Week 7 essays Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Week 7 essays - Essay Example It must be emphasized that their differences had main ideological basis. Americans of the Revolutionary and the constitutional period wrestled with a†¦question: does every increase in the powers of the government entails a loss of liberty for the governed? Thomas Jefferson believed that it did. His †¦rival Alexander Hamilton believed it did not. 1 It was due to this opposing approach towards democracy that something that the founding fathers had missed or rather disregarded at the Convention of 1787 was thrust to the forefront. It was this rivalry of differing political ideals that lead to the formation of the two party system in the United States. that such an arrangement had its pit falls, and keeping these inherent dangers and Thomas Jefferson with a number of like-minded politicians, like James Madison, who likewise were fed up with the conservative Hamiltonian stance in United States politics, in the year 1794 formed the Democratic Republican party (which is the precursor of the present Democratic Party and was formally named so under Andrew Jackson in 1826). The ideological difference between the two parties stemmed from the character of Alexander Hamilton who was a through and through Conservative Right-Wing politician. In lay man terms he stood for status quo, which by extension meant among many other things the continuation of slavery. Thomas Jefferson on the other hand was a Liberal Left-Wing politician. Jefferson believed in the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity, and these ideas were instrumental in the French Revolution of 1789. It would not be wrong to say that Hamilton was a reactionary while Jefferson a progressive politician. This rift between the two political ideologies was the main cause behind the famous 12th Amendment which was passed in the year 1804 and laid down the foundations of the multi-party system in the United States. Further, Thomas Jefferson’s