Partisans, Partisanship Quotes

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Despite his fears, that is exactly what happened. Ironically, he himself was the focus of much dissatisfaction with the administration, and the Federalists led by Adams and the Democratic Republicans led by Jefferson opposed each other, ousting Adams.


“Republicans” then referred to strong opponents of not only monarchy, but opposed a strong Presidency and federal government. The Federalists who supported John Adams for reelection to a 2nd term, were trounced so badly that it was the end of the Federalist Party. Their attacks on Jefferson had been particularly vicious with the hyperpartisanship as bad as in the early years of the 21st century. Jefferson tried to unify the nation with this quotation. It helped but there was still much bitterness.


Gingrich was one of the most polarizing political figures of his era. He conflated liberals with intellectuals, and people he called “elites” creating a form of class warfare where the class divisions were educational and cultural instead of socioeconomic.


Chase a Supreme Court justice at the time was a very partisan Federalist. The Senate was controlled by the Democratic Republicans. Randolph, then a member of the House of Representatives, orchestrated the impeachment of Chase because of his extreme partisanship. The Senate in trying the case had to decide for the first time what “high crimes and misdemeanors” the actually means in terms of impeachment. A number of the Democratic Republicans joined the Federalists in taking the view that however undesirable the Supreme Court justice’s partisanship would be, that did not reach the threshold of a “high crime and misdemeanor.” Chase was acquitted. In this sense this impeachment trial was similar to that of President William Clinton almost 200 years later. The behavior was undesirable but did not amount to a high crime and misdemeanor, Clinton was also acquitted.


After Roosevelt, most eras of American politics more or less followed the pattern Roosevelt described herein as a “calamity”, with the anger becoming more or less intense. Jefferson thought that these were natural divisions of politics in all societies--{604810}. The thing that masked this for years was race and slavery. In Lincoln’s time there were liberals and conservatives in both parties if race were ignored. In Theodore Roosevelt’s era, he, Taft and others were generally liberal reformers, while a large number of Republicans were conservative supporters of the status quo. Some democrats were radical reformers like William Jennings Bryan while others were arch conservatives. Until 1964 and the Civil Rights Act there were many conservatives in the Democratic Party, but almost all switched to the Republican Party in anger. The Republican conservatives tended to drive the Republican liberals out of the party and for the last part of the 20th century Roosevelt’s “calamity” well described the American political scene, and the anger increased carrying partisan bitterness into the 21st century.