Democratic Party History

From "Jacksonian Democracy" to the modern era, a look at the Democratic Party over the years

The Democratic Party is the oldest existing political party in the United States. The Democrats have won 20 of 43 presidential elections since the party presented its first presidential candidate, Andrew Jackson, for the public's approval in 1828.

While there is no precise date for the beginning of the Democratic Party, the organization emerged from a wing of the dominant Democratic-Republican Party, which initially had been organized by Thomas Jefferson in the early days of the Republic in opposition to the Federalist Party.

In the late 1820s, Andrew Jackson led a splintered faction of the Democratic-Republicans to form the Democratic Party.

Most historians agree that the Democratic Party as we know it began with Jackson's successful 1828 presidential campaign. The 1828 campaign was also the origin of the Democratic Party's mascot -- the donkey. Jackson's opponents called him a "jackass" during the campaign, and Jacksonians adopted the legendarily stubborn animal as a political symbol.

Leaders of the Democratic Party encouraged the Populist movement of that era and the expansionist movement west that followed. This era was marked by grass roots democracy at the local level, especially in the new western frontier of the Ohio Valley. If an official date can be established for the beginning of the Democratic Party, it would be 1832, when the Democrats held their first nominating convention in Baltimore, ratifying "Old Hickory" - Jackson -- for a second term.

The Democrats managed to dominate American politics through the beginning of the Civil War.

Between 1828 and 1860, the last election before the Civil War, the Democrats held the White House for 24 of 32 years. The party controlled the Senate for 26 years and the House for 24 years during this period. The ideology of the party during the pre-Civil War era stressed states' rights and low government spending, but the dominant issue of the time was slavery.

In 1860, the slavery issue became so divisive and burdensome that it completely splintered and hobbled the Democratic Party. That year, the Democrats ran two separate tickets -- one southern and pro-slavery, and one northern, which espoused "popular sovereignty," a system that was intended to allow new states the option to choose whether slavery would be legalized within their borders.

This division helped Abraham Lincoln, candidate of the four-year-old, anti-slavery Republican Party, to win the White House. Lincoln swept most states outside of the South, while the slave states voted for the Southern Democratic ticket, and later seceded.

During the Civil War, which followed quickly after the 1860 election, the northern Democratic Party split into two factions -- "War Democrats" and "Peace Democrats." The War Democrats supported the war effort and Lincoln. In fact, Lincoln chose War Democrat Andrew Johnson as a vice presidential running mate in the 1864 election.

The Peace Democrats -- also known as "Copperheads" -- actively opposed the war - instead favoring a negotiated peace settlement with the South and Lincoln. This split, along with the total defeat of the South and the legacy of the bloody war, opened the way for the dominance of the Republican Party for the next 72 years.

The period after the Civil War stands out as the lowest point in the Democrats' history, when the party was unable to win the White House or control Congress. The only stronghold of Democratic power was in the South, where Republicans gave blacks the right to vote and took that right away from southerners who had fought against the Union.

Most southerners firmly believed that the Republican Party stood against their beliefs, and the region became "the Solid South" for the Democrats. During this 72-year period -- 1860-1932 -- the Democrats would occupy the White House for a scant 16 years: the terms of Grover Cleveland, 1885-1889 and 1893-1897, and Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921. In Congress, the Democrats controlled the House for 26 years and the Senate for only 10.

In 1912, when Democrat Woodrow Wilson won the presidency with Teddy Roosevelt splitting the GOP on his Bull Moose ticket, the Democratic Party began to shift away from its philosophies of strict interpretation of the Constitution and limited government. The historic 1928 candidacy of New York Governor Al Smith as the first Roman Catholic to be nominated for president by a major party, though losing, swelled the Democratic ranks and gave shape to a wide and potent coalition to come. The great stock market crash of 1929 and the depression that followed finally broke the post-Civil War GOP majority, and the Democrats now moved to take leadership of the nation as a progressive and diverse party.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his "New Deal" swept into office in 1932 propelled by a broad coalition of Roman Catholic ethnics, laborers, blacks, academics and the traditional core of southern Democratic support. FDR ousted President Herbert Hoover in a landslide that year, and the Democrats would lose only two presidential elections in the next 32 years.

In 1928, Smith had won only eight states. By 1936, FDR carried all but two. Between 1932 and 1968, only one Republican candidate -- national hero Dwight Eisenhower -- was able to capture the White House (1953-1961). During that same period, Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress for all but four years (1947-1949 and 1953-1955).

Ideologically, the party now supported a stronger central government, a more liberal interpretation of the Constitution and a federal government that took an activist role in addressing the nation's economic and social ills. Major policy items that characterized this philosophy were the New Deal programs of the 1930s, (when Social Security was established), and President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society programs of the 1960s, (when Medicare and Medicaid were established).

FDR, the only man ever elected to unprecedented third and fourth terms in the White House, died in office just months before the end of World War II in 1945. His legacy of leadership during the Great Depression and Second World War -- and the political coalition he created -- left him the towering American political figure of the 20th century. Harry Truman, his vice president, assumed office and led the nation through the final days of the war and the beginning of the Cold War against the Soviet Empire.

Truman presided over the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Marshall Plan and the United Nations. His "Cold War liberalism" - a combination of New Deal social policy and anti-Communist foreign policy -- would dominate for the next 25 years.

"Give 'em hell Harry" would also win the most famed comeback in American political history when he led the Democrats to an upset victory over the GOP and Tom Dewey in 1948.

The turning point in modern presidential politics occurred in the 1960's. Following the assassination of Democratic president John F. Kennedy, and beset by the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights struggle, reactions against Johnson's Great Society spending, and the rise of controversial cultural and social issues to the political fore, the Democratic Party coalition strained to the breaking point.

The collapse of the Democrat's so-called Solid South accelerated, and millions of traditionally Democratic blue-collar and middle-class voters -- particularly northern Catholics -- strayed from the party in increasing numbers. Though LBJ defeated the strongly conservative Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Arizona, in an historic 1964 rout, former GOP Vice President Richard Nixon would capture the White House just four years later.

Democrats would fail to regain the White House for 20 of the next 24 years. However, the Democrats' losses in presidential campaigns were balanced by strength in Congress, as well as at the state and local level.

Yet the party resisted efforts to nominate less liberal candidates for national office. The defeat of Democratic President Jimmy Carter by Ronald Reagan in 1980 marked the low-water point of this Democratic presidential nomination tendency.

Reagan and the GOP attacked the Democratic Party as relentlessly liberal and on the wrong side of large parts of the public on many hot-button social issues. Reagan would win two landslides in the 1980s, followed by the election of his vice president - George Bush -- in 1988, all accomplished with the votes of millions of so-called Reagan Democrats. During this time, Democrats struggled with some success to maintain their strength in Congress and at the state level while adjusting their message to new political realities.

In November 1992, a slow economy and public dissatisfaction with the status quo gave the Democrats the White House for the first time in 12 years. Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton ran as a politically moderate "New Democrat" who was pro-business and pro-death penalty, focusing on the nation's economy ("It's the economy, stupid"). Clinton won 32 states, holding then-President Bush to 37.5 percent of the vote. While the Democrats regained the Oval Office and held Congress, the GOP picked up 10 seats in the House.

In 1994, Republicans, galvanized by Clinton administration missteps (including its ill-fated national health care proposal), ran on the "Contract With America," and took complete control of Congress for the first time since 1955. Further, the GOP claimed 30 of the nation's 50 governorships, including eight of the 10 biggest electoral states, and drew even with the Democrats in many state legislatures.

To many Republicans, the 1994 election seemed to bring about their long-anticipated political realignment, whose origins they saw in the Reagan 80s. But while the new GOP Congress was able to steer President Clinton to support some of its goals -- Clinton even declared in his 1996 State of the Union address that "the era of big government is over" -- Clinton would have considerable success sparring with them in the court of public opinion.

By the 1996 elections, after signing a welfare reform bill and following a bruising fight with the GOP over spending and tax cuts that resulted in a partial government shutdown, Clinton had sufficiently recovered to win reelection against former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. Clinton defeated Dole by an eight-point margin, with 49 percent of the vote. The Democrats failed, however, in their concerted effort to retake Congress.

In 1997, Clinton and the congressional GOP reached a balanced budget compromise that included tax cuts and more social spending. Before long the nation would enjoy a balanced budget and surpluses that continue to this day, with government spending rising to record levels. But 1998 would see the Capitol cast into the throes of the Monica Lewinsky affair, freezing regular political business in a poisoned atmosphere of scandal, accusation and retribution.

Amid severe political infighting and intense partisanship, the 1998 midterm elections saw the Democrats demonstrate unexpected strength at the polls, nearly retaking the House. Though still behind in governorships, the party claimed ever-important California.

The following month, in the face of public opposition, the House of Representatives ratified two articles of impeachment against Clinton, who had remained under a series of ethical clouds for most of his tenure in the Oval office.

In February of 1999, after a brief impeachment trial, the Senate acquitted Clinton of the charges of lying under oath and obstruction of justice.

The Democrats head into the 2000 election hoping to retain the White House and reclaim at least the House.

The Clinton years have been a period of closely balanced, hard-fought, and sometimes stalemated political battles in which neither party has been able to fully enact its policy prescriptions. Clinton's New Democrat politics and sharp political skills have thwarted the Republican drive for realignment, and prevented the GOP from seeing its complete program become reality.

Now, with his vice president, Al Gore, as the party nominee and the House within easy grasp, it remains to be seen whether Bill Clinton has outperformed his party -- or if the Democrats will perform better with him off center stage.