Asses the influence of Political Parties on US government from 1763-1861.
A political party is a political organisation on a large scale that seeks to attain and maintain political power within the government and country. These parties are elected through campaigns in which they publicise their ideologies. Groups on a much smaller scale are often referred to as pressure groups. It is no doubt that both the Political Parties and pressure groups, of this era had a major influence on the US government.
There was times at which when Political parties did not have an influence on government at all since there wasn’t any, an example of this is 1815-1828, which is known as the “era of good feeling”, since there was no political parties, they had died out. Another example is from 1763- the 1790’s there were no political parties, only pressure groups such as the “sons of liberty”. Sons of Liberty was formed after rebellion towards British taxes imposed such as the sugar act, this pressure group had a huge influence since it was their actions like the “Boston tea party” which acted like a catalyst to the declaration of independence, in which the US created its first independent government. However the declaration of independence seemed inevitable after the introduction of taxes and rising tensions between the 13 colonies and Britain, so the sons of liberty were only like a catalyst. Other Pressure groups arose after independence while drafting the constitution such as the federalists and anti federalists, federalists supported the constitution and the anti federalists opposed it. They both had a major influence on the formation of the government. The anti federalists believed that the constitution would give up too much power to the central government and therefore wanted reassurance, in concession they got the bill of rights passed which gave people rights which could never be breached. The federalists had a major influence on the creation of the government they got the constitution passed which outlined what powers government will have and what branches there will be. During this period even though there weren’t any political parties, the pressure groups had a major influence on the creation of the government and its powers.
