In his Farewell adress to the nation, President George Washington included a warning to America about the dangers of Political Parties. This is a summary of what he said from Wikipedia...
I find this interesting, since today America is so polarized by its two party system. What if America had listened to it's founding father, and took mesures to restrict or limit the powers of politcal parties? What sort of effect would this have had on America in it's early years, and how might it's political system be different down the years?
Washington continues to advance his idea of the dangers of sectionalism and expands his warning to include the dangers of political parties to the government and country as a whole. His warnings took on added significance with the recent creation of the Democratic-Republican Party by Jefferson, to oppose Hamilton's Federalist Party, which had been created a year earlier in 1791, which in many ways promoted the interest of certain regions and groups of Americans over others. A more pressing concern for Washington, which he makes reference to in this portion of the address, was the Democratic-Republican efforts to align with France and the Federalist efforts to ally the nation with Great Britain in an ongoing conflict between the two European nations brought about by the French Revolution.
While Washington accepts the fact that it is natural for people to organize and operate within groups like political parties, he also argues that every government has recognized political parties as an enemy and has sought to repress them because of their tendency to seek more power than other groups and take revenge on political opponents. He argues that these parties' efforts to seize power and exact revenge upon their opponents have led to horrible atrocities and will ultimately end in despotism as people throw their support behind the most powerful faction and the faction focuses on increasing their own power instead of promoting the public liberty.
Washington goes on to acknowledge the fact that parties are sometimes beneficial in promoting liberty in monarchies, but argues that political parties must be restrained in a popularly elected government because of their tendency to distract the government from their duties, create unfounded jealousies amongst groups and regions, raise false alarms amongst the people, promote riots and insurrection, and provide foreign nations and interests access to the government where they can impose their will upon the country.
I find this interesting, since today America is so polarized by its two party system. What if America had listened to it's founding father, and took mesures to restrict or limit the powers of politcal parties? What sort of effect would this have had on America in it's early years, and how might it's political system be different down the years?