The active work of parties.
The Functions of Political Parties.—Could we get along without parties? Perhaps we could, but American government would have to be carried on very differently if parties did not exist. If you watch an election campaign, you will notice that several things happen in the course of it. First, there is a great deal of public discussion about candidates. Then, some time before the election, candidates are nominated. Platforms are drawn up stating the things which each candidate favors. The candidates, together with other speakers, go out and make addresses; pamphlets are distributed broadcast giving reasons why people should vote for one candidate or the other; meetings and rallies are held in halls and on the street corners; the newspapers print the arguments on the respective sides; the people are worked up to a white heat of enthusiasm; and finally, on the day of election, the issue is decided.
Now how would all this be done if there were no political parties? Candidates cannot be nominated without organized effort; platforms do not make themselves; the people cannot be stirred to an active interest on one side or the other except by a vigorous campaign; without parties, indeed, an election would be a very dull and uninteresting affair.
Parties perform three important functions:
The conclusion is, therefore, that political parties have various definite functions to perform, and these may be summarized under three heads. |1. They nominate candidates and frame platforms.| First, they nominate candidates and tell the people about them. This information is given in their platforms, of which more will be said a little later. |They rouse interest among the voters.| Second, they rouse public interest by their rallies, their pamphlets, circulars, articles in newspapers, and posters, as well as by personal canvassing. This rousing of the voter is very important, because most men and women are chiefly concerned with their own business and personal affairs. Even after all these methods of getting them interested have been used it will be found that two or three voters out of every ten have failed to go to the polls on election day. What would happen if there were no rallies, circulars, canvassers, and all the rest? In that case most of the voters would probably manifest no interest at all, and the election would be decided by a small portion of the people. |3. They bring the various branches of government into harmony.| Third, the parties provide a chain which holds the various officers of the government to a joint responsibility. We elect a great many public officers to perform different functions. Members of the legislature are elected to make laws; governors and other state officers to administer these laws; and judges to help enforce them. To get the best results all three groups of public officials must work in harmony. But if each were elected independently and without any reference to the others, there would be little chance of their working together. When they do work together it is because they have been elected to carry out a common policy. This is the chain which holds them together—allegiance to the same political party. If every public official followed his own ideas, we should have one set of men making the laws and another set of men throwing obstacles in the way of their enforcement.[[51]]
If there were no political parties, something else would have to be organized to take their place. The things which the party does must be done somehow. We cannot have democratic government unless candidates are nominated, platforms framed, public interest aroused, and officials encouraged to work together in a common cause. Political parties do not always perform these functions well, but what sort of organization would be likely to manage them any better?
The political “factions” of early days.
When and How did Political Parties Begin?—It is difficult to say how or when political parties originated. Someone once remarked that even at the time of the Flood there were two political parties, namely, the Deluvians and the Antedeluvians. John Adams declared that “parties began with human nature”. In a sense he was right. Anyone who has read Roman history will remember the long and bitter struggle between the patricians and the plebeians. The Guelphs and Ghibellines of the Middle Ages were political parties although their rivalry often assumed the form of open warfare. The Cavaliers and Roundheads of Cromwell’s time armed themselves and fought for the control of the government with muskets and sabres, not with ballots. They were parties, dynastic parties. But the violent conflict of parties eventually gave way to orderly contests at the polls, and men found that they could belong to different political parties without thereby becoming personal enemies of one another. So Whigs and Tories arose in England before the American Revolution, and corresponding groups were to be found in the thirteen American colonies.
The first American parties.
But the real history of political parties in the United States did not begin until after the adoption of the constitution, when Hamilton and Jefferson became leaders of opposing elements among the people. Hamilton and his followers, the Federalists, desired to strengthen the central government; Jefferson and his supporters, calling themselves Democratic-Republicans, desired to keep the central government weak and to place the balance of power in the hands of the states. In the end Jefferson’s party obtained the upper hand, but by having things too much its own way finally lost its solidarity and split into several factions. Party politics gave way for a time to personal politics, the voters ranging themselves behind leaders rather than principles; but presently the various factions consolidated into two parties known as Whigs and Democrats. The Whig party eventually went to pieces and in its place arose the Republican organization which elected Lincoln in 1860. Since that date the Democrats and Republicans have continued to be the two leading parties.