Fourth Party System

Examples of Fourth Party System in the following topics:

• Partisan Politics

  • The Gilded party era was characterized by intense voter interest, routinely high voter turnout, and unflinching party loyalty.
  • The Third Party System is a term of periodization used by historians and political scientists to describe a period in American political history from about 1854 to the mid-1890s that featured profound developments in issues of nationalism, modernization, and race.
  • This period is defined by its contrast with the eras of the Second Party System and the Fourth Party System.
  • Under the Second and Third Party Systems, parties financed their campaigns through patronage; now civil service reform was undercutting that revenue and entirely new, outside sources of funding became critical.
  • Party loyalty itself weakened as voters were switching between parties much more often.

• The Election of 1904

  • The nominee of the Democratic Party was Alton B.
  • The election of 1904 was significant because it was the first election in which the Socialist Party of America (a loose coalition of local parties) participated, with considerable success in industrial centers, in rural mining areas in the West, and among German and Finnish communities.
  • The nominee of the Democratic Party, Alton B.
  • Parker carried only 1,107 counties, a smaller number than any Democratic candidate in the Fourth Party System had carried except Al Smith in 1928.
  • This poor performance prompted many contemporaries to believe that the Democratic Party could dissolve in the near future.

• The Second Party System

  • Supporters of Jackson called themselves Democrats or the Democracy, giving birth to the Democratic Party and thus inaugurating the Second Party System.
  • The Second Party System existed in the United States from about 1828 to 1854.
  • The Second Party System reflected and shaped the political, social, economic, and cultural currents of the Jacksonian Era until succeeded by the Third Party System in 1854.
  • The Second Party System was also the first, and remains the only, party system in which the two major parties remained on about equal footing in every region.
  • Summarize the origins, development, and key characteristics of the Second Party System

• The Election of 1932

  • Roosevelt won the nomination on the fourth ballot and, as a return favor, named Garner his running mate.
  • The optimistic yet vague tone of Roosevelt's campaign was captured in his iconic campaign song "Happy Days Are Here Again," which became one of the most popular songs in American political history and the unofficial anthem of the Democratic Party.
  • Unlike Roosevelt, Hoover was unable to achieve either unity within his party or popularity among voters.
  • By attracting the wide and diverse base of new  voters, including organized labor, urban middle and working class, including white ethnic communities (Irish Americans, Polish Americans, Jews, etc.), racial minorities, white Southerners, farmers, and progressive intellectuals, the Democratic party became the majority party.
  • This realignment transformed American politics, creating what is called the New Deal Party System or the Fifth Party System.

• The Transfer of Power between the Federalists and the Republicans

  • The First Party System defined the development of the first U.S. political parties: the Federalists and the Democrat-Republicans.
  • The First Party System describes a model used by political scientists and historians to frame United States politics from approximately 1792 to 1824.
  • For instance, Thomas Jefferson provided an analytical outline of the party system in 1798:
  • Social scientists label the end of the First Party System during the Era of Good Feelings (1816–1824), as the Federalists shrank to a few isolated strongholds and the Republicans lost party unity.
  • In 1824-1828, as the Second Party System emerged, the Republican Party split into the Jacksonian faction, which became the modern Democratic Party in the 1830s, and the Henry Clay faction, which was absorbed by Clay's Whig Party.

• The Birth of Political Parties

  • During the early years of the U.S. government, the new republic saw the firm and unexpected establishment of a two-party political system.
  • In contrast, the Democratic-Republicans were a rural, agrarian party.
  • The election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800 marked a success for the Democratic-Republican party and the decline of the Federalist party.
  • The disintegration of the Federalist party seemed to leave only the Democratic-Republican party standing.
  • However, after Monroe left office, new partisan differences flared up, instituting the Second Party System.

• Silverties Versus Goldbugs

  • After the war, the government passed the Fourth Coinage Act in 1873 and soon resumed payments without the free and unlimited coinage of silver.
  • William Jennings Bryan, who took over leadership of the Democratic Party in 1896 as well as the Populist and Silver Republican Parties, demanded bimetallism and "Free Silver. " The Republican Party nominated William McKinley on a platform supporting the gold standard which was favored by financial interests on the east coast.
  • Silverites belonged to a number of political parties, including the Silver Party, Populist Party, Democratic Party, and the Silver Republican Party.

• The Rise of the Republican Party

  • The Republican Party was formed out of a loose coalition of Northern ex-Whigs who resented Southern political power.
  • Following the collapse of the Whigs during the election of 1852, a major realignment of the American political party system occurred with former Whigs splintering into various political factions.
  • Anti-immigration and temperance movements formed the platform of the emerging American ("Know-Nothing") Party, while those interested in the economic development of finance and business in the West and North were attracted to the Republican Party.
  • Republicans argued that the North and the West were models of economic development, autonomy, and production in contrast to the South's limited industry and slave-labor system.
  • Explain why the Republican Party emerged after the collapse of the Whig Party

• Jackson and the Democratic Party

  • The modern Democratic Party arose in the 1830s out of factions from the largely disbanded Democratic-Republican Party.
  • The modern Democratic Party was formed in the 1830s from former factions of the Democratic-Republican Party, which had largely collapsed by 1824.
  • The spirit of Jacksonian democracy animated the party from the early 1830s to the 1850s, shaping the Second Party System, with the Whig Party serving as the main opposition.
  • During his presidency, Polk lowered tariffs, set up a subtreasury system, and began and directed the Mexican-American War, in which the United States acquired much of the modern-day American Southwest.
  • Describe the key moments in the development of the Democratic Party

• The Election of 1972

  • Nixon had a larger margin of victory in the popular vote than Johnson had, however, with 23.2%– the fourth largest in presidential election history.
  • McGovern ran an anti-war campaign, but was confined by his outsider status and limited support from his own party.
  • McGovern had led a commission to redesign the Democratic nomination system after the divisive nomination struggle and convention of 1968.
  • His aides also committed the Watergate burglary to steal Democratic Party information during the campaign, a move that would prove to be Nixon's political downfall.