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American History: Government, Lesson Five – Political Parties
4-4.5: Compare the social and economic policies of the two political parties that were formed in
America in the 1790s.
Social and economic differences among Americans and the differing ideas
of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton helped form two political parties in
the 1790s.
The Federalist Party was led by Alexander Hamilton. Federalists
included businessmen, large landowners, and professional people who believed
that the country should grow and expand through industrialization. These
Federalists felt that the federal government should be led by educated people
and have a sound financial system in order to grow. This would require a system
of taxes to repay national debts (to war allies like France and those who served
the new United States or loaned it money) and a National Bank to handle these
matters. The Federalists, who had supported the writing and ratification of the
Constitution, wanted the new federal government to be more powerful than the
state governments in order to have a stronger and more unified country, rather
than the loose union (confederation or confederacy) of states it was under the
Articles of Confederation. Despite the fact that the US was independent from the
British mother country, the Federalists believed in the heritage of English
traditions and they therefore wanted their governments to be modeled after the
British government that all former colonists were used to.
Thomas Jefferson led the Democratic-Republican Party (also called
the Jeffersonian Republican Party). The Democratic-Republicans included mostly
farmers and common people. Jefferson believed that the United States would be
an agrarian, or agricultural, society. His followers believed that most of the
power of government should lie in the state governments because they were
closer to the common man (who was wise because of his close ties to his soil
and therefore did not need education) and that the federal government should
therefore remain weak. Democratic-Republicans admired the French, because
the French had been the major allies of the US in the Revolution and they
believed the new French government to be following in the footsteps of the
American Revolution.
Standard 4-4: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the beginnings of America as
a nation and the establishment of the new government.