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Two Party System Research Paper

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Olivia Aydelotte
McLennan Community College
Federal Government 2305, Fall 2017
Professor Gladden
Research Paper 02
Political Parties
“In 1796, President George Washington warned the countrymen to shun partisan politics.” Since then, we have had two dominate political parties in the American party system. The two-party system is a political system in which only two parties have a realistic opportunity to compete effectively for control of the government. The same two-party system has been around for ages, just with different forces and alignments. Throughout all of American history five different party systems have impacted our government, to now where we have the two party system of Republicans and Democrats.
The first party system in America …show more content…

Defeat of the Confederacy in 1864, Lincoln wanted to strengthen their party by added the vote to the newly freed slaves, but the program collapsed and it did not work. Violence struck in the South by white males and the South gained its power back. African Americans had their rights taken away and the post-Civil War South was now Democratic because of much resentment of Lincoln. After the war, the North and South had equal power. In the 1890s the Republicans were mainly middle class Northerners and southern …show more content…

The populist party was a rebellious group of small farmers, urban workers, and western mine owners took interest in. The populist party carried four states and had elected 8 governors in the 1892 presidential election. In 1896 the populist party merged with the Democrats and nominated William Jennings Bryan for president. The Republicans nominated William McKinley, a conservative in the election too. The Republicans won and there were very few Democrats in the South and the North. For the next 36 years the Republican Party was the majority. Republicans were now in favor of American business, high tariffs, and minimum government regulation. In 1928 Herbert Hoover was elected president, and the nation’s economy collapsed and lead to “The Great Depression.” Americans blamed the Republican Party for not promoting the economic recovery. In 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a Democratic congress during his presidency and developed the “New Deal.” This increased the size of the national government. Roosevelt created programs to widen the base of the Democratic Party via intellectuals, professionals, Southern farmers, Catholics, Jews, and African Americans. The Democratic Party was the majority party for the next 36 years and the Republican Party supported many of the programs, like Social Security. In the 1960s Civil Right conflicts and the Vietnam War divided the Northern Democrats and the Southern Democrats.

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