From a letter to the editor of
Alabama News from Richard Rutledge, the Vice Chairman of the
Constitution Party of Alabama:
Many of our Founders warned against allowing a two-party system to control our political system, but we refused to listen. Now, we have created a dual-headed monster and a ruling-class elite that are virtually unchallengeable by common men. This is the exact opposite scenario our Founders sought to create. . . .
The political gridlock in Washington, with the bitter, purely partisan battle over the budget and raising the debt ceiling, clearly shows breaking the monopoly the two-party system holds over our political system is essential to our survival as a republic. We must find a way to elect statesmen who will represent the interests of citizens who elect them, not the current crop of career politicians who answer only to party will and special interests.
Said Frederick Douglass: "Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle! Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will."
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3 comments:
As far as I know, the Founders didn't warn specifically against a two-party system, but against the existence of any political parties. I doubt they would have been happier with a three or four-party system, so long as they identified party with "faction." On the other hand, the Founders themselves gave us the first two-party system, though the Federalist and (Jeffesonian) Republican parties were different animals in many ways from our present bipolarchs.
You're right as regards faction, Sam, I think. I assume you're thinking of Madison? The ellipsis marks an edit on my part where the author quotes Washington's famous statement from the farewell address in which he seems to equate bipolar factionalism with a "frightful despotism", so the statement in the intro paragraph makes more sense with that context.
I loath our two party system, but just creating a third party isn't enough. I mean, third parties are common in Europe but did nothing too stop there partisan deadlock. It's WHAT they offer that matters. So far, the third parties aren't proposing anything except "we're good because we're a third party and not those auful Democrats and Republicans, therefore we are good".
It's misleading too say that the Founding Fathers opposed two-party system foor it was Hamilton and Jefferson who created it. Intrestingly, both Hamilton and Jefferson had hoped that a one-party system would emerge around there ideas.
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