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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
It is by now conventional wisdom among political scientists that political parties are not the noxious weeds they were once thought to be. Undeniably, parties have hastened the development of democracy in the West and continue to serve vital functions in modern states. Most political scientists would agree too that the emergence of regular party competition is only possible among those peoples who have acquired a measure of political sophistication. A country with nourishing parties is a country that has matured to the point of being able to tolerate dissent, and a country with inchoate or languishing parties is a country that must be consigned to the ranks of the “underdeveloped” or the perverse. Party development, then, is often regarded as a measure of political development, and both of these as indexes to modernization or democratization.
1 Sorauf, Frank J., “Political Parties and Political Analysis,” in Chambers, William Nisbet and Burnham, Walter Dean, eds., The American Party Systems: Stages of Political Development, 2d ed. (New York, 1975), p. 48Google Scholar.
2 Epstein, Leon D., Political Parties in Western Democracies (New York, 1967)Google Scholar.
3 Ibid., p. 7. The original source isNeumann, Sigmund, Modern Political Parties (Chicago, 1956), p. 4Google Scholar.
4 Epstein, p. 7. The original source is Schattschneider, E. E., Party Government (New York, 1942), p. 1Google Scholar.
5 Sorauf, p. 50.
6 Ibid., p. 49.
7 Ibid.
8 The classic formulation of this view is to be found in Duverger, Maurice, Political Parties, trans. Barbara, and North, Robert (New York, 1954)Google Scholar.
9 Ibid., p. 22.
10 The “responsible parties” literature is usually traced back to Wilson, Woodrow, Congressional Government (Boston, 1885)Google Scholar; see Ranney, Austin, The Doctrine of Responsible Party Government (Urbana, Illinois, 1954).Google Scholar The case for “responsible parties” has been put frequently by contemporary political scientists. Landmark treatises on the subject include Schattschneider, Party Government; “Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System: A Report of the Committee on Political Parties,” American Political Science Review (Supplement: Vol. 44, 09 1950, Number 3, Part 2)Google Scholar; Bailey, Stephen K., The Condition of Our National Political Parties (New York, 1959)Google Scholar; and Burns, James McGregor, The Deadlock of Democracy (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963)Google Scholar.
11 Hofstadter, Richard, The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780–1840 (Berkeley, 1972)Google Scholar.
12 Ibid., p. xi.
13 Ibid., p. xii.
14 This is the title of the second chapter of Hofstadter's Idea of a Party System.
15 Ibid., p. 50.
16 Ibid., p. 53.
17 Madison, James, The Federalist, No. 10, edited by Cooke, Jacob E. (Middletown, Connecticut, 1961), p. 56Google Scholar.
18 Ibid., p. 57.
19 Hofstadter, p. 66.
20 Ibid., p. 54.
21 Ibid., p. 99.
22 Ibid.
23 Quoted by Hofstadter, p. 81. The passage is from an essay in The National Gazette, 23 January 1792; The Writings of James Madison, ed. Hunt, Gaillard (New York, 1906). VI: 86Google Scholar.
24 Hofstadter, p. 81.
25 Ibid., p. 36.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 Here, of course, Hofstadter is informed by the seminal work of Douglass Adair. See “‘That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science’: David Hume, James Madison, and the Tenth Federalist,” Huntington Library Quarterly, 20 (1957), 343–360CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the subject of Bolingbroke's anti-partisanship see Mansfield, Harvey C. Jr, Statesmanship and Party Government: A Study of Burke and Bolingbroke (Chicago, 1965)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
29 Van Buren, Martin, Autobiography, ed. Fitzpatrick, John C. (Washington, 1920), p. 125Google Scholar. Quoted by Hofstadter, p. 224.
30 Hofstadter, p. 226.
31 Grimke, Frederick, The Nature and Tendency of Free Institutions (1848, revised 1856)Google Scholar. Hofstadter uses the 1856 edition. A modern edition was published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts) in 1968. The key to understanding Grimke may be found on page 173 of the Belknap edition. Grimke writes there: “The existence of parties in a republic, even noisy and clamorous parties, is not therefore a circumstance which should be regarded as inimical to the peace and welfare of the state. It should rather be received as a special and extraordinary provision for furthering the interests and advancing the intelligence of the most numerous class of society” [emphasis mine]. This is also the key to understanding why Hofstadter likes him so much.
32 Hofstadter, p. 263.
33 Ibid., p. 264.
34 Ibid., p. 85.
35 Miller, John C., The Federalist Era, 1789–1801 (New York, 1963), p. 276Google Scholar.
36 Letter to Judge Spencer Roane, 6 September 1819; The Works of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Ford, Paul Leicester (New York, 1905), XII: 136Google Scholar.
37 Miller, pp. 265, 270.
38 Ibid., p. 269.
39 Ibid., p. 270.
40 Hofstadter, p. 161.
41 Ibid., p. 166.
42 Ibid., p. 165.
43 Ibid.
44 Ibid., p. 168.
45 Chambers, William N., “Party Development and the American Mainstream,” in , Chambers and , Burnham, American Party Systems, p. 7Google Scholar.
46 Quoted by Hofstadter, p. 227. Hofstadter cites as his source Van Buren, Martin, Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States (1867), pp. 3–4Google Scholar.
47 Hofstadter, p. 230.
48 Ibid., p. 248.
49 Ibid., p. 257.
50 Ibid., p. 129.
51 Ibid., p. 130.
52 de Tocqueville, Alexis, Democracy in America, trans. Reeve, Henry (New York, 1899), I: 180Google Scholar.
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid.
55 Ibid.
56 Ibid.
57 Ibid., I: 182.
58 Ibid.
59 Letter to Lee, Henry, 10 08 1824; Works, XII: 375Google Scholar.
60 Tocqueville, I: 179–180.
61 Miller, p. 265.
62 Tocqueville, I: 179. See also the excellent discussion of the Federalists' plight and their gradual assumption of Republican majoritarian rhetoric in Fischer, David Hackett, The Revolution of American Conservatism (New York, 1969), pp. 150–181Google Scholar.
63 Hofstadter, p. 153.
64 Adams, Henry, History of the United States (New York, 1898), I: 201Google Scholar. Quoted by Hofstadter, p. 154. My point here is that by referring approvingly to Adams's view of the “revolution of 1800” Hofstadter unwittingly confesses his own failure to perceive either the irony in Jefferson's “conciliatory” inaugural gesture, or the full implications of Adams's interpretation of it. Few contemporary political scientists seem to adhere to the Tocqueville-Henry Adams interpretation of the “revolution of 1800.” One who does is Harry V. Jaffa; see his “The Nature and Origin of the American Party System,” in Goldwin, Robert A., ed., Political Parties, U.S.A. (Chicago, 1964), pp. 59–83Google Scholar.
65 Tocqueville, I: 180.
66 Adams, I: 207.
67 Ibid., I: 209–210.
68 Tocqueville, I: 178–179.
69 Lowi, Theodore J., “Party, Policy, and Constitution in America,” in , Chambers and , Burnham, American Party Systems, p. 239Google Scholar.
70 Hofstadter, p. 244.
71 Tocqueville, I: 179.
72 Hofstadter, p. 225.
73 Ibid., p. 226.
74 Ibid.
75 It would be best not to pursue this matter here, but the reader might do well to ponder these words of Tocqueville: “It sometimes happens in a people among which various opinions prevail that the balance of the several parties is lost, and one of them obtains an irresistible preponderance, overpowers all obstacles, harasses its opponents, and appropriates all the resources of society to its own purposes. The vanquished citizens despair of success and conceal their dissatisfaction in silence and in general apathy. The nation seems to be governed by a single principle, and the prevailing party assumes the credit of having restored peace and unanimity to the country. But this apparent unanimity is merely a cloak to alarming dissensions and perpetual opposition.” Immediately following this passage Tocqueville asserts: “This is precisely what occurred in America; when the Democratic party got the upper hand …” [emphasis mine] (Tocqueville, I: 183)Google Scholar.
76 McCormick, Richard P., “Political Development and the Second Party System,” in , Chambers and , Burnham, American Party Systems, p. 112Google Scholar.
77 Ibid., p. 113.
78 Ibid., p. 112.
79 The original source is Chambers, William N., The Democrats, 1789–1964 (New York, 1964), p. 28Google Scholar. Quoted by Lowi, 243.
80 McCormick, p. 109.
81 Lowi, p. 243.
82 The Federalist, No. 10, p. 65.
83 Ibid., p. 63.
84 Ibid., p. 64.
85 Ibid., p. 65.
86 The Federalist, No. 51, p. 351.
87 The Federalist, No. 10, p. 64.
88 “Curing the Mischiefs of James sMadison,” unpublished manuscript.
89 Ladd, Everett Carll Jr, American Political Parties: Social Change and Political Response (New York, 1970), p. 9Google Scholar.
90 Of the many critiques of the “responsible parties” literature, two that go to the heart of the matter, albeit by somewhat different routes, are: Banfield, Edward C., “In Defense of the American Party System,” in , Goldwin, Political Parties, U.S.A., pp. 21–39Google Scholar; and Kirkpatrick, Evron M., “Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System: Political Science, Policy Science, or Pseudo-Science?” American Political Science Review, 65 (12, 1971), 965–990CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
91 Lowi, p. 276.
92 Ibid.
93 A recent inventory of the abuses that Madison, in particular, has suffered at the hands of the revisionists may be found in Carey, George W., “Separation of Powers and the Madisonian Model: A Reply to the Critics,” American Political Science Review (forthcoming). Carey is right in citing Robert Dahl's treatment of Madison (in A Preface to Democratic Theory [Chicago, 1956])Google Scholar as a classic case. Hofstadter acknowledges his debt to Dahl on page 69 of Idea of a Party System.