Welcome back. In this lecture and the next one, I'm going to be talking about chapter ten of the book, America's Unwritten Constitution, the chapter is entitled Joining the Party. America's partisan constitution. We're going to talk about the role of political parties in our constitutional system. We have a basic two party system in America. It's as prominent and as a practical matter, fixed feature of our system as. The Mississippi River is a fixed and indelible feature of of of. Of the land mass or The Rocky Mountain's or with the Grand Canyon. These are basic fundamental features of the American natural landscape and the two party system is a basic. Fundamental feature of America's legal and political landscape. It is for all intents and purposes, a very important feature of America's Constitution, how the system actually is constituted and works. Now You may have been told that the Constitution itself makes absolutely no mention of political parties. And that in fact the Constitution in its structure and spirit and history is opposed to political parties. And the truth is a little bit more complicated than that. In fact, the Constitution itself The written constitution the Turst text does, openly acknowledged in letter and spirit the, the role of political parties, but, as I said, it's a slightly more complicated story, it didn't quite do so at the founding. At the founding many of you of course may have been taught that the Federalist number 10 in which James Madison argues against, or is critical of the idea of factions, hyper-partisanship in the system. And he does argue against a certain thing called faction but what you may not have recalled is that later in life James Madison becomes a total political operative, a partisan operative, he. In the late 18th century, a decade after writing federalist 10 basically is the co-founder of a political party. They called themselves the republicans at the time, they will become the modern democrat party. A basicallly successor to the party that Jefferson and Madison co found. So James Madison within a decade of writing a anti factional Federalist number 10. Becomes the leader really, the political organizer of a group a faction. If you will he. Is Carl Rove, of, the of his, of his era. A Martin Van Buren like political organizer and operative. And we're going to talk about that. And, and that vision of partizinship. And its permissibility, that, that you see in the later Madison's writings is reflected in Constitutional amendments because, yes the original constitution didn't, wha-, did not image a two party system emerging. But the amended constitution very much reflects the a, a, a two party system reality. So, let's, let's start by looking at the structure of the original presidency. Because the original presidency I think does explain this intuition that the framers didn't really expect political parties to emerge and political parties emerge actually intention with the structure of the constitution, and there is as I said, some, some truth to this and, but today's constitution Is different than the founders' Constitution. So remember what the founders' rules were for presidential selection. Basically you the presidential electors, the electoral college, so to speak, that were chosen in each state, Each elector voted for two people for President. And the top two vote getters became President and Vice President, respectively. There was no separate ballot for the Vice President. Two votes for presidency, and the top two vote getters became President and Vice President respectively, and when you think about it. In a two-party system, this is perhaps a disaster waiting to happen. Imagine that you've got two party chieftans, and they run against each other in a pretty fierce campaign. And now, but they end up being number one and two in, in the vote tally. And that, there are all sorts of scenarios In which that could happen, and indeed, that did happen in 1796. Thomas Jefferson ran as sort of the southern representative, representing kind of one party em, emerging party. John Adams represented the the other emerging power party, with more strength in, in the north. Adams was more of a federalist, and Jefferson was an emerging member of what would later be called the Democratic Republican party or the Republican party. And they came in one and two respectively. Remember, before that. Basically, George Washington stood above party, everyone voted for him, he was unanimously elected President in the first election, unanimously reelected in the second election. But when he exits the stage, the next tier of revolutionary leaders comes to the surface, Adams and Jefferson, and they run against each other. And they have different visions and they come in one and two, respectively. And they're not able to cooperate very much because they actually represent different philosophies, different perspectives, different proto-parties. And then A sitting President and Vice President, they run against each other in 1800, and that election was way more polarized than 1796 had been. 1796 was a little bit tense, but not Hyper partisian hyper polorized by 1800 the 2 men the sitting president and the vice president are running against each other and and and when you think about how destabilizing that system is. You begin to see why the constitution is quickly thereafter going to be amended. Imagine, a world in which two people have, have spent the last few months bashing each other, each telling, his supporters why the other fellow is a disaster. imagine that. The, the, the polity, the voters are getting very energized but also agitated and riled up and polarized by these mass appeals, these partisan appeals by party leaders. And then imagine that, the election results in both parties, sort of winning. One party winning the, the, the top slot. And the other party, winning the number two slot. Coming in number one and two in the race. That is In effect, an assassination incentive. That's an impeachment incentive which is kind of waiting to have an accident, waiting to happen. A recipe for disaster because if something happens to number one Then number two succeeds and if they represent very different political visions and philosophies that's, again, going to be an invitation for partisan impeachments, for, again, maybe even politically inspired assassinations. It's a deeply destabilizing system. And it's the one the founders created because they weren't imagining, I think, the emergence of this strong two party system. And you might say well, boy they were dumb why didn't they imagine that? And I think the simple answer is The two-party system emerges only when, a national two-party system, only when there's a national office worth fighting for, and there wasn't any important national office worth organizing around and fighting for under the articles of the confederation. Only when the Constitution's created when you have a strong Presidency does there become an excuse, or reason, an occasion for national mobilization and the creation of two national parties vying for the Presidency. And that is basically a product of the Constitution itself, so They just didn't anticipate the future but once, and so to that extent yes the original constitution really wasn't safe for a 2 party system. But after that Adams Jefferson rematch, and remember we're going to talk about the picture. This is a picture just to, to, to anticipate. Involving the signing and the drafting of the Declaration of the Independence and we have John Adams and Thomas Jefferson in our picture so we're going to come back to Jefferson and Adams at the end of the next lecture, but when you had these contests between Adams and Jefferson and this political polarization and especially after the second one, the election of 1800-1801 The flaws of the existing, of the founders' system in the two party world, an emerging two party world became manifest, and the Constitution was amended. And in the 12th Amendment there was provision made for separate election for Presidents and Vice Presidents. So now, actually you vote separately for President and Vice President, which meant. That presidential and vice-presidential candidates could run kind of as a tag team. And it was easier to vote for 2 federalists for president and vice-president respectively. Or 2 democrat republicans for the office. And this gives us the modern system. And the 12th amendment was designed to accommodate a 2 party system. And in the very process by which it was adopted. It was adopted in a relatively partisan way. It was pushed by the Jeffersons, the specific rules they pushed forward advantaged their party in particular. It changed the electoral college in various ways but kept in place the bias toward the South created by the Three Fifth's Clause. Thomas Jefferson with out that Three Fifth's Clause actually loses in 1800. John Adams would have one if the south hadn't gotten extra votes. Because of extra slaves created by the Three Fifth's Clause. And that was a big flaw of the electorial college. That wasn't fixed. Other flaws were fixed and it was basically the Jeffersonians who did the fixing. And they, they adopted an amendment that very much sort of favored their political interest. So, so, partisanship was built into the 12th Amendment it self, how it was adopted and the 12th Amendment is a reflection of an emerging reality of a two party world. And the story doesn't end there. Let's look at some of the later ammendments. They very much are a product of a two party system. The 13th ammendment, abolishing slavery. That's what the Republican platform promised in 1864. The Democrat party platform says, keep the constitution as is. But the Republicans won the re-election, won the election. Abe Lincoln is, is reelected. And he uses his partisan victory to twist some arms, and get, and get a few Democrats on board. That's what the movie Lincoln is all about. The two party system is the matrix in which the 13th Amendment is adopted, very much basically Republicans with a handful of Democrats, almost all of whom voted yes only in the lame duck period after they had been drubbed in the General Election. The 14th amendment, even more partisan, every single Democrat in Congress votes against it. Every single Republican in Congress except one votes for it. It's a total party measure. It is, in effect, the informal party, Republican party platform in 1866, that's an off-year election, it's not a Presidential election. But it is a partisan document from start to finish, the, is the 14th Amendment and so is the 15th, which almost every Republican votes for and almost every Democrat votes against. And this is a reminder that merely to say something is partisan is not necessarily to condemn it. The 14th and the 15th amendments are the, the crown jewels of our Constitution. And they, they, are among America's most shining accomplishments and they were partisan measures. Every bit as partisan an alignment, as for example we saw in Obamacare. So, the mere fact that something is partisan doesn't necessarily mean it's right or wrong, it just a reminder that in America. The two parties have actually organized American political sentiment. And, and, there have been principled disagreements between the parties, in the past and will continue, there will continue to be disagreements, ideological and philosophical in the future. And that's not something That you should condemn, it's, it's a deep feature of our, unless you want to condemn the whole constitutional system, it's, it's a deep feature of our constitution now, the, the repulican party had such dominance in 1860 that it could basically muster two-thirds in the house And two-thirds in the Senate and three-quarters in the states, even without the support of democrats, that was pretty unusual, that was because the democrat party kind of committed suicide because of succession. Later on, the later amendments are going to be amendments basically where both parties have had to agree in order to get something through. So let's take The later 16th amendment. It too is organized by the parties, both parties at the end, and the 19 teens realize that there is this emerging, progressive Movement that basically is dissatisfied with in income and wealth inequality. And so both parties actually support a 16th Amendment that's going to be about a progressive income tax amendment. It's supported by the Democratic Party and by Republicans led by and it's in their party platform, and Republicans from Teddy Roosevelt to William Howard Taft are on board. With this. The nineteenth amendment, the women's suffrage amendment, at a certain point both parties realized that women's suffrage is probably going to happen. If it's going to happen you don't want to be the party resisting. You don't want to be the last person in the schoolhouse gates, so to speak, resisting this reformation. Because, whence women get the vote they're going to punish. People who op, who opposed women's suffrage. So, when the parties begin to see that women's suffrage is one day going to happen, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and both parties actually actively compete. To support the amendment in order to benefit from the newly enfranchised women. So both the Republicans and Democratic platforms support the idea of woman suffrage. In the middle of the twentieth century. Blacks are the swing voters in America. They had, before 1932 often supp... Typically supported the Republicans, party of Lincoln. After 1972, they became more reliable Democrats. That's continues to be true today. But between 1932 and 1972. They're kind of, the swing constituency. In the same way, that today, hispanics are. And in that period so, in which Rose, Franklin Roosevelt, and Harry Truman, and John Kennedy, and Linden Johnson are trying to pry blacks away from their loyalties to the party of Lincoln, the Republican party. To join the Democrats and some Republicans Are resisting, and, trying to keep them in the party of Lincoln. In that period actually, there are a series of constitutional amendments that actually benefit black Americans. An amendment, for example, about the District of Columbia, and, and treating it better in the Electoral College system. DC is a largely black jurisdiction. Amendments about ending poll taxes and giving young, poll tax discrimination, disenfranchisement because of failure to pay a poll tax. An amendment that disproportionately helps African Americans cause they were disproportionately excluded by poll tax disfranchisement. An amendment allowing 18 year olds to vote, young adults between 18 and 21 were, were disproportionately non-white. So, these amendments, actually favored African Americans, and they're adopted at a time period where both parties are competing for the loyalty of, of African Americans, and so you see again the party system at work. In fact, In some of the other specific amendments, we see the influence of the party system even more visibly. 17th Amendment, direct election of Senators. Well, as a practical matter, you had direct election of Senators in some states that were basically one party states, dominated by one party. And the Senate basically you know, whoever won the. Party nomination was going to win the general election in these one party states, the Democrat Party in the South. Some mid west states were overwhelmingly Republican so whoever wins the party nomination in those one party dominated states is going to win the Senate seat And parties, began to pick their nominees, by primaries. So those primaries are kind of direct election of senators before the 17th amendment. The 17th amendment is codifying a kind of emerging party practice. that, that, 22nd Amendment means that, and the 25th Amendment also kind of reflect emerging party practices. The 22nd Amendment is a two term amendment. It says that presidents actually can only serve two terms. What does that mean, that means that if you can't serve a third term, you're going to want to pick your wing man, pick the person that in effect can serve your third term. That means that if you're Ronald Reagan you can't serve three terms but you can pick George HW Bush who can serve out your third term, and so the two term amendment intensifies the kind of Partnership and teamwork that you see as early as the 12th Amendment. Presidents and vice presidents running as a tag team. And the 22nd Amendment highlights that and, and creates reflects a world where presses are picking their successors. Which is a reflection of what the parties are beginning to do. The parties in the 20th century are beginning to let presidential candidates pick their running mates. That wasn't true in earlier times. Abe Lincoln didn't pick all of his, it, it had to, his, his running mate and, and that wasn't true for many of these party conventions before the 1930s actually. The parties pick the two people, the top person, the presidential candidates didn't handpick the running mate, but beginning really in the middle of the, the early the mid third of the 20th century, this has become an increasing practice, and it's reflected in the 22nd amendment, and also the 25th amendment. The 25th amendment says, when the vice presidency is vacant, cause the vice president's resigned or died, or the President has died or resigned and the Vice President has moved up leaving a vacant Vice Presidency. When that happens, the President will get to pick a successor, I mean get to pick the Vice President subject to Congressional confirmation. That's. A textual reflection in the formal written constitution of this informal emerging practice where presidencial nominies are picking their vice presidental running mates subject to the broad approval of the party. convention. So, so we see, in some of these more modern amendments, reflections of the roll of political parties.The political parties are organizing the debate and sometimes. The, the specific words of these amendments are reflecting actually party practices. Like the primary practice, which is direct election of senators of a certain sort. Like the practice of presidential candidates handpicking their running mates and successors. That 25th amendment is codification. Of this party, um; uh; uh; practice. So, so, um; and I'm going to tell you about one more amendment today. Um; which is the Poll Tax amendment, that says no disfranchisement um; in um; based on failure to pay poll taxes And that's true for federal elections including quote primary elections. So the text of this constitutional amendment itself is making a reference to primary amendments, primaries are organized by parties, political parties are now not just closely connected to the constitutional text but visible in the surface. Of this Constitutional text. The anti-discrimination rules about voting are now applicable to primary elections in which parties and governments kind of coordinate to run elections. And and this is a reflection of the fact that primaries are increasingly important post-John Kennedy. Before John Kennedy you could become president without running in primaries and Lyndon Johnson actually thinks even in 1960 he doesn't need to enter any of the primaries. He's just going to let the candidates in the primary knock each other out and he'll come into the convention and scoop up all of the delegates. But John Kennedy enters seven primaries and wins every one of them against different native sons Stuart Symington, Hubert Humphry, Scoop Jackson and others, So Kennedy shows in 1960 the power of primary elections and the text of the constitution is reflecting that. By now, in the 24th amendment saying we are going to have actually some, some rules that apply to primary elections as such. So just to conclude this lecture, the original constitutions really did not contemplate a two party system, but many of the amendments have emerged in reaction to, in contemplation of Organized by and reflective of a two party system. Ours is. It's baked into the cake. It's built into various amendments. and, in the next lecture I'm going to, try to give you a Political Science explanation of why once the two party system, i- ah- rises. It's pretty much an entrenched feature. It's not going anywhere. I want, now that we have it, we're very unlikely to move away from it. It would take the political equivalent of an asteroid strike, a massive asteroid strike, in order to, to change the two party system we have today and that's what I'm going to explain in the next lecture. So stay tuned. [MUSIC]
