Anti-Administration party
The Anti-Administration party was an informal political faction in the United States led by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson that opposed policies of then Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in the first term of U.S. president George Washington. It was not an organized political party, but an unorganized faction. Most members had been Anti-Federalists in 1788, when they opposed ratification of the U.S. Constitution. However, the situation was fluid, with members joining and leaving.
This article is about the early American political faction. For the general concept, see Opposition (politics).
Although contemporaries often referred to Hamilton's opponents as "Anti-Federalists", that term is now seen as imprecise since several Anti-Administration leaders supported ratification, including Virginia Representative James Madison. He joined former Anti-Federalists to oppose Hamilton's financial plans in 1790. William Maclay, a leader of the faction in the Senate, used in his Congressional diary the term "Republican".
After Jefferson took leadership of the opposition to Hamilton in 1792, the faction became a formal party, Jefferson's Republican Party, which is often called the Democratic-Republican Party by historians and political scientists.