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Democratic-Republican Party (United States)
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The Democratic-Republican Party was founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison around 1792. Supporters usually identified themselves as Republicans, but sometimes as Democrats. The term "Democratic Republican" was also used by contemporaries, but mostly by the party's opponents. It was the dominant political party in the United States from 1800 to 1824, when it split into competing factions, one of which became the modern Democratic Party.
Jefferson created the party in order to oppose the economic and foreign policies of the Federalists, a party created a year or so earlier by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton.
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The Democratic-Republican Party was founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison around 1792. Supporters usually identified themselves as Republicans, but sometimes as Democrats. The term "Democratic Republican" was also used by contemporaries, but mostly by the party's opponents. It was the dominant political party in the United States from 1800 to 1824, when it split into competing factions, one of which became the modern Democratic Party.
Jefferson created the party in order to oppose the economic and foreign policies of the Federalists, a party created a year or so earlier by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. The Democratic-Republican party opposed the Jay Treaty of 1794 with Britain (then at war with France) and supported good relations with France before 1801. The party insisted on a strict construction of the Constitution, and denounced many of Hamilton's proposals (especially the national bank) as unconstitutional. The party favors states' rights and the primacy of the yeoman farmer over bankers, industrialists, merchants, and other monied interests. There was always a range of opinion within the Party on issues of commerce, public works, and industrialization, which were more warmly received by Madison and the Northern Democrats than by Jefferson and the Southern Republicans; but this was a preference, not a firm ideology on either side. Jefferson signed a bill funding a canal for the Potomac in 1805; Madison ended his term in office vetoing a public works bill.
Jeffersonian purists, or "Old Republican" wing of the party, led by Jefferson, John Randolph of Roanoke, William H. Crawford and Nathaniel Macon, favored low tariffs, states' rights, strict construction of the Constitution and reduced spending. It opposed a standing army. The "National Republicans," led by Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams and John C. Calhoun, eventually favored higher tariffs, a stronger national defense, and "internal improvements" (public works projects). After the Federalist Party broke up in 1815, many former members joined the D-R's nationalist faction.
The party's elected presidents were Thomas Jefferson (1800 and 1804), James Madison (1808 and 1812), and James Monroe (1816 and 1820). The party dominated Congress and most state governments; it was weakest in New England. William H. Crawford was the party's last presidential nominee in 1824. At this time, the party broke up into several factions. One faction, led by Andrew Jackson, would become the modern Democratic Party. Another faction, led by Adams and Clay, was known as the National Republicans. This group evolved into the Whig Party.
Founding
Madison started the party among Congressmen in Philadelphia (the national capital) as the Republican party; then he, Jefferson, and others reached out to include state and local leaders around the country, especially New York and the South. 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.
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.
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, through the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, announced the “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, skepticism in regard to the federal courts, and opposition to a Navy and a National Bank. The party saw itself as a champion of republicanism and viewed its opponents as supporters of the aristocracy, not of the people.
The party itself originally coalesced around Jefferson, who diligently maintained extensive correspondence with like-minded republican leaders throughout the country. Washington frequently decried the growing sense of "party" emerging from the internal battles between Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Adams and others in his administration. As tensions in Europe increased, the two factions increasingly found themselves on different sides of foreign policy issues, with the Democrats favoring neutral ties with both France and England. The Democrats opposed Hamilton's national bank and his belief that a national debt was good for the country. They strongly distrusted the elitism of Hamilton's circle, denouncing it as "aristocratic"; and they called for state's rights. They feared this interpretation would allow the national government to centralize power.
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."
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.
| | Election year |
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| House | 1788 | 1790 | 1792 | 1794 | 1796 | 1798 | 1800 | 1802 | 1804 | 1806 |
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| Federalist | 37 | 39 | 51 | 47 | 57 | 60 | 38 | 39 | 25 | 24 |
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| Democratic-Republican | 28 | 30 | 54 | 59 | 49 | 46 | 65 | 103 | 116 | 118 |
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| % Democratic-Republican | 43% | 43% | 51% | 56% | 46% | 43% | 63% | 73% | 82% | 83% | | Senate |
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| Federalist | 18 | 16 | 16 | 21 | 22 | 22 | 15 | 9 | 7 | 6 |
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| Democratic-Republican | 8 | 13 | 14 | 11 | 10 | 10 | 17 | 25 | 17 | 28 |
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| % Democratic-Republican | 31% | 45% | 47% | 34% | 31% | 31% | 53% | 74% | 71% | 82% |
- 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.
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. 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."
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.
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.
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. 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." 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.
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. 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
The name of the party evolved over time. Party members in the 1790s called themselves "Republicans" and voted for what they called the "Republican Party," "republican ticket," or the "republican interest"; occasionally other names were used. Both "Federalist" and "Republican" were positive terms in the 1790s, and both parties sometimes claimed the terms. Republicans occasionally called themselves "Federalist" and "Federalist Republicans."
The term Republic comes from the Latin res publicus (res 'concern' + publicus 'of the public, people'), which refers to the form of government of the Roman Republic, before the rule of the emperors. Vermont called itself a republic from 1777 to 1791 and the word is used in the U.S. Constitution of 1787. The word "republican" was used by Americans in the late 18th century to describe the new nation's political values, especially its devotion to opposition to corruption, elitism, and monarchies. Jefferson used the term "republican party", meaning those in Congress who were his allies and who supported the existing republican constitution, in a letter to Washington in May 1792. From 1794 through 1823, Jefferson and Madison routinely used the terms "republican" and "Republican party."
"Democratic" derives from the Greek d?µ??at?a (demokratia) meaning "rule of the people." The word originally applied to the government of ancient Athens. In English, the term sometimes has a negative connotation. Federalists often called their opponents "Democrats" or "Jacobins" to associate them with mob rule and the excesses of the French Revolution. In 1798, 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."
Henry Adams wrote, fairly consistently, of the Republicans of Virginia and their allies, the Democrats of Pennsylvania and New York; this reflects usage under the administrations of Jefferson and Madison.
After 1802, some local organizations slowly began merging "Democratic" into their own name and became known as the "Democratic Republicans." In 1811, Hezekiah Niles used "Democratic Republican" routinely in the Niles' Register. Some members of the Party were even referring to themselves as Democrats by 1812.
A related grass roots movement, the Democratic-Republican Societies arose in 1793–94. The use of the word "democratic" was promoted by French minister Citizen Genet, a Girondin. It was not formally affiliated with the new party, though some local Jeffersonian republican leaders were also leaders of the societies. There were some three dozen such societies. They did not nominate tickets or attempt to control legislatures, as the Republicans did. The Federalists soon denounced the Democratic-Republican Societies.
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. At first, the various factions continued to view themselves as Republicans. Jackson's supporters were called "Jackson Men," while Adams supporters were called "Adams Men."
The Jacksonians held their first national convention as the "Republican Party" in 1832. By the mid-1830s, they referred to themselves as the "Democratic Party," although they also continued to use the name "Democratic Republicans." The name "Democratic Party" did not become official until 1844.
Many politicians of the Democratic Party have emphasized their party's lineage to Jefferson and the Democratic-Republican Party. Martin Van Buren wrote in his Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States that the party's name had changed from Republican to Democratic and that Jefferson was the founder of the party. Thomas Jefferson Randolph, the eldest grandson of Jefferson, gave a speech as chairman at the 1872 Democratic National Convention and said that he had spent eighty years of his life in the Democratic-Republican Party.
The Adams/Clay alliance became the basis of the National Republican Party, a rival to the Jacksonian party. This party favored a higher tariff to protect U.S. manufacturers, as well as public works, especially roads. 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 as an anti-slavery party. Most northern Whigs soon defected to the new party. The name was chosen to harken back to Jeffersonian ideals of liberty and equality, ideals that Abraham Lincoln and many members of the new party sought to revive together with Clay's program of using an active government to modernize the economy. The modern ideological party division, with the Democrats as the party of economic populism and the Republicans as the pro-business party, originated in the 1890s.
In 1991 the United States Senate passed by voice vote "A bill to establish a commission to commemorate the bicentennial of the establishment of the Democratic Party of the United States." It was introduced by Democratic Senator Terry Sanford and cosponsored by 56 Senators.
The Jefferson Republican Party claims to be the modern party closest in ideology to the Democratic-Republican Party and bases its platform on the writings of Jefferson. Several other parties, including the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party, also lay claim to his heritage.
Party presidents
The following United States Presidents were elected following a process that selected them as a national nominee of the Democratic-Republican party:
In addition, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson identified themselves and their administrations as Democratic-Republican, but ran in elections where opponents were also identified as Democratic-Republican.
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 small group of their Congressional supporters, which called itself the Democratic members of Congress. 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
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 at Readex America’s Historical Newspapers, available at research libraries.
Primary sources
- Adams, John Quincy. 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)
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