 Okay, we're back, we're live, we're here at History Lens with Professor John David Ann of HPU and today we have the beginning of a special series about parties in American history. That's right. Parties. Oh, I'm so excited to learn about this. I don't think we paid enough attention and we see Republicans and Democrats and we think that's forever. It's not forever. Right. It hasn't been forever. That's right. You know, tell us starting with the end of the, what, 18th century how parties have developed in this country. Right, so it's really the beginning of the 18th century and political parties developed the idea of a party developed around, in England, around opposition to the king. So during the late 17th century, in the 1680s, then the parliament which had been put upon and dispensed and burned, bombed and all of these abuses of the parliament and its power had been enacted in England in the 1600s. And of course for a while you have Cromwell, a dictator actually. You don't have any parliament at all in that time period. And so in the 1680s then you have a new monarch and you have the re-institution of parliamentary power and this is really the first time that England has what I would call kind of a semi-functioning democracy with a separation of powers with a king and with a parliament that has separate powers. Although it's not really. It's really a stretch to call it a democracy because the truth is that the king controlled a lot of the seats in the parliament, there were a lot of seats in the parliament that weren't elected at all, they were just chosen among the king's favorites or rich people so it's, it's a very, it's a pretty ugly democracy. It's an early version. It is. It is, yeah. But let me, let me ask you this. It's really, this is an interesting, very provocative thing from what you just said. It sounds to me like parties or however you call them, actions, parties, are an element in building democracy that, and you think about it, gee, every democratic country you've heard of has parties. So therefore they must be somehow part of the firmament there. Yes. So, so yeah, I mean the political parties in England developed based upon, again, upon opposition to the king and they're really, they're not really political parties in the modern sense. They're, they're people who are organizing themselves around particular issues, you know, opposition to the king, concern about corruption, concern about tyranny. Pushback. Pushback. Yeah, I mean there's a kind of general kind of, you know, we, we don't like what's going on. And so this was called the Whig Party in England and they were, they were both opponents, the radical Whigs were opponents of the king and then, and then conservative Whigs were actually allies of the king. So it's, it's not like a modern political party at all, but it was based upon people dividing into groups that we could call factions. On two sides of the, on multiple sides of the aisle, it wasn't just two, it could be more than that. It could be more, but really in terms of the, the kind of the politics of that time period, it was really those who opposed the king and those who supported the king and that's really how you can divide it up. And that, that idea of a political party came into the colonies through the writings of the, the opposition Whig leaders. They were, these, these writings were very popular in, in the 13 colonies and, and so the, the, the colonists actually absorbed a lot of these so-called radical Whig oppositionists, a lot of their ideas. And this, it's quite frankly part of what drives the American Revolution, the rebellion against the king is this opposition in England that's been getting, you know, it's coming across the Atlantic and getting a lot of traction. Yes, you can speak against the king. That's exactly. This is not a forever thing, you can speak against the king. Exactly. And maybe you shouldn't have a king. Well, but when you, when you can speak against the king, it means the king's power is not absolute. Right. No, that's right. And that was the agreement in 1688 by which parliament retook its powers that the king's power would not be absolute. Although like I say it's, it's an enormous power. But so, so factions, really it's a, I hesitate to use the word faction for the Whigs, although there are factions, I guess there are factions within the Whigs. But then what happens is in the 13 colonies, the American Revolution takes place. There's considerable unity around the idea of overthrowing the British, although there's about 20% of the American population that thinks, no, no, it's a bad idea. We should stay loyal to the king. So even there there are factions. But then it's really after the revolution in the 1790s when there's real tension within the revolutionary leaders, especially Jefferson and Adams representing two very different views of the American, you know, the American future and a vision for what the United States should be. So, so those two different views are there. And here they are building a constitution. I thought with a moving target, parties are not really settled. Well, so the constitution is one of the things that creates the factions, actually. It's disagreement about various parts of the constitution. Should you have a constitution with a strong leader? Should you have a constitution with a president for life, which is kind of actually what Hamilton endorses at one point. The constitution is part of this, what we call the Federalist faction, which is Adams, Hamilton, George Washington was a part of that faction. And then you have the Jeffersonians, Thomas Jefferson, Madison Monroe, you know, so you have these. The federal is more like supporting the king or supporting the president. Well, they didn't like kings, but they wanted a powerful presidency. They were concerned about things in Europe. So they wanted a powerful government that could defend itself against the Europeans. And the Jeffersonians were very concerned about tyranny. And they didn't want a powerful president because they believed a powerful president would march us into tyranny. A strong man would march us into tyranny. So I mean, you know, there are some echoes of the present day in this Jeffersonian concern about tyranny. Then they set up the Constitution and Balance of Power, which is a term that is so important today. They had to be thinking about this. They had to be thinking about how parties would be treated in the legislature, how parties would be treated as a for or against the president. And the whole thing was spinning a new story right there. That's right. So you have the development of these factions, the Hamiltonian faction and the Jeffersonian faction, the Federalist versus the Jeffersonians become called the Republican Democrats. The terminology here becomes very confusing. But nonetheless, so that's where you get the idea of political parties. Now there's still not official political parties in the modern sense. They don't have organizations. They don't hold conventions. So in that very early period. But Jay, it makes me think about the, so I'm going to shoot ahead to the present because it makes me think about the 2018 election, the midterm election. And so the reason why we're talking about parties and political parties and different factions and shifts over time is that it seems like the politics that brought us into the 2016 election and maybe even the politics in the era of Obama, although I think we're seeing some shifts even in the era of Obama. But the Obama era shifts seem to be bearing fruit, not in the 2016 election so much but in the 2018 midterm election when you had some Democrats elected in seemingly solid Republican areas of the country. So one of the ways that these factions or in our day and age, the Democrat and Republican party work things out is when you think about it, okay, the Republicans control the South, the Democrats the Northeast, the Republicans the Southwest, the Democrats the West, okay, so there are some, there's one way to think about it is through geography. Okay, and there are other ways of thinking about it. So let's just take geography and urban versus rural, right, you know, that kind of suburbs, Republicans, inner cities, Democrat, that kind of thing. Geography has a lot to do with parties. Yeah, that's right. So one of the pivotal elections in the 2018 midterms was Kristen Sinema's victory. She's a Democrat and she won the Senate race in Arizona. It was a very tight race. But in the end, she won. And if we can bring up Kristen Sinema's picture, of course, she's become quite famous for when there she is for winning this election. I mean, she is a very unorthodox politician, right? She's bisexual. She's flamboyant. She's very outspoken. And so she's not kind of the same old usual. But she won as a Democrat. In a Republican state. In a solidly Republican state. And she won in a geography in the Southwest where the Republicans have really held sway since the early 1970s. And so this suggests that there might be some changes. Not just Arizona, but you look at Colorado is becoming more Democrat as well. These shifts are taking place on the basis of immigration and rising Hispanic populations which tend to vote Democrat. But so the Sinema victory suggests there might be a shift in the kind of the same old assumptions about politics. Now there's one other one. We'll go to one other one and then we can. So the other one is Conor Lamb, if we can bring Conor Lamb's picture up. There's Conor Lamb and Lamb, handsome guy. This guy, he won in an area in which Donald Trump had won by 20 points in 2016. And so Pennsylvania, traditionally Democratic, but not suburbs. The suburbs of Pittsburgh really handed Conor Lamb his victory. So there's something going on in the Southwest in terms of a shift. There's something going on in suburbs. There's something going on in younger people. So you're seeing some shifts in the way people in voting patterns. And that's essentially the basis for how we talk about political parties and what we call party systems or party coalition. Coalition is maybe a better word to talk about this, historically we talk about these things. So what I'm trying to suggest here is that the 2018 midterms might be suggesting a sea change in politics, a movement towards Democrats being more dominant in the next 25, 30 years. But looking back to say the year 1800 or after the Constitution was established and those days when it was just sort of finding its way, seems to me there have been what, dozens of parties established and then, you know, and then down the slope. Well at the fringes dozens, no, I mean at the fringes dozens, but actually no, not at the center. There have been very few political parties actually. So you start with the Federalists and the Republican Democrats, right? This is the party of Hamilton Adams, that's the Fed, and in Washington that's the Federalists and then the Republican Democrats, that's the party of Jefferson and Madison and Monroe. And you know, five out of those six are actually presidents in that first time period. And it's no coincidence that in that first time period when parties begin to develop out of these factions, these two separate factions that in the early period, Washington is the first president, right? He wins two elections. You have John Adams who wins an election and then, so you have two Federalists who win elections and then you have Jefferson win a very highly contested election in 1800 and he's a Republican Democrat, not a Federalist. And thereafter, Jefferson serves two terms and then you have Madison winning election, he's a Republican Democrat and then you have Monroe winning and he's a Republican Democrat. And so by the end of this, what we call the first party system, this is the Federalist versus Republican Democrats, the Federalists dominate early, the Republican Democrats dominate later in the party system up to 1830. We're sitting here talking about a party called Republican Democrats, it gives you a headache. Why is that like, what we have now, why is it unlike? And it strikes me that one thing we could say about this is that the name that is taken by the party does not necessarily reflect their views on it. No, no, that's right. And I apologize for giving you a headache. No, no, no. It's learning is great. That's why we need to take a short break. Okay, we'll take a break. Tom David and HPU professor of history talking about political parties in the United States. We'll be right back. Aloha and welcome to At the Crossroads. I'm your host, Keisha King. You can catch me every Wednesday, alive at five. I'll see you there. Aloha. I'm Wendy Lowe and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at two o'clock live from Think Tech Hawaii. On our show, we talk about taking your health back. And what does that mean? It means mind, body, and soul. Anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is what we're going to be talking about, whether it's spiritual health, mental health, fascia health, beautiful smile health, whatever it means, let's take healthy back. Aloha. Right. As I said, you know, we do for one, we do for a change in parties. That's right. So let's go back to what we talked about during the break, John. So we're talking about Republican Democrats and you're going to help me understand what they're going to do. Right. So okay, so the Republican Democrats, Jeffersonians, they favored small government, limited government, sort of. Jefferson favored small government until he gets to be president. Then as president, he actually expands the power of the government. He uses the Navy in a brand new way to defeat the Barbary pirates. He decides to purchase the Louisiana Purchase. He does these powerful things once he gets into power. He doesn't like small government quite so much once he's in power. Isn't that always the case? It seems pretty consistent. So small government, very interested in a farmer republic. Jefferson was very interested in what he called a yeoman farmer republic. Farmers who didn't owe their allegiance to anybody who could vote freely and would not be influenced by faction or partisanship or the rest of it. And a suspicion of tyranny, a real suspicion of like okay, and that exhibits itself in suspicion of northeasterners. Even as far back as the early 1800s. Why was that? What was that about? The northeast is where industry develops, where capitalism develops first. So early. Yes. In the early 19th century. That's right. In the early 1800s, you have the development of the same thing that you have the development of textiles mills and other kinds of factories. And by Jefferson's time period, but even later than that, by the 1820s, then you have a small industrial revolution taking place in the northeast. And you have new kinds of money. You have a stock market that develops. You have paper currency that's being used. All of these new innovations are good for some people, but they're threats to others. And the republican democrats are like, this might not be the best idea. This could lead to maybe a big, a wealthy person dominating the political system. So they're worried about the influence. It sounds like the roots of the civil war, because slavery was an issue in that dichotomy. So you can trace a trajectory from the republican democrats to the birth of the democratic party in 1932, pardon me, 1832. And then the democrats of course become really, the democrats are dominant in the south. And that's really the party that leads us to the civil war. So again, that the nomenclature is confusing. It is. It is. That's right. That's right. So you have these, so that's the republican democrats. The federalists on the other hand, they like lots of power. They like a big government. They like a more powerful government. The federalists established the national bank. They established the idea that they would help to run the economy through the treasury department. Not much, but that really is a 20th century thing, but a little bit in the early 19th century. So they believe that the government should be more powerful and more activist. And the federalists also begin to support the idea of infrastructure projects, which becomes a very big deal in the 1830s through running up to the civil war in the 1850s. So that's the federalists now. Right now today there's a federalist society. Oh yes, of course. Just on the conservative side of the wheelhouse. But it's not the same as it was. It's not the same. It's not necessarily related to the party. No. I'm sure they say nice things about John Adams, but in reality, they don't stand for the same thing. So the federalists also favor tariffs. That becomes a big issue in the 1830s to protect manufacturing, but tariffs really don't benefit farmers, plantation owners as much as they do factory owners. But what happens is the federalists decide to, well, they have this struggle with the Republican Democrats in the early 1800s, and then they decide to oppose the War of 1812. Because they're favorable to England. The Republican Democrats are favorable to France. Wow. I can see some real contention there. Yeah, yeah. The 1812 was a big threat, and then the very young United States. That's right. So the British are continuing to attack and impress American sailors and merchant men. That's right. And so eventually the United States declares war against Great Britain. But the federalists are saying no, no, because they want to make an alliance with Great Britain not to be at war with them. And so what happens is there's a kind of war fever that develops in the country. The federalists lose a lot of support. And the federalists begin to disappear as a party in the 1820s then. Because they were linked to this whole notion of making a deal with Britain. Yeah. They opposed the War of 1812, which turned into a patriotic war, and the United States won it. So, ooh, you got on the wrong side of a winning war. That's why Andrew Jackson was so popular. That's right. New Orleans, wasn't it? No, he was a war hero. Yes, he led the Battle of New Orleans and won that battle against the British, which was in fact fought after the treaty was signed, but oh well. The communication in those days was not that great. That's correct. So you have the demise of the federalists. And what you have then is the transformation of the Republican Democrats, some of whom are more favorable to infrastructure projects and capitalism and the growth of money and others that are not. So some of the Republican Democrats fall off of that and the others form a new party called the Democratic Party in 1832. And so what we call, that's the first party system, the federalist versus the Republican Democrats. That's it in a nutshell, okay? The second party system is the development of the founding of the Democratic Party in 1832 by Andrew Jackson and then Martin Van Buren, if you can bring up the next slide then. That's Martin Van Buren there. This is one of the, this is a daguerreotype, this is one of the first photographs taken. Photograph, yes. As opposed to the others, which were oils, yeah. I mean, it would have been much better if he had a painting, I think. I think so. He doesn't look so good there. Martin Van Buren is really the architect of the first official political party, the Democratic Party and he's the one who develops the idea that actually there's party loyalty among not just the leadership, but among the rank and file that you have an official organization. You have party conventions that choose the candidates. This is all brand new in the 1832. Loyalty to what though, or who? Right. Well, it's loyalties, still even then it's loyalty to candidate, but it's also loyalty to ideas. You know, if you're against the national bank, then you're a Democrat. If you're a Western farmer, you're probably a Democrat. So it's an array of issues, not just one. But it could be one leader loyal to Martin Van Buren, for example, that makes you a Democrat. Right. That's true because it could be, and certainly that's true with Jackson, less so with Martin Van Buren, who actually does serve a term as president in the late 1830s. But really, he didn't have much of a presidency. It's really, he's better known as the architect of the Democratic Party. In response to that, this group of capitalists and those who believe in infrastructure and stronger government, the former federalists regroup and they form a new political party called the Whigs. This goes back to the opposition Whigs in England, that's kind of a throwback to that. What's the significance to the use of the word Whigs? It's the word that was used for political parties in England. It actually has nothing to do with the issues. The issues are quite different. What's in a name? Not much in terms of political parties. So you have the development of the Whigs who are in favor of infrastructure projects and they want, they like the national bank, they favor state banks, they want investments in the economy to stimulate the economy. And so that's the Whigs. And so the second party system is the Democrats versus the Whigs. And economic development is a big issue because you have the development of the early railroads in the 1830s and 1840s, the Erie Canal. These are Whig projects, these are projects that Whig support. There's a, pardon me, Northern Whigs and Southern Whigs. It's really the Eastern Seaboard is more Whiggish than it is Democrat. The inland areas, especially the Midwest with small farms, that's much more Democrat-dominated. And so you have geographic divisions but not complete. You do not have in the second party system a sectional party, which is just one section of the country. Well, in those days, Manifest Destiny was getting whipped up, right? Right, that's true. People were looking west. That wouldn't have been the Whigs, wouldn't it? No, actually, surprisingly it's not. No, I mean the Democrats are the real expansionists because they support small farmers. They want more farmland available and, pardon me, they become the expansionist party. Interesting. And the Whigs actually oppose this. It's one of the things that leads to the demise of the Whigs is the Whigs are in the opposition in the Mexican War. They don't like expansionism. Well, their biggest concern in the 1840s is the expansion of slavery. The Whigs are kind of, it's become very complicated actually, but the Whigs, Northern Whigs are anti-slavery. They don't like slavery and Southern Whigs are pro-slavery. They like slavery. This is so interesting. We're talking about political parties in the United States and the development of party systems through the 19th century with John David and history professor at HPU. John, fix us now and the ramp up to the Civil War. Right, so that's right. So you have, so the first party system, right, is the Republicans versus, pardon me, the Republican Democrats versus the Federalists. And so we've described that. So what happens in the 1830s is a transformation. As the economy grows, industrialism moves forward and as the settlers expand westward, then you have these trends in politics that begin to shift. And so you have, in 1832 you have the development of the Democratic Party. And it's founded by a guy named Martin Van Buren. If we can bring Martin Van Buren up, there's Martin. He's coming. I know he's coming. There he is. Yeah. So Martin Van Buren, this is actually a daguerreotype. He's the founder of the Democratic Party in 1832. I grew up in Queens. There was a Van Buren high school in Queens. Oh yeah. So I know about Martin. That's right. So he is a New Yorker. And he actually becomes Democratic President from 1837 to 1841. But he's really the guy who founds the Democratic Party as an official party. I mean, now it's a party that has a constituency. Pardon me, it has conventions. It has torchlight parades and official party organizations. So Van Buren is the one who creates that. And then on the other side, the remnants of the Federalists are reformed into what's called the Whigs. And the Whigs are their pro-industry, their pro-infrastructure. They support state banks. They support the national bank. So the differences become quite stark. Once Andrew Jackson, who is the president and who is a Democrat, begins to attack the national bank, then the Whigs are very much opposed. The Democrats in favor. And so you have these issues, these new issues, which are laid out there and the parties compete on. So the second party system then is it originates out of the development of early capitalism and early industrialism. And for Democrats, the expansion of farmers westward. Then you go to the third party system. Well, we're not going to get to the third party system. I just want to ask you when it began so we know when the second party system was over. So we can do that quite briefly. So essentially what happens in the second party system is the Democrats have both a north and a southern constituency. But the Democrats, there's a lot of tension around the issue of slavery in the territories. Because Western Democrats, they're uncomfortable with the idea of slaves being brought into the new territories. Not necessarily for progressive idealistic notions about slaves and African Americans. Sometimes because they don't want African Americans, they don't want to have to live next to African Americans, nor do they want to compete with the labor of even free African Americans. So you have that tension in the Democratic Party, but you have even more tension in the Whig Party over the issue of slavery. And between 1848 and about 1852, then you have some other issues that develop that really tear the Whig Party apart. So you have slavery in the territories and northern Whigs do not want slavery in the territories. Southern Whigs absolutely want slavery in the territories because they're slave holders. And then you have the issue of the new immigrants. Irish immigrants are probably the most important immigrant group in the 1840s, but you have this strong reaction against Catholics and Irish. And these guys are northern Whigs. And the Whig Party does not want to support this anti-immigrant view. And so the Whig Party gets torn apart. You have for a short while the Know Nothing Party, which is the party of anti-immigration, which is mostly a northern party. Early 1850s they went elections in Massachusetts and others of New England. Very short lived though. The southern Whigs are now a bit adrift. They begin to move to the Democratic Party. The northern Democrats begin to drift away from the Democratic Party. And what you have by the mid-1850s is the beginning of sectional parties based upon the issue of slavery. Sectional means geographic. That's right, a division between north and south. You have the Democratic Party, which begins to dominate in the south. And in the north you have a brand new party, which is created in 1855 and 1856, called the Republican Party. And those are the two political parties that we have today. They don't stand for the same things. But that's essentially the Democratic Party is created in 1832. The Republican Party created in 1856. And the Republican Party is the anti-slavery party. The Democratic Party is the party of slavery by the time of the Civil War. So in the 1850s then you have a new political alignment. One political party comes through the second party system into the third party system, the Democratic Party. But you have a brand new political party in the Republican Party. And that would be the beginning of the third party system in the United States. And thus the end of the second party system. That's right. And next time we meet, John, I'd like to hear everything about the third party system because that's the one that still continues in its own way. Well, there are a lot of changes. Yes, it always changes. Kaleidoscopic is always changing. And you've got to watch the changes. That's right. Including right now today, you've got to watch the changes. That's right. That's why we're talking. Because I see these shifts taking place and I think we could see new party formations in the future. Yeah. Thank you, John. You're welcome. Thank you so much.