political parties in Congress

The authors of the U.S. Constitution hoped that the federal government could avoid political parties. They wanted a government run by independent-minded people who served out of a sense of civic virtue. They envisioned parties (“factions”) as the tool of the politically ambitious and as a source of corruption. However, not long after the new government began, many of those who opposed parties became the founders and leaders of political parties. They discovered that a two-party system could contribute to the constitutional system of checks and balances. The competing parties would help keep any one group from becoming powerful enough to threaten citizens' rights.

First parties in Congress

Although they were not as organized as modern political parties, identifiable parties first emerged in the 1790s. The Federalist party consolidated those who supported the policies of the Washington administration, particularly the financial program of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. In 1792 James Madison and Thomas Jefferson launched an opposition Democratic-Republican party, which gained the majority in the House of Representatives that year. Opposing a strong, activist central government, Democratic-Republicans rallied against Hamilton's programs. Their strength in Congress came largely from Southern and Western districts, while the Federalists were strongest in New England. By 1800 political caucuses in Congress were selecting their party's Presidential candidates. The Federalist party shrank steadily until it expired in the essentially one-party Era of Good Feelings after the War of 1812.

The second party system

During the 1820s the political system split apart again. Denouncing “King Caucus"—the congressionally dominated system of nominating Presidential candidates—Andrew Jackson won the Presidency in 1828. Behind the scenes, New York Senator Martin Van Buren built a new political instrument, the Democratic party, to support Jackson's policies. Jackson's veto of a bill renewing the charter of the Bank of the United States in 1832 led to the rise of the opposition Whig party. Kentucky Senator Henry Clay served as the Whigs' leader in Congress. By the 1840s the two parties had become such permanent fixtures on Capitol Hill that they took over the assignment of senators and representatives to committees and shaped much of the daily operations of Congress. Party leaders began to emerge in the House, while senators continued to insist that because they were all equal, they needed no formal leadership. The Democrats and Whigs were both national parties—that is, they elected members from every region of the country. Then, in the 1850s, agitation over the slavery issue disrupted these national coalitions. New parties such as the Free Soil and American (Know-Nothing) parties emerged but did not attract a majority of the voters. By 1856 the new Republican party had absorbed these smaller parties and supplanted the Whigs as the chief opposition to the Democrats.

Republicans versus Democrats

The election of 1860, followed by the secession of the Southern states, gave the Republicans control of the White House and the majority in both houses of Congress. The Republicans remained the majority party for the rest of the 19th century, although after the last of the Southern states had been readmitted to the Union in 1870, Democrats often controlled one of the houses of Congress. The “solid South,” consisting of the 11 former Confederate states, remained overwhelmingly Democratic. The North, with the exception of such major cities as New York and Boston, remained overwhelmingly Republican. Border states and some Midwestern and Western states swung back and forth, changing the majorities in Congress. When the Republican party's conservative and progressive wings split apart in 1912 (with Theodore Roosevelt leading the progressives in a campaign for greater social, economic, and political reform), Woodrow Wilson won the Presidency and Democrats captured the House and Senate. Six years later the Republicans regained their congressional majorities, which they held until the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed. It was during the 1920s that the two parties formally elected majority and minority leaders in the Senate.

The long Democratic majority

In the 1930s New Deal programs to combat the depression won widespread popular approval, and Democratic majorities in Congress grew to enormous proportions. At their peak, after the 1936 election, there were 76 Democrats in the Senate (opposed to 16 Republicans and 4 independents) and 334 Democrats in the House (opposed to 88 Republicans and 13 independents). For the next six decades, with only rare exceptions, the Democrats retained their majorities in Congress, even when they lost the White House to the Republicans.

Third parties

Although a two-party system has prevailed through most of American history, many third parties have appeared and have elected members to Congress. Third parties generally have had more success in winning election in smaller House districts than in statewide Senate races. In the 19th century, the Anti-Masonic, Nullifiers, American (Know-Nothing), Free Soil, States' Rightists, Unionists, Constitutional Union, Liberal Republican, National (Greenback), People's (Populist), and Silver Republican parties all sent members to Congress. Third parties in the 20th century have included the Socialist, Progressive (Bull Moose), Prohibition, and Conservative parties.

If a third party is large enough, its members can form their own caucus, as the Progressives did after the 1912 election. But usually they are too few in number and choose to join either the Republican or Democratic caucus, which will give them their committee assignments. The major parties are not always tolerant of third parties, however. Victor Berger of Wisconsin became the first Socialist elected to Congress, serving in the House from 1911 to 1913. Although he was elected again in 1918 and 1920, the House refused to let him take his seat because of his opposition to U.S. participation in World War I.

See also Caucuses, congressional

Sources

• Kenneth C. Martis, The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress, 1789–1989 (New York: Macmillan, 1989)