American Political Parties: Past and Present

IB History I

American Political Parties: Past and Present

After gaining their independence from Great Britain, the newly United States of America decided that they needed a government to rule the new country. In the year of 1781, the new American governing body, the Articles of Confederation, stabilized the nation with a series of laws, but not for long. The Articles of Confederation had many drawbacks in its creation: It did not allow an executive branch or a judicial branch, it could not regulate or stabilize the economy, it could not levy or tax the states, it had no standing army or navy and they had no provision to regulate interstate trade. The Critical Period of 1781-1786 was when the United States was about to collapse within itself. In trouble of the United States of collapsing from within, many thought that it was a time to change the Articles of Confederation. This group of men supported a new document, written by James Madison, that would insure the sovereignty of the national government, not the state governments. This new document was called the Constitution. With the new constitution produced, it caused the creation of two parties. One party supported the ratification of the constitution, while the other opposed it.   The men who supported this new document were called the Federalists. The men who were against the new document were called the Democratic-Republicans, (previously, the Anti-Federalists). These two political parties will soon divide the nation to see who will dominate the politics of United States of America.
In the late 1780s, the Federalists was a political group that supported the ratification of the Constitution. The main beliefs of the Federalist Party are that they believed in a strong, centralized government, ruled by an aristocracy. They wanted the high class of the American society, like educated men, businessmen, and wealthy landowners, to rule the people. The Federalists did not believe that lower, poor and uneducated...