The Invention of the American Political Parties: A Study of Political Improvisation (review)

BOOK REVIEWS The Invention of the American Political Parties: A Study of Political Improvisation. By Roy F. Nichols. (New York: The Macmillan Company , 1967. Pp. xii, 416. $8.95.) Roy Nichols is often called die dean of American political historians. The tide is deserved and is given not only because of Nichols' distinguished writings on die history of die pre-Civil War Democratic party but also because of his long preoccupation with die Üieme of political history. He began his study as a graduate student at Columbia under Dixon Ryan Fox and has never quit it. He notes in dus book diat at times he has felt lonely: when during die decades after World War I political history seemed to be passing out of style. But now, he records, it has, with a different emphasis , returned to favor. "So-called political history, albeit in a behavioral guise, has come into its own," he writes with understandable satisfaction. Nichols probably considers diat dus book is his capping work, his most general study of die development of die American political system. He has certainly been ambitious in die time period he spans. He begins widi a brief look at political institutions in eighdi century Anglo-Saxon England, where he sees primitive patterns of democracy emerging, and dien traces die evolution of diese patterns through die Elizabedian era and dius to die eve of die migration of Englishmen to die new American world. Such a broad background treatment may seem strange in a history of American parties but it is valid, for it provides a basis for die audior's first detailed section, a description of political developments in die colonies. Then come sections on die Revolutionary years and die establishment of national union. In diese sections Nichols emphasizes diat altiiough die Americans were committed to self-government and where politically minded, tiiey had not as yet created parties. The appearance of parties had to await die first years of die republic. The first parties emerged during die 1790's, die Federalists and die Jeffersonian Republicans, setting die pattern for die later two-party system. But, says Nichols, diese first organizations were not parties as we think of parties today. "Organization, such as it was, existed only in die states," he writes. "Such national political mobilization as had developed seemed created for single ends and operated as one-shot weapons." Thus die Federalists wanted only to get die Federal system going; die Jeffersonians wanted only to get the Federalists out of office. When tiiey achieved their objectives, diey tended to become negative and to fragmentize. The two60 party alignment, in fact, shortly disintegrated and did not reappear until die 1820's and die Jackson era. Even dien, as Nichols sees it, "die party of today" had not developed. Jackson's Democratic party was largely "a personal following." But there were forces at work that would soon create parties—the emergence of professional politicians in the several states and the development of die national nominating conventions. These forces first made themselves felt in the election of 1840, die first time diat "one organized and marshaled party" defeated anodier. The process was completed, and also the creation of party machinery, in 1848, when die Democrats established a central committee to operate die party during die campaign and die next four years, and designated die first national chairman with more dian "immediate campaign responsibilities." Nichols closes his account widi 1848, but he briefly notes die campaigns of 1852 and 1856, in which the final step to complete "die basic pattern of the political machine" was taken—the development of techniques by the parties to raise campaign funds. The book is recommended to both the general reader and the specialist. The former will find it a sparkling yet informative description of American political developments. The latter will not find much diat is new, but he will discover a convenient syntiiesis of scholarship in political history—and some of die wisest and most penetrating comments yet made about our party system. T. Harry Williams Louisiana State University Sectional Stress and Party Strength: A Computer Analysis of RoU-CaIl Voting Patterns in the United States House of Representatives, 18361860...