Political Party in the United States

Introduction

The United States’ political parties have been a major source of constitutional change over the course of our political history, despite the fact that the Constitution makes no mention of political parties. In fact, most of the Framers were opposed to their growth. In his Farewell Address in 1796, George Washington warned the people against what he called “the baneful effects of the spirit of party.” Washington feared the divisive effect of party politics. Yet, even as he spoke, parties were developing. They have played a major role in the shaping of government and its processes ever since. Illustrations of that point are almost without number.
Neither the Constitution nor any law provides for the nomination of candidates for the presidency.

From the 1830s on, however, the major parties have held national conventions to do just that. The parties have converted the electoral college, the group that makes the formal selection of the nation’s President, from what the Framers intended into a “rubber stamp” for each State’s popular vote in presidential elections.

Both houses of Congress are organized and conduct much of their business on the basis of party. The President makes appointments to office with an eye to party politics. In short, government in the United States is in many ways government through party.

Political Party in the context of the Political Party Committees

In this context, Political Party may be defined as follows: An association, committee, or organization that nominates or selects a candidate for election to federal office whose name appears on the election ballot as the candidate of the organization.

Political Parties System

Political parties are the basis of the American political system. Curiously, the Constitution makes no provisions for political parties nor for their role as the vehicle by which candidates for public office are proposed to the voters.

At the national level, the United States employs a two-party system that has remained remarkably durable throughout the nation’s history, even though rival national parties have appeared and disappeared from the political scene. The Federalists, for example, who rallied around President George Washington, disappeared slowly after 1800; and the Whig Party, which arose in the 1830s in opposition to President Andrew Jackson, a Democrat, collapsed two decades later. Today, the Democratic Party, which traces its origins back to the nation’s third president, Thomas Jefferson, and the Republican Party, founded in 1854, continue to dominate politics at the federal, state and local levels.

One explanation for the longevity of the Republican and Democratic parties is that they are not tight ideological organizations, but loose alliances of state and local parties that unite every four years for the presidential election. Both parties compete for the same broad center of the American electorate, and although Republicans are generally more conservative than Democrats, both parties contain relatively liberal and conservative wings that continually vie for influence.

Nevertheless, other parties are also active, and particularly at the state and local levels, they may succeed in electing candidates to office and in exercising considerable influence. During the early 20th century, for example, members of the Socialist Party were elected to the House of Representatives and as the mayors of over 50 towns and cities. The Progressive Party held the governorship of Wisconsin for a number of years and in 1974 an independent candidate became governor of Maine. (1)

Concept of Political Party

In the U.S., in the context of Political Parties in the U.S., Political Party has the following meaning: A group organized to run candidates for public office under a common label. Victorious candidates are then expected to govern pursuing the policy objectives of the group. (Source of this definition of Political Party : University of Texas)

Political Party

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See Also

• Political Parties

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Notes and References

1. “An outline of American government” (1980), by Richard C. Schroeder