1820s until the mid-1850s. The system was demonstrated by rapidly rising levels of voter interest (with high election day turnouts), rallies, partisan newspapers, and high degrees of personal loyalty to parties.^[15]^[16] It was in full swing with the 1828 United States presidential election, since the Federalists shrank to a few isolated strongholds and the Democratic-Republicans lost unity during the buildup to the American Civil War. describe the operating in the United States.^[17]

This party system marked the first in a series of political realignments, a process in which a prominent third party coalition, often one that wins >10% of the popular vote in multiple states in a presidential election, realigns into one of the major parties, allowing that major party to dominate the federal government and/or presidency for the following decades. The Second Party System realignment was a realignment of the differing Democratic-Republican factions in the South, particularly those that voted for Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay and William H. Crawford, into the new Jacksonian/Democratic Party.

The political party system of the United states was dominated by two major parties:

The Jacksonian Democrats led by Andrew Jackson. The Jacksonian Democrats stood for the "sovereignty of the people" as expressed in popular demonstrations, constitutional conventions, and majority rule as a general principle of governing,
The Whig Party, assembled by Henry Clay from the National Republicans and from other opponents of Jackson. Whigs advocated the rule of law, written and unchanging constitutions, and protections for minority interests against majority tyranny.^[18]

After taking office in 1829, President Andrew Jackson restructured a number of federal institutions. Jackson's professed philosophy became the nation's dominant political worldview for the remainder of the 1830s, helping his vice president (Martin Van Buren) secure election in the presidential election of 1836. In the presidential election of 1840, the "Whig Party" had its first national victory with the election of General William Henry Harrison, but he died shortly after assuming office in 1841. John Tyler (a self-proclaimed "Democrat") succeeded Harrison, as the first Vice President of the United States to ascend to the presidency via death of the incumbent.

Minor parties of the era included:

the Anti-Masonic Party, an important innovator from 1827 to 1834
the abolitionist Liberty Party in 1840
the anti-slavery expansion Free Soil Party in 1848 and 1852.

Third Party System: Republican Hegemony

The "Third Party System" refers to the period which came into focus in the 1850s (during the leadup to the American Civil War) and ended in the 1890s. The issues of focus during this time: Slavery, the civil war, Reconstruction, race, and monetary issues.

The Third Party System was marked by a realignment of the Free Soil Party movement of the North into the Republican Party after the 1856 election, and a realignment of the Constitutional Union effort and the Know Nothings of the border Southern states into the GOP after the 1864 election.

It was dominated by the new Republican Party, which claimed success in saving the Union, abolishing slavery and enfranchising the freedmen, while adopting many Whig-style modernization programs such as national banks, railroads, high tariffs, homesteads, social spending (such as on greater Civil War veteran pension funding), and aid to land grant colleges. While most elections from 1876 through 1892 were extremely close, the opposition Democrats won only the 1884 and 1892 presidential elections (the Democrats also won the popular vote in the 1876 and 1888 presidential elections, but lost the electoral college vote), though from 1875 to 1895 the party usually controlled the United States House of Representatives and controlled the United States Senate from 1879-1881 and 1893-1895. Indeed, some scholars emphasize that the 1876 election saw a realignment and the collapse of support for Reconstruction.^[19] The northern and western states were largely Republican, except for the closely balanced New York, Indiana, New Jersey, and Connecticut. After 1876, the Democrats took control of the "Solid South".^[20]

Historians and political scientists generally believe that the Third Party System ended in the mid-1890s, which featured profound developments in issues of American nationalism, modernization, and race. This period, the later part of which is often termed the Gilded Age, is defined by its contrast with the preceding and following eras.

Fourth Party System: Republican Hegemony

The "Fourth Party System" is the term used in political science and history for the period in American political history from the mid-1890s to the early 1930s, It was dominated by the Republican Party, excepting when 1912 split in which Democrats (led by President Woodrow Wilson) held the White House for eight years. American history texts usually call the period the Progressive Era. The concept was introduced under the name "System of 1896" by E. E. Schattschneider in 1960, and the numbering scheme was added by political scientists in the mid-1960s.^[21]

The realignment that marked the beginning of the Fourth Party System was that of the Greenback Party and their ideological successor the Populist Party, which dominated the Midwest, into the Republican Party after the 1896 election.

The era began in the severe depression of 1893 and the extraordinarily intense election of 1896. It included the Progressive Era, World War I, and the start of the Great Depression. The Great Depression caused a realignment that produced the Fifth Party System, dominated by the Democratic New Deal Coalition until the 1970s.

The central domestic issues concerned government regulation of railroads and large corporations ("trusts"), the money issue (gold versus silver), the protective tariff, the role of labor unions, child labor, the need for a new banking system, corruption in party politics, primary elections, the introduction of the federal income tax, direct election of senators, racial segregation, efficiency in government, women's suffrage, and control of immigration. Foreign policy centered on the 1898 Spanish–American War, Imperialism, the Mexican Revolution, World War I, and the creation of the League of Nations. Dominant personalities included presidents William McKinley (R), Theodore Roosevelt (R), and Woodrow Wilson (D), three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan (D), and Wisconsin's progressive Republican Robert M. La Follette, Sr.

The Fourth Party System ended with the Great Depression, a worldwide economic depression that started in 1929. A few years after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Herbert Hoover lost the 1932 United States presidential election to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Fifth Party System: New Deal Democrat Hegemony

The Fifth Party System (1932–1976) describes a period in American history in which progressives in the North and conservative Democrats in the South joined a broad coalition called the "New Deal Coalition" in order to share control of government over the more business-aligned Republican Party, particularly as a result of the Republican Party's failure to contain the Great Depression while in power in the early 1930s.

The Fifth Party System began as a result of a realignment of the Progressive Party of the Rust Belt and Western Coast, and a realignment of the Socialist Party of the Sun Belt and Western Coast, into the otherwise conservative Democratic Party.

Key figures of the Fifth Party System include Franklin D. Roosevelt, the key founder of the New Deal coalition and president during most of the Great Depression and most of World War II; Harry S. Truman, successor to Franklin Roosevelt; John F. Kennedy; and civil rights champion Lyndon B. Johnson.

Because there has been no significant change of hands in Congress since the beginning of the Fifth Party System, historians have trouble placing dates and specifications for the modern party systems that succeed this one.

Later systems: Divided Government Era

The later party systems (with periods indicated in parentheses) include:

Sixth Party System (1968 or 1980–2008 or 2020), known for the period in which Republicans utilized the "Southern strategy" to realign Dixiecrats from the South into the party, which allowed the party to gain dominant control of the Presidency after 1968 or 1980, and dominant control of Congress after the 1994 Republican Revolution. This party system is heavily dominated by ticket-splitting.
Seventh Party System (2008 or 2020-present), a party system in which Independent voters from the North and West who supported John B. Anderson and Ross Perot realigned into the Democratic Party, allowing the Democrats to gain dominant control of the Presidency. This party system is heavily dominated by polarization.

References

^ Chambers, William Nisbet (1963). Political Parties in a New Nation.
^ Washington's Farewell Address
^ Richard Hofstadter, The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780–1840 (1970)
^ Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (Oxford History of the United States)
^ Dangerfield 1965, p. 97–98
^ Wilentz 2006, p. 217,219
^ Wilentz 2006, p. 42
^ Brown 1970, p. 25
^ Wilentz 2006, p. 240
^ Brown 1970, p. 23,24
^ Varon, Elizabeth R. (2008). Disunion!: The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789-1859. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. p. 39,40.
^ Brown 1970, p. 22
^ Dangerfield 1965, p. 3
^ The Providence (Rhode Island) Patriot 25 Aug 1839 stated: "The state of things in Kentucky..is quite as favorable to the cause of Jacksonian democracy." cited in "Jacksonian democracy", Oxford English Dictionary (2019)
^ Brown 1999.
^ Wilentz 2006.
^ William G. Shade, "The Second Party System" in Paul Kleppner, et al. Evolution of American Electoral Systems (1983) pp 77-112.
^ Frank Towers, "Mobtown's Impact on the Study of Urban Politics in the Early Republic.". Maryland Historical Magazine 107 (Winter 2012) pp: 469-75, p 472, citing Robert E, Shalhope, The Baltimore Bank Riot: Political Upheaval in Antebellum Maryland (2009) p. 147
^ James E. Campbell, "Party Systems and Realignments in the United States, 1868–2004," Social Science History Fall 2006, Vol. 30, Iss. 3, pp. 359–86
^ Foner 1988.
^ To cite a standard political science college textbook: "Scholars generally agree that realignment theory identifies five distinct party systems with the following approximate dates and major parties: 1. 1796–1816, First Party System: Jeffersonian Republicans and Federalists; 2. 1840–1856, Second Party System: Democrats and Whigs; 3. 1860–1896, Third Party System: Republicans and Democrats; 4. 1896–1932, Fourth Party System: Republicans and Democrats; 5. 1932–, Fifth Party System: Democrats and Republicans." Robert C. Benedict, Matthew J. Burbank and Ronald J. Hrebenar, Political Parties, Interest Groups and Political Campaigns. Westview Press. 1999. Page 11.