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Third Party System

The Third Party System was a period in the history of political parties in the United States from the 1850s until the 1890s, which featured profound developments in issues of American nationalism, modernization, and race. This period, the later part of which is often termed the Gilded Age, is defined by its contrast with the eras of the Second Party System and the Fourth Party System.

Not to be confused with Three-party system.

It was dominated by the new Republican Party, which claimed success in saving the Union, abolishing slavery and enfranchising the freedmen, while adopting many Whig-style modernization programs such as national banks, railroads, high tariffs, homesteads, social spending (such as on greater Civil War veteran pension funding), and aid to land grant colleges. While most elections from 1876 through 1892 were extremely close, the opposition Democrats won only the 1884 and 1892 presidential elections (the Democrats also won the popular vote in the 1876 and 1888 presidential elections, but lost the electoral college vote), though from 1875 to 1895 the party usually controlled the United States House of Representatives and controlled the United States Senate from 1879 to 1881 and 1893 to 1895. Some scholars emphasize that the 1876 election saw a realignment and the collapse of support for Reconstruction.[1]


The northern and western states were largely Republican, except for the closely balanced New York, Indiana, New Jersey, and Connecticut. After 1876, the Democrats took control of the "Solid South".[2]

Voter behavior[edit]

As with the preceding Second Party System era, the Third was characterized by intense voter interest, routinely high voter turnout, unflinching party loyalty, dependence on nominating conventions, hierarchical party organizations, and the systematic use of government jobs as patronage for party workers, known as the spoils system. Cities of 50,000 or more developed ward and citywide "bosses" who could depend on the votes of clients, especially recent immigrants. Newspapers continued to be the primary communication system, with the great majority closely linked to one party or the other.[3]

Broad coalitions from each party[edit]

Both parties consisted of broad-based voting coalitions. Throughout the North, businessmen, shop owners, skilled craftsmen, clerks and professionals favored the Republicans, as did more modern, commercially oriented farmers. In the South, the Republicans won strong support from the freedmen (newly enfranchised African Americans), but the party was usually controlled by local whites ("scalawags") and opportunistic Yankees ("carpetbaggers"). The race issue pulled the great majority of white southerners into the Democratic Party as Redeemers.


The Democratic Party was dominated by conservative, pro-business Bourbon Democrats, who usually controlled the national convention from 1868 until their great defeat by William Jennings Bryan in 1896. The Democratic coalition was composed of traditional Democrats in the North (many of them former Copperheads). They were joined by the Redeemers in the South and by Catholic immigrants, especially Irish-Americans and German-Americans. In addition, the party attracted unskilled laborers and hard-scrabble old-stock farmers in remote areas of New England and along the Ohio River valley.[4]

Realignment in the 1850s[edit]

The Republican Party emerged from the great political realignment of the mid-1850s. William Gienapp argues that the great realignment of the 1850s began before the Whig party demise, and was caused not by politicians but by voters at the local level. The central forces were ethno-cultural, involving tensions between pietistic Protestants versus liturgical Catholics, Lutherans and Episcopalians regarding Catholicism, prohibition, and nativism. Various prohibitionist and nativist movements emerged, especially the American Party, based originally on the secret Know Nothing lodges. It was a moralistic party that appealed to the middle-class fear of corruption—identifying that danger with Catholics, especially the recent Irish immigrants who seemed to bring crime, corruption, poverty and bossism as soon as they arrived. Anti-slavery did play a role but it was less important at first. The Know-Nothing party embodied the social forces at work, but its weak leadership was unable to solidify its organization, and the Republicans picked it apart. Nativism was so powerful that the Republicans could not avoid it, but they did minimize it and turn voter wrath against the threat that slave owners would buy up the good farm lands wherever slavery was allowed. The realignment was so powerful because it forced voters to switch parties, as typified by the rise and fall of the Know-Nothings, the rise of the Republican Party, and the splits in the Democratic Party during the transitional period of 1854–1858.[7] The Republican Party was more driven, in terms of ideology and talent; it surpassed the hapless American Party in 1856. By 1858 the Republicans controlled majorities in every Northern state, and hence controlled the electoral votes for president in 1860.[8][9][10]

Ideology[edit]

The ideological force driving the new party was modernization, and opposition to slavery, that anti-modern threat. By 1856 the Republicans were crusading for "Free Soil, Free Labor, Frémont and Victory." The main argument was that a 'Slave Power' had seized control of the federal government and would try to make slavery legal in the territories, and perhaps even in the northern states. That would give rich slave owners the chance to go anywhere and buy up the best land, thus undercutting the wages of free labor and destroying the foundations of civil society. The Democratic response was to countercrusade in 1856, warning that the election of Republican candidate John C. Frémont would produce civil war. The outstanding leader of the Democrats was Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas; he believed that the democratic process in each state or territory should settle the slavery question. When President James Buchanan tried to rig politics in Kansas Territory to approve slavery, Douglas broke with him, presaging the split that ruined the party in 1860. That year, northern Democrats nominated Douglas as the candidate of democracy, while the southern wing put up John Breckinridge as the upholder of the rights of property and of states' rights, which in this context meant slavery. In the South, ex-Whigs organized an ad hoc "Constitutional Union" Party, pledging to keep the nation united on the basis of the Constitution, regardless of democracy, states' rights, property or liberty. The Republicans played it safe in 1860, passing over better-known radicals in favor of a moderate border-state politician known to be an articulate advocate of liberty. Abraham Lincoln made no speeches, letting the party apparatus march the armies to the polls. Even if all three of Lincoln's opponents had formed a common ticket–quite impossible in view of their ideological differences–his 40 percent of the vote was enough to carry the North and thus win the electoral college.[11]

Unionists, or Union Republicans - Republicans who had been Union/federal/Lincoln-aligned throughout the American Civil War

[14]

Radicals, or Radical Republicans - Republicans "who desired to impose severe conditions" on the South prior to their readmission, and/or that insisted that re-enfranchisement of ex-Confederates take a backseat to "negro suffrage" - the stereotypical Radical was from New England or New York, or perhaps the Upper Midwest, and would have been considered a damnedest of Yankees south of the Mason-Dixon (Examples: Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner)

[14]

Conservatives, or Conservative Unionists - Opponents to the Radicals within the Republican Party, who "believed that a conciliatory course should be taken" toward whites of the late rebel states

[14]

Copperheads - "northern Democrats who opposed the War" (Example: Clement Vallandingham)

[14]

War Democrats - "Democrats who joined with the Union Party to put down the Rebellion" (Example: Andy Johnson)

[14]

Southern Unionist - not necessarily a political label, per se, but something like a mirror of the Copperhead: a southerner who supported the U.S. government during war. (Example: , a Whig until the collapse of that party)

Parson Brownlow

Campaigning changes in 1896[edit]

By campaigning tirelessly with over 500 speeches in 100 days, William Jennings Bryan seized control of the headlines in the 1896 election. It no longer mattered as much what the editorial page said—most newspapers opposed him—as long as his speeches made the front page. Financing likewise changed radically. Under the Second and Third Party Systems, parties financed their campaigns through patronage; now civil service reform was undercutting that revenue, and entirely new, outside sources of funding became critical. Mark Hanna systematically told nervous businessmen and financiers that he had a business plan to win the election, and then billed them for their share of the cost. Hanna spent $3.5 million in three months for speakers, pamphlets, posters, and rallies that all warned of doom and anarchy if Bryan should win, and offered prosperity and pluralism under William McKinley. Party loyalty itself weakened as voters were switching between parties much more often. It became respectable to declare oneself an 'independent'.[17]

Third Parties[edit]

Throughout the nineteenth century, third parties such as the Prohibition Party, Greenback Party and the Populist Party evolved from widespread antiparty sentiment and a belief that governance should attend to the public good rather than partisan agendas. Because this position was based more on social experiences than any political ideology, nonpartisan activity was generally most effective on the local level. As third-party candidates tried to assert themselves in mainstream politics, however, they were forced to betray the antiparty foundations of the movement by allying with major partisan leaders. These alliances and the factionalism they engendered discouraged nonpartisan supporters and undermined the third-party movement by the end of the nineteenth century. Many reformers and nonpartisans subsequently lent support to the Republican Party, which promised to attend to issues important to them, such as anti-slavery or prohibition.[18]

Party systems in the United States

American election campaigns in the 19th century

Gilded Age

History of the Democratic Party (United States)

History of the Republican Party (United States)

Political parties in the United States

Harper's Weekly

Elections 1860–1912

"Graphic Witness" caricatures in history

Cartoons, industry, labor, politics, prohibition from Ohio State

Gilded Age & Progressive Era

Puck cartoons

Keppler cartoons

1892 cartoons

Photographs of prominent politicians, 1861–1922; these are pre-1923 and out of copyright