Transcript for:
First American Political Parties

in spite of Americans optimism that political parties or political factions could be avoided here in the United States it was almost unavoidable the tumultuousness of the 1790s and the Americans disagreements over economics the disagreements over the role of the Federal Government in the National economy this agreement's over the proper place of the United States when it came to Foreign Affairs and later disputes as we'll see Over Law Enforcement the extent of freedom of speech the extent of freedom of the press and of course disagreements over states rights all combined in the 1790s to create what historians call the first political party system in this lecture we want to start by talking about these first two political parties so let's begin sales the first two political parties in American history were known as the Federalist Party and the Democratic Republican Party now I want to mention here that students oftentimes confuse the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist from the 1780s from the last unit students oftentimes tend to think of those two groups as political parties and well oftentimes describe them as the first political parties and that's inaccurate and the reason for that is that political parties formed and exist even today as a means to run candidates in elections and uh and win those elections that's the purpose of a political party right the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists from the 1780s weren't doing that the Federalists were a group of Americans that were in favor of ratifying the U.S Constitution the Anti-Federalists were a group of Americans that opposed the ratification of the U.S Constitution so see those aren't political parties uh as so much as they really are like interest groups so don't confuse the Federalists and Anti-Federalists of the 1780s with uh the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans of the 1790s it's the Federalist Party and the Democratic Republican party they are the first two political parties in American history and they represent what is known in American history as the first party system uh spoiler alert we are today on what is known as the third party system uh and you'll learn throughout the course how the first party system collapsed how the second party system emerged and how the third party system first all right so what I want to do in this lecture is I want to talk briefly about each of these political parties we'll start with the Federalist Party then move on to the Democratic Republican party we're going to talk about the leadership of both of these parties and then the vision and philosophy of these political parties and then we'll finish this lecture by talking about the big difference between them and it turns out that it comes down to an interpretation of the U.S Constitution uh so we're going to jump right into this but before we talk about the Federalist Party I think it's worth mentioning that the first president of the United States George Washington in his farewell address to Congress on September 17 1796 warned Congress and the American people uh about political parties and urged Americans to do all they could to prevent the formation of them uh Washington's reasoning for this is that he just believed political parties could be very destructive to The Republic that it would create too much Division and more importantly he believed it would give rise to a type of uh politician and open the door to a type of person that would be nothing but Power hungry uh and I have to admit he was probably right regardless uh there were people greatly concerned about what was happening in the 1790s and this emergence of factions that would eventually give rise to political parties and Washington was Chief among them if you're interested in reading his entire farewell address this is just a portion of it in which he's talking about political parties uh it's a very important speech it's a very important document if you're interested in a simple Google search we'll pull it up for you the guy knew what he was talking about so there were people warning us not to do this but you know Americans we never listen to The Experts we never listen to our Bettors and so in spite of Washington's best appeals we did form political parties in the 1790s and so we want to jump into them and like I mentioned we're going to talk about the Federalist Party first now the Federalist Party um these were the leaders and government officials that were in power from the beginning of the Republic you know so you're talking about people like Washington and John Adams and Alexander Hamilton right these were guys that were already uh controlling the government now they didn't call themselves a party and didn't think of themselves as a party uh it won't be until the Democratic Republican party emerges that the Federalists then start calling themselves a party uh so the Federalist Party were kind of the Old Guard right the the the original government authorities and I want to talk just a second about some of the notable leaders of this Federalist Party uh the gentleman you see on the screen are by no means all of the notable leaders they just tended to be the more influential uh and these would have included a lot of people we've seen before John Adams from Massachusetts uh a newcomers I think to this course Rufus King oftentimes forgot Founding Father Rufus King but very influential on the Federalist Party John Marshall we saw him as one of the diplomats sent by John Adams to negotiate with the French uh later on John Marshall became one of if not the most important Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and he was an Ardent Federalist until his dying days and then of course John Jay the first Chief Justice of the U.S Supreme Court and we saw also his involvement with the treaty that bears his name so these were some of the notable leaders of the Federalist Party these are the guys that propelled It Forward uh shaped it in many ways but the individual that is given credit for providing this party its vision for the country and its political philosophy uh specifically it's philosophy in terms of the role of government um the single most individual that was responsible for this was of course Alexander Hamilton Hamilton was such a force in the Federalist Party that he has oftentimes credited as the father of this party uh he was the one that really gave it its foundation gave it its purpose gave it its vision and gave it its philosophy and so if you're gonna understand what the Federalist Party was all about right if you gotta understand what it wanted to do in the country and what its uh ideas were you turn no further than Alexander Hamilton himself so let's do that let's look at the Federalist party's vision and philosophy and a lot of what we're about to talk about really was Alexander Hamilton's vision and philosophy in many ways uh the the uh picture you see on the screen is is the black and white can a cockade was a like a little uh flowery thing that people would pin to their lapels uh the the black and white cockades signify that you were a member of the Federalist Party uh and so during election times and stuff like that it was very uh you know a lot of people would wear these to kind of show their support of this party or that party uh so all right so what did the Federalist Party stand for well the biggest thing you need to understand about the Federalist Party is that the Federalist Party was kind of the party of big government to use a term today uh this was the party that believed the federal government needed to be very strong very active and very involved in lots of things but most notably the economy and when it came to the economy the vision of this party was that the United States needed to become an industrialized power uh it needed to balance its economy uh in many ways it needed to become like Great Britain was in the 1790s now what was Great Britain like Great Britain had a very balanced economy of agricultural manufacturing and Industry okay that produced then one of the strongest economies in the country or in the world when Alexander Hamilton while he was no lover of Great Britain he despised the British especially its government system but he could not escape the fact that its economic system and this and the way it was balanced in such a way he could not escape the fact that it had produced such a powerful Nation that's what he wants for this country so what he was envisioning was this country would develop not as an agrarian or agricultural country as it was in the 1790s instead he believed that the country needed to progress by building up federal or by building up industry and building up manufacturing that those were areas of the economy in the 1790s that were severely lacking and that the country was too agriculturally based now he's not against farming he understands that farming and agriculture is needed but the United States didn't have anything other than agriculture we had very little industry very little manufacturing and above all things as you already know Hamilton wants this country to survive he wants it to become prosperous and he believes as the Federalist Party believes we have to balance the economy to do it now how do we do it according to the Federalist Party the way to do this would be to use the power of the federal government to provide federal aid to Industry to manufacturing to Commerce and what types of Federal Aid are we talking about we're talking about things like the bank of the United States which we learned about in a previous lecture providing loans low interest loans providing tax breaks right the federal government providing tax breaks to anybody that is interested in establishing industry and establishing manufacturing now why would the bank of the United States want to do that why would the federal government want to do that to balance the economy so that leads you to kind of the first big pillar about the Federalist Party they believe that the federal government should involve itself heavily in the economy now not like today in terms of regulating things they didn't believe in anything like that that was not a concept that was uh around in the 1790s instead what they're talking about is subsidizing they believe the federal government should involve itself in the economy by propping up and promoting areas of the economy that were lacking now how do you do it tax breaks low a large low interest loans to anything anybody that wants to establish industry so that we can balance the economy uh okay I think I've belabored that point enough uh number three is uh came down to Banks the Federalist Party was as a result of its uh belief in a balanced economy and federal aid was very much tied to Banks uh specifically the bank of the United States but also other private Banks and State Banks and so whenever there was a dispute between creditors and lenders uh or creditors and uh debtors people that take on credit uh the Federalist Party was always sympathetic uh towards Banks and towards the people that loan the money and the legislation passed by Federalist congresses uh tended to reflect that uh number four this is the party again that favored centralized power they have no problem with the federal government wielding a lot of power um that the government can be used for good okay number five they distrusted specifically Hamilton himself he very much distrusted the people he believed the people when I'm using quotation marks I know you can't see me air quotation the people according to Hamilton were the mob and left to their own devices they would be incapable of governing themselves so this is getting in now to kind of a philosophical thing right about Humanity this is very much John Locke Thomas Hobbes type stuff uh the Federalist Party very much believed that without a strong government uh to kind of keep people on the uh the straight and narrow that Humanity would result to its basic form and that was Savage uh so they distrusted your ability to govern yourself and so they believed the government was then needed to protect you from yourself and the Federalist Party was also pro-british now they were not pro-monarchy they did not want to establish a British system of government here remember these were the people that had rebelled against all of that but they were pro-british in terms of economic interests of the United States Great Britain could be a huge and beneficial trading partner for the United States so to the Federalist Party it made no sense to go to war with them it made no sense to antagonize them so this was the party that applauded when Jane when John Jay came back to the United States with his treaty okay so this is the Federalist Party this was its Vision this was its philosophy uh and in many ways it was Hamilton's vision and philosophy okay with the Federalist Party out of the way let's talk now about the Democratic Republican party we're gonna again talk about the notable leadership of the party and then talk about the vision and philosophy of the party but I want to mention here and reiterate that the Democratic Republican party was the party that formed an opposition to what the federal government was doing after the U.S Constitution took effect so in many ways they were kind of the first political party and as they formed it forced them the people in power to form the Federalist Party so think of the democratic Republican party as the opposition party and in the 1790s they're not in power okay so they're the opposition party they're the resistance uh to use a modern day term so let's talk about its leadership let's talk about the party's vision and philosophy the two gentlemen you see on the screen are James Madison and James Monroe JM squared both from Virginia Madison uh is of course the father of the U.S Constitution the Virginia Plan we know a little bit about him already James Monroe will become a major player coming up in the course but these were some of the notable leaders of the democratic Republican Party the party that formed an opposition uh as president of the United States they will further the agenda of the democratic Republican party once they assume control of the federal government but similar to the Federalist leaders that we talked about Adams Rufus King Marshall so on and so forth these two gentlemen um while major players in the party were not considered the Godfather of the party meaning they were not considered the the individuals that gave the party its vision and its philosophy they they certainly did further the vision and philosophy but the gentleman that gave the Democratic Republican party its vision and its philosophy concerning the role of government was none other than Thomas Jefferson from Virginia author of the Declaration of Independence uh and what I would describe as one of the heaviest hitters of American history no it's Thomas Jefferson uh the very antithesis of Alexander Hamilton that provided the vision and the philosophy for the Democratic Republican Party uh I think it's worth mentioning here that Jefferson and Hamilton were no friends uh they respected each other's intellect but they severely disagreed with each other on just about everything concerning government life Humanity everything and imagine what it must have been like for George Washington having to deal with Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton as two of the most important cabinet members uh they're all these great stories that Washington's cabinet meetings just would always devolve into screaming matches between Jefferson and Hamilton uh so it makes sense that these two uh these two gentlemen would end up forming political parties against one another so to understand then the Democratic Republican party's vision and philosophy you have to understand Thomas Jefferson's vision and philosophy so let's look at so again here's a cockade as worn by members of the democratic Republican party they they chose one that was very similar to the French revolutionaries caucet is a little bit different but theirs was red white and blue so if you'd have seen this design in the colors in that way in the 1790s and later on you would have known this is a person that supports the Democratic Republican party I guess nowadays we do it with bumper stickers so vision and philosophy of the democratic Republican party uh you remember where Hamilton wants the economy to become balanced Jefferson's vision for the country is not that instead Jefferson believed the country should pretty much stay the way it was an agrarian society and that it should continue to develop like that and his thought process behind this idea was that to him farmers were self-sufficient now never mind he didn't really actually Farm okay but in his mind farmers are the idea right of the the the Yeoman farmer as it was called or that you know were was somebody that was fiercely individualistic fiercely independent but most importantly self-sustaining and if you think about this what he's saying is that a farmer produces what a farmer needs to survive if it has anything left over he might sell it and make a little bit of profit for himself but essentially farmers are self-sustaining And if every farmer and if we're just a nation of farmers and we're all self-sustaining that in many ways in his mind creates equality Among Us and the equality Among Us he believes makes the country Democratic and he said The more we can develop like that the better this country would be you see Jefferson believed very much in egalitarianism and democracy he believed the country should develop more along the lines of a Democratic Republic hence the name right then simply a strict Republic like the Federalists wanted uh and the reason he thought like this is that he argued that under Hamilton's ideas under Hamilton's plans uh that wealth in this country was going to become concentrated in the hands of a few he believed that those that will establish industry and establish manufacturing and those that will do it with the support of the federal government that these individuals will become the con the where the concentration of wealth will happen and the problem for Hamilton or the problem for Jefferson was this a concentration of wealth is going to lead to a concentration of power was he right he absolutely was right and he believed that that's not what the country needed to become so instead he believed the country needed to develop along the lines of a more democratic Republican uh Society but above all an agrarian society and therefore wealth would become diffused okay he believed that wealth should be diffused across the body the the broadest Spectrum possible to prevent the concentration of that wealth thereby preventing the concentration of power because that's not what the country should be about so when it came to disputes between Banks and people that took loans from Banks his party tended to favor legislation that was sympathetic to the debtors whereas Hamilton favored legislation sympathetic to the banks the the Democratic Republican party and Jefferson himself greatly feared centralized power now this doesn't mean that they were against a strong government a stronger government than the Articles of Confederation the Democratic Republican party understood a stronger national government was needed as a result of the debacle of the 1780s their issue was the government just shouldn't wield more power than it's given that it shouldn't become highly centralized and highly authoritative because this type of government in the wrong hands would become tyrannical that it would crush the individual so they feared centralized power because they believed in the wrong hands the power of the government could be used for evil whereas Hamilton believed power in the federal government can be used for good and this then leads me to Jefferson's idea concerning humanity uh Jefferson understood that humans could be very violent creatures but he did ultimately trust in the individual's ability to govern themselves and to handle their own Affairs therefore not needing a very active very involved very powerful national government and this stemmed from his understanding of political philosophers of the time uh now he did believe that Humanity needed to become a little bit educated that a completely uneducated person will not think rationally about things and so he greatly trusted your ability to govern yourselves and handle your Affairs if you were educated and that is why he pushed at every point in his life to establish schools and establish institutions such as the University of Virginia in Charlottesville to help further that idea and lastly the Democratic Republican party was very much pro-france uh sure they were willing to admit that the French Revolution had its excesses that there were Radical elements within it but they were very much pro-france because it was after all the French that had saved us in our hour of need it was after all the French that were attempting to do the very same thing the United States was trying to do in its War of Independence against the British and so to the Democratic Republican party the United States and France shared a historical tie with one another that we shared the same principles that we were Brethren of the same principle and that we shouldn't ignore it and so this was the party and the group that was very upset when John Jay came home with the treaty that bore his name so this was the vision and philosophy of the democratic Republican Party in many ways again it was very uh it was pretty much the vision and philosophy of Thomas Jefferson okay almost done but we'll save the best for last so you kind of get a sense now of what divided uh the American people and American leaders into these two uh factions into these two political parties but if you were going to boil all their differences down to a single thing then it was pretty simple to understand what actually divided them and what actually divided them meaning what formed the foundation of their divisions concerned the U.S Constitution now before I jump into this I want you to understand something both parties were in favor of the U.S Constitution both parties supported the Constitution both parties believe the Constitution was needed and neither party wanted to subvert it however it turns out that the political parties had different interpretations of the U.S Constitution and this is going to now begin a discussion about the two principal ways you even today can interpret the governing document of the United States you see there's an argument to be made that the United States Constitution was a document that was Loosely constructed by the founding fathers meaning they created a government and created a document and created laws that were vague enough to allow future Generations a little bit of wiggle room to do things that needed to be done so that it wouldn't hamper the development of the country okay that type of idea is what is known as loose construction or having a loose interpretation of the U.S Constitution and essentially what this idea means is that it means the U.S Constitution while having clearly listed powers for the federal government the Constitution also contains what are known as implied powers meaning the the federal government has powers to do things that aren't expressly given to it in the Constitution meaning it has the power to do something because the power to do it is just implied because to do it helps the government carry out its regular Powers it's clearly listed Powers so let me explain this a little bit further by giving you a scenario you see on the screen here uh kind of a explanation of loose construction you see the the big letter X there I'm just throwing X in as a variable so let's provide an actual example for that variable another example I'm going to give you is the creation of the bank of the United States which Hamilton pushed for and succeeded in the 1790s now the thing about creating a National Bank is that nowhere in the U.S Constitution does it say that the federal government has the power to create a National Bank it does not say that anywhere in the U.S Constitution nowhere in the constitution does it expressly say that creating a National Bank is the power of the federal government okay so how did Hamilton pull it off well let's plug creating a National Bank into this scenario you see on the screen loose construction is the idea that the federal government has the power to create a national bank if number one is creating a National Bank strictly prohibited in the Constitution meaning does the Constitution say that the federal government cannot create a National Bank well no it doesn't okay we're good there number two does creating a National Bank help the government carry out its regular listed or specify meaning the ones that are clearly written in the constitution does a National Bank help the government carry out those powers well yeah yeah it does so according to this idea then of loose construction the the power to create a National Bank is what Hamilton and hitting the Federalist Party would argue is implied and this idea that the federal government has these implied powers is known as loose construction this idea was the foundation of the Federalist Party what about the Democratic Republican party would they agree with this idea or this interpretation well you're not going to be a valid political party if you agree with everything the Federalist Party does so clearly the Democratic Republican party will have a disagreement over the interpretation of the U.S Constitution and they did the Democratic Republican party argued that the U.S Constitution was about restricting the power of the federal government right and the way they did it is that they clearly the founders clearly wrote the powers of the new government in the Constitution they didn't mean for people to be able to find implied powers they didn't intend the document to be that way what they argued was that the government or the Constitution was written strictly to be and to be interpreted strictly so this is the idea that the U.S Constitution is to be interpreted strictly and that the federal government must confine itself to only those Powers expressly given to it in the U.S Constitution that the constitution is to be interpreted to the strictest letter of the law so what does it mean well you see again a scenario on the screen here you see the word the letter X so let's use the creation of a national bank again uh for this variable X so if you believed in this idea of strict construction then you would have argued concerning the National Bank that if the creation of a National Bank isn't listed in plain language and the Constitution as a power then the federal government can't create a national bank it's that simple this was the foundation of the democratic Republican party and you see what it came down to was they both agree right on the need for the U.S Constitution and they both agree that the federal government and the powers expressly given to it are perfectly fine they don't have a problem with any of that but to see the Federalist Party wants to extend those Powers they believe the Constitution grants them implied powers or grants the federal government implied powers to do things that need to be done and the Democratic Republicans say that's not the case but here's the thing about these ideas of loose construction and strict construction these two ideas they were the foundations of the political parties in the 1790s and they divided the American people in the 1790s and they divide the American people today we're still arguing about this stuff so you see when it comes to the political parties even today there is not much difference between them but the difference that does exist just as it existed in the 1790s is of great importance okay so I hope you learned uh a little bit there about the political parties I hope this was interesting for you I tried to make it as uh as engaging as I could but it's important to understand who these parties were who who was leading them Who provided the vision and philosophy and ultimately what were the foundations of their disagreements now I want you to I'll leave you with something to think about here because I was asking my students in class to think about this question which of these two visions and philosophies Hamilton's or Jefferson's do you think and in your opinion ultimately won out meaning which of these visions for the country ultimately became a reality uh and when you think about that for a little bit most students would agree and I would agree with them that for the most part Hamilton's vision for the country became a reality but I want to say something here this country today is way more democratic than Alexander Hamilton ever would have wanted us to be okay so this was part three rise of the political parties and the next couple lectures we're going to cover just a few other examples of disputes among Americans in the 1790s