Democratic Party

Older of the two main political parties of the USA, founded in 1792. It tends to be the party of the working person, as opposed to the Republicans, the party of big business, but the divisions between the two are not clear cut. Its stronghold since the Civil War has traditionally been industrial urban centres and the southern states, but conservative southern Democrats were largely supportive of Republican positions in the 1980s and helped elect President Reagan. Bill Clinton became the first Democrat president for 13 years in 1993. The party lost control of both chambers of Congress to the Republicans in November 1994, and increasing numbers of southern Democrat politicians later defected. However, in November 1996 Clinton became the first Democrat president since Franklin D Roosevelt to be elected for a second term, winning 31 states, chiefly in the northeast and west. Al Gore, who was vice president under Clinton, lost the 2000 presidential election to Republican George Bush, Jr.

Originally called Democratic Republicans, the party was founded by Thomas Jefferson to defend the rights of the individual states against the centralizing policy of the Federalists. Democrat government during 1828–60 straddled the demands of various conflicting factions, including states' rights, the issue of Westward expansion, and abolitionism. Slavery eventually emerged as the key issue, dividing the party. The Democrats controlled all the southern states that seceded from the Union in 1860–61. In the 20th century, under the presidencies of Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F Kennedy, Lyndon B Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton, the party has adopted more liberal social-reform policies than the Republicans.

From the 1930s, the Democratic Party pursued a number of policies that captured the hearts and minds of the US public, as well as making a significant contribution to their lives. They included Roosevelt's New Deal and Kennedy's New Frontier which was implemented by Lyndon Johnson. The New Deal aimed at pulling the country out of the 1930s depression and putting it back to work, whereas the Great Society programme – encompassing the Economic Opportunity Act, the Civil Rights Act (1964), the Medicare and Voting Rights Act (1965), and the Housing, Higher Education, and Equal Opportunities acts – sought to make the USA a better place for the ordinary, often disadvantaged, citizen.

The Democratic Party has never been a homogenous unit and in the early 1990s it comprised at least five significant factions: the southern conservative rump, the Conservative Democratic Forum (CDF); the northern liberals, moderate on military matters but interventionist on economic and social issues; the radical liberals of the Midwest agricultural states; the Trumanite ‘Defense Democrats’, liberal on economic and social matters but military hawks; and the non-Congressional fringe, led by Jesse Jackson and seeking a ‘rainbow’ coalition of African Americans, Hispanics, feminists, students, peace campaigners, and southern liberals.

Bill Clinton led a reformist ‘New Democrat’ wing of the party, centred around the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), which is fiscally conservative, but liberal on social issues.

Early history The Democrat Party's roots lie in Thomas Jefferson's anti-Federalist party of the late 1700s, later known as ‘Democratic-Republicans’ or ‘Jacksonians’, and finally adopting the name ‘Democratic Party’ in 1840. By 1816 Jefferson's Federalists had expanded to become a recognizable political party, calling themselves Democratic-Republicans. They held various regional interests, including a concern for communication and transportation links to the frontier, adequate military protection from American Indians, the annexation of Florida from Spain and of Canada from Britain, as well as an interest in increased federal militia. They favoured easy credit, and state banking to a central national bank.

After losing the presidential contest in 1824, their leader, the popular frontiersman Andrew Jackson, gained the support of New York state senator Martin Van Buren. This produced an alliance between frontiersmen and Eastern city organizations that strengthened the party's appeal. Georgia senator William H Crawford's followers added further solidity to the party's base. Jackson won the 1828 presidential election and reinforced his new coalition. In government, however, he was immediately faced with the problem of pleasing many different factions. These included western demands for internal improvements; northeastern opposition to large federal expenditure; northeastern demands for a protective tariff combined with southern demands for tariff reduction; and a vigilant strain of southern separatism that claimed that states had the right to nullify national law.

Despite these pressures, Jackson was able to unite his party with a presidential veto of the national bank's petition to recharter in 1832. Suspicious of all banks, owing to his own bankruptcy in earlier life, Jackson's tough-mindedness regarding the national bank's legitimacy was so popular that it won him a second term. However, the issue of states' rights continued to undermine his presidency.

Senator John C Calhoun's followers threatened to organize in order to resist federal tariffs in South Carolina, claiming they had the potential right to nullify such tariffs. Jackson responded by declaring the federal government sovereign and indivisible, and denied that any state could refuse to obey the law or choose to leave the Union. This dramatic showdown alienated separatist-minded southern Democrats. At the same time southern Democrats were losing patience with the party over the issue of slavery. The Democrats splintered as Westward expansion raised the question of incorporating new territories as either free or slave states.

Attempting to maintain stability, the Democrat government began to bend to the demands of regional interests. Van Buren's administration 1836–40 agreed to a Calhoun-sponsored resolution that a state could make its own decision over slavery, and the Polk administration 1844–48 conceded to annexationists by acquiring Oregon from the British and launching a war against Mexico to win new lands.

Slavery, however, proved more insoluble and persistent a problem. The Democrats were careful in their choice of presidential candidate and won the White House in 1852 with Franklin Pierce, known for his ability to compromise. Pierce managed to steer an ambiguous non-controversial course on slavery, but his successor James Buchanan caused outrage when he supported a proslavery constitution for the Kansas territory. The 1860 Democratic National Convention in Charleston witnessed embittered factional fighting as a result, and the Democrats lost the 1860 presidential election to the Republican Abraham Lincoln.

The party remained divided throughout the American Civil War. Mistrustful of the War Democrat Andrew Johnson, who became president following Lincoln's assassination, they became a minority party, focused on the problems of postwar inflation and agricultural depression.