History of the Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of the two major political parties of the United States political system and the oldest active political party in the country. Founded in 1828, the Democratic Party is the oldest active voter-based political party in the world. The party has changed significantly during its nearly two centuries of existence. Once known as the party of the "common man", the early Democratic Party stood for individual rights and state sovereignty, and opposed banks and high tariffs. In the first decades of its existence, from 1832 to the mid-1850s, under Presidents Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, and James K. Polk, the Democrats usually defeated the opposition Whig Party by narrow margins.
Before the American Civil War, the party generally supported slavery or insisted it be left to the states. After the war until the 1940s, the party opposed civil rights reforms in order to retain the support of Southern white voters. The Republican Party was organized in the mid-1850s from the ruins of the Whig Party and Free Soil Democrats. It was dominant in presidential politics from 1860 to 1928. The Democrats elected only two Presidents during this period: Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson. Over the same period, the Democrats proved more competitive with the Republicans in Congressional politics, enjoying House of Representatives majorities in 15 of the 36 Congresses elected owing largely to their dominance of the Solid South, although only in five of these they formed the majority in the Senate. Furthermore, the Democratic Party was split between the Bourbon Democrats, representing Eastern business interests, and the agrarian party elements representing poor farmers in the South and West. After the Republican landslide in the 1894 House elections, the agrarian element, marching behind the slogan of free silver, captured the party. They nominated William Jennings Bryan in the 1896, 1900, and 1908 presidential elections, although he lost every time. Both Bryan and Wilson were leaders of the progressive movement in the United States and opposed imperialistic expansion abroad while sponsoring liberal reforms at home despite supporting racism and discrimination against blacks in government offices and elsewhere.
Starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt, the party dominated during the Fifth Party System, which lasted from 1932 until about the 1970s. In response to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression, the party employed social liberal policies and programs with the New Deal coalition to combat financial crises and emergency bank closings, with policies continuing into World War II. The party kept the White House after Roosevelt's death in April 1945, electing Harry S. Truman in 1948 to a full term. During this period, the Republican Party only elected one president and was the minority in Congress all but twice. Powerful committee chairmanships were awarded automatically on the basis of seniority, which gave power especially to long-serving Southerners. Important Democratic leaders during this time included Presidents Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. Republican Richard Nixon won the White House in 1968 and 1972, leading to the end of the New Deal era; however, the party became extremely successful in the House, holding it with a majority for 40 years.
Since 1980, Democrats have won five out of the last twelve presidential elections, winning in the presidential elections of 1992 and 1996, 2008 and 2012, and 2020. Democrats have also won the popular vote in 2000 and 2016 but lost the Electoral College in both elections. These were two of the four presidential elections in which Democrats won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College, the others being the presidential elections in 1876 and 1888.
Foundation: 1820–1828
The modern Democratic Party emerged in the late 1820s from former factions of the Democratic-Republican Party, which was established around 1792, primarily by Thomas Jefferson and his allies, as a response to the Federalist Party's push for a strong central government, but it died out after the 1824 election. It was built by Martin Van Buren who assembled many state organizations to form a new party as a vehicle to elect Andrew Jackson of Tennessee. The pattern and speed of formation differed from state to state. By the mid-1830s, almost all the state Democratic parties were uniform. The common year indicated as the party's foundation is 1828, making it the oldest political party in the world.Jacksonian ascendancy: 1829–1841
Presidency of Andrew Jackson (1829–1837)
The spirit of Jacksonian democracy, which has its roots in Jeffersonian democracy, animated the party from the early 1830s to the 1850s, shaping the Second Party System with the Whig Party as the main opposition. After the disappearance of the Federalists after 1815 and the Era of Good Feelings, there was a hiatus of weakly organized personal factions until about 1828–1832, when the modern Democratic Party emerged along with its rival, the Whigs. The new Democratic Party became a coalition of farmers, city-dwelling laborers and Irish Catholics. Both parties worked hard to build grassroots organizations and maximize the turnout of voters, which often reached 80 percent or 90 percent of eligible voters. Both parties used patronage extensively to finance their operations, which included emerging big city political machines as well as national networks of newspapers.Behind the party platforms, acceptance speeches of candidates, editorials, pamphlets and stump speeches, there was a widespread consensus of political values among Democrats. As a textbook coauthored by Mary Beth Norton explains:
The Democrats represented a wide range of views but shared a fundamental commitment to the Jeffersonian concept of an agrarian society. They viewed the central government as the enemy of individual liberty. The 1824 "corrupt bargain" had strengthened their suspicion of Washington politics.... Jacksonians feared the concentration of economic and political power. They believed that government intervention in the economy benefited special-interest groups and created corporate monopolies that favored the rich. They sought to restore the independence of the individual – the artisan and the ordinary farmer – by ending federal support of banks and corporations and restricting the use of paper currency, which they distrusted. Their definition of the proper role of government tended to be negative, and Jackson's political power was largely expressed in negative acts. He exercised the veto more than all previous presidents combined. Jackson and his supporters also opposed reform as a movement. Reformers eager to turn their programs into legislation called for a more active government. But Democrats tended to oppose programs like educational reform and the establishment of a public school system....Nor did Jackson share reformers' humanitarian concerns. He had no sympathy for American Indians, initiating the removal of the Cherokees along the Trail of Tears.
The party was weakest in New England, but strong everywhere else and won most national elections thanks to strength in New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the American frontier. Democrats opposed elites and aristocrats, the Bank of the United States and the whiggish modernizing programs that would build up industry at the expense of the yeoman or independent small farmer.
The party was known for its populism. Historian Frank Towers has specified an important ideological divide:
Democrats stood for the 'sovereignty of the people' as expressed in popular demonstrations, constitutional conventions, and majority rule as a general principle of governing, whereas Whigs advocated the rule of law, written and unchanging constitutions, and protections for minority interests against majority tyranny.
At its inception, the Democratic Party was the party of the "common man". It opposed the abolition of slavery.
From 1828 to 1848, banking and tariffs were the central domestic policy issues. Democrats strongly favored—and Whigs opposed—expansion to new farm lands, as typified by their expulsion of eastern American Indians and acquisition of vast amounts of new land in the West after 1846. The party favored the war with Mexico and opposed anti-immigrant nativism. In the 1830s, the Locofocos in New York City were radically democratic, anti-monopoly, were generally more critical of slavery and were proponents of hard money and free trade. Their chief spokesman was William Leggett. At this time, labor unions were few and some were loosely affiliated with the party.
Presidency of Martin Van Buren (1837–1841)
The Presidency of Martin Van Buren was hobbled by a long economic depression called the Panic of 1837. The presidency promoted hard money based on gold and silver, an independent federal treasury, a reduced role for the government in the economy, and a liberal policy for the sale of public lands to encourage settlement; they opposed high tariffs to encourage industry. The Jackson policies were kept, such as Indian removal and the Trail of Tears. Van Buren personally disliked slavery but he kept the slaveholder's rights intact. Nevertheless, he was distrusted across the South.The 1840 Democratic National Convention was the first at which the party adopted a platform. Delegates reaffirmed their belief that the Constitution was the primary guide for each state's political affairs. To them, this meant that all roles of the federal government not specifically defined fell to each respective state government, including such responsibilities as debt created by local projects. Decentralized power and states' rights pervaded each and every resolution adopted at the convention, including those on slavery, taxes, and the possibility of a central bank. Regarding slavery, the Convention adopted the following resolution:
Resolved, That congress has no power under the Constitution, to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several states, and that such states are the sole and proper judges of every thing appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution: that all efforts of the abolitionists or others, made to induce congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences, and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people, and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend to our political institutions.