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The Party Problem: Political Parties and Civil Order

Political parties have posed problems for American politics since at least the beginning of our national history. From George Washington’s Farewell Address warning against the dangers of political parties, to Thomas Jefferson’s first Inaugural Address, which sought to transcend politics, to the contemporary pejorative “partisan,” Americans have struggled to embrace political parties, especially opposition parties. In the United States, a strong anti-party rhetoric has grown alongside the development of political parties and party systems. Jeffrey Selinger and Sean Wilentz continue this discussion about the connection between parties, political order, justice, and more broadly, democracy. For Wilentz, pragmatic party-politicians have always been the critical element in creating and maintaining political order. They have understood well, he tells us, that politics cannot be based upon the unrelenting pursuit of a particular principle, but must be translated into the realm of the possible. Selinger, by contrast, offers a more nuanced account of the relationship between political parties and political order. Emphasizing structure over agency, Selinger argues that prior to the Civil War political parties were perceived as a threat to the continued existence of the republic. Political parties, especially opposition parties, were able to survive only to the extent that they avoided addressing the major social, economic, and political issues of the day. The legitimacy of a political opposition was made possible only as the state (i.e., federal government) acquired a monopoly on legitimate violence following the Civil War. On one level, Wilentz and Selinger agree that parties and party politicians have pragmatically pursued order over justice. Where they disagree is over the