Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States

by Martin Van Buren

IT cannot have failed to strike the reader of these pages that a comparatively slight notice has been taken of that party which has for more than half a century, with rare and limited exceptions, administered the Government of our country. This is easily explained. During the first twelve years of the existence of this Government, the period during which the two great parties of the country received that "form and pressure" which they have never lost, the Federalists were in power, and of course principal actors in the management of public affairs. Expositions of their measures and of the circumstances under which they were brought forward, and criticisms upon those measures, naturally acquire greater prominence in a review of the period than the less salient manifestations of the opposition permit. The resistance made by the latter to those measures involved a succession of sacrifices and services which it is now difficult to appreciate at their full value, but which, when correctly estimated, reflect the highest honor upon those engaged in it and deserve the fullest notice.

The four great crises in our national affairs were, first, the Revolution; second, the government of the Confederation between the recognition of our Independence and the adoption of the present Constitution; third, the struggle for and the acquisition of that instrument; and fourth, Hamilton's attempt to make of the Government which had been established under it a delusion, and the Constitution a sham, to pave the way for its overthrow and for the final introduction of institutions more accordant with his opinions;—for, as I have remarked, no intelligent man could have expected that the people of America would long endure a Constitution subject to the treatment to which he had exposed it, and to such as he had still in store for it.

In the crisis of the Revolution, the conduct of all who subsequently composed the two great parties in the country—save the Tories, who were soon absorbed by one of them,—was equally meritorious. The difference between them in point of numbers was largely in favor of those who were afterwards called Anti-Federalists, and, still later, Republicans, and in point of talents and perhaps in social position on the side of the Federalists.

The condition of the country, during the second important juncture, may be not inaptly illustrated by the common figure of a strong man struggling in a morass. Nothing was stable, and nothing which promised substantial relief seemed for a season practicable. Of the prominent measures brought forward by both parties to extricate the country from its embarrassments, those proposed by the Federalists were the wisest, and, as the result proved, well adapted to the exigences of the occasion.

In the contest for the Constitution that party was also throughout more useful than its opponents. In this estimate the course taken by Hamilton is not regarded as the act of his party, except as to that portion of it which consisted in signing the Constitution and in aiding its adoption.

The issues involved in the fourth decisive crisis in our political fortunes were contested during the presidency of John Adams. The whole of that administration was a political campaign, occupied by bitter and uninterrupted struggles for predominance between the conflicting principles of two great parties. The most important, although perhaps not the most exciting, of the questions and measures in dispute had arisen during the administration of President Washington; but his presence and participation in the Government held the parties at bay. Political alienations had then taken place, and wounds had been inflicted which were never healed, and bitter fountains sprang up and struggled for an outlet, but they were in a great degree restrained by that consideration. The leading men among those who soon after organized the first Republican, now called the old Republican, party, made it a point to abstain from violent action, and to content themselves with protests against measures of which they disapproved, but which they could not defeat. Jefferson gave his opinion in the cabinet, and Madison made his unanswerable speech in the Congress against the bank, and the latter, with other Republicans, spoke strongly against particular features of the funding system, but both measures were nevertheless adopted by decisive majorities; and still, as far as practicable, harsh invective and reproaches against those majorities were withheld or delayed. The removal of the salient point of attack, by the withdrawal of Hamilton from the cabinet, served also to stay partisan outbreaks on the part of the Republicans, who were, throughout, not unmindful of the advantages they would give to their opponents by bringing matters to a crisis whilst Washington was at the head of the Government. On the other hand, Hamilton evidently was discouraged by the restrictions imposed upon him by the prudence of Washington. It is apparent that, although by far more confided in, on the score of his great talents, than any other member of the administration, he was yet not allowed the latitude which he thought necessary to success. No one can read his remarkable letter to Washington (to which I have referred in another connection) without perceiving that he was seriously discontented. He thought that there were men about the President who interfered with and opposed his counsels, and he avowed his suspicions to that effect in that letter to Washington, with the expression of a hope that the latter would one day understand those men better. There was, besides, as Jefferson admits, "no act of strong mark during the remainder of his" (Washington's) "administration that excited much complaint."

Discontents were, therefore, in a great degree, held in abeyance waiting the succession for more active resistance and redress. The arrival of that period—the retirement of Washington and the election of Adams—found the field clear for the great contest for which the materials had been gathered and the hearts of the combatants prepared.

Mr. Jefferson endeavored, as far as was proper, to prevent himself from being regarded as a competitor with Mr. Adams, when the latter was elected. He wrote to Mr. Madison, requesting him to withdraw his name if there should be an equality of votes between himself and Mr. Adams, which was not an improbable result, assigning, as a reason, that the latter was greatly his senior in years, and had always stood in advance of him in public life. But notwithstanding the friendly feelings that had existed between them down to that period, their relations soon assumed a very decided character of political opposition. Then commenced that fierce partisan struggle which has never been equaled here and seldom, if ever, in any country, either in respect to the gravity and interest of the principles involved, or to the ability and firmness with which the ground of the respective parties was sustained.

A full account of the incidents of this four years' controversy would carry this work far beyond the limits of my plan and of my time. My object has been to trace the origin and first organization of our political parties. To this full notices of the early measures out of which they sprang were indispensable. Partisan conflicts upon questions that arose after their organization was completed, are to be regarded as effects rather than as causes of their existence. The spirit which controls the action of sects and parties, in church or state, is indeed selfish and perverse, becoming more and more characterized by those qualities the longer they are kept on foot. When a new measure is proposed, or doctrine announced, on either side, the problem presenting itself for deliberation eo instanti to the minds of the opposite faction, is as to the degree of strength and credit which its introduction and success may be expected to bring to its authors, and of consequent damage to their own party,—degrees, of course, dependent upon the extent of its probable advantage to the interests of religion, in one case, or of the country, in the other,—and in such deliberation the claims of religion and country are in great danger of being postponed for the interests of parties, and the new doctrine or measure of meeting with a resistance proportioned to its probable merit. It results as a general rule that it is sufficient to induce one party to oppose any given measure to know that it has been introduced by its adversary. This is an unfavorable and humiliating view of a subject which nevertheless includes great advantages in a free State, but its truth is unhappily too obvious.

The angry contests which followed each other in rapid and uninterrupted succession during the administration of the elder Adams, partook strongly of this character. They sprung out of questions which arose after the two great parties of the country—which have been substantially kept on foot ever since—had been completely organized and had taken the field, the one to accomplish and the other to resist a great national reform which could only be constitutionally determined through the medium of a struggle for the succession. Of these I have only noticed the alien and sedition laws, and have been induced to make that discrimination partly by a conviction of their superior influence in settling the fate of parties, but principally from their relation to the report upon the question of their constitutionality prepared by Madison, under the invigorating stimulus administered by the ever active and zealous mind of Jefferson. Of this great paper I shall speak again.