How Is President Washington A Turning Point

The election of President Washington was not a turning point in the American political party system, due to the lack of changes in the system as a direct result of his election; rather, the election of Thomas Jefferson as president served as a focal turning point in the change of the political party system in America because of the way it introduced changes that would gradually begin altering the system.

The election of President Washington was not a turning point in the political party system of America. At the time of George Washington’s election, the Federalist and Antifederalist schools of thought had already been fully developed, and did not change due to Washington’s election. A few years later, these groups were replaced by the Federalist …show more content…
Thomas Jefferson began a massive shift of power from the Federalists to the Republicans that would lead to the eventual disintegration of the Federalists. The first way Jefferson’s election did this was through the striking down of many Federalist policies, such as repealing the Judiciary Act of 1801, which got rid of 40 Federalist judicial positions that John Adams had filled last-minute before Jefferson took over as president. Actions such as the aforementioned helped Jefferson to gain more leverage for his agenda as president. However, Jefferson did keep quite a few economic policies established by the Federalists, most notably the Bank of the United States, which he had once spoken out against as unconstitutional. Such tolerance to important Federalist ideals began to make the two parties more similar to one another, as Jefferson’s radical Republican policies became more moderate. This new control over the political party system and the moderation of Republican policies led to two more Republican presidents being elected and allowing this dominance to continue, James Madison and James Monroe. The continued Republican anti-British sentiment eventually led to the War of 1812, which the Federalists vehemently opposed. This further led to the downfall of the Federalists, as the war was a huge success, undermining the main point of argument that the Federalists had defined themselves with for the entire duration …show more content…
This turning point in the collapse of the Federalists in the First Party System can be likened to the collapse of the Whig Party in the Third Party System. Just as the Federalists began losing ground gradually to the Republicans, beginning to come only in second place, the Whigs did as well with the Democrats. The Whigs then made the same fatal mistake as the Federalists: having a lack of identity. As the Federalists clung to being anti-War of 1812 which eventually fell apart, the Whigs had split views on slavery, which eventually led to their falling apart. The Federalists had no radically unique views after peace was made with Britain, as the Republicans were significantly more moderate and held beliefs similar enough to those of the Federalists for them to identify with that party as well. In the same way, the Whigs disintegrated due to their lack of unity - in this case, on the topic of slavery, which was an extremely important issue at the time. By this point, the emerging Republican Party and the well-established Democratic Party had unique views on both sides of the issue, leading most Whigs to be able to identify with one party or the other, causing the party to