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Article: Two are two, and all alone. (America's Political Parties)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- May 18, 1996
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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BACK in the beginning, America hoped it could do without parties. It nonetheless acquired them almost as soon as it was born. One group of men wanted the constitution adopted, the other did not. Result: a Federalist party and an Anti-Federalist party. The Founding Fathers hated this blight on the harmony of their new republic; they thought that party spirit must have entered man's soul, like sin, with Adam's first bite of the apple in the Garden of Eden. Yet parties were indispensable to organise political activity, to select candidates for office, to mobilise voters, and--in a constitutional system that had carefully separated the executive from the legislature--to get ...