Two Party or Three Party System?

Did I say three party system? Yes, I did. I have heard people over and over again say that voting for a third party is a waste of a vote because there are only two parties with a chance to win, and our country is founded upon a two party system. I disagree. I believe the country is founded upon at least a three party system and occasionally sustaining four. Now there are not always three parties in name, but there are always at least three parties in number. Hopefully over the next few blogs I will show that fact, and hopefully be able to draw applications from it. Admittedly this is not theological in nature, but a little variety on the blog never hurt anyone.

I should also say up front that I think the two party bias that circulates has colored a lot of history text books as well. For example, most books will tell you of the Federalists and the Anti-federalists at the Constitutional convention, and then again during the reign of Washington as President. Yet, this view falls into conflict with the facts. One good problem that the two party view encounters is James Madison. Which side did James Madison take? He was the author of the Constitution and a co-author of the Federalist papers, so he must be a Federalist. Yet, he led the opposition to fellow Federalist writer Alexander Hamilton in the House, introduced the Bill of Rights into Congress and worked closely with Thomas Jefferson. Those credentials would make him an anti-federalist. Most books try to solve this dilemma by claiming Madison did the first ever political flip-flop to curry favor with the voters. I have a different solution. The three party view.

The Constitutional Convention had three parties that continued into Washington’s Presidency. The anti-federalists did not want any real changes in the Articles of Confederation and were led by men like Patrick Henry, who refused to serve in the Senate because he so hated the Federal government, and George Mason, who walked out of the Constitutional Convention because it took too much power from the states. The Federalists wanted a new government that had more power, but still wanted to retain individual state rights. George Washington, James Madison, and even Thomas Jefferson fall into this category. Here many wanted different things, most of which show up in the Constitution. Washington wanted a chief executive because he had experienced the trouble of running an army that answered to a legislative body. Madison wanted the power to tax because a government had no authority without it. So on and so forth. The third party is the Nationalist party, who would have been happy to rid the nation of states completely. Alexander Hamilton and John Adams fall into this group. These men lost in the Constitutional Convention, but manage to pull the early republic more their direction. Hamilton won passage of debt assumption after a compromise was worked out about the location of the capital. Hamilton argued for loose construction to help win passage of the Bank of the US. Adams passed the Alien and Sedition Acts which criminalized speaking against the government. A lot of this happened because the true anti-federalists refused to participate in the Federal government, like Patrick Henry. However, by the Adams administration we see anti-federalists take a more active role, and the passing of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions opposing the sedition acts are a good example of anti-federalist thinking.

In summary we can see in the early years of the Republic there were three ideological parties.
Nationalists: Held to a ‘loose’ or ‘broad’ construction of the Constitution, and generally tried to gain more power for the Central government.
Federalists: Held to a ‘strict’ or ‘narrow’ construction of the Constitution, and tried to balance the Central with the States.
Anti-Federalists: Held to the state constitutions as above the Federal Constitution, and they tried to keep power in the state level.

Now the extreme anti-federalists faded as the first generation of Americans grew up under the Constitution. Less extreme Anti-Federalists, such as Richard Henry Lee, joined forces with the Federalists to oppose the power grabs of Hamilton and later Adams. The Nationalists made the political party known as the Federalists and Anti-Federalists made up the group known as the Democratic-Republicans.

I promise this will get to a point in some future blog.