CHAPTER4 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 73 72 PART ONE THE CONSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK participation of thousands of citizens.The election of 1832 also marked the appearance of the party nominating convention in presidential politics. Jackson's protege and successor as president,Martin Van Buren,shared Jackson's admiration of political parties.Van Buren was connected with New York City's Tammany Hall,one of the country's first party "machines,"and he realized that parties could revolutionize government.In the absence of strong parties,Van Buren concluded,government naturally serves the interests of the dich and powerful.When ordinary citizens are not organized in parties,they lack power;individually they cannot hope to compete against people of wealth and status.Through party organization,however,ordinary citizens can act together as a voting majority that is capable of gaining political control by electing leaders committed to their interests. This vision of strong national parties was never fully realized in the United States,partly because federalism and the separation of powers have enabled party organizations and leaders in various states and institutions to hold Alexis de Tooqueville,astute differing views of their party's principles (see Chapter 12).Nevertheless,the French obeerver of the young development of grass-roots political parties in the 1830s gave the people a American democracy.(The Bettmann Archive) powerful means of collective influence.Until then,each voter had a say only in the selection of his single representative.With the advent of grass-roots parties, a majority of individuals throughout the nation,united by affiliation with a political party,could choose a majority of representatives who shared the same Andrew Jackson used his policy goals.Majority opinion could thereby be more readily translated into 2n public policy.So fundamental was the emergence of the grass-roots party to the this civil service"reform"was influence of the people that the historian James MacGregor Burns has called it he spoils system,whe中y America's"second constitution."s offices became avallable every When the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in the early I know of no courtry in which 1830s-at the peak of facksonian democracy-he felt compelled to say that"in CIVIL BERVICE REFORM the United States,the majority governs."But Tocqueville's evaluation was not thought and real freedom of OpricE-Serxen."St.Jackson,can't you saw us Can't yoo give us aomething altogether favorable."Iknow of no country,"Tocqueville said,"in which there Library) is so lttie mndependence of thought and real freedom of discussion as in Alexis de Tocqueville numbered,the nation's upper classes could only deride Jackson's policies as a America."In Tocqueville's judgment Americans were too inclined to defer to mere"spoils system."Believing that"to the victor belong the spoils,"Jackson what they perceived to be majority opinion.They feared the isolation that can had appointed his campaign workers to goverment posts of all kinds(see come to those who hold unpopular views.Tocqueville mistrusted majorities Chapter 12). created in this way:opinions fully considered and debated wereto him,as to the Framers an improper basis for governing. The"Party Constitution" Jacksonian democracy's greatest contribution to majority govemnment was the THE PROGRESSIVE ERA grass-roots political party.America's first parties,the Federalists and the After the 1840s,the parties gradually drifted toward localism,corruption,and Republicans,had developed in the 1790s out of disputes between Hamilton and favoritism.In the cities especially,they were taken over by powerful party Jefferson over national policy.These parties were thoroughly dominated by bosses whose arrogance was matched only by their appetite for patronage.By political and community leaders.Ordinary citizens had no large role in them. the 1880s,many party bosses were in league with the robber barons to block Andrew Jackson had a different kind of political party in mind.He wanted a party built from the"grass roots"-that is,based on participation at the local government from regulating business trusts (see Chapter 2). level by ordinary citizens.Its strength would be its popular base,not its ties to the elite.By the election of 1832,Jackson's Democratic party had enlisted the cre Bus,The Vinend (New Yark:Knop,1982)372. .368. Dmoymr5-ed.P.Mayer (Garden City,N.Y. 15,16. White,"The DSee Richard P.Me Carolina Press,1966)