Political Party Analysis

After the American states drafted the Constitution, there were conflicting ideas concerning how the states should be governed. Some believed that a strong federal government should wield most of the governing powers, but there was another group that opposed a strong federal government. This group, known as the Republicans, believed that the majority of governing powers should reside in state legislatures. Republicans felt that the powers of the federal government should be limited, and the Republicans believed that the Constitution supported this idea.

As the young colonies of America broke away from their mother country and began to grow and develop into an effective democratic nation, many changes occurred. As the democracy began to grow, two main political parties developed, the Jeffersonian Republicans and the Federalists.      Each party had different views on how the government should be run. The Jeffersonian Republicans believed in strong state governments, a weak central government, and a strict construction of the Constitution. The Federalists opted for a powerful central government with weaker state governments, and a loose interpretation of the Constitution. Throughout the years, the political parties have grown, developed, and even dispersed into

Despite the fact the founding fathers advised contrary to the establishment of political factions as the Constitution withstood the ratification process, a rift amongst men in President George Washington’s cabinet instituted the move toward the conception of political party. During the time period between 1791 and 1833, a two-party system had begun that demonstrated the philosophy of the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. Although these two political groups were unyielding in their original ideas and beliefs, both had to change a few of their initial standpoints on numerous topics as they dealt with the truth of the government.

The role of decision making process plays in the activities of a political party by seeking the influence of the public and getting their candidate elected for office. When the time comes to make certain decisions, a political party has key tasks that they performsuch as: Interacting and educating the public about political values, transforming the publics opinions and turn theminto viable policy options, andmost of all choosing and training the candidates they want for the public office.

The United States began as a weak, newborn nation that grew into a large, self-supporting country with a governing body unique to this time period. As the government grew and the nation prospered, the rise of leaders and political figures came about and with this, conflicting principles and ideology spawned, thus creating the first of the political parties; the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans. Although the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans ideology and stances on the power of the federal government, domestic economic policies and the group of constituents they represented differed vastly, members of both parties often compromised their own beliefs for the nation’s best interest as a whole.

George Washington and other leading political figures believed that emergence of many political parties would polarize the people and paralyze the little government in the new country. However, they divided into two separate groups in 1793. Jefferson’s group represented the Democratic-Republicans while The Hamilton’s faction represented the Federalists (Hamilton, 2007).

Third parties fail to achieve electoral victories and representation in modern American politics have been because of the structure of the types of the elections, the ballot rules, and the debate rules. Even if the third parties have equal standards, views, resources, etc., lacking in popularity and significance within the government may increase the chance of not being able to represent in politics. “In order to appreciate the reasons for the Electoral College, it is essential to understand its historical context and the problem that the Founding Fathers were trying to solve.” (Kimberling) In the nation, the political parties brought up concerns and questioning of how electing a president with no such political parties would be possible

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government,” Thomas Jefferson. This quote explains one of the many reasons Jefferson created the Democratic-Republic party. The Democratic-Republicans resisted the idea of a new federal constitution, they stood for states rights in opposition to a central Govt, and strict interpretation of the constitution. If we could, the people of 2016 America would vote for the Democratic-Republic party because of their stance on immigration, funding the national debt, and the Jay Treaty. The main idea of the Democratic-Republican party was, to represent the interest of the common free man.

Despite the fact that President Washington warned against the nation falling into political factions, the different views of the Constitution held by Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists and Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans set the path for the two-party system that the U.S. has today.

Political parties developed in the United States because all Americans wanted the United States to succeed and to grow to be a strong, prosperous nation. While this was happening there were disagreements about the best way to make this happen. I’ve gathered information from 8 documents to tell you about these disagreements. In document 1, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson were going through many disagreements because Hamilton wanted to develop good relations with Britain and Jefferson supported strong ties with France.

Each viewpoint needed the other to create a government that would be strong enough to protect itself and it’s people from internal and external strife, but not so strong that it would infringe on the rights of the people as enumerated in the Bill of Rights and in the Revolutionary spirit. These issues, of course, weren’t resolved or ceased to be relevant after Hamilton and Jefferson left the scene. These are still very much the issues we deal with even now, over 200 years later. As much as we might dislike, or even hate, the position of the “other” party, without some balance both sides would undoubtedly abuse their power…more than they already do.

The Constitution may also be argued to be a contributing factor in the development of political parties as some argue that Federalists ‘loosely’ followed the Constitution, whereas Jeffersonians ‘strictly’ followed it. The historian John H. Aldrich argues that “Ratification of the Constitution launched America’s “great experiment,” testing the viability of democracy. This experiment began before national political parties were invented”[8] and therefore the constitution forced Americans into a democratic society in which made it somewhat compulsory to form an opinion, which was expressed through support of political parties. However, historian Peter W. Schramm argues, “The American Founders believed that parties were antithetical to republican government.”[9] This to some extent could be due to an American desire to not have political parties, and therefore be able to express personal opinions through a democracy rather than two distinctly polarized opinions. Nevertheless, it would be almost impossible to argue that the

In the United States, voters have the choice between Republican and Democrats for elected officials. While there are people on tickets for other parties, historically their chance of getting elected is slim. This is a reality that Americans have lived with, and its roots can be traced back to the beginning of the republic. Post-Revolution America brought about much debate over how the government should be ran, how big it should be, and how officials would be elected. Through this political turmoil, many agree that two men had strong voices in how the government should be shaped, Founding Fathers Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, and they, combined with the overall eventual setup of the government, are what led to the formation and

parties in our Constitution the “rights activist’’ and federalist party is able to give us a

After taking the, Political Party Quiz, I checked the results and found out I stand very far to the right on the political spectrum. This surprised me mostly because the majority of my family falls further on the left side. Researching the issues on the quiz soon after I realized that I have been exposed to many of these prior to the quiz. While on some of the issues I had a sure answer, there were quite a few that I hadn’t really ever heard of.