Posted: 3:07 am
October 7, 2008
ONE topic that the Founding Fathers didn't write into the Constitution was political parties. They didn't even mention them. But political parties existed even back then.
When our government was born, people with common interests got together to form groups to work for what they wanted from the government. Some wanted really strong government, while others wanted less governmental control of the people. Throughout our country's history, there have been many of these political groups, which are called "parties." The differences in political parties then and now are usually about the differing opinions of how government should work and what it should do.
Historically, the group called the Federalists in 1787 believed that the federal government (that is, the national government, not the governments of individual states) should be very strong. Other parties thought that the federal government's power should be limited. Some people, like the first president, George Washington, thought political parties themselves were the problem. In his farewell address, which he wrote (but never actually gave as a speech) after his second term ended in 1796, when he left office, he said this about the party system: It "agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one … against another… ."
Some of our early political parties, like the Federalists and the Whigs, no longer exist. Since 1852, there have been two major parties – the Democrats and the Republicans. There have also been a number of "third parties," including the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, and the Reform Party.
Anyone can join a political party. When a person registers to vote, he or she signs up with one party or another or as an "independent," which means that he or she has no party allegiance.
Within each party, there are lots of smaller groups or committees. They are found at the neighborhood, city, county, state, and national levels. People in the parties are responsible for much of our election process, so it might be just as well that George Washington didn't succeed in wiping them out. The parties select candidates and raise money to get them elected. How would we have elections without that?
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