Democratic-Republican Party

The Democratic-Republican Party, or Jeffersonian Republican Party is the name historians use for the American political party founded in 1792 by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Members usually called themselves "Republicans." It was formed to oppose the programs of the Federalist Party led by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. The Jeffersonians were deeply committed to the principles of republicanism, which they feared were threatened by the monarchical tendencies of the Federalists. Republicans favored France over Britain in the wars then raging in Europe, and opposed a national bank. Favoring yeomen farmers and planters in the South, as opposed to the bankers and businessmen of the urban Northeast, the Jeffersonians came to power with the election of Jefferson in 1800 and 1804, and Madison in 1808 and 1812. The Federalists faded away, and the Jeffersonians, despite internal divisions, dominated the First Party System until partisanship withered away after 1816.

Jefferson formed the party to oppose the economic and foreign policies of the Federalists, a party created a year or so earlier by Hamilton to promote the Treasury policies of the Washington administration. The new party opposed the Jay Treaty of 1794 with Britain (then at war with France) and supported good relations with France (until Napoleon became a dictator in 1800). The party insisted on a strict construction of the Constitution, and denounced many of Hamilton's measures (especially the national bank) as unconstitutional. The party was strongest in the South and weakest in the Northeast; it favored states' rights and the primacy of the yeoman farmer over bankers, industrialists, merchants, and other monied interests.

Presidents from the party were: Thomas Jefferson (1801–1809), James Madison (1809–1817), and James Monroe (1817–1825). After 1800 the party dominated Congress and most state governments outside New England. Since the Federalists had practically disappeared by 1820, the party lost its organizational vigor. Normally, the Republican congressmen formed a caucus, and the caucus picked the presidential candidate. However, in 1824, most of the caucus refused to make a nomination. A faction calling itself the "Democratic members of congress" nominated William H. Crawford for president. Another faction of the party supported Andrew Jackson; his supporters in the 1830s became the modern Democratic Party. A third faction, led by John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, was known as the National Republicans; it evolved into the Whig Party.

Thomas Jefferson, founder of the party.

Founding

Madison started the party among Congressmen in Philadelphia (the national capital) as the Republican party;^[1] then he, Jefferson, and others reached out to include state and local leaders around the country, especially New York and the South.^[2] The precise date of founding is disputed, but 1792 is a reasonable estimate; some time in the early 1790s is certain. The new party set up newspapers that made withering critiques of Hamiltonianism, extolled the yeomen farmer, argued for strict construction of the Constitution, supported neutral relations with European powers, and called for stronger state governments than the Federalist Party was proposing.^[3]

Presidential elections of 1792 and 1796

The elections of 1792 were the first ones to be contested on anything resembling a partisan basis. In most states the congressional elections were recognized, as Jefferson strategist John Beckley put it, as a "struggle between the Treasury department and the republican interest." In New York, the candidates for governor were John Jay, a Federalist, and incumbent George Clinton, who was allied with Jefferson and the Republicans.^[4] Four states' electors voted for Clinton and one (Kentucky) for Jefferson for Vice President in opposition to incumbent John Adams as well as casting their votes for President Washington. (Before 1804 Electors cast two votes together without differentuation as to which office was to be filled by which candidate.)

In 1796, the party made its first bid for the presidency with Jefferson as its presidential candidate and Aaron Burr as its vice presidential candidate. Jefferson came in second in the electoral college and became vice president. He was a consistent and strong opponent of the policies of the John Adams administration. Jefferson and Madison were deeply upset by the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798; they secretly wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which called on state legislatures to nullify unconstitutional laws. The Republican critique of Federalism became wrapped in the slogan of “Principles of 1798,” which became the hallmark of the party. The most important of these principles were states' rights, opposition to a strong national government, distrust of the federal courts, and opposition to a Navy and a National Bank. The party saw itself as a champion of republicanism and denounced the Federalists as supporters of monarchy and aristocracy^[5].

The party itself originally coalesced around Jefferson, who diligently maintained extensive correspondence with like-minded republican leaders throughout the country.^[6] Washington frequently decried the growing sense of "party" emerging from the internal battles among Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Adams and others in his administration. As warfare in Europe increased, the two factions increasingly madde foreign policy the central political issue of the day. The Democrats wanted to maintain the 1777 alliance with France, which had overthrown the monarchy and aristocracy and become a republic. Even thought Britain was by far America's leading trading partner, Republicans feared that increased trade would undermine republicanism. The Jeffersonians distrusted Hamilton's national bank and rejected his premise that a national debt was good for the country; Republicans said they were both forms of corruption. They strongly distrusted the elitism of Hamilton's circle, denouncing it as "aristocratic"; and they called for state's rights lest the Federalists centralize ever more power in the national governments ^[7].

The intense debate over the Jay Treaty in 1794–95, transformed those opposed to Hamilton's policies from a loose movement into a true political party. To fight the treaty the Jeffersonians "established coordination in activity between leaders at the capital, and leaders, actives and popular followings in the states, counties and towns."^[8]

Party strength in Congress

Historians have used statistical techniques to estimate the party breakdown in Congress. Many Congressmen were hard to classify in the first few years, but after 1796 there was less uncertainty.

Source: Kenneth C. Martis, The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress, 1789-1989 (1989); the numbers are estimates by historians.

The affiliation of many Congressmen in the earliest years is an assignment by later historians; these were slowly coalescing groups with initially considerable independent thinking and voting; Cunningham noted that only about a quarter of the House of Representatives, up till 1794, voted with Madison as much as two-thirds of the time, and another quarter against him two-thirds of the time, leaving almost half as fairly independent. Albert Gallatin recalled only two caucuses on legislative policy between 1795 and 1801, one over appropriations for Jay's Treaty, the other over the Quasi-War, and in neither case did the party decide to vote unanimously.^[9]

Organizational strategy

The new party invented some of the campaign and organizational techniques that were later adopted by the Federalists and became standard American practice. It was especially effective in building a network of newspapers in major cities to broadcast its statements and editorialize its policies^[10]. Fisher Ames, a leading Federalist, used the term "Jacobin" to link members of Jefferson's party to the radicals of the French Revolution. He blamed the newspapers for electing Jefferson; they were, he wrote, "an overmatch for any Government…. The Jacobins owe their triumph to the unceasing use of this engine; not so much to skill in use of it as by repetition."^[11]

As one historian explained, "It was the good fortune of the Republicans to have within their ranks a number of highly gifted political manipulators and propagandists. Some of them had the ability… to not only see and analyze the problem at hand but to present it in a succinct fashion; in short, to fabricate the apt phrase, to coin the compelling slogan and appeal to the electorate on any given issue in language it could understand." Outstanding propagandists included editor William Duane and party leaders Albert Gallatin, Thomas Cooper and Jefferson himself.^[12]

Just as important was effective party organization of the sort that John J. Beckley pioneered. In 1796, he managed the Jefferson campaign in Pennsylvania, blanketing the state with agents who passed out 30,000 hand-written tickets, naming all 15 electors (printed tickets were not allowed). He told one agent, "In a few days a select republican friend from the City will call upon you with a parcel of tickets to be distributed in your County. Any assistance and advice you can furnish him with, as to suitable districts & characters, will I am sure be rendered." Beckley was the first American professional campaign manager, and his techniques were quickly adopted in other states.^[13]

The emergence of the new organizational strategies can be seen in the politics of Connecticut around 1806, which have been well-documented by Cunningham. The Federalists dominated Connecticut, so the Democratic-Republicans had to work harder to win. In 1806, the state leadership sent town leaders instructions for the forthcoming elections. Every town manager was told by state leaders "to appoint a district manager in each district or section of his town, obtaining from each an assurance that he will faithfully do his duty." Then the town manager was instructed to compile lists and total the number of taxpayers and the number of eligible voters, find out how many favored the Democratic-Republicans and how many the Federalists, and to count the number of supporters of each party who were not eligible to vote but who might qualify (by age or taxes) at the next election. These highly detailed returns were to be sent to the county manager and in turn were compiled and sent to the state manager. Using these lists of potential voters, the managers were told to get all eligible people to town meetings and help the young men qualify to vote. The state manager was responsible for supplying party newspapers to each town for distribution by town and district managers.^[14] This highly coordinated "get-out-the-vote" drive would be familiar to modern political campaigners, but was the first of its kind in world history.

Revolution of 1800

The party's electors secured a majority in the 1800 election, but an equal number of electors cast votes for Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The tie sent the election to the House, and Federalists there blocked any choice. Finally Hamilton, believing that Burr would be a poor choice for president, intervened, letting Jefferson win (a move that would result in the collapse of the Federalist Party and Hamilton's death, four years later, at the hands of Burr in a pistol duel). Starting in 1800 in what Jefferson called the “Revolution of 1800”, the party took control of the presidency and both houses of Congress, beginning a quarter century of control of those institutions. A faction called “Old Republicans” opposed the nationalism that grew popular after 1815; they were stunned when party leaders started a Second Bank of the United States in 1816.

In 1804, the party's Congressional caucus for the first time created a sort of national committee, with members from 13 states charged with "promoting the success of the republican nominations."^[15] That committee later was disbanded and did not become permanent. Unlike the Federalists, the party never held a national convention, but relied instead on its Congressional caucus to select the national ticket. That caucus, however, did not deal with legislative issues, which were handled by the elected Speaker and informal floor leaders. The state legislatures often instructed members of Congress how to vote on specific issues. More exactly, they "instructed" the senators (who were elected by the legislatures), and "requested" the Representatives (who were elected by the people.) On rare occasions a senator resigned rather than follow instructions.^[16]

The opposition Federalist Party, suffering from a lack of leadership after the death of Hamilton and the retirement of John Adams, quickly declined; it revived briefly in opposition to the War of 1812, but the extremism of its Hartford Convention of 1815 utterly destroyed it as a political force.

Monroe and Adams, 1816–1828

In rapidly expanding western states, the Federalists had few supporters. Every state had a distinct political geography that shaped party membership. In Pennsylvania, the Democratic-Republicans were weakest around Philadelphia and strongest in Scots-Irish settlements in the west. Members came from all social classes, but came predominantly from the poor, subsistence farmers, mechanics and tradesmen.^[17] After the War of 1812, partisanship subsided across the young republic—people called it the Era of Good Feelings. James Monroe narrowly won the party's nomination for President in Congress over William Crawford in 1816 and defeated Federalist Rufus King in the general election.

In the early years of the party, the key central organization grew out of caucuses of Congressional leaders in Washington. However, the key battles to choose electors occurred in the states, not in the caucus. In many cases, legislatures still chose electors; in others, the election of electors was heavily influenced by local parties that were heavily controlled by relatively small groups of officials. Without a significant Federalist opposition, the need for party unity was greatly diminished and the party's organization faded away.

James Monroe ran under the party's banner in the 1820 election and built support by consensus. Monroe faced no serious rival and was nearly unanimously elected by the electoral college. The party's historic domination by the Virginian delegation faded as New York and Pennsylvania became more important. In the 1824 election, most of the party in Congress boycotted the caucus; only a small rump group backed William Crawford. The Crawford faction included most "Old Republicans", who remained committed to states' rights and the Principles of 1798, and distrustful of the nationalizing program promoted by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun.

Thomas Jefferson wrote on the state of party politics in the early 1820s:

In the aftermath of the disputed 1824 election, the separate factions took on many characteristics of parties in their own right. Adams' supporters, in league with Clay, favored modernization, banks, industrial development, and federal spending for roads and other internal improvements, which the Old Republicans and the Jackson men usually opposed. Writing in his personal journal on December 13, 1826, President Adams noted the difficulty he faced in attempting to be nonpartisan in appointing men to office:

Presidential electors were now all chosen by direct election, except in South Carolina, where the state legislatures chose them. White manhood suffrage was the norm throughout the West and in most of the East as well. The voters thus were much more powerful, and to win their votes required complex party organization. Under the leadership of Martin Van Buren, a firm believer in political organization, the Jacksonians built strong state and local organizations throughout the country. The Old Republicans, or "Radicals," mostly supported Jackson and joined with supporters of incumbent Vice President Calhoun in an alliance. President Adams was defeated by Andrew Jackson in the election of 1828.

Party name

Political parties were new in the United States, and people were not accustomed to having formal names for them. There was no single, official name for the party. Party members generally called themselves "Republicans" and voted for what they called the "Republican Party," "republican ticket," or the "republican interest".^[20] Jefferson and Madison often used the terms "republican" and "Republican party" in their letters.^[21] The 1804 congressional caucus that renominated Jefferson described itself as a, "regular republican caucus."^[22] "Democratic" was also common, the two terms often used interchangeably.^[23] The term "Democratic Republican" was adopted by historians mainly to avoid confusion with the modern Republican Party, which was founded in 1854 and named in honor of Jefferson's party.^[24] This name was used by contemporaries only occasionally.^[25]

The term "republic" comes from the Latin res publica ('concern of the public'),^[26] which refers to the form of government of the Roman Republic. Vermont was a republic from 1777 to 1791 and the word is used in the U.S. Constitution.^[27] The term "republican" was in widespread usage from the 1770s to describe the political values of the nation, especially its opposition to corruption, elitism, and monarchy.^[28]

"Democratic" derives from the Greek δημοκρατία (demokratia) meaning "rule of the people." The word originally applied to the government of ancient Athens. Since this term was associated with the French Revolution, it suggested pro-French sentiment. The Democratic-Republican Societies were formed to support French diplomat Citizen Genêt in 1793-1794.^[29] Although these societies were distinct from the party, membership overlapped.^[30] Federalists often called their opponents "Democrats" or "Jacobins" to associate them with mob rule and the excesses of the French Revolution.^[31] President George Washington wrote, "You could as soon scrub the blackamore white, as to change the principles of a profest Democrat; and that he will leave nothing unattempted to overturn the Government of this Country."^[32]

Claims to the party's heritage

The Democratic Party is often called "the party of Jefferson," while the modern Republican Party is often called "the party of Lincoln."

The Democratic-Republican party split into various factions during the 1824 election, based more on personality than on ideology. When the election was thrown to the House of Representatives, House Speaker Henry Clay backed Secretary of State John Quincy Adams to deny the presidency to Senator Andrew Jackson, a longtime personal rival and a hero of the War of 1812.

The Jacksonians held their first national convention as the "Republican Party" in 1832.^[33] By the mid-1830s, they referred to themselves as the "Democratic Party," but also as "Democratic Republicans."^[34] The name "Democratic Party" has been official since 1844.

Leaders of the Democratic Party have traced their party's lineage to Jefferson and the Democratic-Republican Party. Martin Van Buren wrote that the party's name had changed from Republican to Democratic and that Jefferson was the founder of the party.^[35] Thomas Jefferson Randolph, grandson of Jefferson, told the 1872 Democratic National Convention that he had spent eighty years of his life in the Democratic-Republican Party.^[36] In 1991 the United States Senate passed "A bill to establish a commission to commemorate the bicentennial of the establishment of the Democratic Party of the United States," thus endorsing the view the party was founded by Jefferson (as opposed to Jackson).^[37]

The Adams/Clay alliance became the basis of the National Republican Party, a rival to the Jacksonian party. This party favored a higher tariff in order to protect U.S. manufacturers, as well as public works, especially roads. Many former members of the defunct Federalist Party, including Daniel Webster, joined the party. After Clay's defeat by Jackson in the 1832 presidential election, the National Republicans were absorbed into the Whig Party, a diverse group of Jackson opponents. Taking a leaf from the Jacksonians, the Whigs tended to nominate non-ideological war heroes as their presidential candidates.

The modern Republican Party was founded in 1854 to oppose the expansion of slavery into new states. Most northern Whigs defected to the new party. The name was chosen to harken back to Jefferson's party. Abraham Lincoln and other members sought to combine Jefferson's ideals of liberty and equality with Clay's program of using an active government to modernize the economy.^[38] The modern ideological party division, with Republicans as the pro-business party and Democrats as the party of economic populism, originated at the time of the 1896 presidential election in which Republican William McKinley defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan.

Party Presidents

The following United States Presidents were elected following a process that selected them as a national nominee of the Democratic-Republican party:

• Thomas Jefferson (1801–1809)
• James Madison (1809–1817)
• James Monroe (1817–1825)

Candidates

• ^(a) Jefferson did not win the presidency, and Burr did not win the vice presidency. However, under the pre-12th Amendment election rules, Jefferson won the vice presidency due to dissension among Federalist electors.
• ^(b) Jefferson and Burr received the same number of electoral votes. Jefferson was subsequently chosen as president by the House of Representatives.
• ^(c) Crawford and Gallatin were nominated by a group of 66 Congressmen that called itself the "Democratic members of Congress".^[39] Gallatin later withdrew from the contest. Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and Henry Clay ran as Republicans, although they were not nominated by any national body. While Jackson won a plurality in the electoral college and popular vote, he did not win the constitutionally required majority of electoral votes to be elected president. The contest was thrown to the House of Representatives, where Adams won with Clay's support. The electoral college chose John C. Calhoun for vice president.

See also

• First Party System
• History of the United States Democratic Party
• List of political parties in the United States

References

• Henry Brooks Adams, History of the United States during the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson (1889; Library of America ed. 1986)
• Henry Brooks Adams, 'History of the United States during the Administrations of James Madison (1891; Library of America ed. 1986)
• Banning, Lance. The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology (1980)
• Beard, Charles A. Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy (1915)
• Brown, Stuart Gerry. The First Republicans: Political Philosophy and Public Policy in the Party of Jefferson and Madison 1954.
• Chambers, Wiliam Nisbet. Political Parties in a New Nation: The American Experience, 1776-1809 (1963)
• Cornell, Saul. The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788-1828 (1999) (ISBN 0-8078-2503-4)
• Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. Jeffersonian Republicans: The formation of Party Organization: 1789-1801 (1957)
• Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. The Jeffersonian Republicans in Power: Party Operations 1801-1809 (1963)
• Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. The Process of Government Under Jefferson (1978)
• Dawson, Matthew Q. Partisanship and the Birth of America's Second Party, 1796-1800: Stop the Wheels of Government. Greenwood, 2000.
• Elkins, Stanley M. and Eric McKitrick. The Age of Federalism (1995), detailed political history of 1790s
• Ferling, John. Adams Vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800 (2004)(ISBN 0-19-516771-6)
• Gammon, Samuel Rhea. The Presidential Campaign of 1832 (1922)
• Gould, Lewis. Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans (2003) (ISBN 0-375-50741-8) concerns the party founded in 1854
• Onuf, Peter S., ed. Jeffersonian Legacies. (1993) (ISBN 0-8139-1462-0)
• Pasley, Jeffrey L. et al. eds. Beyond the Founders: New Approaches to the Political History of the Early American Republic (2004)
• Risjord, Norman K.; The Old Republicans: Southern Conservatism in the Age of Jefferson (1965) on the Randolph faction.
• Sharp, James Roger. American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis (1993) detailed narrative of 1790s
• Smelser, Marshall. The Democratic Republic 1801-1815 (1968), survey of political history
• Van Buren, Martin. Van Buren, Abraham, Van Buren, John, ed. Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States (1867) (ISBN 1-4181-2924-0)
• Wiltse, Charles Maurice. The Jeffersonian Tradition in American Democracy (1935)
• Wilentz, Sean. The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (2005), detailed narrative history, 1800–1860
• Wills, Garry. Henry Adams and the Making of America (2005), a close reading of Henry Adams (1889–91)

Biographies

• Cunningham, Noble E. In Pursuit of Reason The Life of Thomas Jefferson (ISBN 0-345-35380-3) (1987)
• Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. "John Beckley: An Early American Party Manager," William and Mary Quarterly, 13 (Jan. 1956), 40-52, in JSTOR
• Miller, John C. Alexander Hamilton: Portrait in Paradox (1959), full-scale biography
• Peterson; Merrill D. Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography (1975), full-scale biography
• Remini, Robert. Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (1991), a standard biography
• Rutland, Robert A., ed. James Madison and the American Nation, 1751-1836: An Encyclopedia. (1994)
• Schachner, Nathan. Aaron Burr: A Biography (1961),full-scale biography
• Wiltse, Charles Maurice. John C. Calhoun, Nationalist, 1782-1828 (1944)

State studies

• Beeman, Richard R. The Old Dominion and the New Nation, 1788-1801 (1972), on Virginia politics
• Formisano, Ronald P. The Transformation of Political Culture. Massachusetts Parties, 1790s-1840s (1984) (ISBN 0-19-503509-7)
• Gilpatrick, Delbert Harold. Jeffersonian Democracy in North Carolina, 1789-1816 (1931)
• Goodman, Paul. The Democratic-Republicans of Massachusetts (1964)
• Klein, Philip Shriver. Pennsylvania Politics, 1817-1832: A Game without Rules 1940.
• Prince, Carl E. New Jersey’s Jeffersonian Republicans: The Genesis of an Early Party Machine, 1789-1817 (1967)
• Risjord; Norman K. Chesapeake Politics, 1781-1800 (1978) on Virginia and Maryland
• Tinkcom, Harry M. The Republicans and Federalists in Pennsylvania, 1790–1801 (1950)
• Young, Alfred F. The Democratic Republicans of New York: The Origins, 1763-1797 (1967)

Newspapers

• Humphrey, Carol Sue The Press of the Young Republic, 1783-1833 (1996)
• Knudson, Jerry W. Jefferson And the Press: Crucible of Liberty (2006) how 4 Republican and 4 Federalist papers covered election of 1800; Thomas Paine; Louisiana Purchase; Hamilton-Burr duel; impeachment of Chase; and the embargo
• Jeffrey L. Pasley. "The Tyranny of Printers": Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic (2003) (ISBN 0-8139-2177-5)
• Stewart, Donald H. The Opposition Press of the Federalist Era (1968), highly detailed study of Republican newspapers
• The complete text, searchable, of all early American newspapers are online at Readex America’s Historical Newspapers, available at research libraries.

Primary sources

• Adams, John Quincy. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams: Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848 Volume VII (1875) edited by Charles Francis Adams; (ISBN 0-8369-5021-6). Adams, son of the president, switched and became a Republican in 1808
• Cunningham, Noble E., Jr., ed. The Making of the American Party System 1789 to 1809 (1965) excerpts from primary sources
• Cunningham, Noble E., Jr., ed. Circular Letters of Congressmen to Their Constituents 1789-1829 (1978), 3 vol; reprints the political newsletters sent out by congressmen
• Kirk, Russell ed. John Randolph of Roanoke: A study in American politics, with selected speeches and letters, 4th ed., Liberty Fund, 1997, 588 pp. ISBN 0-86597-150-1; Randolph was a leader of the "Old Republican" faction
• Smith, James Morton, ed. The Republic of Letters: The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, 1776-1826 Volume 2 (1994)

Notes

External links

• A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns 1787-1825