Transcript Ch. 5-3 THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM IN AMERICAN HISTORY

AMERICAN GOVERNMENT
 Beginnings
traced back to the ratification
of the Constitution
 The Federalist Party was the first to
appear
 Led by Alexander Hamilton
 Viewed as the party of “the rich and wellborn”
 Most supported the Constitution
 Federalists worked to create a stronger
national government
 The
opposition was led by Thomas
Jefferson
 More sympathetic to the common man
 Favored a very limited role for
government
 Congress should dominate
 Its policies should help the nation’s small
shopkeepers, laborers, farmers, and
planters
 Jefferson
resigned from Washington’s
cabinet in 1793 to concentrate organizing
his party
 Name: Anti-Federalists  Jeffersonian
Republicans  Democratic Republicans 
(1828) Democratic Party
 The Federalists and the Jeffersonian
Republicans clashed in the Election of 1796
 John Adams (Fed) defeated Thomas
Jefferson (J-R) by just 3 votes
 John
Adams became President and Thomas
Jefferson became Vice President
 Over the next 4 years Jefferson and Madison
worked tirelessly to build their party.
 Election of 1800—Jefferson defeats
INCUMBENT (current officeholder) Adams.
 Jeffersonian Republicans also gain control of
Congress
 Federalists never return to power
 History
of the American Party System can
be divided into 4 major eras
 I) THE
ERA OF THE DEMOCRATS 1800-
1860
 “Era of Good Feeling”
 Democratic-Republicans were
unopposed in national politics
 By mid-1820s they had split into
FACTIONS (conflicting groups)
 By
the time of Andrew Jackson’s
administration (1829-1837) a potent new
party had risen to challenge the Democrats
 National Republican (Whig) Party
 Major issues—the Second National Bank of
the USA, conflicts over public lands, high
tariffs, and slavery
 Democrats (Jackson) were a coalition of
small farmers, debtors, frontier pioneers,
slaveholders
 Jacksonian
Democracy produced 3
fundamental changes in the political
landscape:
 1) voting rights for all white males
 2) a huge increase in the number of
elected offices around the country
 3) the spread of the spoils system—the
awarding of public offices, contracts, etc.
to those who supported the party in
power
 Whig
Party led by Henry Clay and Daniel
Webster
 Party consisted of a loose coalition of
eastern bankers, merchants, and
industrialists, plantation owners
 Whigs a major party 1830s-1850s (along
with the Democrats)
 They elected only 2 presidents (both war
heros) – William Henry Harrison (1840) &
Zachary Taylor (1848)
 Slavery
split both major parties
 Deaths of Clay and Webster caused the
Whigs to fall apart
 The new Republican Party (1854) drew
many Whigs and antislavery Democrats
 The Republicans nominated their first
presidential candidate, John C. Fremont,
in 1856
 They elected their first President,
Abraham Lincoln in 1860
 The
Republican Party became the only
party in history to make the jump from
minor party to major party
 II) THE
ERA OF THE REPUBLICANS 1860-
1932
 Civil War Signaled the beginning of the
Republican Era
 Support from business, financial interests,
farmers, laborers, and newly freed African
Americans
 Democrats crippled by the war
 Survived because of their hold on
the “solid
south”
 Only 1 Democratic President—Grover
Cleveland in 1884 & 1892
 The Election of 1896 promoted the 2-party
system
 William McKinley(R) vs. William Jennings
Bryan (D)
 McKinley supported the gold standard
while Bryan supported free silver
 McKinley
wins the election
 Republicans draw support from wide
portion of the ELECTORATE (people
eligible to vote).
 Republicans remain dominant for another
3 decades.
 William Jennings Bryan campaigned for
the “little man”
 He pushed party politics back toward
economics and away from sectionalism
 Worst
Republican setback of the era—
1912
 President William Howard Taft (R) vs.
Woodrow Wilson (D) vs. Former President
Theodore Roosevelt (R-Bull Moose
Progressive)
 Republican vote split between Taft &
Roosevelt
 Wilson wins the election and ends up
serving 2 terms
 Wilson’s
win was lucky
 Republicans would win in 1920(Harding),
1924(Coolidge), 1928(Hoover)
 III) THE
RETURN OF THE DEMOCRATS
1932-1968
 The Great Depression (1929) had a
massive impact on all aspects of
American Life
 Franklin
D. Roosevelt (D)elected
President in 1932
 Election marked a basis shift in the
public’s attitude toward government
 Roosevelt won with a new electoral base
 Southerners, small farmers, organized
labor, big-city political organizations
 Revolutionary economic and social
welfare programs – New Deal (1930s)
 Support
also came from AfricanAmericans and other minorities
 FDR won re-election in 1936, 1940, 1944 –
each time by heavy majorities
 Vice President Harry S. Truman became
President in 1945 upon FDR’s death
 Truman won his own term in 1948
 Republicans won in 1952 & 1956 under
WWII hero Dwight D. Eisenhower
 John
F. Kennedy regained the White
House for the Democrats in 1960 with a
thin victory over Republican Richard M.
Nixon
 Lyndon B. Johnson became President
when JFK was assassinated in 1963
 LBJ won his own term in 1964.
 IV) THE
START OF A NEW ERA
 Richard Nixon(R) became President in
1968
 The Vietnam war split the Democratic
Party.
 Nixon faced strong opposition from
Hubert Humphrey (D) and Governor
George Wallace (AL-American Ind.)
 Nixon won by a small plurality
 Nixon re-elected in 1972
 Nixon’s role in the Watergate
Scandal forced
him to resign in 1974
 Vice President Ford finished Nixon’s term
until 1976
 Ford pardoned Nixon
 1976-Ford ran against GA Governor Jimmy
Carter(D). Carter won.
 Carter couldn’t get the economy moving
and there was fallout from the Iranian
Hostage Crisis in 1979-1980
 Republicans
scored impressive victories
in1980 (over Carter) & 1984 (over VP
Mondale) with former CA Governor and
actor Ronald Reagan
 1988—Former VP George H.W. Bush (R)
keeps the Republicans in power
 1992—AR Governor Bill Clinton (D) wins
the first of two terms by defeating Bush
and Independent Ross Perot
 The
Election of 2000—George Bush(R) vs.
Al Gore (D)
 Bush did not win the popular vote but he
did have more electoral votes
 2004—Bush defeats John Kerry (D)
 2008—Barak Obama (D) defeats John
McCain (R)
 Coattails—candidates with same party as
the president also tend to win
 The end