Back to the Future: The Founders and the Parties

At Cato in 2011, my frequent coauthor Bill Connelly had some thoughts on the Founders and political parties:

Some insist today that the Founders did not expect political parties to form, that parties only arose later in American history. But in a 1792 essay titled “A Candid State of Parties,” Madison concluded that parties of distinction are “natural to most political societies,” and will likely endure. Even to this day, perhaps?

Admittedly, “A Candid State of Parties” is a partisan tract, just as were The Federalist Papers. Madison the Founder was a statesman, a politician, a political theorist, and a partisan. And that is not a criticism. Madison clearly understood that “in every political society, parties are unavoidable.” In fact, he concluded parties “must always be expected in a government as free as ours.”

Madison recognized that American politics and partisanship are rooted in the Constitution. Mere partisanship is possible precisely because of limited constitutional government, or as I like to say, the Constitution governs parties more than the parties govern the Constitution. Our constitutional concrete is sufficient to withstand partisan warfare today just as it did in the 1790s.

Partisanship is rooted in the Constitution because of First Amendment freedoms. Clearly freedom of the press and freedom of association allow and even invite the abuse of licentiousness and excessive partisanship. But what is the alternative? Madison understood that in a free society, politics, including the spirit of party, is ubiquitous.

Since the latent cause of faction and spirit of party are natural to man, Madison sought to control the effects of faction, rather than to remove the causes, since the cure would be worse than the disease. That is what the Anti‐​Federalists wanted; it would have required curbing liberty. The point was to expand, not limit, liberty.

Partisanship is also rooted in the Constitution in another fundamental way. Throughout our history beginning in the 1790s, partisanship has been premised on the fault lines of constitutional interpretation and debate over the central principles of the separation of powers and federalism, or in other words, role of government questions. Contentious partisanship has its roots in the Constitution.

In the 1790s we also see the Founders’ practice of their principles; their actions, too, seem to refute the notion that the Founders were anti‐​party. While the 1950s was a period of relative partisan quiescence as was the era of good feeling in the early part of the 1800s, I think if you look historically those two periods are the exception more than the rule.

Now, partisanship is potentially good and bad. Friction creates light as well as heat. Our Constitution invites constructive partisanship, including often cantankerous, cacophonous, contentious partisanship. The principal differences between our two great parties, whether over the war on terrorism, health care reform, or global warming, matter, and they are often principled differences.

It is worth examining some of the causes of heightened partisanship today. First, party primaries, especially in congressional elections, invite appeals to the party base, and clearly contribute to greater partisan polarizations. Should we eliminate congressional primaries or nominating primaries either at the presidential or congressional level?

Should we return to the smoke‐​filled rooms? A second cause is gerrymandered redistricting, especially enhanced by computer modeling. Perhaps we should adopt the reform of eliminating computers — or maybe not?

Third, the democratization and decentralization of Congress due to institutional reforms. Some of the above causes were consequences of the 1970s reforms, in Congress in particular, designed to make Congress more open and democratic. Should we reform the reforms?

Fourth: the growth of government and the concomitant increased stake in our politics contribute to increased partisan polarization. Big government gives you big politics. James Q. Wilson, one of the leading political scientists of recent generations, said that once politics was about a few things; today it is about nearly everything. Maybe what we need to do is limit government if we want to limit politics and make our politics less cantankerous.

Fifth, an important cause of partisan polarization has been the effort to advance comprehensive, nonincremental reforms. For example, the decision by Democrats to advance comprehensive health care reform may by its very nature have raised fundamental questions about the role of government. Perhaps we should refederalize some of the policy questions. Moreover, we blame political parties when we should also acknowledge the role of our two other key mediating institutions: interest groups and the media.

Sixth, greater partisan polarization is due to the explosion in the role of the number of interest groups, so‐​called hyperpluralism, including in the think‐​tank universe. Maybe we should blame or credit Cato for partisan polarization. The proliferation of think tanks over the last 30 to 40 to 50 years has contributed to a more ideological, or you could say more principled, politics.

Seventh, the dramatic increase in education among Americans augments polarization. If I may paraphrase Shakespeare, perhaps the first thing we should do is kill all the professors, though I personally hope we don’t do that.

Eighth, decentralization, fragmentation, and greater competition of the new media as the hegemony of the old media establishment erodes have clearly contributed to the more cacophonous, contentious character of our politics. We’re clearly not going to get rid of the Internet anytime soon. The media loves to report on the planes that crash, not the thousands of planes that fly successfully every day. Conflict is what gets covered as opposed to consensus, exaggerating the level of contentiousness in our politics. But do we want to get rid of the new media and return to the good old days, or was it the bad old days, of the media establishment? Do we really want to return to the 1960s’ near monopoly of national news by NBC, ABC, CBS, the UPI, and AP wires?

And yet, finally, the most fundamental cause of partisan polarization may be our 200‐​year‐​old constitutional system which, as I suggested earlier, invites the spirit of party in our politics — and I certainly don’t recommend a new constitutional convention.