How Did We Get Here?
The History of the U.S. Two-Party System
For almost its entire history, the United States government has been dominated by two parties. Today, those two parties are the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, but this was not always the case. Even since these two parties have been dominant, both have changed radically since their inception in the 19th century. But how did this happen? How did the Democratic Party transform from the agrarian populist party of Andrew Jackson to today’s party of American liberalism? How did the Republican party go from the anti-slavery party of Abraham Lincoln to the conservatism of today? What happened to the political parties that dominated U.S. politics before the rise of the two we know today?
The First Party System (1792–1824): How it All Began
The first two-party system in American politics began to emerge during the presidency of George Washington but was truly solidified by 1800. The main divide in this era of politics was between the Federalist Party, led by Alexander Hamilton, and the Democratic-Republican Party (officially called the Republican Party at the time but referred to today as the Democratic-Republican Party to differentiate it from the unrelated Republican Party of today), led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The Federalists sought to create a powerful central government with their main support base in New England. In contrast, the Democratic-Republicans were in favor of a more decentralized system that emphasized the States and saw America as a rural nation. In the norms of the time, the Democratic-Republicans can be best described as left-wing while the Federalists can be seen as right-wing (for more information on this, check out my article on political terminology).
While Washington himself was officially an independent, he tended to align more with the policies of Hamilton’s Federalists. Regardless, following the end of Washington’s second term and the one-term presidency of the first (and only) official Federalist President, John Adams, the party slowly began to fade into irrelevancy, mostly winning votes as the party of New England mercantile interests. After the election of 1800, the Democratic-Republicans dominated American politics for over 20 years as the Federalist Party slowly broke apart and was in large part absorbed into the Democratic-Republican Party. However, the contentious 1824 election flipped the Democratic-Republican-dominated political order on its head, leading to the first realignment of U.S. political parties.
The Second Party System (1824–1856): The Rise of the Democratic Party
The election of 1824 was one of the most unique in American history. Four candidates ran, all under different factions within the Democratic-Republican Party. While Andrew Jackson won the most electoral votes and the popular vote, none of the four candidates, (John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William Crawford, and Henry Clay) managed to win the necessary electoral college votes to be declared the winner. As a result, the House of Representatives, of which Henry Clay was the Speaker, supported John Quincy Adams, placing his conservative-leaning faction of the party in the Presidency. Furious, Jackson declared the election a “Corrupt Bargain.” By the 1828 election, Jackson and Martin van Buren had created the Democratic Party, from the more radical, populist faction of the Democratic-Republicans. Jackson went on to win this election, solidifying the new Democratic Party as an influential player in American politics.
Jackson’s Democrats were in favor of increased voting rights (for white men, but this was still a major improvement over the previous very limited voting rights for elites), agrarianism, and westward expansion. The conservative-leaning remnants of the Democratic-Republicans coalesced into the National Republican Party (AKA the Anti-Jacksonian Party) under John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay. However, the National Republicans were quickly displaced by Henry Clay’s new party, the Whig Party. The Whig Party can trace its roots back to the Federalists in that they were formed from the right-leaning faction of the Democratic-Republicans, which themselves had their roots in Federalist, Hamiltonian thought. This new party system pitted the populist, agrarian Democrats of Jackson against the more conservative, anti-expansionist Whigs.
It also bears mentioning that neither party initially took a firm stance on slavery. However, some third parties appeared briefly in this period, such as the anti-slavery Liberty Party (1840–1860) and Free Soil Party (1848–1854), as well as the nativist (anti-immigrant) American Party (better known as the “Know Nothing Party”). The Whigs were also generally anti-immigrant, which drove many European immigrants in the North to vote Democrat, particularly Irish Catholics. Both the Whigs and Democrats had support in both the North and the South with Southern Democrats generally being pro-slavery while Northern Democrats were either ambivalent on the issue or were against the expansion of slavery. While many Northern Whigs were against slavery, the party never managed to establish a solid stance. In contrast, the Democrats became broadly pro-slavery by the mid-1850s. This failure to embrace a stance on the now predominant and extremely divisive issue of slavery led to the collapse of the Whigs by 1854, the rise of the Republican Party, and a second political realignment.
The Third Party System (1856–1896): The Civil War and the Gilded Age
While the second-party system firmly entrenched the two-party system, the third-party system is when the major political parties become a bit more recognizable to us today. The remnants of the Northern Whigs, minor anti-slavery Free Soil and Liberty parties, as well as some anti-slavery Northern Democrats, came together to form the Republican Party in 1854. This new party quickly came to dominate the North, winning several states in the region in the 1856 presidential election soon after its founding. Although the Democrat James Buchanan won this election, it signaled the end of the Whig Party and the beginning of a new party system as former Whig President Millard Fillmore, running on the ticket of the American (Know Nothing) Party, came in a distant third behind Republican nominee John C. Frémont. However, by the 1860 election, the Know Nothings had mostly merged with the Republicans or the short-lived Constitutional Union Party, which was essentially a party for displaced Southern Whigs.
The 1860 presidential election was fascinating as it was essentially two separate elections, one for the North and one for the South. While the South was split between Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge and Constitutional Unionist John Bell, the election in the North was between Northern Democrat Stephen A. Douglas and Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln. In the end, Lincoln emerged as the victor, a fact that sparked the secession of several Southern states and lead to the American Civil War.
In the wake of the Civil War and with slavery abolished, the Democrats retook political control of the South by the late 1870s, the end of Reconstruction. Both parties grew their political machines in the following decades, leading to growing corruption and corporate involvement in politics. Both the Democrats and Republicans became dominated by “party bosses,” political leaders with significant connections to powerful businesses, government organizations, and religious institutions to maintain their grip on power. This period is often referred to as “the Gilded Age” due to the massive economic growth, rapid urban expansion, and dominance of big businesses and party machines on the political system. In response, the People’s Party (better known as the Populist Party) became a major third-party contender.
The Populists took up a rural agrarian stance not too dissimilar to that of the early Jacksonian Democrats, although the Populists placed more emphasis on the corrupting influence of big business on the two major parties and the economy as a whole, as well as supporting urban workers. However, the Democrats soon absorbed much of the Populist’s rhetoric, running charismatic populist William Jennings Bryan as their candidate in the 1896 presidential election. While Bryan lost this election to the Republican William McKinley, it signaled another realignment in American politics as both parties were forced to adopt populist and progressive rhetoric into their platforms.
By the end of the third party system, the Democrats were dominant in the agrarian South, the Republicans controlled the more urbanized and industrial North, while the Western states became battlegrounds. This realignment forced both parties to address the issues of corruption and economic dominance by corporations that had grown in the country under their watch in previous decades. By the next party system, the Republicans were split between pro-business conservatives and reformist progressives while the Democrats were split between progressive liberals and conservative Southern Democrats.
“The great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country….You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”
William Jennings Bryan, 1896
The Fourth Party System (1896–1932): The Progressive Era and Great Depression
The period of the fourth party system, often called the Progressive Era, was characterized by the growth of the Progressive movement which advocated for significant reforms to the government and economy. The election of William McKinley ushered in this new political era with a Republican victory over the populist Democrat William Jennings Bryan. In this period both parties included a conservative wing, generally pro-business conservatives in the case of the Republican Party, and Southern Democrats in the case of the Democratic Party, as well as a progressive or liberal wing.
A series of progressive presidents, starting with Theodore Roosevelt (who ascended to the presidency from Vice President after the 1901 assassination of McKinley), and ending with Democrat Woodrow Wilson. This era brought about many reforms including trust-busting (when the government intervened to break up powerful monopolies and trusts), increased labor rights, women’s suffrage, and environmental conservation efforts. The 1912 election even featured the brief emergence of a significant third party, Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party which split off from the Republicans. However the Progressives failed to win the presidency in this election and the party slowly faded until being officially dissolved, and mostly reabsorbed by the Republican Party, in 1920.
In the wake of the Democratic victory in the 1912 election, the conservative, pro-business wing of the Republican Party remained dominant while the progressive wing of the Democrats continued to be the more influential faction of their party. After Wilson’s presidency, the Republicans won the next few presidential elections and remained largely dominant until the Great Depression. With the failure of pro-business conservative Republican Herbert Hoover to effectively address the Great Depression, a distant relative of Theodore Roosevelt and progressive/liberal Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, won the presidency in 1932, beginning a new era in American politics.
The Fifth Party System (1932–1976): The New Deal
Franklin D. Roosevelt, better known as FDR, began to build a powerful political coalition, known as the New Deal Coalition after his New Deal domestic programs. FDR unified liberal Democrats, populist Southern Democrats, progressive Republicans, and more radical minor parties across the country into a political force that would dominate U.S. politics for decades. In opposition, conservative Republicans and Southern Democrats came together as the conservative coalition, another powerful voting bloc that often controlled Congress in this period, but failed to win the presidency. The New Deal Coalition advocated for more government intervention in the economy, known as social liberalism or modern liberalism, while the conservative coalition adhered to traditional American liberalism, which is a laissez-faire approach to economics.
While the New Deal Coalition remained fairly dominant for much of this period, a number of issues including the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War began to crack the coalition. In the 1960s, Republican Richard Nixon began a strategy of appealing to conservative Southern voters, who had traditionally been loyal to the Democratic Party but were disillusioned with the Democrat’s support for civil rights in recent years. While the specifics of this “Southern Strategy,” remains a debated topic, what is clear is that the South was slowly becoming dominated by the Republican Party rather than the Democrats. By 1980, this trend was solidified with the election of Ronald Reagan.
The Sixth Party System: (1980–???): The Parties of Today
While there is some debate as to when the realignment between the fifth and sixth party systems was exactly, the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 was certainly the point at which it was solidified. Reagan’s brand of small-government conservatism has since become the norm in the Republican Party while the Democratic Party has leaned more toward modern liberalism. However, it’s important to remember that both parties are still broad coalitions of several factions with different viewpoints. But what are these factions within the Democratic and Republican parties of today? I will explore this question in my next article on the sixth-party system and the possibility of the beginning of the seventh.
Sources
LeMay, Michael C. 2017. The American Political Party System: A Reference Handbook. ABC-CLIO.
Maisel, L. Sandy. 2022. American Political Parties and Elections: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
