WI: US political movements were each modeled after a Founding Father?

Teleology

Banned
What if instead of a pretty quick split into Federalists and Anti-Federalists/Democratic-Republicans in the post-revolutionary US, movements based on key Founding Fathers became common instead and lasted in some form all throughout American history up until this day?

Washingtonians, Jeffersonians, Franklinites, and so on.

Would Adams be integrated into the Washingtonian legacy? Hamilton? Or would Hamilton and/or Madison be a legacy movement unto themselves (I think this is likely)?

How far would it go? Would it extend further down in time to the Burr/Jackson legacy (Jacksonians?)?

If such groups as these existed, as cohesive movements if not each their own political party, what principles might they each be founded upon and how might these principles change over time as interpretations of philosophy and politics tend to do?

I find this line of inquiry very interesting because each of the Founding Fathers present such contradictions. Washington the Cincinnatus who helped set an example against dictatorship, but also a general-president who didn't really understand the notion of "loyal opposition". Franklin the puritan hedonist, Jefferson whose legacy lived on in both abolitionism and the Confederacy's interpretation of states rights, even Adams the moderate who was accused of being a monarchist.

An alternate history that delved into the principles of the Founding Fathers and those of the United States throughout it's history in this manner would be very appealing.

So, thoughts? How would the early Washingtonians interpret Washington's principles (and in what contrast to the actual principles of the man?) and what would their principles be like a hundred years later? Two hundred? Today? Those sort of questions are what I am thinking on here and would appreciate commentary upon.

Finally, are there any precedents for nations where long-lasting cults of personality based on the differing founders dominate the political landscape (at least in terms of political philosophy, if not each representing their own party)?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
They have been, in a sense. In the early Republic, the Federalists were the Hamiltonians and the Democratic-Republicans were the Jeffersonians. I would argue that the entire political history of the United States has largely just been a continuation between these two opposiing views, though today each party embraces part of each Founder's point of view.
 
Yeah, Anaxagoras said it well. The Founders, by and large, were split along the most long-lasting and contentious issues in US politics: how large the federal government should be. Hamilton led the loose constructionists and Jefferson led the strict constructionists. I don't think the individual Founders had such radical differences that they would give rise to separate movements. A Washingtonian faction is not very likely, since Washington himself was opposed to the formation of political parties. It was one of the two things he warned against in his farewell address. It'd be like an organization of anarchists.
 

Teleology

Banned
I'm quite aware of the split, and Washington's position on political parties, yet I still posted this topic thinking it ripe for discussion. Obviously you disagree but I don't think anything in history is so inevitable that other scenarios cannot be discussed.
 
America the Elastic Band

I agree that the personalities involved with the Hamiltonian federalist/ Jeffersonian Democrat-Republican axes framed the political debate such as it is now. Oddly enough, the federalists were big believers in public works and government interventionism in the economy, standing armies, etc.
The Dem-Reps wanted limited government that saw government intervention as something decided on a case-by-case basis and polled from the consensus of Congressional delegates.
I see the federalists- Madison, Franklin, Hamilton as being the more pragmatic bunch about what powers the federal govt needed to be effective, and the Dem-reps wanting to keep the Articles of Confederation in mind of states as sovereign entities that could play or not as their Congressional delegation chose.
Plus, there were a lot of hurt feelings about the way the Federalists kept picking winners and make the South pay for the canals, railroads, and tariffs against foreign goods that made Yankee industries grow at their expense. (I don't agree, I'm just posing the objections)
Jackson's Democrats were the most organized opposition to the Federalists and rode a wave of populist backlash against the Eastern elites.
Still, for some reason, much as politicians become known for eras and programs, we don't seem that eager in the States to make political philosophies from their names. We'll say FDR's "New Deal", Nixon's "Peace with Honor", and Reagan's "Morning in America", but not Rooseveltism, Nixonism, or Reaganism as shorthand.
I call it a cultural quirk, based on the fact our politicians might have pet projects that are always compromised to some degree, but not a coherent guiding philosophy they publish as their manifesto or become associated with over time.
 
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Teleology

Banned
But that's the point. It's a counterfactual trend. You can have counterfactual trends without it being ASB. Not everything needs to be about using a narrow POD to then eventually explode butterfly effect one hundred years later.

What might America look like if a trend towards sociopolitical movements based on the individual Founders had happened?

Obviously we know a good deal about Hamiltonian/Madisonian and Jeffersonian philosophies, but what is interesting is how those could change if they were tied to the individual men. Jeffersonians could be the Confederacy at one point and agrarian hippies at another. Hamiltonians believed in protectionism and government interventionism in to an extent, like the monarchies of Europe did, but they bombarded Jefferson for killing free trade with the Embargo Act. And to put those differences in the context of all of American history is a very interesting line of speculation.

One I could use some input on would be Franklinites. The man is a bit of a national mascot without seeming to have a direct influence on OTL legacy politics. What would a cultural movement based on him be like in the early days of the country and what would it be like over time and today?
 
One I could use some input on would be Franklinites. The man is a bit of a national mascot without seeming to have a direct influence on OTL legacy politics. What would a cultural movement based on him be like in the early days of the country and what would it be like over time and today?

Franklin was a bit of An Enigma. Walter Isaacson's Benjamin Franklin: An American Life goes into some detail about the man, but in reality he was a bit of an enigma. He favored a 3 person executive and the abolition of slavery. That is about it, he rarely spoke at the Constitutional Convention, his delegate position was viewed as a position of honor (in his defense he was quite sick and had to be carted in on a sedan chair).He was against CENTRALIZED government. Franklin believed in religion but not an organized one. He thought that Church was good for making men be good to other men (Wikipedia's words). Franklin more than Jefferson was the Enlightenment philosopher of the group, He believed that through the cultivation of civic virtue one could effectively rule a Republic and throughout his life he attempted to live his life by this code (the 13 points are listed on his Wikipedia page).

In short, I doubt Franklin would have a party behind him. He simply was not that kind of person and his political stance were vague and generally unknown even in his day. Franklin is trotted out as an American mascot because he was first and foremost the most famous American of the age as well as it's leading scientist, philanthropist, newspaperman, and philosopher. Franklin is the stereotypical American, He had a child out of wedlock became wealthy due to his own hard work. He was an innovative Entrepenuer. In short in your ATL were leader's are claimed as political mascots, Franklin would be claimed by everyone.

On a side note:

I have a problem with your use of Madison, he would certainly be in the Jeffersonian school while Adams would be with the Hamiltonians (if Adams was anywhere, political thought had passed him by as the 19th century approached). Madison became a strict constructionist and was generally used by Jefferson to turn his grand plans into Legislative possibilities.
 
Plus, there were a lot of hurt feelings about the way the Federalists kept picking winners and make the South pay for the canals, railroads, and tariffs against foreign goods that made Yankee industries grow at their expense. (I don't agree, I'm just posing the objections)
Jackson's Democrats were the most organized opposition to the Federalists and rode a wave of populist backlash against the Eastern elites.

Ok you are sort of missing the 1st Party system which ended with the 1828 election of Andrew Jackson. Yes, Federalists kept picking winners in the 1790s but by the election of 1800 when Hamilton stabbed Adams in the back, the Federalists where done after that and became a regional party (as evidenced by the Hartford Convention of 1816). That incident combined with the Hamilton-Burr Duel (literally killing the party's intellectual head) basically destroyed Federalism in an electoral form and the only reason there are any parts of it alive today is because John Marshall was on the Supreme Court.

Yes Jackson's Democrats rode a wave of populist backlash, but not against the Eastern Elites but against the Washington Elites. Jon Meachem says it best, "before Jackson every president was chosen from a tight Washington circle, they were either planters from Viriginia or an Adams from Massachusetts." They weren't the NE mercantile Elite or the banking elite; it was the political elite who had founded the country or been involved even in a tertiary role in the Founding. Jackson was seizing the Republic for the pioneering sort who had moved West into Kentucky and Tennessee. In so doing he created a schism that ended the so-called "Era of Good Feelings" (Monroe was elected unopposed in both 1816 and 1820). He created the Democratic party and the Anti-Jackson party that eventually formed around Henry Clay.
If that is what you went sorry, but I thought you had misleadingly described the nature of the Elite and the situation generally. Everything else was right on IMHO.
 

Teleology

Banned
Franklin was a bit of An Enigma. Walter Isaacson's Benjamin Franklin: An American Life goes into some detail about the man, but in reality he was a bit of an enigma. He favored a 3 person executive and the abolition of slavery. That is about it, he rarely spoke at the Constitutional Convention, his delegate position was viewed as a position of honor (in his defense he was quite sick and had to be carted in on a sedan chair).He was against CENTRALIZED government. Franklin believed in religion but not an organized one. He thought that Church was good for making men be good to other men (Wikipedia's words). Franklin more than Jefferson was the Enlightenment philosopher of the group, He believed that through the cultivation of civic virtue one could effectively rule a Republic and throughout his life he attempted to live his life by this code (the 13 points are listed on his Wikipedia page).

In short, I doubt Franklin would have a party behind him. He simply was not that kind of person and his political stance were vague and generally unknown even in his day. Franklin is trotted out as an American mascot because he was first and foremost the most famous American of the age as well as it's leading scientist, philanthropist, newspaperman, and philosopher. Franklin is the stereotypical American, He had a child out of wedlock became wealthy due to his own hard work. He was an innovative Entrepenuer. In short in your ATL were leader's are claimed as political mascots, Franklin would be claimed by everyone.

On a side note:

I have a problem with your use of Madison, he would certainly be in the Jeffersonian school while Adams would be with the Hamiltonians (if Adams was anywhere, political thought had passed him by as the 19th century approached). Madison became a strict constructionist and was generally used by Jefferson to turn his grand plans into Legislative possibilities.


I keep stressing "not necessarily each a political party". I'm talking about broad cultural movements. The kind of thing where on individual issues and over time they would flip their support to different parties. What would American society be like if instead of a liberal or conservative or libertarian or trade unionist or pro-lifer or whatever people described themselves as and ascribed to one of a swathe of broad cultural movements based on interpretations of individual founding fathers?
 
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