The Federalist and the Democratic-Republican Parties
When the Constitution first took effect and George Washington became the first president in 1789, the young United States was confronted with a number of massive crises. One of the most crippling of these issues was the enormous debt obtained because of the Revolutionary War. Not only did the US (controlled, during the war, by the Second Continental Congress) borrow vast reserves of money from other nations to finance the war, but it also issued war bonds. Individual Americans had loaned money to the federal government in exchange for an IOU with a giant interest rate, a fact that only added further weight to the growing debt. What's more, the economy had been devastated by the war itself. America was only 2 decades into its existence, yet it had some of the worst debt of any nation in the world and it had been plunged by an 8-year-long conflict into a destructive recession. What possible relief could be provided? How could we ever enjoy financial growth again? Alexander Hamilton, Washington's secretary of treasury, proposed his own solutions.
Hamilton presented 3 separate means of paying off the debt. He demanded a set of tariffs and taxes on whiskey in order to gather some of the revenue needed to liquidate the debt. The whiskey tax was especially controversial, as not only did Americans adore the taste and inebriation of whiskey, but it also forced small whiskey producers to pay more in duties than large whiskey distillers. Tiny whiskey businesses were required to pay 9 cents per gallon, while enormous duopolies had to cede a mere 6 cents per gallon. Hamilton also scared proponents of states' rights by demanding that the federal government assume responsibility for state debts and then sell financial assets to terminate those debts. States' rights advocates feared that Hamilton's proposal would render the states over-reliant on federal assistance. To address the general economic pains, Hamilton proposed the creation of a national bank that would exist for 20 years. This, too, was a very inflammatory idea. Not only did no clause of the Constitution allow the federal government to charter a bank (drawing allegations of violating the Constitution), but many progressives feared the national bank would be a vehicle for aristocrats to exploit the working class.
Facing all of this outrage and criticism, Hamilton clearly had a difficult time convincing Congress, and even his close friend Washington, to support his financial proposals. Thus, in 1791, Hamilton created the very first political party in US history - the Federalist Party - in order to advance his agenda. The Federalist Party was rather successful in its initial purpose. While Hamilton's tariffs and federal assumption of state debts had already been enacted by the time the Federalist Party was founded, 1791 saw the passage of the whiskey tax and national bank. Yet, the Federalist Party did not stop there. It continued to champion Hamilton's personal political views. The Federalists were very right-wing, calling for increased hierarchy (or at least a stagnation in the presence of social inequality, rather than a reduction), an authoritarian government, federal supremacy over states' rights, restrictions on immigration, the preservation of education as a privilege rather than a right, high tariffs, and the swift industrialization of the US economy. One giant and genuine source of light in this otherwise-dreary and cruel agenda was the Federalist demands for the emancipation of America's slaves.
Thomas Jefferson, secretary of state under Washington and prominent opponent of Hamilton and his elitist posse, was furious when he learned of the Federalist Party. As a result, he retaliated with the formation of the Republican Party in 1792. Despite the name and the distressing mental connections it conjures up, the Republican Party was not a conservative political body. It was quite left-wing, calling for a reduction in hierarchy. The Republicans advocated a robust array of personal freedoms, states' rights over federal supremacy, acceptance of immigrants, taxpayer-funded public education, free trade, and the continuance of an agrarian economy. Free trade and agriculture were especially high priorities of the Republicans. Jefferson believed that every American should have their own farm, where they can produce all the food, shelter, clothes, bedding, and other necessities appropriate toward facilitating a comfortable, happy life. Through that policy, Americans would be self-reliant and so wouldn't have to rely on the government or large corporations to access their needs, making them less hesitant to overthrow these institutions when they became tyrannical. Free trade was considered a pillar of this view, as free trade would ensure access to imported industrial goods, rather than the need to produce them at home. That would force people off their farms and toss them into the labors of a factory.
Diplomacy and foreign policy were other things separating the Federalist Party from the Republican Party and vice versa. Soon after Washington (who never formally joined a political party but tended to side with the Federalists) was inaugurated, the French Revolution commenced. The Republicans supported the French Revolution and so, when choosing between the eternal rivals jockeying for control over Europe, when having to select a friendship with France or Britain, endorsed Paris over London. The Federalists, opposing the French Revolution, preferred London to Paris. This actually proved to be one of the factors in the Federalist Party's downfall. The French Revolution was inspired by the American Revolution, with French liberals basing their revolutionary movement on their studies of what was occurring in the 13 Colonies. And due to the shared emphasis on social progress and economic opportunity, many Americans supported the French Revolution. Federalist opposition alienated many Americans. Federalists actually tried to defame the Republicans by calling them "Democratic-Republicans" to associate them with the French Revolution, inspiring the Jeffersonians to change the name of their party to what was meant to be a frightening insult in 1798.
Washington, with his tendency to prefer the Federalists, signed the Jay Treaty in 1795, which revived the alliance between the US and Britain. France, furious, began attacking American ships in retaliation. During this ordeal, known as the Quasi-War, John Adams won the presidency in 1796 and 1797. He now had to deal with the crisis at hand and save America's sailors from barbaric ambushes, as well as spare America from the calamity of another war. Throughout the Quasi-War, Democratic-Republicans continued to prefer France, just as immigrants tended to prefer the Democratic-Republicans. So, in the summer of 1798, Adams signed a collection of wartime emergency measures known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. They included:
- The Naturalization Act of 1798, signed by Adams on June 18, 1798: This law raised the number of years an immigrant had to live in the United States to become a citizen from 5 to 14 (Jefferson repealed this law in 1802)
- The Alien Friends Act, signed by Adams on June 25, 1798: This law, which expired on March 3, 1801, allowed the federal government to deport any immigrant accused of plotting against the political class, even if they received no trial
- The Alien Enemies Act, signed by Adams on July 6, 1798: The only one of the Alien and Sedition Acts still in effect as of 2023, the Alien Enemies Act allowed the president to deport all immigrants from a country the US was at war with
- The Sedition Act, signed by Adams on July 14, 1798: This law, which also expired on March 3, 1801, banned all criticism of the government
The Alien and Sedition Acts appalled most Americans and further damaged the reputation of the Federalist Party. Adams did succeed in ending the Quasi-War, but Jefferson still defeated him when running for president in 1800. During Jefferson's presidency, a separate foreign policy crisis began to emerge: In 1803, the Napoleonic Wars began, pitting France against basically the rest of Europe. Britain and France, in order to inflate the size of the militaries, began kidnapping random sailors and forcing them to enlist in their respective navies. Many of the victims happened to be Americans, and so impressment (as the practice was known) created tensions between the US and the two main European powers. Jefferson tried to end this crisis via diplomacy, but this only worked with France. Thus, James Madison declared war on Britain in 1812, sparking the War of 1812. Like the Democratic-Republicans during the Quasi-War, Federalists refused to back down with their support of their favored European power. They continued to defend Britain and so opposed the war.
In the autumn of 1814, Madison demanded that Massachusetts temporarily cede its state militia to the federal armed forces as a war measure. Massachusetts refused, provoking Madison and causing him to withhold federal economic aid that could be used to help Massachusetts recover from the war. New England, a stronghold for Federalists and so a hub of anti-war sentiment, was outraged by this, and on December 15, 1814, delegates from various Federalist-majority states met at the Hartford Convention in Connecticut. The Hartford Convention was held in complete secrecy, inflicting additional rot on the reputation of the Federalist Party. On January 3, 1815, the Hartford Convention issued 7 amendments it wanted to see added to the Constitution: A 2/3 majority mandate for enacting embargoes and a 60-day limit on said embargoes, a 2/3 majority mandate for declaring war, a 2/3 majority mandate for admitting new states into the Union, a ban on immigrants holding public office, no longer counting slaves as 3/5 of citizens or even as citizens at all, a 1-term limit on the presidency, and a ban on electing 2 presidents from the same state in a row. The Hartford Convention then dispersed on January 5, 1815.
Since the Hartford Convention demanded a 2/3 majority to declare war, it was apparent to all Americans that it sought to prevent future wars and that it was organized in obvious opposition to the War of 1812. Just over 3 weeks after the Hartford Convention disbanded, Andrew Jackson secured a massive American victory against British forces at the Battle of New Orleans, dramatically boosting support for the war. The War of 1812 ended almost immediately following the Battle of New Orleans, with the Senate approving the peace treaty on February 17, 1815. By the time the Battle of New Orleans drew to a close with an American victory, the war didn't have enough time left to become unpopular again. Thus, opposition to the War of 1812 was the final straw in the back of the Federalist camel. In 1816, Federalist Rufus King ran against Democratic-Republican James Monroe, losing all but a handful of votes. In 1820, the Federalists didn't even nominate anyone. Before the next election, the Federalist Party formally disbanded in 1824. As the Federalist Party hemorrhaged political influence, people flocked to the Democratic-Republican Party, which was soon the only party of considerable strength in the entire Union. The Era of Good Feelings, a period where no political division existed to tug at the nation's seams, began.
Monroe was an incredibly popular president. He exercised the strict constructionist caution of the Democratic-Republicans, but was loose enough with the Necessary and Proper Clause - the section of the Constitution allowing Congress to use powers not mentioned in the Constitution if it helped enforce the rest of the document - to win the approval of Federalists. However, with the Democratic-Republican Party now as big as it was, with members from all corners of the nation and regions of the political spectrum, its internal division and collapse were inevitable. In 1824, 4 separate people ran in the presidential election, all Democratic-Republicans: John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William Crawford, and Henry Clay. Because of how many people were involved in the election, no one won an actual majority of votes in the Electoral College and so no one won the White House. The House of Representatives was then asked to choose the new president. Clay, who was disqualified because he received the least votes, supported Adams. Since Clay was speaker of the house, his support for Adams won Adams enough votes to become president-elect. Clay was then made secretary of state for the Adams Administration, drawing allegations from Jackson that the two men colluded to rig the election.
Jackson quickly became an irate rival of Adams and Clay. The blazing tensions between these men set fire to the whole Democratic-Republican Party, with Adams and Clay breaking away to join the National Republican Party. Their supporters followed suit. In 1828, Jackson worked with his friend and political ally Martin Van Buren to create the Democratic Party, which he, Van Buren, and their followers eagerly entered. Like the Federalist Party earlier in the 1820s, the Democratic-Republican Party was left with no members and no real political supporter. In 1834, 30 years after the death of Hamilton, 8 years after the death of Jefferson, and 5 years into the presidency of Jackson, the Democratic-Republican Party was rendered officially defunct. The Federalist and Democratic-Republican Parties may seem like irrelevant fossils retrieved from America's adolescence, but they still maintain a significant impact on the United States. Their legacies dangle over the heads of the American political class just as Socrates' dangles over the head of all modern philosophers and Genghis Khan's dangles over the heads of all Mongolians. With the creation of these two organizations, the left and right factions now warring over the soul of the Union came into existence. Their bodies have decayed, but their spirits continue to roam the capital.
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