Essay 22: Parties In The United States (Vol. 1 Pt. 2 Ch. 2) of Democracy in America by Alexis De Tocqueville

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On Parties in the United States

De Tocqueville offers trenchant analysis of the political parties in the US at the dawn of the 19th Century.

At the time of his writing there was one large party that was dominant – the Republican Democratic party which ultimately came to be called the Democratic party. This party had managed to outmaneuver and outlive the Federalist Party and the Whigs.

In fact, today the so-called Democratic party is the oldest continuously existing party in American history. Founded in 1828, it is also the oldest political party in the world.

According to De Tocqueville, the longevity of this party isn’t a sign of its greatness, but, counter intuitively, a sign of its smallness.

To appreciate this insight, one has to understand De Tocqueville’s understanding of political parties.

He divided them into two categories – great and small. He wasn’t referring to size, instead he was talking about philosophy and impact.

Great parties are motivated by principles rather than by specific conflicts or disagreements. Great parties promote the interests of the whole nation rather than appealing to subset groups within.

In his view the then dead Federalist Party was in fact great. It was populated by some of the most prominent members of society and importantly of the Revolutionary War. Men like John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay.

These individuals and others like them had served in key roles during the War of Independence against Great Britain as well as within the first government set up by our Constitution.

In fact, many of these individuals were instrumental in the creation of the government in both drafting, and selling it to the American people.

Even after its collapse the Federalist party has had a lasting impact on the American system by laying the foundations for having a national economy, promoting the acceptance of a national judicial system and formulating principles of foreign policy.

In contrast, the Democratic party was viewed by De Tocqueville as a “small” party. Its issues agitate rather than support the broader society. Small parties he argues lack a political faith – that is remain constant on a principle regardless of circumstance. A small party is “stamped with a selfishness that shows openly in each of their acts.” De Tocqueville uses the National Bank as an example of the distinction between “great” and “Small” parties. He argues that the “enlightened classes” are generally in favor of the National Bank and the population at large are not.

Rather than focus on the benefits and costs of the National Bank – which was created by the Federalist party with that in mind – the Democrats used its unpopularity with the public as a wedge to have it eliminated.

This choice by a small party may help it succeed in the short run, but in the long run may not be great for society.

Remember, the National Bank was set up as a means of dealing with the war debt and to help fund the government’s other debts. It was empowered to issue currency as well.

Ironically, though the Democrats were successful in ending the charter of the National Bank in 1811, by 1816 a new national bank had to be created for many of the same reasons as before – this time the War of 1812.

However, even that Bank was ultimately killed by the Democrats. Nearly 100 years would pass before the Federal Reserve was created in 1912. Ironically another Democrat would sign the law creating the Federal Reserve (a national banking system) after the concept had been killed by a Democrat – Andrew Jackson in 1836.

If nothing else, the same political party could ultimately be on opposite sides of the national banking issue, demonstrating De Tocqueville’s point.

De Tocqueville claims that “great” parties try to unite the interests of the country while “small” ones carelessly divide them. In this case he uses the divide between the wealthy and the rest of the population as an example.

Whereas the Federalists supported laws that sought to protect the interests of all the citizens of the US as a “great” party would do, the Democrats sought to pit the broader American society against the wealthy.

In fact, this willingness to look at the broader impact of national policy led to the Federalist party not being nationally popular, according to De Tocqueville.

Only because the national government was so limited in its authority did this phenomenon not create great havoc in the first 100 years of America’s existence. But by the start of the 20th as the federal government expanded its authority, this wedge proved quite powerful in allowing for the creation of greater taxation and business regulation – the super regulatory state that exists today.

Whether political parties are “small” or “great” they still serve a useful purpose. De Tocqueville says that political parties are an “inherent evil” as they provide a constructive way for “factions” to compete with one another. In contrast, without parties there is the inherent risk that “rival nations” form within a given country and when those rivals are unable to resolve their differences then a civil war becomes likely.

While De Tocqueville made his observations nearly 3 decades before the US Civil War, his insights were quite profound. Many of the conflicts that the Federalists recognized – the importance of America being a thriving commercial republic vs an agrarian one, the broader goal of citizen equality (including blacks), and the benefits of limited government – were ultimately unable to be permanently resolved without military conflict.

Even though he had hoped that the competition among parties would allay conflict, his observations have largely held true.

Though today political parties may not be “great” their existence creates a way for Americans to work through their differences without physical force. Like them or not, for De Tocqueville that is a ringing endorsement for their existence.

Horace Cooper is a writer and legal commentator. He has appeared on CNN, MSNBC and Fox as well as in a variety of print publications. He is also a Research Fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research, a Senior Fellow with the Heartland Institute and the Director of Law and Regulation at the Institute for Liberty.

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