Home : For The People : A Constitutional Republic :

Two Party System

Democratic Party

Thomas Jefferson founded the Democratic Party in 1792 as a congressional caucus to fight for the Bill of Rights and against the elitist Federalist Party. In 1798, the "party of the common man" was officially named the Democratic-Republican Party and in 1800 elected Jefferson as the first Democratic President of the United States. Jefferson served two distinguished terms and was followed by James Madison in 1808. Madison strengthened America's armed forces — helping reaffirm American independence by defeating the British in the War of 1812. James Monroe was elected president in 1816 and led the nation through a time commonly known as "The Era of Good Feeling" in which Democratic-Republicans served with little opposition.

The election of John Quincy Adams in 1824 was highly contested and led to a four-way split among Democratic-Republicans. A result of the split was the emergence of Andrew Jackson as a national leader. The war hero, generally considered — along with Jefferson — one of the founding fathers of the Democratic Party, organized his supporters to a degree unprecedented in American history. The Jacksonian Democrats created the national convention process, the party platform, and reunified the Democratic Party with Jackson's victories in 1828 and 1832. The Party held its first National Convention in 1832 and nominated President Jackson for his second term. In 1844, the National Convention simplified the Party's name to the Democratic Party.

Top 10 Books Nancy Pelosi Should Read Posted 05/22/2007 ET Selected by the editors of Human Events 1. Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt An utter lack of understanding of economics pervades Congress. This little book puts the lie to the popular economic fallacies of the left and would be a great primer for the liberal House leadership. 2. The Truth About Syria by Barry Rubin How dangerous is Syria? Not dangerous enough to keep Pelosi away. Rubin reveals Syria to be, in the words of David Pryce-Jones, “the model of Arab tyranny.” 3. Mexifornia: A State of Becoming by Victor Davis Hanson San Fran Nan’s California has seen its welfare state expand as hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants have flooded across the Southern border. What will California and the U.S. become if we don’t get a handle on immigration? 4. The Heritage Guide to the Constitution edited by Edwin Meese, Matthew Spalding and David Forte Few liberals understand the Constitution -- if they’ve even read it -- and the principles of the men who wrote it. If Speaker Pelosi wants to lead correctly, she needs to learn how to govern within the parameters the Framers established. 5. More Guns, Less Crime by John Lott As evidence of their lack of constitutional understanding, the left believes the rubes of America need to be protected from themselves and should be disarmed. Lott explains why gun ownership helps prevent crime. 6. Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women by Christina Hoff Sommers Academic radicals and political zealots have pushed a dangerous agenda, pitting women against men. Sommers exposes the questionable feminist research and funding that undermines true equality. 7. Size Matters: How Big Government Puts the Squeeze on America’s Families, Finances, and Freedom by Joel Miller If Grandma Nancy really cares about the well-being of her family, she’ll cut government’s thousands of pages of regulations, millions of employees and trillions in tax revenue. 8. State of Fear by Michael Crichton Scare-mongers from Hollywood to Washington are using unscrupulous tactics to convince Americans to sacrifice their well-being to fight global warming. Crichton offers a fictional, but very believable, story of how these radicals are manipulating us. 9. Godless by Ann Coulter To protect America, our leaders -- on the left and the right -- need to understand that we face a greater threat from domestic moral terrorists who are intent on destroying our culture than we face from Muslim terrorists. 10. America Alone by Mark Steyn European and Islamic anti-Americanism threatens to leave us globally isolated. When America is forced to confront the enemies of civilization, to whom will Pelosi turn? Syria? We must fight for our culture now, before it’s too late. Politicians: They´re just like us! Dalliances with teens and bimbos, allegations of cruising public restrooms, murder, and horse-humping... Larry Craig We endured a whirlwind New York-to-Seattle-via-Dallas trip over the weekend and found every airport bathroom 100 percent free of nongay senators not propositioning anybody. Not even with coded foot signals under the toilet stalls. Not a one. Take THAT, liberal media. Clarence Thomas In the end, we´ll never really know what happened between him and Anita Hill. She said that the Supreme Court–justice-to-be tossed off lothario lines about pubic hairs in his Coke and Long Dong Silver (the porn star, not the pirate); he said that he didn´t. Tom-AAY-toe, tom-AAH-toe. Suffice it to say that their repartee probably never reached the level of Bogey and Bacall, or even Sean and Madonna. Gary Condit Whether or not he killed his intern/lover Chandra Levy will never be known for sure. But his interview with Connie Chung, in which he answered questions about his involvement with Levy by mumbling and making up words ("notfinitely," "deflirtific," etc.), will go down as the most ineffective mea culpa in the history of mass media. Mark Foley He´s the reason why we now have 18 computer widgets that erase all evidence of every instant message we´ve ever sent. Not that we have anything to hide, except that sexy charity auction incident with the staff of Ladies´ Home Journal. Which never happened. Catherine the Great The tabloids didn´t make a big deal about this one, probably because there weren´t any tabloids back in Six-Eleventeen A.D. One common rumor is that Catherine the Great—"Kitty" to her pals—died when she was crushed beneath a horse that was lowered upon her for, well, you know. Turns out she just had a stroke while on the can. History is boring. Bill Clinton Hundreds of years into the future, historians will eye the Monica Lewinsky–Gennifer Flowers–Paula Jones triptych and attempt to draw conclusions about Papa Bill´s taste in women. After analyzing thousands of documents, they´ll have no more clue than we do now, other than a firm conviction that they shopped at discount stores. We wonder: Will a Hillary victory in ´08 prompt the Secret Service to start worrying about Bill´s "bimbo eruptions" once again? Jim McGreevey He allegedly cruised for male tail in the restrooms of New Jersey highway rest areas, all the while his wife was home, pregnant, and totally unaware of his leanings. Yet, as charming and romantic as the Cheesequake oasis may be, we can´t believe anybody´s gaydar can have malfunctioned so massively. In any event, McGreevey´s "I am a gay American" speech is a lot more fun if you sing it to the tune of Hulk Hogan´s old "I am a real American" ring entrance music. The D.C. Madam We´ll start paying closer attention to MSNBC once she nails one of the preachy Republican hypocrites. You gotta love the fact that Senator David Vitter was so cowed by what might eventually be revealed that he essentially narc´d himself out, uttering some tripe about having "asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling." Ain´t love grand? Gary Hart Were it not for his dalliance on the Monkey Business yacht with unrepentant tart Donna Rice, Hart probably would´ve snared the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination instead of unelectable Massachusetts dwarf Michael Dukakis. On the plus side, one-liners about Hart and his Monkey Business monkey business extended the life of A&E´s heh-heh-hilarious An Evening at the Improv by about six years. Call it a wash. Strom Thurmond All you really need to know about the way Señor Segregation comported himself in his off hours: His nickname on the Hill was "Sperm" Thurmond. That he fathered a half-black illegitimate child at the age of 22, some 20 years before uttering the sweet nothing, "There´s not enough troops in the army to force the southern people to break down segregation and admit the Negro race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches," belongs in the Irony Hall of Fame.

In 1848, the National Convention established the Democratic National Committee, now the longest running political organization in the world. The Convention charged the DNC with the responsibility of promoting "the Democratic cause" between the conventions and preparing for the next convention.

Republican Party

The Republican Party was born in the early 1850's by anti-slavery activists and individuals who believed that government should grant western lands to settlers free of charge. The first informal meeting of the party took place in Ripon, Wisconsin, a small town northwest of Milwaukee. The first official Republican meeting took place on July 6th, 1854 in Jackson, Michigan. The name "Republican" was chosen because it alluded to equality and reminded individuals of Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party. At the Jackson convention, the new party adopted a platform and nominated candidates for office in Michigan.

In 1856, the Republicans became a national party when John C. Fremont was nominated for President under the slogan: "Free soil, free labor, free speech, free men, Fremont." Even though they were considered a "third party" because the Democrats and Whigs represented the two-party system at the time, Fremont received 33% of the vote. Four years later, Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican to win the White House.

The Civil War erupted in 1861 and lasted four grueling years. During the war, against the advice of his cabinet, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves. The Republicans of the day worked to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery, the Fourteenth, which guaranteed equal protection under the laws, and the Fifteenth, which helped secure voting rights for African-Americans.

The Republican Party also played a leading role in securing women the right to vote. In 1896, Republicans were the first major party to favor women's suffrage. When the 19th Amendment finally was added to the Constitution, 26 of 36 state legislatures that had voted to ratify it were under Republican control. The first woman elected to Congress was a Republican, Jeanette Rankin from Montana in 1917.

(Some) Sympathy for the Democrats

Decades of minority-status to come?

Having grown up in an era when Republicans were seemingly condemned to permanent minority status in Congress, I have some sympathy for Democrats, who appear to be in a similar predicament today. There were a number of factors that cemented the Democratic majority from 1932 to 1994 (interrupted only by two Republican congresses from 1946-48 and 1952-54, and Republican control of the Senate from 1980-86).

First was an unholy alliance between conservative southern Democrats and liberal northern Democrats. This alliance was maintained by the seniority system in Congress, which allowed southerners to chair many of the most important committees. Congressional seats in the South tend to be safer than those in the North, thus allowing conservative Democrats to gain seniority and power at the expense of their northern liberal colleagues.

Second was Democratic control of state legislatures, which gerrymandered House seats in order to keep southern seats in Democratic hands long after Republicans had gained substantial strength there. For decades, Republican representation in the House was much less than the percentage of votes cast for Republicans in all House races.

Third was money. Because Democrats controlled Congress, businesses had no choice but to contribute heavily to them even though the party is fundamentally hostile to the business community. Businesses figured that contributions would at least buy them access so that they could minimize the damage of Democratic policies on their industries. Also, many businesses tended to hire Democratic congressional staffers for their Washington offices, who encouraged their bosses to contribute to Democratic campaigns.

Voters instinctively understood that Democrats had rigged the game in Congress, which is why they so frequently elected Republican presidents. However, while Republican presidents could block liberal initiatives, Democrats simply waited them out. Eventually, a Nixon would come along who was so desperate for re-election that he would sign almost any bill sent to him. Or they would wait for the occasional Democratic president, like Lyndon Johnson, to ram through massive new entitlement programs that were impossible to cut once in place.

The first break in this seemingly endless trend toward government expansion came in 1964, when Republican Barry Goldwater carried most of the South even as he lost in a landslide. Southerners were becoming fed up with federal intrusion in their affairs and wanted to send the national Democratic party a message. Fortunately for Republicans, that message was ignored.

In the 1970s, inflation and the rising taxes that went with it began to make voters more receptive to the Republican message of tax cuts and smaller government. Democrats could not respond without alienating their core constituency of those who benefit from government programs.

At the same time, the liberal wing of the party, flush from a big victory in the 1974 elections, destroyed the seniority system in Congress, pushing many conservative southerners out of key chairmanships. This broke the deal that had kept southern conservatives in the Democratic Party even as the party moved left. Without the benefits of seniority, there was no good reason for southern conservatives to stay in the Democratic party, opening the door to Republicans at the congressional level in the South.

Republicans were finally able to break the gerrymandering of congressional districts by forcing legislatures to create minority districts. This tended to create safe Democratic seats in the cities, surrounded by Republican seats in the suburbs. Of course, it was Democrats who had pushed through the Voting Rights Act that forced the creation of minority districts.

National Review

Concurrently, Republicans benefited from a decades-long effort to elect Republicans in state legislatures. After each decennial census, Democratic gerrymandering eroded, giving Republicans a fair shot. The final piece of the Republican renaissance came when Republicans stopped giving a pass to conservative Democrats. Instead of allowing them to run unopposed, the party started to put up strong, well-financed candidates against them. This, plus abuse from the liberals who controlled the Democratic party, led almost all conservative Democrats either to retire or become Republicans.

By 1994, the pieces all came together and Republicans took control of Congress. Now they benefit from safe southern seats, get 60 percent of business campaign contributions, and gain as well from the recently passed campaign finance legislation. It raised limits on individual contributors, which Republicans have more of, while restricting soft dollars, which Democrats had depended upon.

Thus we see that Republican control of Congress was the result of 30 years of effort to break down the Democratic advantage. But without Democratic missteps, it would not have worked. Similarly, it will take Republican missteps to give Democrats an opening to recover. The latter may elect a president from time to time, but they will likely remain in the minority in Congress for decades to come.

Bruce Bartlett. (Some) Sympathy for the Democrats. National Review. June 18, 2003.

Jump to page:  [ 1 ]  [ 2 ]  [ 3 ]

top of page

back a page