Three Is Definitely a Crowd: Part I. The System Evolves
The recent power shift in the US Senate brings a very old question again into political discourse: Does the US need a third major political party? Gauging by all previous examples, the answer is an affirmative negative.
If there is one line political activists tire of hearing, it undoubtedly is the statement: It does not matter which party is in power because nothing ever changes, and there is not a bit of difference between them". If that is true, why have so many efforts in the US to create viable third parties failed so miserably?
Frequently the dialogues of political monologues stray far from the topics due for debate, but the history of the US political system is much more complicated than its current phase implies. At the outset the US officially had no political parties. Nowhere does the Constitution mention majority or minority leaders, whips, or whether party chairmen can hold other concurrent elected offices. Only in 1795 as the feud between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton intensified did the nascent concept of the two-party system form. Mr. Jefferson founded a series of Republican clubs to espouse the views of his Democratic-Republican Party. To counter this strategy, Mr. Hamilton created the Federalist movement. The party of Jefferson consisted of men like George Mason, Gubernor Morris, and other opponents of the new Constitution. Until Mr. Jefferson named this group the Democratic-Republican Party, they collectively were labeled Anti-Federalists. The Hamiltonian Federalists generally were men who defended the Constitution and shared the vision of the nation's future Mr. Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison presented in the Federalist Papers. Ironically Mr. Madison parted ways with his Federalist colleagues in 1799 when he and Thomas Jefferson proposed the Virginia and Kentucky Resolves.
The cornerstone of Jefferson's movement was a populist "power to the common man" ideal which gained steady momentum. The Democratic-Republican Party held the White House consecutively from 1801 until 1840. In 1816 when the Federalist Party officially disbanded, the Democratic-Republicans were the only party in US politics and remained as such until the rise of the Whig Party in the 1830s. In 1828 President Andrew Jackson shortened the name of the Democratic-Republican Party to the Democratic Party. Again this was meant to draw upon the populist appeal.
The bitter Nullification debates led to creation of the Whig Party. Other fringe movements such as the Anti-Masonic Party (the first US political party to select a Presidential candidate at a convention) also briefly emerged. Later the Whigs and the Democrats absorbed these minor blocs. The first Whig President was William Henry Harrison; he and his successor John Tyler were elected in 1840. The 1844 election returned the Presidency to Democrats who installed James Polk. In 1848 another pair of ill-fated Whig leaders succeeded Mr. Polk. Zachary Taylor died in office; Millard Filmore lacked leadership skills; this broke the fragile structure of the Whig Party. In 1852 Democrats were again the only viable national party.
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