The Federal Party System

American political parties have been broad and realistic since the founding of the Republic. There are several institutional reasons for the two party systems in America. Those who favored a stronger central government in the constitution are identified as federalist and the democratic republic favored a system of greater state authority. First of all, the United States is not a democracy, it is a Democratic Republic. This is important in that in a true democracy, the people are continuously involved in the governing process. Second, our elections are fixed by the calendar, not by events. In the socialist democratic nations such as France, and Germany any vote of confidence lost by the ruling party or coalition will result in a new election. Third, we have separation of our legislative and executive branches. In most democracies of the world, the legislature elects a prime minister who is the executive of the country. …show more content…
The federalist supported John Adams for a second term and the democratic Republic supported Thomas Jefferson who won the election of 1800. Jefferson was deeply committed to the idea of his party but he was not committed to the idea of a party system. He thought of the democratic republic as a temporary measure necessary to defeat john Adams. However, the democratic republic received support from the south and the federalist received support from New England. The party system was only in its infancy, no broad based national party existed to mobilize popular support. When this country was in its infancy, we had two parties; the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalist. Formed around President Andrew Jackson’s popularity, the Democratic Party was formed. Opposite to the president coalesced into the Whigs