Parties and the Road to the Civil War

"A lot of the tea party leaders I’ve met seem to think American politics started with Alexander Hamilton and then skipped, more or less, to Jim DeMint."  -- Matt Bai

It didn't.

  

• Source for the anti-Adams ad: volume: Religion and the American Presidency, edited by Gastón Espinosa
• Source for the anti-Jefferson ad: Connecticut Courant, September 26, 1800.
• Additional sources here.

Aftermath of 1800

• The election of 1800 leads to the 12th Amendment.
• The Federalists fade.
• Burr kills Hamilton (see Reichley, p. 58)
• Jefferson pays lip service to bipartisanship: "We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists."

Mass elections begin

1824:  The election goes to the House
1828:  Jackson the Outsider

• Not an outsider to office, 
• Crazy person, 
• Ethnic cleanser
• True story of the big block of cheese

1832:  First national conventions
1836:  Van Buren, last sitting VP to win until George H.W. Bush  in 1988
1840:  Whigs win with Harrison

Mass parties, GOTV, and Lincoln's perfect list

On 1848, Rep. Abraham Lincoln (Whig-Illinois) described Zachary Taylor as the ultimate pro-choice candidate:

Now this is the whole matter. In substance, it is this: The people say to Gen: Taylor ``If you are elected, shall we have a national bank?'' He answers ``Your will, gentlemen, not mine'' ``What about the Tariff?'' ``Say yourselves.'' ``Shall our rivers and harbours be improved?'' ``Just as you please'' ``If you desire a bank, an alteration of the tariff, internal improvements, any, or all, I will not hinder you; if you do not desire them, I will not attempt to force them on you'' ``Send up your members of congress from the va[rious] districts, with opinions according to your own; and if they are for these measures, or any of them, I shall have nothing to oppose; if they are not for them, I shall not, by any appliances whatever, attempt to dragoon them into their adoption[.]'' Now, can there be any difficulty in understanding this? To you democrats, it may not seem like principle; but surely you can not fail to perceive the position plainly enough. The distinction between it, and the position of your candidate is broad and obvious; and I admit, you have a clear right to show it is wrong if you can; but you have no right to pretend you can not see it at all. We see it; and to us it appears like principle, and the best sort of principle at that---the principle of allowing the people to do as they please with their own business.

In the background:

• Territorial expansion
• Immigration
• Development of pro-slavery ideology:  Calhoun renounces Jefferson