The article that we had to read was entitled “The Early
Republic’s Political Culture 1789-1840” and it was written by Robert P.
Formisato. The beginning of the article
starts out talking about how political parties were formed by daring men who wanted
to create a new system. When the republic started out most of the founding
fathers were opposed to the idea of political parties, although they formed
their own out of necessity. For a brief time during the Era of Good Feelings
Americans were united under one political party. This all changed after James
Monroe’s presidency. Martin Van Buren was a huge proponent of political parties
and wrote papers convincing people of their necessity. Martin Van Buren
believed political parties were a positive good uniting people of diverse
backgrounds under a common goal. The
article explains how the party system started out with the “Federalists” and “Democratic
Republicans” and goes into a brief history on how these parties evolved, and
how certain core principles remained the same. Martin Van Buren even pointed out
how two forces drive political parties throughout US History- those who want
centralization of power like the monarchists during the American Revolution,
and those who want decentralization of power. Over time these two ideas compete
with each other and do compete till this day.
This article also mentions how parties have different parts- you have
the party leaders, activists, voters and they all play an important part in the
party’s creation and functions as it interacts with the citizens of these
United States. The article by Formisato
also critiques the use of party language. “Republican” and “Federalist” meant
different things during the American Revolution, but when they evolved into
parties they because the party titles and rhetoric.
This
article offers a very interesting analysis of our American political party
system and how it changes, and stays the same throughout the years. It is very
interesting to observe that our own political system is actually not very
different at all from the early 1800s. We have people who hate parties, some
people who promote parties as a positive good. The citizens today of the United
States are arguing over states’ rights, federalism and a centralized government
almost the same way they did in the early 1800s. There is not any real “biblical” stance on the
issues of states rights. Personally I favor states rights because I believe man
is sinful by nature, and therefore we must have decentralized government to
check the other branches, and states to check the federal government. This
issue of political parties however, is in the “Christian liberty” zone.
This was a very well-written article on political parties.
