"To a foreigner, almost all the domestic quarrels of the Americans appear, at first sight, incomprehensible or childish, and one does not know if one ought to pity a people that occupies itself seriously with such trifles or envy it the luck of being able to do so."

Oh, yes ... that provoked a sheepish chuckle or two but, only in an effort to hide the fact that this quote is more aptly applied to the domestic quarrels of Canadians, throughout our storied history, more than you ever want to know! You can trust me on this.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Of course, real voter registration would be less than perfect, but a party with 30% support could certainly get representation in a large state.

I would have the Senate keep single-seat plurality elections, but I would use majority voting for president.

But then, soon after, Martin Van Buren and Andy Jackson shook everything back up again. And, lo and behold, the two-party system was born.

sort-of makes one wonder about the 2-party system. i've thought on more than one occasion that our nation might be better off with a different system, based on state percentages instead of winner-take-all districts. any forward-thinking state could pioneer this change on the state level.

The word "partisan" pre-dates the actual party structure (although they spelled it "partizan" back then...).

There weren't true national parties (as we would define such today) until post-Jackson, but there were what I would call "factions" back to the Washington administration. There were lots of them, in fact. Federalists, anti-Federalists, Whigs, (small-r) republicans, (small-d) democrats, "radical" republicans, "quids" (what we'd call "centrists" or "Blue Dogs" or "RINOs" today), and lots of other flavors.

The only time in American history when we really did have only one party was around 1820 (the "Era of Good Feelings"). In 1820, only one major candidate ran for president. This was due to the Federalists' collapse, after they had staked out an anti-1812-war position and (from New England, no less) actually advocated secession.

But then, soon after, Martin Van Buren and Andy Jackson shook everything back up again. And, lo and behold, the two-party system was born.

-CW

I wouldn't have given quite that big a hint. I thought Alien-and-Sedition era, but from my reading of the quote Jackson seemed the earliest possible.

If faced with the raw quote, I might have guessed around the "yellow journalism" period, or 1890 to maybe 1920.

The quote is from Rev. Samuel Miller, published in 1803. He was writing a multi-volume tome called "Brief Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century" (the book I got the quote from lists it from vol. II, but Google says vol. III...). Now, I have to admit my heart goes out to anyone who puts out a multi-volume set with the word "brief" in the title (heh), myself.

He was writing about the media in America, and was most likely influenced mostly by the previous decade, 1790-1800 -- our first decade under the Constitution. The newspapers at this time were far more vicious than either (take your pick) the tabloids or the partisan press of today (say, Fox News, for example). During this decade, the media ran with stories about two major sex scandals (Jefferson/Sally Hemings and Hamilton/Maria Reynolds), and were quickly dividing themselves into Federalist and Republican papers (this is not the modern Republican party, but the "Democratic-Republican" party, I should mention).

This was also the age of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were passed so the federal government could chuck newspaper editors in jail for commenting on politics. Thankfully, this didn't work, for many reasons. But think for a moment -- would they have passed a law to chuck editors in jail if the editors weren't themselves out on the front lines in the political battles?

Anyway, I've been coming across quotes that set me back during my research -- quotes that make me think "that could easily be said about today" -- and I just thought I'd share this one with everyone.

As a bonus, here's another funny quote for everyone, this one from Alexis de Tocqueville (this one is for LizM, since she'll probably get the biggest laugh out of it):

"To a foreigner, almost all the domestic quarrels of the Americans appear, at first sight, incomprehensible or childish, and one does not know if one ought to pity a people that occupies itself seriously with such trifles or envy it the luck of being able to do so."

Heh.

-CW

1780

Michale.....

so... 1820's to 1830's?

It's on Google? I kind of wondered about that. They're hit-or-miss sometimes.

Anyone else? We've got the 1890s so far...

OK, I'll give one hint: the political argument of the day was over big government vs. small government, for the most part. Oh, wait, that's not much of a hint, is it?

Heh.

-CW

I'll guess the Gay Nineties.