Idea of a party system

America's Founding Fathers did not be lieve in political parties as such, scorned those that they were conscious of as his torical models, had a keen terror of party spirit and its evil consequences, and yet almost as soon as their national govern ment was in operation, found it necessary to establish parties. Despite themselves they gradually gave form to the first American party system, and under it gave the world its first example of the peaceful transit of a government from the control of one popular party to another.

This work traces the historical processes in thought by which American political leaders slowly edged away from their complete philosophical rejection of party and hesitantly began to embrace a party system.

In the course of accepting parties, and the idea of a partisan opposition, America's leaders gradually acquired a more pene trating understanding of the idea of a party system and the conception of legiti mate opposition which lies at the heart of democratic development. In the author's words, "The emergence of legitimate party opposition and of a theory of politics that accepted it was something new in the his tory of the world; it required a bold new act of understanding on the part of its contemporaries and it still requires study on our part."

Professor Hofstadter's analysis of the idea of party and the development of legi timate opposition offers fresh insights into the political crisis of 1797-1801, on the thought of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Martin Van Buren, and other leading fig ures, and on the beginnings of modern democratic politics.

The Idea of a Party System is a modi fied and expanded version of the Jefferson Memorial Lectures given at the University of California at Berkeley in October, 1966.