AMERICAN POLITICAL ISSUES, By this term is here meant the issues which swayed the voters in the Presi dential elections, and in the Congressional elec tions of the Presidential years. These elections were the "round-up" or register of the accumu lated drift during the four years previous, and formed one of the influences deciding the drift during the next four. They fall into five periods : 1788-1800, 1804-12, 1816-20, 1824-40, 1844-52. In the first, the Federalists are in power; the controlling issues are those of strong v. weak government, and of deference to the educated classes v. the vox populi. In the second, the Federalists arc the opposition, fling away the excuse for their existence, and after a casual sectional revival are extinguished. In the third, there are no issues and no party, properly speaking; the candidate is accepted by inertia from the old line of leaders, and the administration is able to grant the chief wishes of both the old sections. In the fourth, the former Federalist elements recombine under new names, with the basis of a strong pending and nationalizing government, replacing the dead issue of a strong executive one. In the fifth, the slavery question is the central issue.
1788. The division over candidates has usually and naturally coincided with the di vision over policies ; but in the first election, of 1788, it was not so. There was but one pos sible candidate, Washington; he represented all parties. He had seen the Revolution nearly aborted first, and the Confederation nearly wrecked afterward, by the weakness of the central government ; this confirmed his natural bias as a "nationalizing" Federalist, anxious above all things for a government which could keep order, pay its debts, and secure respect from other nations. On the other hand, as a Southern farmer, he commanded the confidence of that section, which distrusted the Northern commercial interests ; and as Washington, he was the idol of the masses everywhere. Furthermore, the very basis of the election had cut the ground from under the chief opposition party. The overshadowing issue, almost the only one, of the Confederation, which had no president nor regular elections, but only scat tering "by-elections" of Congressmen, was whether it should be replaced by a stronger government; the adoption of the Constitution had settled that, and the Anti-Federalists were shut down to voting for the personnel to ad minister a system they disliked and dreaded.
Besides this, all their ablest sympathizers were Federalists for the time being, not from love of a strong government but experience of too weak a one; so that "Federalist" for election purposes meant not so much a party as almost every one in the country of capacity, experi ence, or business or intellectual standing.
1792. Again Washington was the unan imous candidate. The same men substantially were sent to Congress ; indeed, there were few Anti-Federalists to send who would not dis credit and weaken the cause. But the Anti Federalist voters had the less hesitation, be cause their natural leaders had nova begun to split away and lay the foundations of the Democratic-Republican party. Jefferson was the first to take a stand against the Federalist policy, in the matter of the Bank; shortly rein forced by Madison and Edward Randolph.
1796. Washington, who could have held the office for life, refused it further. There was now a contest over policies represented by candidates identified with them, and each representing a section as well : John Adams stood for the Northern commercial States, with most to lose from conflicting local imposi tions on commerce, or foreign depredations and restrictions which a weak government could not repel ; Jefferson, the lifelong cham pion of the extreme democratic principle, the least government, the cheapest, and the most unshowy, possible, stood for the mass of farmers, largely in the South and West, who simply wished to be let alone and have no taxes, and. thought commerce of no benefit or concern to them. The latter also formed a part of the rapidly growing mass who resented the Federalist claim that political Office needed any superior ability or training, and were eager to pass it around in rotation. Quite as strong as either was the kympathy of the masses for the French Revolution, which the Federalists detested. The latter won, but only by grace of two Southern electors and in reality by a single vote ; they lost save for these the entire South beyond Maryland, and' all but one elec toral vote of Pennsylvania as well. In a word, the party had represented a temporary national necessity which was ceasing to be imperative, and a minority business interest ; and as the former vanished, it was shrinking to the basis of the latter.