Second Party System
The Second Party System was the political party system operating in the United States from about 1828 to early 1854, after the First Party System ended. The system was characterized by rapidly rising levels of voter interest, beginning in 1828, as demonstrated by Election Day turnouts, rallies, partisan newspapers, and high degrees of personal loyalty to parties.
Two major parties dominated the political landscape: the Democratic Party, led by Andrew Jackson, and the Whig Party, assembled by Henry Clay from the National Republicans and from other opponents of Jackson. Minor parties included the Anti-Masonic Party, an important innovator from 1827 to 1834; the abolitionist Liberty Party in 1840; and the anti-slavery expansion Free Soil Party in 1848 and 1852. The Second Party System reflected and shaped the political, social, economic and cultural currents of the Jacksonian Era, until succeeded by the Third Party System.
This party system materialized from two realignments in 1828. The first realignment was of various Democratic-Republican voting blocs realigning into the newly-formed Democratic Party, which acted as a successor to the entire Democratic-Republican Party as the conservative party of the South's more slave sparse areas and the non-Coastal Northern counties. The second realignment in 1828 was of leftover Federalist-aligned voters who formed the Clay and Adams factions in the Coastal North realigning into the National Republican Party in 1828.
This northern base of National Republicans in the Coastal North, alongside the wealthy slave owners of the Southern slave centers and the Anti-Masons in Vermont, Massachusetts, upstate New York and Pennsylvania, realigned into the newly formed Whig Party in 1836. With the fall of the Whig Party in 1856, the remaining Whig coalition realigned into the Know Nothing ticket that same year then realigned into the Constitutional Union Party in 1860 at the start of the next party system.
Frank Towers specifies an important ideological divide was that "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."
Patterns
Historian Richard P. McCormick is most responsible for defining the term. He stated:- It was a distinct party system.
- It was produced by leaders trying to win the presidency, with contenders building their own national coalitions.
- Regional effects strongly affected developments, with the Adams forces strongest in New England and the Jacksonians in the Southwest.
- For the first time, two-party politics were extended to the South and West.
- In each region, the two parties were about equal — the first and only party system showing such.
- Because of the regional balance, it was vulnerable to region-specific issues.
- The same two parties appeared in every state, and contested both the electoral vote and state offices.
- Most critical was the abrupt emergence of a two-party South in 1832–1834.
- The Anti-Masonic party flourished in only those states with a weak second party.
- Methods varied somewhat but everywhere the political convention replaced the caucus.
- The parties had an interest of their own, in terms of the office-seeking goals of party activists.
- The System brought forth a new, popular campaign style.
- Close elections—not charismatic candidates or particular issues—brought out the voters.
- Party leaders formed the parties to some degree in their own image.
Leaders
According to historian Robert Remini:
Origins
The 1824 presidential election operated without political parties and came down to a four-man race. Each candidate, all of whom were nominally Democratic Republicans, had a regional base of support involving factions in the various states. With no electoral college majority, the choice devolved on the United States House of Representatives. Clay was not among the three finalists, but as Speaker of the House he negotiated the settlement. Jackson, despite having won the most popular votes and the most electoral votes, was not elected. John Quincy Adams, son of former President John Adams, was elected, and he immediately chose Clay as Secretary of State.Jackson loudly denounced this "corrupt bargain." Campaigning vigorously he launched a crusade against the corruption he saw in Washington. Appealing both to local militia companies and to state political factions, Jackson assembled a coalition, the embryonic Democratic Party, that ousted Adams in 1828. Martin Van Buren, brilliant leader of New York politics, was Jackson's key aide, bringing along the many electoral votes of Virginia and Pennsylvania. His reward was appointment as Secretary of State and later nomination and election to the vice presidency as heir to the Jacksonian tradition. The Adams-Clay wing of the Democratic-Republican Party became known as the National Republicans, although Adams never considered himself a loyal member of the party.
As Norton explains the Jacksonian triumph in 1828:
Behind the platforms issued by state and national parties stood a widely shared political outlook that characterized the Democrats:
Historians have examined the emergence of the Second Party System at the local level. For example, Bruce Bendler argues that in New Jersey the same dramatic changes that were reshaping the rest of the country were especially pointed in that state in the 1820s. A new political system emerged by the end of the decade as voters polarized in support or opposition to Jackson. Furthermore, the "Market Revolution" was well underway, as industrialization and upgraded transportation networks made the larger picture more important than the local economy, and entrepreneurs and politicians became leaders in speeding up the changes. For example, William N. Jeffers of Salem County, New Jersey, built his political success on leadership with the Jacksonian forces at the local level, while at the same time building his fortune with a bank charter and building a steam mill.
Jackson: Bank War
Jackson considered himself a reformer, but he was committed to the old ideals of Republicanism, and bitterly opposed anything that smacked of special favors for special interests. While Jackson never engaged in a duel as president, he had shot political opponents before and was just as determined to destroy his enemies on the battlefields of politics. The Second Party System came about primarily because of Jackson's determination to destroy the Second Bank of the United States. Headquartered in Philadelphia, with offices in major cities around the country, the federally chartered Bank operated somewhat like a central bank. Local bankers and politicians annoyed by the controls exerted by Nicholas Biddle grumbled loudly. Jackson did not like any banks After Herculean battles with Henry Clay, his chief antagonist, Jackson finally broke Biddle's bank.Jackson continued to attack the banking system. His Specie Circular of July 1836 rejected paper money issued by banks, insisting on gold and silver coins. Most businessmen and bankers went over to the Whig party, and the commercial and industrial cities became Whig strongholds. Jackson meanwhile became even more popular with the subsistence farmers and day laborers who distrusted bankers and finance.
Economic historians have explored the high degree of financial and economic instability in the Jacksonian era. For the most part, they follow the conclusions of Peter Temin, who absolved Jackson's policies, and blamed international events beyond American control, such as conditions in Mexico, China and Britain. A survey of economic historians in 1995 show that the vast majority concur with Temin's conclusion that "the inflation and financial crisis of the 1830s had their origin in events largely beyond President Jackson's control and would have taken place whether or not he had acted as he did vis-a-vis the Second Bank of the U.S."
Spoils System
Jackson systematically used the federal patronage system, what was called the Spoils System. Jackson not only rewarded past supporters; he promised future jobs if local and state politicians joined his team. As Syrett explains: When Jackson became president, he implemented the theory of rotation in office, declaring it "a leading principle in the republican creed." He believed that rotation in office would prevent the development of a corrupt civil service. On the other hand, Jackson's supporters wanted to use the civil service to reward party loyalists to make the party stronger. In practice, this meant replacing civil servants with friends or party loyalists into those offices. The spoils system did not originate with Jackson. It originated under Thomas Jefferson when he removed Federalist office-holders after taking office. Also, Jackson did not out the entire civil service. At the end of his term, Jackson had only dismissed less than twenty percent of the original civil service. While Jackson did not start the spoils system, he did encourage its growth and it became a central feature of the Second Party System, as well as the Third Party System, until it ended in the 1890s. As one historian explains:"Although Jackson dismissed far fewer government employees than most of his contemporaries imagined and although he did not originate the spoils system, he made more sweeping changes in the Federal bureaucracy than had any of his predecessors. What is even more significant is that he defended these changes as a positive good. At present when the use of political patronage is generally considered an obstacle to good government, it is worth remembering that Jackson and his followers invariably described rotation in public office as a "reform." In this sense the spoils system was more than a way to reward Jackson's friends and punish his enemies; it was also a device for removing from public office the representatives of minority political groups that Jackson insisted had been made corrupt by their long tenure."