Political parties provided additional elite control

There were no political parties when the constitution was drafted nor during our country's first election a year later. Nor were there political parties in Great Britain at the time. Consequently, political parties were not foreseen nor factored into the tradeoffs and decisions made by the drafters of the Constitution.

In the first Congress of 1789, there were only 26 Senators and 65 members of the House of Representatives. Each chamber met as a group and discussed each issue before their vote. Debating one issue at a time by all of the representatives in a chamber was how the writers of the Constitution expected the legislative decision process to function, not as a competition between two extreme ideologies.

However, though the elites were in control of the nation, they were not unified in their viewpoints or goals. In particular, the northern elites consisting of wealthy bankers and business owners and the southern elites who were mostly wealthy plantation owners continued to fight for control. The first favored a strong federal government and a national bank that they would own privately. The latter favored stronger state governments and no national bank (that could be funded by the elite bankers from Europe) to prevent political and financial domination by the first group. [20]

The first political party

In 1791, within a year after the first election, Alexander Hamilton formed the first political party, the Federalist Party, from his coalition of bankers and large business owners like Robert Morris and himself. Hamilton had founded the Bank of New York just 7 years before in 1784. The new Federalist Party members would help push for the national bank and for the government to pay off the war notes in full that Hamilton, Morris, and most of the founders had purchased for pennies on the dollar. It would also loan money to their businesses to build infrastructure and loan money to the government on which they could collect interest. Accordingly, the bankers and large business owners in the Federalist Party would be in a position to reap huge financial benefits from Hamilton's plan. [21]

Hamilton advocated weak state governments and a strong national government with control over banks, over a standing military, over financial markets, over the economy, over labor, and over the formation of capital. Accordingly, these became the objectives or platform of the first political party.

Washington eventually sided with Hamilton over Jefferson and Hamilton formed the first national bank as the first Secretary of the Treasury. Shortly thereafter, he proposed the purchase of the confederate certificates by the government, giving him, his banking friends, and many of the elite founders a 50-to-1 return on their con. [22]

To Hamilton, strong centralized control over the masses by the elite to protect the business interests of the elite was paramount. He advocated implied powers in the Constitution, meaning that the federal government could do anything that it deemed was expedient that was not specifically prohibited by the Constitution. This gave his political party and the federal government practically unlimited power over the states and the people. [23]

The second, competing political party

Upon seeing the power of the Federalist Party to vote as a block and control the government, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison formed the Democratic-Republican Party to represent and protect the interests of the powerful planters and farmers (the wealthy elite of the south). Jefferson and Madison feared our political system would be subverted by influences of the British aristocracy and their banking elite.

To differentiate themselves, the Democratic-Republican brand became the opposite of the Federalist brand. Accordingly, it was against implied powers, requiring a strict interpretation of the Constitution. It was opposed to a strong President, a permanent army and navy, and the central bank formed by Hamilton. Where the Federalist Party favored Great Britain and respected the aristocracy, the Democratic-Republican Party favored relations with France and respected the French revolutionaries.

Thus began the rule by and the battle between two major political parties with extremely different competing platforms. The competing political parties quickly spread from national politics to every state and within 10 years, state politics were controlled by them as well. [24]

Only ten years after the first party was formed, George Washington warned us against political parties in his farewell speech. [25]

The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of Party are sufficient to make it the interest and the duty of a wise People to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the Public Councils and enfeeble the Public administration. It agitates the Community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. … In Governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged.

The evolution of total control by the parties

In the early days, the elite served directly in government as they had in the colonies. As described previously, political parties were created to give the elite factions control in government. However, it wasn't long before they realized that the parties could also shield them from public scrutiny. While a few may still run for public office, most of the power elite control from behind the scenes through the political parties, campaign financing, and lobbying.

Actually it's a problem of political hierarchy

We have been indoctrinated for thousands of years that hierarchical control by elite rulers is natural and necessary for the good of the people. They have promoted their natural right to be in control in every country under different names regardless of their type of government and political ideology.

Hierarchy is an exploitation, a manipulation of the masses by a small privileged group. The purpose of hierarchy is to funnel power to the privileged group, not to help the masses prosper. Through such power, the elite at the top obtain the majority of wealth or have the power to live in a wealthy manner even in socialist states where the wealth is owned by the state that supposedly represents the people as a group. While hierarchy with its control and abuses may have been universal throughout history, it has never ensured tranquility, secured the blessings of liberty, or effected the happiness of all of the people, as is our declared right.

The American colonists understood hierarchy well as they suffered under the British and colonial hierarchy. The British King and Parliament believed they had the right to control and exploit the colonies. The colonies were their property. They felt that the rebellious citizens were traitors that needed to be punished to keep the peace and ensure the flow of wealth to the British elite.

The colonial rebellion and the Revolutionary War were against elite hierarchy more than British law. [26] Hierarchical control by the elite was the reason the colonists wanted democratic governments in their new, free confederation of states. Their disdain for hierarchy is why they began to rebel against the same abuses by elites under their new American federal and state governments. They protested against the tiny elite social class being entitled to be the rulers because of their wealth.

For this reason, the elite founders realized they needed a stronger federal government and a new constitution to maintain their hierarchical control over the people. The elite were at the top of the social, wealth, and power pyramid. They were not about to surrender their position of power to the masses whom they disdained and scorned.