What was the most important issue dividing the first political parties in the US?

The United States in the twenty-first century is predominately a two-party system. Although more than two political parties exist, many American voters tend to side with one of the big two: the Democrats or the Republicans.

In George Washington's Farewell Address he warned his fellow Americans about the dangers of political parties. He said, "The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism." He claimed the partisanship would lead to inter-political conflict, divide the nation, and give rise to cases of tyranny.

Federalist poster about 1800. Washington (in heaven) tells partisans to keep the pillars of Federalism, Republicanism and Democracy

Despite his warnings, political associations in the young United States began to bifurcate even before the Constitution was signed. In those first stages, the two factions were The Federalists and the Anti-Federalists - the discussions of the Federalists became most famous initially in The Federalist Papers.

In a letter to John Wise*, Thomas Jefferson said of the developing political environment:

"Two political sects have arisen within the U. S. The one believing that the executive is the branch of our government which the most needs support; the other that like the analogous branch in the English Government, it is already too strong for the republican parts of the Constitution; and therefore in equivocal cases they incline to the legislative powers: the former of these are called federalists, sometimes aristocrats or monocrats, and sometimes tories, after the corresponding sect in the English Government of exactly the same definition: the latter are styled republicans, whigs, jacobins, anarchists, disorganizers, etc. these terms are in familiar use with most persons."

Thomas Jefferson was a member of the Republican Party - the "jacobins" - alongside James Madison and Patrick Henry. John Adams was a member of the Federalist Party - the "monocrats" - along with Alexander Hamilton, who had been the main voice behind The Federalist Papers.

Truthfully, it was Jefferson who felt the greatest need to perpetuate an "opposition" party, because he believed that the Federalists represented aristocratic forces hostile to the true will of the people. He believed that without a Republican party, the Federalists would turn the nation into in oligarchy, and steal freedom from the people. His dedication to his beliefs are the reason why political parties play such an enormous role in American politics today.

What Each Early Party Believed

Alexander Hamilton

• Committed to a fiscally sound and nationalistic government
• Favored a National Band, Tariffs, and Good Relations with Britain
• Supported Implied Powers - those powers authorized by a legal document (from the Constitution) which, while not stated, seem to be implied by powers expressly stated.
• More conservative views
• Composed of the elite class

Thomas Jefferson

• Committed to the rights of states, the primacy of yeoman farmers, and the principles of republicanism (liberty and inalienable rights)
• Opposed the Jay Treaty, wanted good relations with France, not Britain
• Opposed the ideas of a National Bank or implied powers
• Predominately "Anti-Administration"

The (Jeffersonian) Republican Party outlasted the Federalist Party, which had been seen by the people as too elitist. Jefferson's party came to be the foundation for both the modern Republican and Democratic parties, although these current forms are both are vastly different from the early sect.

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In the long history of the United States, only one president, George Washington, did not represent a political party.

The Constitution that Washington helped draft in 1787, the Constitution our government still operates under today, makes no mention of political parties, and it clearly did not anticipate them. As originally ratified, the United States Constitution declared that the second-place vote getter in the presidential election would serve as vice president. It was not until 1804, with the ratification of the Twelfth Amendment, that this changed.

Political parties as we know them today began to take shape while Washington was in office. By 1793 or 1794 there was an emerging split between two distinct visions for the future of the country. Groups calling themselves Democratic Republican Societies began to appear in cities around the nation. They would form the nucleus of a formal, concerted opposition party, something that frightened many people, including Washington. 

Forming Parties

Washington and His Cabinet, from left to right: George Washington, Henry Knox, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and Edmund Randolph. Published by Currier & Ives, c. 1876. Library of Congress.

Only after Great Britain and revolutionary France went to war in 1793 did the Democratic Republican party really begin to form itself as a true opposition party in American politics, against what would become known as the Federalist Party. Some ongoing debates over domestic issues, like the creation of a national bank and other economic policies, became intertwined with divisive foreign-policy questions, such as whether the United States should enter the war on the side of the French Republic.

Washington's Role

Portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart, c. 1798, MVLA, H-4/A-B, Gift of Caroline H. Richardson, 1904.

Washington remained above the fray; he wanted to be a president of all the American citizens. The most important reason was he believed unity, not division, was necessary for a democratic republic to survive. Washington believed that political parties would divide and destroy the young United States.

His thought, in what became known as the Farewell Address in 1796, is clear: "the spirit of party"

serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.

Throughout his political life, and until his death in 1799, George Washington was confident that the country could and should function without the existence of political parties.