As is well known, in the full flush of the idealism that surrounded the founding of the country and the adoption of the Constitution, the leaders of the day 23
elected by reason of their local prominence naively concluded that the New Republic would similarly be directed by a select group of individuals with government policy determined as a result of their deliberations. Furthermore, many came from an elite society, sharing the view that it would be “the rich”
and the “wellborn” who would govern.
The Founding Fathers were gravely concerned by the possibility that orga- nized groups would emerge threatening the integrity of such a delibera- tive process. Thus, in the celebrated Tenth Paper of the Federalist Papers, attributed to James Madison, “factions” are stigmatized as a destructive force threatening the existence of a new central government. The paper hailed the new Constitution for controlling the effects of “faction.” It was seen as accom- plishing this on two levels. The introduction of representative government in place of a participatory democracy would place decision-making power in the hands of persons with “enlightened views and virtuous sentiments.”1In the Thirty-fifth Paper, Hamilton made it plain that the “enlightened views” in an age in which the franchise was highly restricted would be those of “land- holders, merchants, and men of the learned professions.”2 Hamilton further observed pragmatically that a federal republic would be vastly larger than any individual state. This, he argued, would substantially increase the diversity of the population and the number of contending interests. In turn, this would render it more difficult for a “faction” composed of a majority to impose its will on the minority.
Hopes for such a world faded fast. Signs of emerging political groupings appeared early, almost before the ink had begun to dry on the Constitu- tion. The political division matched the dispute over the Constitution itself.
Supporters of the Constitution called “Federals” are reported to have tri- umphed in the1790election. As John Marshall observes in his five-volume life of Washington, the party opposed to the Constitution (soon joining with others to form the so-called Democrat-Republicans) attacked “supporters of the constitution” (soon to be termed Federalists) as motivated by a desire to establish “a monarchy on the ruins of republican government.”3 This early theme sounded and resounded during the balance of the decade with repeated Republican charges that establishment of a monarchy was the true
1 Paper No.10,The Federalist or the New Constitution62(intro. Carl van Doren1945) (attributed to Madison,id. at v,54).
2 Paper No.35,id. at221(attributed to Hamilton,id. at v,216).
3 See 4John Marshall, Life of George Washington403, 440(1926 ed.) (hereinafter Marshall, Washington).
Factions, the Party System, and the Opposition 25 objective of both Washington and Adams and the “monarchical” Federalist Party.4
Even before Washington had concluded his first administration, the polit- ical world was becoming divided with leaders with opposing views on the extent of national power and the continuing role of the states joining with like-minded persons in evaluating and seeking to implement policy. As James Macgregor Burns and Stewart Burns describe it:
So it was not party theory but personal and ideological rivalry that moved the leaderships of both ‘factions’ in the later1790s to build coalitions, reach out to broader electorates, to recruit local and state leaders, to publish tracts and broadsides, to enrol votes – in short to lay the rough foundations of the first nationwide popular parties.5
This development occurred both locally and in Philadelphia, then the Capital. It was first marked by increasing differences between Jefferson and Hamilton in Washington’s tiny Cabinet over the appropriate objectives for the new federal administration. This division deeply troubled Washington, but his efforts to bridge the divide failed.6After Jefferson resigned as Secretary of State in December1793, the conflict became even more pronounced.
The nascent political parties speedily took form and became better orga- nized. Thanks in part to Jefferson’s infinite labors, his regular dining with Republican Congressman while he was still Vice President,7and the remark- able volume of his correspondence strengthening ties with like-minded polit- ical persons throughout the country, the Republicans came sooner to develop
4 See, e.g., Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Edmund Randolph (Aug.18,1799),31Papers of Thomas Jefferson168(Barbara Oberg ed.2004); Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Levi Lincoln (Aug.26,1801), 4Works of Jefferson406(H. Washington ed.1853);7id.389(H. Washington ed.1861).
5 James Macgregor Burns and Stewart Burns,A People’s Charter: The Pursuit of Rights in America 67(1991) (hereinafter Burns).
6 CompareLetter, George Washington to Alexander Hamilton (Aug.26,1792) (calling for “liberal allowances, mutual forbearance, and temporizing yieldingson all sides) (emphasis in orginal), George Washington,Writings818(Lib. Am.1997) (hereinafter Washington,Writings(Lib. Am.)) and Letter, George Washington to Thomas Jefferson (Aug.23,1792) (the partisan “schism” was a subject of “extreme mortification”),32Writings of George Washington130–131(John C. Fitz- patrick ed.1931); Letter, George Washington to Thomas Jefferson (Oct.16,1792),11Papers of George Washington238(John Catanzariti ed.1990) (hereinafter Washington,Papers(Catanzariti)) (I “deeply regret . . . the difference of opinions”)withLetter, Thomas Jefferson to George Wash- ington (Sept.9,1792),24Papers of Thomas Jefferson351–359(John Catanzariti ed.1990).
7 SeeNoble E. Cunningham, Jr.,The Jeffersonian Republicans: The Formation of Party Organi- zation, 1789–1801132(1957) (hereinafter Cunningham). (Jefferson conferred and dined regularly with Republican congressmen when in Philadelphia,i.e., the early1790s. This gave “much unity to the Republican Party which in many states was loosely organized, if at all.”)
more formal organization resembling the modern political party. The Fed- eralists took somewhat longer. This was evident in the election of1800. As Clinton Rossiter has summarized the development:
by1800 the [Republicans] were a party in every meaningful sense. . . . [T]he Republicans were a tendency in the country from the beginning, an identifiable group in the Congress in1792, a governmental party in 1795, an election-fighting alliance in1796, and an organization function- ing on a national scale in1800.8
The Federalists lagged behind.
In this very new political world, there was no recognition of the con- cept of a “Loyal Opposition.” Instead, opponents of the administration were seen as enemies of the State, the very personification of those “factions” so much feared in earlier discussions. Distrust hardened into demonization as the French crisis deepened. The Federalists looked upon the Republicans as French Jacobins given to the use of social unrest and violence. Thus, in a charge to a Massachusetts grand jury, Chief Justice Francis Dana of the Suffolk County Court described Vice President Jefferson and the Republi- cans in the Congress as “apostles of atheism and anarchy, bloodshed, and plunder.”9 As for John Adams, he took very seriously rumors that French sympathizers were thinking of burning down Washington, and he arranged for armed guards to patrol around the presidential residence and the stocking of arms.10 In turn, the Republicans saw the Federalists and their leaders as monarchists and aristocrats ready to stifle democracy and replace it with a hereditary leader and aristocracy. The vituperative quality of the press carried these opposing descriptions even further. The common ground shared by all Americans was severely narrowed in the process.
As Norman L. Rosenberg has put it: “few Jeffersonians and even fewer Federalists considered their rivals to be members of a legitimate political organization that was committed to republicanism and the constitution of 1787.”11 James Macgregor Burns and Stewart Burns share this view of the
8 SeeClinton Rossiter,1787: The Grand Convention312(1966,1987).
9 See1Charles Warren,The Supreme Court in the History of the United States275(1925).
10 SeeRon Chernow,Alexander Hamilton570(2006) (hereinafter Chernow).
Abigail Adams, that committed Federalist, provides another insight into the ferocity of Federalist thinking. As she put it in one of her letters to her sister Mary Cranch, “The Jacobins are a very wicked unprincipeld [sic] set of Beings.” Letter, Abigail Adams to Mary Cranch (Mar.5,1800), New Letters236(Stewart Mitchell ed.1947) (hereinafterNew Letters).
11 SeeNorman L. Rosenberg,Protecting the Best Men: An Interpretive History of the Law of Libel81 (1986) (hereinafter Rosenberg).
Corruption of the Press 27 struggle between the nascent Federalists and the nascent Republicans in the infancy of the party system, concluding:
Both parties shared the conventional wisdom that parties were merely large factions and dangerous to order and liberty threatening national unity and survival. They did not see themselves as “as alternating parties in a two-party system” in Richard Hopfstadter’s words. Each side instead hoped to eliminate party conflict by persuading and absorbing the more acceptable and “innocent” members of the other; either side hoped to attach the stigma of foreign allegiance and disloyalty to the intractable leaders of the other, and to put them out of business as a party.12