This document is intended as a primer on the political history of the US. It’s a brief summary and is by no means exhaustive. The goal here is to representing the major parties, figures, and issues in each era of American history.
Pre-Constitution (1776-1788)
Parties: Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists.
More of interest groups than real parties. The Federalists were in favor of a new, stronger federal government to replace the Articles of Confederation. They wanted a United States of America closer to what we understand it today: one nation under a relatively strong federal government. The anti-Federalists were for something resembling the status quo, although they agreed there were major problems with the Articles.
Major figures: The authors of the Federalist Papers were the major Federalist figures: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. Patrick Henry, George Clinton, and a few other figures from the Revolution were anti-Federalist leaders.
Major issues: strength and structure of the federal government, taxing powers, slavery
Victors: the Federalists.
First Party System (1789-1808)
Parties: Federalists vs. Democratic-Republicans.
These were the first true political parties for the new nation. The first two presidential elections in the country’s history essentially made George Washington President by acclimation. He never aligned with a political party, but his views aligned more strongly with the Federalists. The Federalists were for a strong national government, a national bank, and neutrality abroad, an effectively pro-British position. The Democratic-Republicans were for more power to be delegated to the states, opposed to a strong national economic policy, and were pro-France. Regionally, the Federalists were strongest in New England and the Democratic-Republicans were strongest in the South. The mid-Atlantic was the swing area.
Major figures: Alexander Hamilton was the major Federalist figure, alongside Washington. Jefferson founded the Democratic-Republican party and was its leader during this time period.
Major issues: Britain vs. France, strength of the federal government, debt, national bank, slavery
Victors: Federalists when they had Washington, after that not so much. The Democratic-Republicans wouldn’t lose a presidential election until 1840.
Democratic-Republican Dominance (1808-1828)
Parties: The Democratic-Republicans.
This is America’s only period of functionally uncontested one party rule, though regional differences split the party and it ran multiple candidates for the Presidency. The first 7 years of this period was dominated by the Napoleonic Wars with the US using them as a pretext to declare war on Great Britain and attempt to conquer Canada during, the war of 1812. America mostly lost, but negotiated a return to status quo ante with the British. From 1815-1828 was the “Era of Good Feelings” where the country faced an economic boom with relatively few major political disputes. Other than slavery, of course, with the major development being the Missouri Compromise. The only other major issue was tariffs, with the nascent industrial north favoring protection from British goods.
Major Figures: James Madison, James Monroe, Henry Clay
Major Issues: War with Britain, tariffs, slavery
Victors: The Democratic-Republicans, since they were running against themselves. Andrew Jackson, as it turns out.
Jacksonian Democracy (1828-1854)
Parties: Democrats vs. Whigs.
This is the second real party system in US history. Andrew Jackson founded the party that we know today as the Democrats, though few modern Democrats would have been Democrats in 1828. The Whigs were a weird coalition that never resolved some major questions, and eventually imploded because of the biggest: slavery. Mostly the Whigs were a collection of people who passionately hated Andrew Jackson. Other issues of the day included the national bank (Jackson against), Indian removal (Jackson for), the civil service (Jackson for his pals getting jobs regardless of qualification), and expansion (Jackson for, but Polk mostly accomplished it). The Whigs were nominally led by the nation’s most powerful legislator, Henry Clay, who lost the Presidency several times in this period. Jackson and his Democrats were strongest in the West (now the lower Midwest) and South. Whigs were somewhat stronger in New England, though they were a weak party overall.
Major figures: Jackson, Jackson, and Jackson. Also James K. Polk, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun, who represented the increasingly militant southern wing of the Democrats.
Major issues: Slavery, Andrew Jackson, the national bank, expansion, how to handle slavery in the new territories, slavery, and slavery.
Victors: Jackson and the Democrats.
The Civil War and Reconstruction (1854-1876)
Parties: Democrats vs. Republicans as it will be for the rest of this piece.
Notable third parties: Constitutional Union Party, Southern Democrats, both split from the Democrats in the 1860 election. The Republicans were founded out of the remnants of the anti-slavery Whigs in Wisconsin and Michigan. They were also generally pro-reform and investment in infrastructure investments like the transcontinental railroad and the land grant colleges. They quickly exploded into a powerful electoral force, and won the 1860 election by dominating the northern states under the banner of a single term Congressman and failed Senatorial candidate from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln. The Democrats were a mess during this period, with their major power base in the south seceding from the country. After the Civil War, the Republicans became strong proponents of occupation of the former Confederacy and enforcing the rights of the freed slaves, best represented by the 14th and 15th amendments and the creation of the Department of Justice under Grant. The Democrats re-joined the debate as a states’ rights party and hoped to end Reconstruction as quickly as possible. This was accomplished when they agreed to allow Rutherford B. Hayes to win the disputed election of 1876 in exchange for his ending the military occupation of the south, beginning the era of segregation and Jim Crow.
Major figures: Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Thaddeus Stevens (leading Republican in Congress), Jefferson Davis
Major issues: slavery, infrastructure, the South’s re-admittance to the Union, freedmen’s policy
Victors: Republicans, white southerners… eventually
The First Gilded Age (1876 – 1896)
Parties: Democrats vs. Republicans.
Notable third parties: none.
Republicans were the dominant party, and they were the party of big business. This was the era of the trusts and a period of blatant corruption where everything looked like it was made of gold, but it was all fake with little of the gains going to the majority of the people. Thus Twain’s “Gilded Age.” This was a period of labor strife with the union movement taking hold. Republicans were particularly harsh in their treatment of labor. The Democrats were still finding themselves after the Civil War and were largely a regional party confined to the former Confederacy. Only Grover Cleveland would win a presidential election between 1860 and 1912 as a Democrat. The other major issues of the time were reforming the civil service to break Jackson’s spoils system of political patronage and restricting immigration from Asia. Democrats held the South, Republicans were largely dominant elsewhere.
Major figures: Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller
Major issues: corporate power, labor, civil service reform, immigration
Victors: Fabulously, comically, extravagantly rich people
Progressive Era (1896-1932)
Parties: Democrats vs. Republicans.
Major Third Parties: The Progressive Party (Bull Moose), Socialist Party
Republicans remained the dominant party with Wilson being the only Democrat to win the presidency in the period. However, the nature of the parties changed a bit. Democrats became more explicitly pro-labor, especially in the Midwest and Great Plains, typified by William Jennings Bryan’s populism. Meanwhile, Republicans, especially Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft attempted to reform the massive corporate trusts that had come to dominate American politics. The progressive movement managed to pass several constitutional amendments curbing the power of the rich: the income tax and direct election of Senators, as well as more moral amendments in the form of Prohibition and women’s suffrage. This was also the period when America translated its economic power into intervention in world affairs, declaring war on Spain to take a number of its colonial possessions, backing a Panamanian independence movement to build the Panama Canal, and joining the Allies in the First World War. Backlash to this led to increasing isolationism in the 20s, led by Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge who led the fight against the US joining the League of Nations. Democrats took advantage of the split between Taft and Roosevelt in 1912 to win the Presidency, where upon they passed some pro labor reforms, but also segregated the federal government. Democrats held the South, Republicans were largely dominant elsewhere.
Major figures: Theodore Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson, JP Morgan, Henry Cabot Lodge, Eugene Debs
Major issues: Corruption, labor, imperialism, isolationism, immigration, civil rights, women’s suffrage, the gold standard
Victors: Reformers (temporarily), moralists, Republicans
The New Deal (1932-1968)
Parties: Democrats vs. and Republicans.
Major Third Parties: Dixiecrats, American Independent Party
The Democrats took advantage of the Great Depression to sell the industrial states along the Great Lakes on their proactive strategies to combat the economic calamity. This also drew in a number of African-Americans who had previously been loyal to the party of Lincoln and who had fled north looking for work. This major demographic shift caused the Democratic Party to become the dominant party in America for the first time since the 1850s, creating massive legislative majorities and winning 7 of 9 presidential elections in this period. These majorities oversawThis led to a large expansion of the social welfare state, with a large number of New Deal programs creating old age insurance, disability insurance, direct employment of workers, and later Medicare and Medicaid. The influx of black voters slowly pushed the Democrats towards embracing Civil Rights, spurredpushed along by activism from the civil rights movement. This culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of (1968). Republicans remained defined by their laissez faire and isolationist beliefs for the first half of this period, eventually embracing the success of some New Deal policies and moving towards staunch anti-communism after the second World War. They, too, supported civil rights legislation in reasonably large numbers, especially the more liberal branch of the party from New England. Democrats still dominated the South, with the remnants of the old Confederate version of the party breaking off twice to form their own campaigns under Strom Thurmond in 1948 and George Wallace in 1968. This fault was the tool by which the New Deal coalition would break apart, starting in 1968.
Major Figures: Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Robert Taft (isolationist GOP), Richard Nixon (anti-communist GOP)
Major issues: the Great Depression, WW2, the Cold War, civil rights, the welfare state
Victors: Democrats, African-Americans, workers, America (This is a liberal site, y’all)
The Southern Strategy Triumphant (1968 – )
The Parties: Democrats vs. Republicans
Major Third Parties: Reform Party, Green Party
The major development was the explosion of the New Deal coalition as the ascendant conservative movement used opposition to Civil Rights to peel away the South from the Democrats. Goldwater in 1964 won the Deep South and Nixon cynically exploited the vulnerability created by the Civil Rights Act to win them again in 1968, assisted by the Democrats’ vulnerability due to the Vietnam War. This caused a permanent shift in the voting behavior of the formerly solid south that continues to this day, with some Democratic inroads being made in Virginia and North Carolina in particular. Later, Nixon married this backlash to the Civil Rights movement to the increasing power of an evangelical Christian backlash to the sexual liberation of the 1960s and early 1970s to create the modern Republican triad of big business, white supremacy, and the religious right. Democrats spent a 1968-1992 flailing and looking for a solution. Eventually Bill Clinton moved right and embraced some Republican rhetoric, especially on crime, immigration, and regulation. Since then Democrats have won the popular vote in every presidential election but 2004, but have lost two more elections because their voters are concentrated on the coasts and lack the geographic spread to win in the electoral college. Meanwhile, the GOP has become the dominant party in Congress. This is a Republican era. Some thought the Obama coalition of New Deal Democrats, black voters, Hispanics, Asians, and millennial whites, would overcome the Republicans and establish a new default, but thus far it has not managed to turn out for anyone but Barack Obama. Now we’re in the Second Gilded Age, and in the case of the President, I mean that quite literally.
Major figures: Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, Charles and David Koch
Major issues: Cold War, welfare state, civil rights, regulatory framework, abortion, LGBT rights, the environment, taxes, health care, terrorism
Winners: Republicans, the rich