What fate becomes a people who forget their heritage, their traditions? Quite simply, they lose their way. Having lost touch with their roots, the culture begins to founder, and their rituals take on a random, chaotic quality. Now devoid of meaning their efforts are directed at more immediate goals, which are self-preservation and material gain. They seek to compete, heedless of the rules and consequences. Such is the fate that has befallen the American Party system.
In his farewell address, George Washington warned of the dangers of a party system. He felt they would lead to factionalism and slow the democratic process. If he could only see how right he was. Anyone who witnesses the Government in action, or rather in inaction today, must marvel at the sheer futility of the process. Neither party wants the other to accomplish anything it might be able to take credit for later. As a result, what you end up with is a series of bizarre events, which may include, but are not limited to: Stances that are diametrically opposed to the stated party platform from the previous election; filibustering that would put Mr. Smith to shame; backroom deals that create the illusion of bi-partisanship in addition to enough pork to satiate a teamster's barbecue; which ultimately leads to a Presidential veto of a law he submitted to Congress six weeks earlier. Exactly how this quagmire of a legislative system came to be is a story unto itself, but what is more troubling is how it turned two parties with seemingly honorable and energetic roots into bickering children, more interested in holding power and lining their pockets than in producing laws of consequence.
Perhaps the noble aspirations of the founders of both parties are the product of the bygone eras that forged them. Maybe idealism is bound to be the victim of its own success. The passion that draws the charter members will always have to be muted in order to survive in the mainstream. Very few people can relate to a zealot, no matter how much they may admire their conviction. There is something odd and vaguely threatening about someone who believes they can alter the course of history by the sheer force of their will. Unfortunately, such mundane considerations as being right, are no guarantee of success, and often times prove to be the course of self-destruction. Socrates, Joan of Arc, William Wallace, Sir Thomas Moore, John Brown, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Anwar Sadat offer vivid proof that personal convictions can get in the way of your general well being. Such being the case, can you really blame some people for pulling back a little from the fringe? Perhaps not, but a complete abrogation of your policies is inexcusable.
The modern day Democrats are descended from the Democratic Republicans, or Jeffersonian Democrats depending on which history teacher you had. Their platform was a simple one, consisting primarily of two planks: 1) A strong belief in State's Rights over the rights of the Federal Government; 2) a strict literal interpretation of the Constitution. Their main competition back then was the Federalist Party, led by John Adams and Alexander Hamilton of ten dollar bill fame. In direct opposition to the Democrats, the Federalists supported a strong Federal Government and a loose interpretation of the Constitution. For the first fourteen years under the aforementioned document, everyone was able to maintain most of their political integrity (a term which nowadays would be classified as an oxymoron) until one man's beliefs came into to conflict with national interests. Everyone who thinks the beliefs won out, please levitate four feet right now.
The fact that Thomas Jefferson, of all people, should be faced with this dilemma is one of the more delicious ironies of American History. The man who put the Jefferson in Jeffersonian Democrat (otherwise they'd just be ian Democrats), one of the most ardent advocates of a strict literal interpretation of the Constitution would now have to play fast and loose with it in order to secure one of the greatest land deals of all time, the Louisiana Purchase. There were no provisions in the Constitution for the acquisition of new land, but Jefferson's problem was that on several occasions he had taken the Federalists to task for assuming powers not specifically delegated to the executive branch. Now, three years after assuming the mantle of President, he was going to have to betray one of his core beliefs to double the size of his country.
This could have been a serious blow to Jefferson's credibility, but the Federalists proved incapable of taking advantage. In one of the most short-sighted moves since Nero said, "No, wait. It might go out by itself. In the meantime, tell me what you think of this piece," they chose not to applaud Jefferson's embrace of one of their policies, but rather started arguing exactly the opposite of one of their stated positions. Had they not done so, they could have gotten plenty of mileage out of professing admiration for Jefferson finally coming to his senses. As it stood, Jefferson could argue it as a one time exception for a tremendous opportunity, while the Federalists looked like a bunch of convictionless nay-sayers, who put their own interests ahead of a fledgling nation's. Combine this with the shenanigans they pulled when the 1800 elections were thrown to the House and you've got a severely discredited party on your hands who had previously only been in existence for fourteen unremarkable years. They would never again hold the White House, and within a generation would be replaced by the Whig Party. As for the Democrats, they would hold to these two main beliefs at a congressional level until the 1930's; a fact that would plunge the country into its darkest era and bring about the creation of the Republican Party.
The 1860 elections represented only the second time the Republicans had run a Presidential candidate. At that time, they were the very definition of a broad coalition, combining Abolitionists, Free Soilers and left-over Whigs with just about any other small faction who felt inadequately represented by the Southern-dominated Democratic Party. Even at this early stage, the Republicans were backing compromise candidates. Abraham Lincoln was roughly everyone's fourth choice, but no one else even appeared on more than one faction's list. In direct contrast, the Democrats could find no common ground and chose to fragment like a striking union leader's bay window. By running not one but four candidates, the Democrats assured the Republicans control of the Executive Branch of the government. Now a party that had built a broad coalition by defining itself in terms of what it wasn't had to figure out exactly what it was.
Whether fortunately or unfortunately, given the nature of the crisis at hand, the Republicans could not define themselves in a vacuum. It would become what Lincoln became, which would be dictated by events. At first, that would be a strict Unionist, but later, as if purified and forged by the fire of the ordeal it became something nobler. Lincoln and therefore, by extension, the Republican party underwent a transformation. The hypocrisy of a nation that in its origins recognized the self-evidence "that all men are created equal," still practiced slavery could no longer be ignored. It would become the champion of this most noble fight against its own egregious injustices.
To look at these parties now would surely break the hearts of both Jefferson and Lincoln. Jefferson would be dismayed by all the entitlements and regulatory agencies his political successors have instituted. Lincoln would become disillusioned by how all his efforts at a cohesion of many varied perspectives had evolved or more appropriately devolved into a uniformity and lack of social conscience his party is demonstrating. Jefferson was not a believer in "big government" controlling as many aspects of the human experience it could lay legislation on; he believed in individual freedoms, "Life, Liberty... the Pursuit of Happiness," and all that jazz. Lincoln, coming from rather indigent stock himself, was not a representative of the party of the rich, struggling to maintain the status quo; his Republicans were an amalgam of the disenfranchised, struggling to reform an indecent system (and how ironic is it that the party of Lincoln has difficulty courting the black vote?). These two men not only defined the origins of their parties, but also defined what America was at times when it desperately needed it. How disillusioned they would be indeed.
To illustrate this point, consider the following questions. Would Jefferson support an indefinite stay on welfare? Would Lincoln abolish a social safety net? Would Jefferson allow the notion of personal responsibility to become as antiquated as trial by ordeal? Would Lincoln attempt to build consensus through hysterical paranoia about alternative lifestyles? Would either of them do something that was contrary to the genuine interests of their country to achieve cheap, personal, political gains? Now ask yourselves, how many of today's politicians not only would, but already have?
As a matter of historical record, the point on which both parties seem to have pivoted is the name Roosevelt. With his trust busting and opposition to Warren G. Harding's handling of the country, Theodore Roosevelt was the last Republican President who seemed to be even remotely interested in the plight of the common man. Meanwhile, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the first in a long line of Democrats to send government to the rescue of all your social ills. In the throws of a major depression, it was the right thing to do, but having received rewards for such behavior, we now are presented with a case of Pavlovian overkill where they don't know when to stop. On the Republican side, only politicians like Jack Kemp (often referred to disparagingly by his constituents as a "bleeding-heart conservative") are remotely in the area of keepers of the flame for Lincoln's sort of Republicanism. These two parties must find a way to remember exactly where it is that they came from. They must neither foster a dependency on the grain dole among the dispossessed, nor deny them in time of need. Above all else, they must find a way to work together for the common good, and let notions of credit and blame fall by the wayside. Neither party has a monopoly on right or wrong, and if they can't learn that, then perhaps it's time to bring back the Federalists; maybe they've learned their lesson by now.
