Juan Alfaro
U.S History
Analysis and and synthesis #9
The founding fathers were set against political parties—- they called them faction. there is no mention of party structure in the constitution. Yet 10 years after the constitution was ratified, political parties were firmly established. How did this happen? Why did this happen
Hamilton played a big role; around 1791 wanted to establish national debt, establish a national bank. Promote manufacturing and wanted to accomplish this through new trade laws or tariffs, and raise revenue through taxes. Demand in Europe caused production in the U.S creating jobs for farmers. To travel and actually get the goods to the docks people needed to buld roads; so Hamilton wanted to improve the roads also.
Prior to the revolution farmers didn’t have extra money, what would be the purpose of a bank?
It was more trading to make a living. Cattle were easy to transport as they had four legs and could walk to the ships. Now with the demand for interstates connecting towns. The revolutionary war was mostly founded with bonds and this would be a promise from the state they would pay back. Hamilton wanted to make the states debt one central debt. People like this because interest was being earned. Also people encouraged this because they wanted it to succeded and the economy flourished; as they would actually get paid back and earn interest. The national bank was founded on the idea of stocks. Buying and selling at different times that people were actually making money. This is why we have our trillion dollar debt, because of Hamiltons idea. He wanted this new country to create credit worthideness. France and Britain usually borrowed from each other and didn’t have the problem like in the U.S. The emphasis was to have stronger central government and weaker state authority. This is mostly was brought us to war so it went back to drafting the constitution. During the ratification the federalist supported ratification of the Constitution, believing it would lead to a workable government while antifederalist feared presidency could lead to manarchy. It led to the creation of political parties and George Washington was opposed. At this time the constitution had came in effect. Hamilton believed the Federalist party was needed, to help support and push through relevant government policy. It required organization; it also required support from local and state.
Political parties became established because of the fierce rivalry between federalists and antifederalists, or Democratic-Republicans. This ‘rivalry’ started as a disagreement over the interpretation of the constitution, and has gotten steadily worse until the country reached the uncooperative gridlock that we have today. Though the names of the parties and their policies have changed, the modern two parties have something in common with the original two parties: big vs. small government.
The ink on the constitution was barely dry, and already lawmakers had some questions. The main question was, how much power should remain in the hands of the states, and how much power should remain in the hands of the federal government. The federalist party, led by the irrepressible Alexander Hamilton, was in strong favor of a strong central government. Backed by the recent failures of the articles of confederation, the federalists argued that a strong central government was needed to hold the fledgling nation together. Federalists advocated for more congressional powers, and for a national bank.
The Democratic-Republicans, led by human disaster Thomas Jefferson, were understandably leery of the idea of putting large amounts of power into the hands of a central government. Democratic-Republicans pointed back to the recent issues with England as an example of why a centralized government, far from the people it governed, was a bad idea. Democratic-Republicans argued for a loosely formed central government, with most of the governing power held by the states.
Two political parties evolved because the leaders of the nation couldn’t universally disagree on what theory of government they wanted to ascribe to. All the Founding Fathers really agreed on was that they needed to have a fairer, freer government system than what they’d had under the English. As time went by, and the two party system began to emerge, moral issues began to be attached to the parties as well, deepening the divide between factions.