The Constitution NEVER mentioned the popular election of the chief executive who was instead, to be chosen by a body of electors appointed by the LEGISLATURES of the respective states.
Because of the vague wording in Article II, Section 1, some states began almost immediately to hold general elections to choose the electors, which in a period of less than 40 years resulted in a president being elected by popular vote – and we can all see where that has led.
In 1828 Andrew Jackson
became the first president elected mainly by popular vote. He considered himself “a direct representative of the common man,” rather than the administrator of the international affairs of the sovereign states that comprise the Union.Below is the actual wording of the Constitution:
Article. II.
Section. 1.
Clause 1: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows
Clause 2: “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
Clause 3: “The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.”
This clause was superceded by the adoption of Amendment XII.
Twelfth Amendment (1804): Changes the method of presidential elections so that members of the electoral college cast separate ballots for president and vice president.
President George Washington
appeared to see the writing on the wall and greatly feared a pending party system would become little more than a popularity contest between individuals and political philosophies instead of principled debate over issues. The needs of a growing nation would end up subservient to the wishes of a minority of ambitious men and according to Washington, could even lead to foreign influence in the American electoral process.Washington refused to run for a third term, establishing a two-term precedent that was to stand until 1940 and eventually to be enshrined in the Constitution as the 22nd Amendment. Washington warned in his Farewell Address against involvement in European wars, and lamented the rising North-South sectionalism and party spirit in politics that threatened national unity. The party spirit, he lamented:
“serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”
Even as Washington served as President, coalitions and alliances began to form. It wasn’t long before those alliances were named and the party system of politics began.
With the start of the new government under the Constitution, President George Washington appointed his former chief of staff, Alexander Hamilton,
to the office of Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton wanted a strong national government with financial credibility. Hamilton proposed the ambitious Hamiltonian economic program that involved assumption of the state debts incurred during the Revolutionary War, creating a national debt and the means to pay it off, and setting up a national bank. James Madison, Hamilton's ally in the fight to ratify the United States Constitution, dropped his nationalism in response to demands in his Virginia district and joined with Jefferson in opposing Hamilton's program.By 1790 Hamilton started building a nationwide coalition. Realizing the need for vocal political support in the states, he formed connections with like-minded nationalists and used his network of treasury agents to link together friends of the government, especially merchants and bankers, in the new nation's dozen major cities. His attempts to manage politics in the national capital to get his plans through Congress, then, "brought strong responses across the country. In the process, what began as a capital faction soon assumed status as a national faction and then, finally, as the new Federalist party.”
By 1792 or 1794 newspapers started calling Hamilton supporters "Federalists" and their opponents "Democrats", "Republicans", Jeffersonians, or Democratic-Republicans. [2] The Federalist party became popular with businessmen, mostly people from New England, and Democratic-Republicans were mostly farmers who opposed a strong central government.. ……..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Party_%28United_States%29
The Democratic-Republican Party (unrelated to the present-day Republican Party), was founded by Thomas Jefferson
and James Madison in 1792. It became the dominant political party until the 1820s, when it split into competing factions, one of which became the modern-day Democratic Party. Its members identified the party as the Republicans, Jeffersonians, Democrats,[1] or combinations of these (Jeffersonian republicans, etc.).[2]Jefferson and Madison created the party in order to oppose the economic and foreign policies of the Federalists, a party created a year or so earlier by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. Foreign policy issues were central; the party opposed the Jay Treaty of 1794 with Britain (then at war with France) and supported good relations with France before 1801. The party insisted on a strict construction of the Constitution, and denounced many of Hamilton's proposals (especially the national bank) as unconstitutional. The party promoted states' rights and the primacy of the yeoman farmer over bankers, industrialists, merchants, and other monied interests. From 1792 to 1816 the party opposed such Federalist policies as high tariffs, a navy, military spending, a national debt, and a national bank. After the military defeats of the War of 1812, however, the party split on these issues. Many younger party leaders, notably Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams and John C. Calhoun, became nationalists and wanted to build a strong national defense.[3] Meanwhile, the "Old Republican" faction led by John Randolph of Roanoke, William H. Crawford and Nathaniel Macon continued to oppose these policies. By 1828, the Old Republicans were supporting Andrew Jackson against Clay and Adams.
The party's elected presidents were Thomas Jefferson (1800 and 1804), James Madison (1808 and 1812), and James Monroe (1816 and 1820). The party soon dominated Congress and most state governments outside of New England. By 1820, the Federalists were no longer acting as a national party; there was little to hold the Democratic-Republican Party together. William H. Crawford in 1824 was the last nominee by the Congressional nominating caucus; but the majority of the party boycotted the caucus. Henry Clay finished fourth in the election that year, behind John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and William Crawford. Their factions became separate parties after the election, of which the Jacksonians became the basis of the present Democratic Party; the National Republicans were absorbed into the Whig coalition which faded out before the American Civil War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Democratic-Republican_Party
