History of the Democratic Party, a new series: The Party of Opposition

This series of articles covers the history of the Democratic Party – the oldest continuous political party in the world, one whose history goes back 223 years to nearly the very beginning of the United States government. Its story is as complex as America’s: at times, inspiring; at other times, shameful; and, oftentimes, somewhere in between. There is a thread that connects the party’s history, in my view: namely, that the Democratic Party has always stood, at least in principle, for the ordinary American that deserves as fair a shot at getting ahead as their more privileged, fellow citizens. Even though the Democratic definition of the “ordinary Americans” they stood for has changed over time, this commitment has always been at the core of the party’s values. This series will cover it all – the good, bad, and ugly – and I hope you’ll enjoy it! –

Stephen Yellin

The Party of Opposition: 1789-1800

It is ironic that the Democratic Party’s name at its birth was the Republican Party. Yet the name was appropriate if we were to call its members “republicans”, with a lower case r. Its creation was, to a large degree, motivated by the opposition of a few prominent members of the Founding Fathers to the vision of a single man. These leaders – Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, in particular – had never intended to form a political party; indeed, the bundle of compromises that comprised the Constitution was crafted without considering the potential for rival factions to undermine the spirit in which it was written. As the eminent historian Jules Witcover pithily put it, “The Democratic Party...was in a sense an illegitimate child, unwanted by the founding fathers of the American Republic.”

Yet form it Jefferson and Madison did, officially so in 1792. To understand what happened, we have to go back to the Constitutional Convention and its immediate aftermath. The wretched experience of the newly independent United States with the Articles of Confederation, which resulted in States that were hardly United, convinced most of the Founding Fathers that a new, more cohesive framework had to be built for the American experiment to survive. This sense of urgency led the delegates to compromise on a whole range of critical questions. A major, unresolved question was how much flexibility the federal government would possess in exercising its power in the new republic.

Madison, originally a staunch proponent of a strong, vigorous federal government, worked closely with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay to alleviate the concerns of those who felt the new government was too similar to the British system they’d spent 8 long years fighting to overthrow. “Anti-Federalists” such as Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, George Clinton, and future President James Monroe feared that the strong, central government proposed by Hamilton, Madison and the like would jeopardize the personal liberty Americans had earned through the American Revolution, threaten the sovereignty of the individual states, and even pave the way for an American monarchy through the potentially strong authority possessed by the Presidency.

It was only due to a concession made by the Federalists that the critical bloc of states needed to ratified the Constitution – including Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York, the 3 most politically influential states of the new republic – gave their consent in 1788. That concession was the Bill of Rights, 10 constitutional amendments that remain at the core of American legal rights to this day. Without the anti-Federalists, the basic freedoms we often take for granted, if occasionally challenged or set aside, may never have been made available to us. This tension between the need for a government strong enough to protect its citizens and their future, yet weak enough to ensure their personal liberties, remains strong and unresolved to this day.

One of the Bill of Rights’ strongest proponents was a man who wasn’t even living in the United States during the momentous events of 1787-9. Thomas Jefferson was serving as U.S. Ambassador to France, where he witnessed the initial stages of the French Revolution and where his natural Francophilia was permanently strengthened. From abroad, however, the progenitor of the stirring words of the Declaration of Independence still made his presence felt, insisting that the principle of “all men are created equal” could only be preserved with a Bill of Rights. It was natural that when the only logical candidate for President, George Washington, took office in April 1789 he would send for Jefferson to join the first Cabinet as Secretary of State.

Jefferson found himself the sole anti-Federalist in the Cabinet, however. While Washington was nominally unaffiliated with any faction, he relied extensively on Hamilton’s judgment and ideas. The brilliant, arrogant, and colorful New Yorker, described by fellow Federalist John Adams as “the bastard brat of a Scotch peddler” (Ellis, Founding Brothers, p. 22), held views that would fit in well with today’s Democratic Party – a strong, national government that would be responsible for shaping economic and foreign policy. Yet he also disdained ordinary people and thought they should play no role in the government. As Witcover notes, he favored a government where those already with power – the business leaders and landowners in New York, and throughout the eastern seaboard – would keep it for themselves. He favored electing the President for life and giving the Presidency powers on a scale similar to the British monarchy at that time. As U.S. Senator and historian Henry Cabot Lodge put it, Hamilton saw himself not as Secretary of the Treasury, but Washington’s Prime Minister. This was anathema to Jefferson, who strongly believed that the people could be trusted to govern themselves. He represented those who weren’t part of Hamilton’s vision of the governing class – farmers, the poor and working class, and the Western frontiersmen who were slowly pushing the American boundaries towards the Mississippi. As the Jeffersonians saw it, these ordinary Americans were the backbone of the new Republican; hence, they called themselves “Republicans”. Its strength was greatest in the South and West as well as in rural areas in New England and the Mid-Atlantic. It must be said that while their definition of who deserved a voice in America’s future was far wider than the Federalists, it still left out a majority of Americans – slaves, of course, as well as women. While Jefferson personally opposed slavery, and unsuccessfully pushed for abolition in Virginia, neither he nor his new party took a stand against it as a matter of policy.

As I already noted, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and their fellow anti-Federalists formed their new political party in 1792. (The name “Democratic-Republican” was increasingly used as the 1790s progressed, and that is how I’ll refer to them to avoid further confusion.) The party platform, as proclaimed in partisan newspapers founded at the same time, was anti-Hamiltonian, pro-stronger state government, and pro-French, again in contrast to Hamilton’s pro-British position. They accepted the Constitution and the need for at least some power given to the federal government, however, a shift from the anti-Federalist position of 1788. Their first success was supporting the incumbent Governor of New York, George Clinton, for reelection against the Federalist Jay. They then backed Clinton for Vice-President against the Federalist-aligned Adams. (Washington, as “Father of his Country”, was considered untouchable.) In practice, this meant persuading members of the Electoral College to cast the second of their 2 votes for Clinton. Adams prevailed by a 77-50 margin but the precedent for a 2-party electoral system had been set.

The next 4 years saw the clear emergence of the kind of fractious, partisan political warfare that the Founders had dreaded. Newspapers blasted the other side and its leaders in viciously personal terms, often on spurious or entirely false grounds. Jefferson, having resigned as Secretary of State in 1793, now played an active role behind the scenes in organizing the Democratic-Republican Party. Other party leaders, such as the brilliant Swiss immigrant Albert Gallatin, played a more public role in lining up support in the different states. This was crucial in an era where it was deemed utterly degrading for leaders to actively seek national office, a principle that remained largely intact until the end of the 19th century. When Jefferson ran for President on a “ticket” with Aaron Burr (that is, their electors would ideally vote to make Jefferson President and Burr Vice-President) in the 1796 election, Virginia ally John Beckley pioneered the role of the campaign manager, running the Democratic-Republican campaign in Pennsylvania and helping Jefferson win all but 1 of the state’s electoral votes. Witcover describes Beckley as the forerunner for the role of national party chairman, due to his active efforts on behalf of his party across the country. Both sides quickly adopted Beckley’s techniques but the Federalists’ naturally antipathy to popular politics and their smaller constituency hampered their efforts.

The outcome saw a divided administration elected, something that was possible under the initial rules for the Electoral College. Adams finished first, followed by Jefferson. The former close friends and allies, now rivals for power, were a team in name only with Jefferson spending most of his time at his palatial villa, Monticello. The so-called “Quasi War” with France in 1798-9, together with the vociferous opposition of the Democratic-Republican newspapers, spurred Adams to sign the Alien and Sedition Acts into law. These restrains on the 1st Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech sparked considerable backlash against the Federalists, while Adams’ refusal to declare war on France caused a rift in the Federalists’ ranks, with Hamilton openly denouncing his party’s President prior to the 1800 election. The result was that the Democratic-Republicans triumphed in the election, electing their national ticket as well as taking control of Congress. They would hold the trifecta for the rest of the party’s existence. Yet there was a problem, one unforeseen by the Founding Fathers when they wrote the Constitution. Jefferson and Burr’s electors stayed united this time, meaning each man got 73 Electoral votes. The tie – and Burr’s refusal to stand down despite the obvious intent of the party for Jefferson to become President – forced the election into the House of Representatives. The lame-duck Federalists defied Hamilton’s wishes and throw their support to Burr, leaving neither man with a majority of the votes needed to win. Not until the 36th ballot – and an alleged, private pledge from Jefferson not to oust Federalist officeholders – was the deadlock broken in favor of the Virginian.

Jefferson called the Election of 1800 the “Second American Revolution”. To a large degree, he was right. A major shift in the leadership of the federal government, from one faction to the other, took place without bloodshed or the collapse of the Constitutional order. Furthermore, it marked the expansion of the ranks of Americans who would have a voice in the future of the country, beyond the propertied elites envisioned by Hamilton. Just 5 of the 16 states then in the Union saw its Presidential electors chosen by direct popular vote in 1800; just 4 years later, that number had rose to 11.  For better or worse, American history was altered forever by the Election of 1800. Its destiny in the generation that lay ahead would be in the hands of a gentle, rather modest, remarkably visionary if greatly flawed Virginia aristocrat and the political party he had helped create by accident.