Good Example Of Essay On Politics In The Early American Republic- 1789-1861

. The early history of the United States from the founding of the Republic after the Constitutional Convention to the Civil War was greatly influenced by the changing face of the so-called party system. The main points which all of the parties in the different eras of Early American history before the Civil War concentrated primarily on what the role and size of the federal government should be and how it should work to deal with the major issues of the day. One of the most significant issues surrounding the early federal government related to its place and stance as it regarded the country’s financial system. The Federalist Party led by Alexander Hamilton and John Adams believed that the federal government should have a role to play in dealing with financial matters such as debt, the creation of a single currency and other important measures. The Federalist stance was also very sectional as it represented the north and the banks. Sectionalism was also a major issue as it regarded another very important issue which defined the Second Party System, slavery. Andrew Jackson and the Democratic Party represented the interests of the South and they worked to expand slavery and to make it an integral part of American political life. Additionally, the opposition to Jackson and the Democratic-Republicans came in the form of the Whig Party, which based itself on little more than opposition instead of standing up for any major values. Additionally, one cannot underestimate the importance of foreign policy which played in building the contours of the party systems.
The early Republic was defined by the arguments between the Federalists and the anti-federalists which argued about the nature of the federal government and how much reach it should have not only within but without the borders of the United States. The most well cited of these examples circle around the debates during the Washington and Adams administrations between Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams over the extent of the powers of the federal government and how active it should be in the lives of people and its foreign policy. Although throughout the majority of the early history of the United States interventionism was a not a key to American foreign policy in any way there were important arguments regarding what American foreign policy should look like. Battles between War Hawks and doves in attempting to forge out what American involvement in the world. This argument was most significant during the course of the build up to the War of 1812 and the Mexican American War. Opposition to both of these wars came from the parties which were against greater intervention in foreign affairs because it went against their particular sectional interests. In the case of the of the Mexican-War opponents of president James K. Polk and his plan to go war with Mexico did so on the basis of the opposition to the expansion of slavery Westward and they played a major role in questioning the logic of going to war with Mexico even if they were not able to prevent the war itself.
The early Republic was defined by the arguments between the Federalists and the anti-federalists which argued about the nature of the federal government and how much reach it should have not only within but without the borders of the United States. The most well cited of these examples circle around the debates during the Washington and Adams administrations between Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams over the extent of the powers of the federal government and how active it should be in the lives of people and its foreign policy.
The Second Party System on the other hand was a battle between the Democratic Party and the Whigs and the policies of Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson was a singularly important character in the history of the United States and the role of the president and how active a role it should play in American public life.
The Second Party System is also known as the era of Jacksonian democracy was a very important move in American history away from the elite politics of the previous era which was an outgrowth of the Revolution and it was represented by the Founding Fathers which consisted the first generation of American leadership. Andrew Jackson was much more of a populist than his predecessors and he created a political system which was based on the spoils system, patronage and supporting agrarian interests against Northern industrial and financial ones. This was the core of Andrew Jackson’s opposition to the First Bank of the United States and his opposition to finance sector as something which was entirely fraudulent and unproductive
The Democrats were very much a party which sided with the sectional concerns of the South. Andrew Jackson’s argument for slavery, Indian removal and against financial interests. The foreign policy of the Democratic-Republicans centered on belief of expansion of the United States westward, the idea of “Manifest Destiny”. James K. Polk was the greatest presidential advocate of this foreign policy. The Mexican-American War was one of the primary wars of aggression in American history where the county greatly grew its territory. The objective of the war was driven by a sector of the Democratic party which thought it was necessary not only to expand the country but slavery.
The Whig party similar to the Federalists was the party during the Second Party System which believed that the federal government had a role to play in people’s lives and in advancing the country economically. The Whig position on many issues were particularly strong in the belief that industrialization and the modernization of the country’s transportation systems including canals, roads and even the earliest railroads. The Whigs represented the sectional interests of the North and especially of the better educated and more urban sectors of the population believed that those were the best methods to create a strong country with a powerful industrial sector.
One of the hallmarks of the Second Party System was the strength of what came to be known as Jacksonian Democracy and the democratization of the American political system. The expansion of suffrage to all white men even those who didn’t hold any property was a very large departure from the elite politics of the Revolutionary, Confederation and the First Party System. Political parties could no longer win support only by courting party elites and the Congress instead there was a very large increase in the use of populism and the actual need for presidential campaigns and all of its trappings in order to court the popular vote. The Second Party System also gave rise to the use of the press as a tool of politics even to common voters and it created a very important precedent for American politics for the future.
The conflict over the expansion of slavery in the period leading up to the Civil War was one of the most significant chapters in American history and it showed how although many were opposed to slavery and more importantly its westward expansion it seemed to be something which could not realistically be contained. The Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850 the Kansas-Nebraska act and the Dred Scott decision were examples of pieces of legislation and court cases which shaped the battle over the expansion of slavery in the ante-bellum period. The Missouri Compromise was one of the first crisis, which the country faced as it regarded the expansion of slavery. The compromise said that Missouri would be admitted as a slave state, but any state north of a line which coincided with the Arkansas-Missouri border could not be had slavery. This was meant to limit the spread of slavery and for the largest part it was a successful strategy until the Compromise of 1850. The Compromise of 1850 regarded how slavery would be handled in the territories represented by the holdings, which the United States had taken from Mexico during the War as well as the Utah territory. Whenever these states could be able to join the Union they would have to right to choose through “poplar sovereignty” if they were going to be a free or a slave state. As well as strengthening the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Act, which gave federal officers the power to return any fugitive slaves to their owners which was a very controversial provision at the time. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, which passed in 1854 gave the power of popular sovereignty to the two newly created states Kansas and Nebraska and it only worked to create more animosity and polarization both within the people and the Congress on the issue of slavery and pushed the country closer to war. One of the most important things which would ultimately lead to the Civil War was the Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott which ruled that blacks were not citizens of the United States as well as invalidating the Missouri Compromise. These events cumulatively, the weakening of the Whig Party, the rise of the Republican Party and a seeming abolitionist groundswell in the North coupled with a Secessionist movement in the South made the political situation so intractable, which made it seem as though a compromise was no longer possible, sectionalism had triumphed and Civil War would be the only practical solution to America’s problems.
One of the biggest arguments in the ante-bellum period in the United States was between Northern abolitionists and Southerners who believed that slavery was an integral part of their society and culture. Many of these Southerners were so adamant in their support of slavery that they believed that secession would be necessary to keep their “peculiar institution” alive. Abolitionists argued that slavery should be done away with on many grounds chief amongst them a moral and religious arguments. Many Northern abolitionists argued that African slaves were essentially equal to whites and that it was a major injustice that men should be held as property and in such terrible conditions. Others still, believed that slavery as it was established in the United States was in direct opposition to the values which the country was founded under the Declaration of Independence and the Constituion which supposedly ensured equality for all if not in practice, then before the law. Moral and legalistic arguments for abolition were very prevalent during the antebellum period were powerful enough that they in part led to the outbreak of the Civil War.
Southern supporters of slavery also had their own arguments that they employed to protect the institution and to keep it as a part of the South’s social, economic and political reality. The Pro-slavery argument effectively banked on two major strands one historical and one practical. Pro-slavery southerners believed that slavery had always been a fact of historical and moral and that it was something which humanity was very used to and that there was no reason to change it. They also believed that slavery was something which was consecrated in the bible and it worked to improve the condition of slaves. Who they argued had a better life here than they did in Africa. Furthermore, they believed that the abolition of slavery would lead to social unrest and the economic collapse of the Southern economy dependent as it was on slave labor. The protection of slavery in that case was paramount to maintaining the Southern way of life. These concerns together were so powerful and they had enough supporters in the South which it led to Secession being feasible primarily as a method of protecting slavery and the Southern way of life against what they deemed to be an increasingly abolitionist and hostile federal government with Lincoln in the White House and activist wing of Northern Abolitionist Radical Republicans in the Congress.