A Little History (Like it or not)

This page contains a few historical facts.

Warning: this is not revisionist history!!.

Please feel free to browse and enjoy.

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party evolved from Anti-Federalist factions that opposed the fiscal policies of Alexander Hamilton in the early 1790s. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison organized these factions into the Democratic-Republican Party. The party favored states' rights and strict adherence to the Constitution; it opposed a national bank and wealthy, moneyed interests. The Democratic-Republican Party ascended to power in the election of 1800. After the War of 1812, the party's chief rival, the Federalist Party disbanded. Democratic-Republicans split over the choice of a successor to President James Monroe, and the party faction that supported many of the old Jeffersonian principles, led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, became the Democratic Party. Along with the Whig Party, the Democratic Party was the chief party in the United States until the Civil War. The Whigs were a commercial party, and usually less popular, if better financed. The Whigs divided over the slavery issue after the Mexican–American War and faded away. In the 1850s, under the stress of the Fugitive Slave Law and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, anti-slavery Democrats left the party. Joining with former members of existing or dwindling parties, the Republican Party emerged.

Republican Party (United States)

Founded in Ripon, Wisconsin, in 1854 by anti-slavery expansion activists and modernizers, the Republican Party quickly surpassed the Whig Party as the principal opposition to the Democratic Party. It first came to power in 1860 with the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency and presided over the American Civil War and Reconstruction.

The party began to form in the late 1840s, though it would take opposing the Kansas-Nebraska Act to unify the party. Their first official party convention was held on July 6, 1854 in Jackson, Michigan. The Republican's initial base was in the Northeast and Midwest and the party solidified its position as the second party with the nomination of John C. Fremont in the 1856 Presidential election. Early Republican ideology was reflected in the 1856 slogan free labor, free land, free men. "Free labor" referred to the Republican belief in a mobile middle class that left the workforce and set up small businesses. "Free land" referred to Republican efforts to facilitate this spirit of entrepreneurship by giving away government owned land. The Party hoped that this rapid growth would help check, and eventually end slavery. Abraham Lincoln received the Republican nomination in 1860 and subsequently won the presidency. The party remained a part of the Union during the American Civil War and presided over Reconstruction. In the election of 1864 a majority of Republicans united with pro-war Democrats to nominate Lincoln to the National Union Party ticket. A faction of Radical Republicans split with the party and formed the Radical Democracy Party. This group chose John C. Frémont as its presidential candidate, before reaching a political agreement and withdrawing from the election in September 1864.