The Partisan Divide and the American Founding

Does this sound familiar: The minority party accuses the president and party in power of extending the power and reach of the federal government.  Accuses them of a philosophy in line with a former enemy recently defeated, of harboring secret conspiracies to overturn democracy in America.  Only the minority party possesses the true intent of the American revolution and its founding, and the true interpretation of the constitution.  The minority party uses the media in an unabashed attempt to discredited the majority power in the eyes of the American people.  In fact, hard working people tired of being taxed to death organize rallies, identify themselves with the revolutionary spirit of the Boston Tea party and float the idea of armed rebellion.

I recently finished Joseph Ellis’s book American Creation which details the struggles that defined the American character in the early years of the republic.  A very accessible and entertaining book.  The story above, only one section in the book, is the birth of the two party system in America involving Thomas Jefferson and James Madison as the minority party challenging George Washington and Alexander Hamilton’s expanding of federal power.  The taxed enough already rallies were labeled the Whiskey Rebellion because the wheat farmers were unhappy with a tax increase on alcohol.  The Whiskey Rebellion ended with George Washington leading the army to the rallies, under popular public support, and putting a stop to the protests (which had threatened the guillotine to anyone who tried to stop them).  Eventually, Jefferson and Madison would go on to found the Republican party (which eventually becomes the Democratic Party).

Most notable of course is the parallel to our current political climate and the recent elections.  Some of Jefferson’s most vitriolic rhetoric bordered on accusing the administration of treason.  Yet, that is not even the most revealing part about the founding narrative.  It appears, in Ellis’s telling, that the constitution was written in part as a dialogue between two competing philosophies for governance: one which saw a strong federal government and another which wanted strong state sovereignty.  The only compromise was ambiguity and a system that allowed this debate to carry on indefinitely.  Though not spelled out in the constitution, the two party system was an inevitability.  No sooner had the ink dried than the two sides started throwing accusations of betrayal of the spirit of ‘76 at each other.  Yet, this debate, and the flexible interpretation of the constitution, as Ellis points out, has allowed the power of federal government to wax and wane when necessary to address problems.

So is it state rights or federal sovereignty?  It would seem that this is a debate without resolution, as it was meant to be, from the very beginning.  It would be disingenuous to suggest that either one holds a privileged position in the American mythos.