th
19
Century Political Parties:
A Resource for the President;
A Constraint on The President
Free Write
• What should the relationship between the
president and his political party be? Should
he lead the party, and decide what it stands
for? Or should it control him? Why? What
does your answer imply about his
relationship to the other party? Do you
think the president should be “above”
partisan politics?
You will turn this free-write in for participation credit.
How do the electors decide who
the candidates are for the
presidency?
How do the electors decide who
the candidates are for the
presidency?
Answer: Party nominations
First Two Methods of
Nominating Presidential
Candidates
“King Caucus”: 1800-1828
Convention System: 1832-1912
Washington’s Farewell Address
• The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party
are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise
people to discourage and restrain it.
• It serves always to distract the public councils and
enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the
community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms,
kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments
occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to
foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated
access to the government itself through the channels of
party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country
are subjected to the policy and will of another.
The first parties
Adams: The Federalists
Jefferson:
The Democratic-Republicans
King Caucus 1800-1828
• Members of Congress met to nominate
presidential candidates from their party
• Who is advantaged in this system?
• Problems with this system?
Criticism of the Caucus System
• “If anything will arouse the freemen of America it
must be the arrogance of a number of members of
Congress to assemble as an electioneering caucus
to control the citizens in their own rights…Is there
any paragraph in the Constitution which gives
them such an authority or even countenances such
a proceeding? After Congress have accomplished
their legislative business have they a right to
dictate in the choice of an executive?”
-Benjamin Austin, Massachusetts Republican, 1803
Jackson, Van Buren and the Party
Convention System
1832-1912
Van Buren on a new Party
Convention
“It is the best and probably the only practicable
mode of concentrating the entire vote of the
opposition [to Adams] and of effecting what is of
still greater importance, the substantial
reorganization of the old Republican party…It
would greatly improve the condition of the
Republicans of the North and Middle states by
substituting party principle for personal
preference as one of the leading points of the
contest.”
—Van Buren in letter to the editor of the Richmond Enquirer, Jan., 1827
Elements of Convention system
• Conventions nominate candidates
• Candidates subservient to party
• Mass participation in parties
Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections, 19th
Century
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1828 1836 1844 1852 1860 1868 1876 1884 1892 1900
Elements of Convention system
• Conventions nominate candidates
• Candidates subservient to parties
• Mass participation in parties
• Patronage
How is the convention system a
resource for or a constraint on
presidents? Which is stronger, the
president, or the party?