The First Party System dates, depending on who you ask, from 1792 to 1824, more or less from Washington’s second full term as President, to the last of the Founding Presidents, James Monroe. Nearly everything was precedent, as the newly re-created United States established itself as a nation on the global stage.
I say re-created because the United States, as we know it today, was based on a second attempt at forming a framework for national government, known as the Constitution. For about five years prior to that, the Articles of Confederation had bound the several States in something more like a compact, or a league, which ultimately made it more difficult to do anything at the national level; all states had to agree.
Over the three decades or so that followed, many of the debates from the Constitutional Convention were re-hashed in the particulars. For one thing, a Bill of Rights amending the first ten Amendments was swiftly written and ratified, to satisfy concerns some had about individual liberties. For another, Congress, and later political parties, debated and divided in part over the strength of the central, Federal government.
Much of this debate was prompted by international relations. Without a central government, each state essentially had its own relations and dealings with foreign powers, arguably making the not-so United States more vulnerable to being picked apart, playing the states against one another. Each state managed its own affairs, regardless of the benefit or harm to the other states.
Under the Constitutional government, the United States could make treaties and conduct relations as a whole, with representation from the several States to approve laws and treaties, executive power invested in a President to propose and negotiate the same, and an independent judiciary to address legal challenges, should they arise.
In this period, most Presidents were preoccupied with foreign relations. While there were domestic issues at the time, we did not have a tradition of government, let alone Federal government, deeply involved in domestic matters; this was mostly arbitration between states. While the United States was free of the British Empire, they were still the largest trading partner, and at the same many Americans favored France, having helped achieve American independence, and by now undergoing its own anti-monarchical Revolution.
The challenge was that with these two Great Powers at war with one another, the United States was often at odds with both. Furthermore, the crisis of Revolutionary France gave way to Napoleonic France, dragging all of Europe into war and a “Continental System” wherein France essentially controlled all imports and exports for Europe. The British continued to interdict American shipping and impress sailors into British naval service.
Washington dealt with a French envoy who agitated the American populace against Washington and his administration; Adams strived to avoid war with France (the “Quasi-War”) while negotiating in spite of the XYZ affair; Jefferson bucked his party’s principles in authorizing the Louisiana Purchase; Madison had to contend with the War of 1812, and all the public outrage that prompted it; Monroe was a diplomat in France and later the United Kingdom, before taking the reins and contending with the revolutions in South America, and their implications for American foreign policy.
With each of these events, questions arose around the power of the President, and of the Federal government in general. For example, Monroe was keen to build the Cumberland Road, a sort of 19th century interstate, but there was debate about whether Congress could even do that – or levy the taxes required.
Economically, the United States experienced a boom. No longer under mercantilist British policies, the United States could compete on its own terms of trade. Here, there were more roots for dissension: the North and New England favoring trade with the English, due to existing relationships; the South favoring France, many plantation owners having a sour view of the financial institutions they borrowed from; out West, in the nascent frontier, policies around use of the Mississippi River sometimes put them at odds with the Eastern Seaboard states.
While slavery was legal, it was not without contention. During the Constitutional Convention and prior to the Constitution being ratified, the topic of abolishing or at least diminishing slavery had been proposed, and swiftly shut down by southern States who said they would secede if slavery were prohibited. The South depended on enslaved people as industrialized labor. The North was not without stain in America’s original sin; profiting off the trade and insurance policies on slaves. The debate was temporarily settled by the end of this period, with the Missouri Compromise in 1820.
Political parties also arose, despite the efforts of some, and because of the efforts of others. Representative democracy was not entirely new to the Founders, and the idea of parties, or factions as they called them, was seen as anathema to the ideals of the young republic. However, people being as they are, some politicians, notably Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, among others, recognized that to achieve their political goals, they needed to persuade large portions of the electorate to support their position, by any means available. The prevalence of pen names, discursive letters, and outright ad hominem attacks became regular practice, and by the dawn of the nineteenth century, the Democrat-Republican (or just plain “Republican”) party solidified power and dominated the Federal government for decades to come.
Thus, the First Party system both mimics and predicts the present day. Opinions must be swayed; how powerful should the government be? The answers were not obvious then; perhaps they are no more so today.