GOVERNMENT IN THE U.S.A.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25552, 3 June 1944, Page 6

GOVERNMENT IN THE U.S.A.

THE MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES

The two major political parties of the United States, along with the smaller groups which so often indicate significant trends in public opinion, are already marshalling their forces for the national election next November, even while working together with the greatest energy in the prosecution of the war. Although the nation politically Is traditionally a “two-party country," the history of the parties themselves is the best illustration that it is the people who reshape and remould the parties to represent their views on national affairs, rather than the parties dividing and shaping the opinions of the voters.

states. In principles and programmes, both major parties have varied to meet changing conditions, and their strength to-day is doubtless due in a large part to the willingness to change in response to public opinion. ' There is little of the “ traditional ” remaining in either of the major parties, with' both conservative and liberal elements in each one. Few if any Americans vote for a party because their fathers did. They choose and change their parties as the paries meet their ow.n views of affairs. The Democratic Party is much the older, dating back through 150 yeais to its founder, President Thbmas Jefferson, who enunciated its principles. These included direct popular control over government, the fullest measure of personal liberty consistent with law, the conservation of full rights of the states within the Union, the militant championship of religious liberty, freedom of speech and of the press. Fathered by aristocrats, it stood against aristocracy, proclaiming “equal rights for all, special privileges for none.” In general, Republican strength has been in the great central agricultural states, among farmers the country over, and among business men. Democratic support, in general, has come from large, industrial centres and the agricultural South, so infused with Democratic Party tradition that it is known as the “ Solid South.” For the past three Presidential (four-year) terms, the Democrats have won the national election. In the previous 76 years the Republicans were in control for all but 20 years.

The present Republican Party was born on one of the rare occasions in 150 years of American history that a third party proved strong enough to win a Presidential election. A Political Revolution

This political revolution took place in the late 1850’s.- There were at that time the traditional two parties: the Democrats, composing the dominant party, and the Whigs, a highly conservative group. The new party was created to meet squarely the main issue of the time, slavery. There was bitter disagreement, not all along party lines, between the North and South, the North favouring complete abolition of slavery and insisting that it should not be permitted in new territories then being added to the growing Union. The South contended slavery was a matter of State right, an issue which the people of any single State should decide. Northern Democrats and anti-slavery Whigs combined to form a new, militant political organisation, the Republican Party, which in 1860 elected Abraham Lincoln President of the United States. The South decided then that its only course was to leave the Union and form a new confederacy. Lincoln and the Republicans determined that there should be no secession and the Civil War of 1861-65 was fought on that issue. The South lost the war, the Union was preserved, and during the struggle Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which freed the slaves.

Parties have Wide Influence Although the political parties have no official standing in the United States system, they wield a persistent influence, maintaining national and state organisations which have a voice in the appointment of political office holders. .

Every four years, in the summer :before the November election day, state delegates representing party organisations gather in national convention to choose candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States, and to write a platform—the party’s stand on public questions. .These platforms have a considerable effect on the party’s success at the polls.- More than one candidate has met defeat because the voters could not “ support ,the platform on which he stands. ’ Also, by custom, the parties have definite claims to participation in the government. The dominant party in the lower house of Congress (House of Representatives) chooses the Speaker and the chairmen of all committee in both Houses. The minority party however badly beaten, has a right to proportionate riimority membership on all committees.

That proclamation was the first sweeping action by the national Government to implement the provisions of the Constitution. It established a' Republican Party principle, that the nation, not its parts, is supreme. Changing Programmes

However, in recent years the Republican Party has been strongly contending that the Federal Government under the Democrats has been usurping too much of the sovereign power of the