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--- offtopic:american_party_system [2015/10/24 19:30] – Added more on the 2nd and 3rd party systems. Nofix
+++ offtopic:american_party_system [2019/03/29 15:13] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
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 Also known as the Founding era, Era of Good Feelings,
-**Main Parties:** Federalists, Jeffersonian Republicans (now known as the Democratic-Republicans; in their time they were only known as the Republicans).
+**Main Parties:** The Federalists and the Jeffersonian Republicans (now known as the Democratic-Republicans; in their time they were only known as the Republicans).
 **Minor but notable third parties:** None
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 Also known as the Age of Jackson, Antebellum era,
- **Main Parties:** The Democratic Party, the Whig Party (originally the Whigs were known as the National Republican Party before it merged with several other anti-Jacksonian forces like the Anti-Masons, and even some disgruntled Jackson supporters in the South)
+ **Main Parties:** The Democratic Party and the Whig Party (originally the Whigs were known as the National Republican Party before it merged with several other anti-Jacksonian forces like the Anti-Masons, and even some disgruntled Jackson supporters in the South)
 **Minor but notable parties:** The Anti-Masonic Party, the Nullifier Party, the American Party (better known as the Know-Nothings), the Liberty Party, and the Free-Soil Party
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 The only two men the Whigs ever elected were career soldiers, William Henry Harrison in 1840, and Zachary Taylor in 1848. Both also died (1841 and 1850 respectively). The Whigs never were really a united party, and continued losses on the bank, expansionist, and the sectional issue of slavery broke the party by the mid-1850's. Some migrated to the Know-Nothings, before a minor party that wanted to exclude certain (Roman Catholic) immigrants, but by 1854 (after a massive influx of poor Irish Catholic immigrants) it jumped from 0 to 54 seats held the balance of power in the House of Representatives.
+The third parties of this era were eclectic to say the least. The Anti-Masons were a group dedicated to finding the scourge of Masonry they felt was destroying American Republicanism. Ironically their sole Presidential nominee (Attorney General William Wirt) was a former Freemason and argued on their behalf, saying they were mostly good Americans who would never place their beliefs over the country. He became the first member of a third party to win a state in a Presidential election (Vermont). The Anti-Masons were so similar to the National Republicans that they merged with them into the Whig Party.
+The other third party of the late-1820's and 1830's was the Nullifier Party. They held that state's could nullify federal law (or refuse to follow it in their borders). They were centered mainly in South Carolina, but they did have little bits of support elsewhere in the Deep South, including a Representative from Alabama. They mostly joined the Jacksonians as they became the Democrats, although some joined the Whigs due to Jackson's opposition on states rights and his role in the Nullification Crisis.
+In the 1840's the Liberty Party started, a minor abolitionist party who's only claim to fame was possible swinging the 1844 election. Nominee James Birney might have spoiled the results in New York and less significantly Michigan. If all of his votes went to Whig nominee Henry Clay, the election would have swung to him and the resulting decades would have played out very differently.
+would see the formation of the Free-Soil Party from anti-slavery Northern Democrats, Northern Whigs, and the Liberty Party during the debate over whether slavery should be allowed in the newly won western territories from the Mexican-American War. While opposed to slavery, it was not entirely an abolitionist party but more worried on free men being unable to economically compete with slaves if they were allowed in the western territories. Nominated former Democratic President, Martin Van Buren, for the head of the ticket in 1848 where they got almost 10% of the vote. Also sent nine Representatives and two Senators to the Congress for the 1849 - 1851 term. It would eventually merge with the Republican Party in 1854 to broaden the chances of opposition to slavery and the Democrats. Many former Free-Soilers would go on to be important figures in the early years of the Republican Party such as John Fremont (the first nominee of the Republican Party), Salmom Chase (Treasury Secretary in the Lincoln Administration and a Chief Justice), Charles Sumner (a Radical Republican Senator from Massachusetts).
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 ====Third Party System====
 Also known as the Civil War era, Gilded Age,
-**Main Parties**: The Democratic Party, the Republican Party
+**Main Parties**: The Democratic Party and the Republican Party (National Union Party)
-**Minor but notable parties**: The American Party (better known as the Know-Nothings), the Constitutional Unionists, the Liberal Republican Party, the Greenback Party, and the Populist Party
+**Minor but notable parties**: The American Party (better known as the Know-Nothings), the Constitutional Unionists, the Liberal Republican Party, the Greenback Party, the Prohibition Party and the Populist Party
+**Issues of the era**: The Civil War, emancipation and right's for freed slaves, Reconstruction, civil service reform, protective tariffs, Civil War pensions, incorporating the Western states, monetary policy, immigration.
 With the sudden shock death of the Whig Party, and the inflammation of slavery as the overriding issue
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 The later half of the 1850's proved an important time for the slavery, as anti-slavery forces slowly converged into the Republican Party (named after the Jeffersonian Republicans). It was a merger of northern Know-Nothings, anti-slavery Democrats, anti-slavery Whigs, and the remnants of the abolitionist forces who vacillated between parties. In the South they were split between secessionist and unionist forces, as Fire-Eaters (radical pro-slavery forces) demanded immediate secession so no one could interfere with their right to slavery.
-was the first election the Republicans, now a mostly united party, contested. While losing the Presidency, they managed to cement themselves as the main opposition to the Democrats in the House and Senate.
+was the first election the Republicans, now a mostly united party, contested. While losing the Presidency, they managed to cement themselves as the main opposition to the Democrats in the House and Senate. The Democrats lost voters in the North as the various opposition factions united against them, in some cases longtime Democrats quit the party and fought alongside former Whig enemies.
+The Know-Nothings bled themselves pretty hard, losing 2/3rds of their House caucus to the Republicans. They won over 20% of the popular vote in the Presidential election of 1856 and won Maryland's electoral votes. Know-Nothing support came mainly in the South as the anti-slavery Republicans were anathema to the ruling Southern elite, and Northern voters wanted a party with a definite position on slavery instead of waffling on the issue. The Know-Nothings acted as a way for former Whigs and unionist forces in the South to oppose the all-powerful Democratic machine, and even though the Know-Nothings were gone by 1860, many of their forces would make up the bone of the Constitutional Unionists.
+Come the 1858 elections the Republicans won a plurality in the House, and held the Governors office in most of the Northern states. Come 1860 they managed to win the Presidency without a single vote in the Deep South. Their nominee was former Whig Representative of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln beat Stephen Douglas, a long time Democratic nemesis in Illinois; John C. Breckinridge, the incumbent Vice-President and the nominee of the walk-out Southern Democrats; and finally John Bell, a Tennessee Whig who ran with the Constitutional Unionists in the border states, pledging an indifference to slavery and for avoiding an upcoming war.
+The war was the come, as between the casting of the ballots in November, and Lincoln's inauguration in March of next year, 11 of the 15 slave-holding states seceded and proclaimed a new government, the Confederate States of America. Only Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Tennessee stayed with the Union (as the United States became known). The Appalachian western regions of Virginia had no love for slavery or for the rule of the eastern elites, and they counter-seceded, proclaiming themselves the true Government of Virginia and giving themselves permission to form a new state, which Congress allowed.
+Throughout the next four years the United States battled not only the Confederacy, which they maintained was not a "government" but a collection of rebelling states, but also internal enemies. Plenty of people had reasons to oppose the war, including Copperheads in the West (men who argued for peace at any cost, and who were accused of treason and sabotage of the war effort by Republican leaders), Irish immigrants who held no love for Lincoln or the slaves (and considered them to be economic rivals in the future), and general peace activists.
+When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, many were outraged at turning the war from reuniting the states to freeing what many thought an inferior and servile race. Draft riots abounded in the cities, and military troops had to be brought in to crush them. To bring on War Democrats, the Republican Party dumped their Vice-President and picked Andrew Johnson, the sole Senator from the South not to defect to the Confederacy, as a replacement. The National Union Party (a temporary merger of the Republicans and War Democrats) won the 1864 election.
+Eventually the war was won, three amendments were passed barring slavery in the United States, giving blacks citizenship, and giving black men the right to vote. Unfortunately Abarham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, mere days after the end of the War.
-The Know-Nothings bled themselves pretty hard, losing 2/3rds of their House caucus to the Republicans. They won over 20% of the popular vote in the Presidential election and won Maryland's electoral votes. Know-Nothing support came mainly in the South as the anti-slavery Republicans were anathema to the ruling Southern elite, and Northern voters wanted a party with a definite position on slavery. The Know-Nothings acted as a way for former Whigs and unionist forces in the South to oppose the all-powerful Democratic machine, and even though the Know-Nothings were gone by 1860, many of their forces would make up the bone of the Constitutional Unionists.
 [to be filled later]
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-**Main Parties**: The Democratic Party, the Republican Party
+**Main Parties**: The Democratic Party and the Republican Party
-**Minor but notable parties**: The Progressive Party (1912), the Progressive Party (1924).
+**Minor but notable parties**: The Progressive Party (1912), the Socialist Party, the Progressive Party (1924).
+**Issues of the era**: Gold standard or bimetallism, Spanish-American War and imperialism, Progressive Age reforms (federal income tax, direct election of senators, etc), Panama Canal, the suffragist movement, neutrality and WW1, the first Red Scare, Treaty of Versailles, Teapot Dome scandal, the second incarnation of the Klu Klux Klan and racial strife, anti-Catholicism.
 ====Fifth Party System====
+**Main Parties**: The Democratic Party and the Republican Party
+**Minor but notable parties**: The Dixiecrat Party, the Progressive Party (1948), and the American Independent Party.
+**Issues of the era**: The Great Depression, the New Deal, Isolationism and WW2, Red Scare, the Cold War and Soviet expansion, the Korean War, the Civil Right's movement, the Vietnam War.
 ====Sixth Party System====