SUSANDUNN
205
The transi tion, however, from the Washingtonian desire for consensus
to the acceptance of ideological party conflict would take decades. It was a
process of change all the more daunting because almost no one, as Burns
points out, had a theory of party. The evolution of parties in the United
States was shaped far more by events than by design, the result of "drift and
experimentation."
The English, on the other hand, were already engaged in developing a
theory of political parties. Edmund Burke, a leader of the opposition Whig
party, found it inconceivable that representative government could exist
without political parties. Why would like-minded politicians, who want to
see their ideas and principles translated into practice, not associate and coop–
erate with one another? But despite Burke's insight into the importance
of associations and parties, Americans were skeptical
if
not plainly averse to
the idea of organized parties. George Washington hoped for a leadership
that would hold itself above party. As President, Washington desired noth–
ing more than to preside over and even symbolize a government of national
unity. "I was no party man myself," he wrote to Jefferson in 1796, "and the
first wish of my heart was, if parties did exist, to reconcile them." The dan–
ger of parties, Washington explained, is that they "render alien to each other
those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection." The first
President's strategy for governing was consensus, not conflict.
When a policy of his was challenged, Washington charged that such
opposition was the work of a "party," not realizing or not acknowledging
that its supporters, as Richard Hofstadter remarked, also constituted a party.
Even when Washington and other political leaders of the 1790s were
engaged in conflict and factions, they rejected the idea of political parties,
seemingly unaware that they were actually shaping embryonic political par–
ties. At the end of his first term, still believing in a united government and
in his own non-political role, Washington warned that "internal dissen–
sions" were "harrowing and tearing our vitals." His farewell address alerted
citizens to "the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party." His antagonism to
parties mirrored the mentality of his generation.
Even so, the bitter and deep discord within Washington's own cabinet
ultimately evolved into two opposing parties, the Federalists and the
Republicans. Alexander Hamilton, secretary of the treasury, and Thomas
Jefferson, the secretary of state, differed violently over almost everything–
banks, tariffs, fiscal policy, foreign policy, presidential power. Attempting to
mobilize congressional support for the Administration's economic policies,
Hamilton began to form a political party around his fellow Federalists.
Ironically, through his party-building efforts, he unwittingly galvanized the
Republican opposition, which soon surpassed the Federalists in their orga–
nizational and propagandizing skills.
