Political Parties Dbq Essay

Political Parties DBQ

Political parties have been a controversial topic for a long time, even when the United States were just beginning. However, in the early days of the United States political parties were not the best thing for the new government. The parties often caused rivalries to form, and people could end up hating others just because they had different political ideas. Political parties would make people lie; they would cause people to get hurt; the government would also be negatively affected.

Political parties in the early United States caused people to lie. In an election advertisement, Jefferson and Clinton criticized their opposing party, the federalists. Jefferson and Clinton said that the federalists would be just like the British, they wrote, “Down with the tories, down with the british faction…”(Document 4). In the same article, Jefferson and Clinton said that the federalists would, “Enslave you and reduce your families to distress by heavy

Political rivals could stop plans from moving forward because they disliked the writer of those plans. Alexander Hamilton wrote, “The only enemy that the republic had to fear is the effects of political parties. It will prevent the government from achieving its goals and create disorder…”(Document 2). Alexander Hamilton wrote this document to criticize his opponents, however in this he also criticizes political parties. Also in the same letter he states, “...harmful to the principles of good government and dangerous to the union, peace and happiness of this country…” In that document he was talking about the head of the rival party. Political parties were also responsible for gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is when the political party with the most power gets to draw districts, so they group up as many of their parties members in one district as possible in order to get more votes. Political parties had negative effects on the