Analyze the development of political parties in the United States since the Founding by discussing each of the five distinctive party systems prior to the current one in American history.In your essay,be sure to highlight the origins of today's two major political parties.

There are five components to this question.
a.The First Party System: Federalists and Jeffersonian RepublicAnswer: The first party system emerged in the 1790s and pitted the Federalists,who favored a strong national government,against the Jeffersonian Republicans,who favored a weak national government.The Federalists disappeared after the War of 1812 which led to charges of treason against the party.From this point until the 1830s,America had only one political party,the Jeffersonian Republicans,who came to be known as the Democrats.
b.The Second Party System: Democrats and Whigs: During the 1830s,groups opposing Andrew Jackson united to form the Whig Party,giving rise to the second American party system.By 1856 the Whig Party had all but disintegrated under the strain of slavery,and many Whig politicians and voters,along with antislavery Democrats,joined the new Republican Party,which pledged to ban slavery from the western territories.
c.The Civil War and Post-Civil War Party System: Republicans and Democrats: After the Civil War,some congressional Republicans sought to convert the South into a Republican bastion through a program of Reconstruction that granted the right to vote to newly freed slaves.This Reconstruction program collapsed in the 1870s.With the end of Reconstruction,the former Confederate states regained control of their internal affairs.Throughout the South,African Americans were deprived of the right to vote.From the end of the Civil War to the 1890s,the Republican Party remained the party of the North,with strong business and middle-class support,while the Democrats were the party of the South,with support also from working-class and immigrant groups.
d.The System of 1896: Republicans and Democrats: During the 1890s,profound and rapid social and economic changes led to the emergence of a variety of protest parties,including the Populist Party.In 1896,the Populist Party effectively merged with the Democrats but the Republicans still won a resounding electoral victory.For the next 36 years,the Republicans were the nation's majority party.
e.The New Deal Party System: Reversal of Fortune: From the perspective of millions of Americans,the Republican Party did not do enough to promote economic recovery during the Great Depression.In 1932,Americans elected Franklin Roosevelt and a Democratic Congress.Roosevelt revitalized the Democratic Party around a nucleus of unionized workers,upper-middle-class intellectuals and professionals,southern farmers,Jews,Catholics,and African Americans,the so-called New Deal coalition that made the Democrats the nation's majority party for the next 36 years.The New Deal coalition was strained during the 1960s by conflicts over civil rights and the Vietnam War.These schisms provided an opportunity for the GOP,which returned to power in 1968.