1. I use the term “elite” to refer to politicians. I use the term “class” to refer to economic groups. Post-revolutionary politicians were not the landed and urban elite often referred to in the democratization literature. A key feature of post-revolutionary politics was the election to state legislatures of men of moderate wealth who replaced the wealthy few as the dominant force in American politics. See Main, Jackson Turner, “Government by the People: The American Revolution and the Democratization of the Legislatures,” William and Mary Quarterly 23 (1966): 404–406Google Scholar and Wood, Gordon S., The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York: Vintage, 1992), 87Google Scholar.

2. Schwartz, Barry, George Washington: the Making of an American Symbol (New York: Free Press, 1987), 193Google Scholar; Kruman, Marc W., “The Second American Party System and the Transformation of Revolutionary Republicanism,” Journal of the Early Republic 12 (1992): 511–512Google Scholar.

3. By 1825, prior to the advent of the mass party system, “every state but Rhode Island, Virginia, and Louisiana had achieved universal manhood suffrage.” Wood, Radicalism of the American Revolution, 294. For a comprehensive account of the broadening franchise in this period, see Keyssar, Alexander, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2000)Google Scholar.

4. By discourse, I mean a species of talk whose logic legitimates some practices and disqualifies others within a given polity.

5. The key texts on the party-antiparty paradox include Marshall, Lynn L., “The Strange Stillbirth of the Whig Party” American Historical Review 72 (1967): 445–468Google Scholar; Wallace, Michael, “Changing Concepts of Party in the United States: New York, 1815–1828,” American Historical Review 74 (1968): 453–491Google Scholar; Hofstadter, Richard, The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780–1840 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969)Google Scholar; Major Wilson, “Republicanism and the Idea of Party in the Jacksonian Period,” Journal of the Early Republic 8: 419–442; Kruman, “The Second American Party System”; Waldstreicher, David, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776–1820 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Formisano, Ronald P., “The ‘Party Period’ Revisited,” Journal of American History 86 (1999): 93–120Google Scholar; Voss-Hubbard, Mark, “The ‘Third Party Tradition’ Reconsidered: Third Parties and American Public Life, 1830–1900,” Journal of American History 86 (1999): 121–150Google Scholar; Leonard, Gerald, The Invention of Party Politics: Federalism, Popular Sovereignty, and Constitutional Development in Jacksonian Illinois (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

6. Schattschneider, E. E., Party Government (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1942), 1Google Scholar; Key, V. O., Southern Politics (New York: Vintage, 1949), xGoogle Scholar; Dahl, Robert A., Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1971), 8Google Scholar. For others who employ Dahl's assumptions, see, for instance, O'Donnell, Guillermo and Schmitter, Philippe C., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986)Google Scholar, 74n2 and Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Stephens, Evelyne Huber, and Stephens, John D., Capitalist Development and Democracy (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1992)Google Scholar, 10, 314n5.

7. Moore, Barrington Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966), 418Google Scholar. For other elite-driven approaches, see also O'Donnell and Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule; Karl, Terry Lynn, “Dilemmas of Democratization in Latin America,” Comparative Politics 23 (1990): 1–21Google Scholar; and Peeler, John, Building Democracy in Latin America (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998)Google Scholar.

8. Rueschemeyer et al., Capitalist Development and Democracy, 8. For another non-elite-driven approach, see also Therborn, Göran, “The Travail of Latin American Democracy,” New Left Review 113–114 (1979): 80Google Scholar, 85.

9. Collier, Ruth Berins, Paths toward Democracy: the Working Class and Elites in Western Europe and South America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999)Google Scholar. For other synthetic approaches, see also Winn, Peter, Weavers of Revolution: The Yarur Workers and Chile's Road to Socialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986)Google Scholar and Paige, Jeffery M., Coffee and Power: Revolution and the Rise of Democracy in Central America (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

10. Rueschemeyer et al., Capitalist Development and Democracy, 9, 287.

11. Rueschemeyer et al., Capitalist Development and Democracy, 288; Lipset, Seymour Martin and Rokkan, Stein, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-national Perspectives (New York: Free Press, 1967)Google Scholar.

12. Paige, Coffee and Power; O'Donnell and Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, 40–41, 57–58.

13. Aldrich, John H., Why Parties?: the Origin and Transformation of Political Parties in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 28, 47–50, 97, 100–125.

14. Shefter, Martin, Political Parties and the State: The American Historical Experience (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994)Google Scholar, 5, 21.

15. Lipset and Rokkan, Party Systems and Voter Alignments, 5; Rokkan, Stein, State Formation, Nation-building, and Mass politics in Europe: the Theory of Stein Rokkan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 302–305Google Scholar. Duverger and the institutional school represent a fourth approach that focuses on the importance of electoral rules in shaping the character of party systems. Duverger, Maurice, Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State (London: Methuen, 1954)Google Scholar. However, institutionalists are silent on the origins of parties per se. They are better at addressing what kind of parties and how many parties.

16. Aldrich, Why Parties?, 100–102.

17. Hofstadter, The Idea of a Party System, 16, 18–23, 24, 252; Wilson, “Republicanism and the Idea of Party,” 433; Leonard, Invention of Party Politics, 9, 11, 17.

18. Wallace, “Changing Concepts of Party in the United States,” 479.

19. Jensen, Richard, The winning of the Midwest: social and political conflict, 1888–1896 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1971)Google Scholar, 11–12, 164–174; Baker, Jean H., Affairs of Party: the Political Culture of Northern Democrats in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), 287–291Google Scholar; Baker, Jean H., “From Belief into Culture: Republicanism in the Antebellum North,” American Quarterly 37 (1985): 545–549Google Scholar; Watts, Steven, The Republic Reborn: War and the Making of Liberal America, 1790–1820 (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), 88–92Google Scholar; Kruman, “The Second American Party System,” 523–525.

20. I have done my best here to show how my claims about martial discourse in Chicago and Tuscaloosa scale up to claims about national party discipline. For instance, I have tried to bring out the continuities in the use of the discourse by national elites, local elites, and local voters, but the state and regional levels of analysis are inevitably absent. My compromise position has been to complement a broad national-level overview with a more fine-grained analysis of discursive dynamics on the ground.

21. Cornell, Saul, The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788–1828 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Robertson, Andrew W., “Voting Rites and Voting Acts: Electioneering Ritual, 1790–1820,” in Beyond the Founders: New Approaches to the Political History of the Early American Republic, eds. Pasley, Jeffrey L., Robertson, Andrew W., and Waldstreicher, David (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press: 2004), 67–68Google Scholar. For a source on newspapers as party organs, see Starr, Paul, The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications (New York: Basic Books: 2004)Google Scholar.

22. Nichols, Roy Franklin, The Disruption of American Democracy (New York: Macmillan, 1948), 8Google Scholar; Gienapp, William E., The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852–1856 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 6Google Scholar; Leonard, Invention of Party Politics, 9.

23. Formisano, Ronald P., The Birth of Mass Political Parties, Michigan, 1827–1861 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971)Google Scholar, 4, 15, 22–23. See also McCormick, Richard P., The Second American Party System: Party Formation in the Jacksonian Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966)Google Scholar and Leonard, Invention of Party Politics, 10.

24. For the use of counterfactual reasoning in the social sciences, see Weber, Max, From Max Weber: essays in sociology, ed. Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. Wright (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946)Google Scholar, 166, 171, 180; Zeitlin, Maurice, The civil wars in Chile, or, The bourgeois revolutions that never were (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 18Google Scholar; Kimeldorf, Howard, Reds or Rackets? The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988), 3Google Scholar; Griffin, Larry, “Narrative, Event-Structure Analysis, and Causal Interpretation in Historical Sociology,” American Journal of Sociology 98 (1993): 1101Google Scholar; Desai, Manali, “The Relative Autonomy of Party Practices: A Counterfactual Analysis of Left Party Ascendancy in Kerala, India, 1934–1940,” American Journal of Sociology 108 (2002): 626Google Scholar.

25. Sewell, William H. Jr., Work and revolution in France: The language of labor from the old regime to 1848 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 2Google Scholar. See also Calhoun, Craig, “The Radicalism of Tradition: Community Strength or Venerable Disguise and Borrowed Language?” American Journal of Sociology, 88 (1983): 886–914Google Scholar; Somers, Margaret, “Narrativity, Narrative Identity, and Social Action: Rethinking English Working Class Formation,” Social Science History 16 (1992): 591–629Google Scholar; Thompson, E. P., “The Moral Economy of the Crowd,” in Customs in Common: Studies in Tradition and Popular Culture (New York: New Press, 1991), 185–258Google Scholar.

26. See, for example, Bailyn, Bernard, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967)Google Scholar; White, Richard, The middle ground: Indians, empires, and republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

27. White, The middle ground, x.

28. Althusser, Louis, “Ideology and Ideological States Apparatuses: Notes Towards an Investigation,” in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (London: Monthly Review Press, 2001 [1969]), 174Google Scholar.

29. Dunn, Susan, Jefferson's Second Revolution: the Election Crisis of 1800 and the Triumph of Republicanism (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004), 214–215Google Scholar; Ferling, John, Adams vs. Jefferson: the Tumultuous Election of 1800 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 201Google Scholar; Aldrich, John H., “The Election of 1800: The Consequences of the First Change in Party Control,” in Establishing Congress: the removal to Washington, D.C. and the election of 1800, eds. Bowling, Kenneth R. and Kennon, Donald R. (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2005), 26Google Scholar; Larson, Edward J., A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign (New York: Free Press, 2007), 270Google Scholar.

30. Weisberger, Bernard A., America Afire: Jefferson, Adams, and the Revolutionary Election of 1800 (New York: William Morrow, 2000), 29Google Scholar.

31. Monroe, James, The Autobiography of James Monroe, ed. Brown, Stuart Gerry (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1959), 52Google Scholar.

32. Goodman, Paul, “The First American Party System,” in The American Party Systems: Stages of Political Development, eds. Chambers, William Nisbet and Burnham, Walter Dean (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), 61Google Scholar.

33. Washington, George, “Farewell address,” in A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789–1902 (Vol. I), eds. Richardson, James D. and the Joint Committee on Printing, United States Senate (Washington, DC: Bureau of National Literature and Art, 1904), 217–218Google Scholar.

34. Wilentz, Sean, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (New York: Norton, 2005), 62–64Google Scholar.

35. Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy, 64; Jefferson, Thomas, “To James Madison. Monticello May 26. 1795,” in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 28, 1 January 1794 to 20 February 1796, ed. Catanzariti, John (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2000), 359Google Scholar.

36. Grodzins, Morton, “Political Parties and the Crisis of Succession in the United States: The Case of 1800,” in Political Parties and Political Development, eds. LaPalombara, Joseph and Weiner, Myron (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), 310–311Google Scholar; Sharp, James Roger, American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993), 12–13Google Scholar; Ferling, Adams vs. Jefferson, 108–111; Adams, John, “To James Lloyd. Quincy, January, 1815,” in The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States (Vol. X), ed. Adams, Charles Francis (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1969), 112Google Scholar.

37. Sharp, American Politics in the Early Republic, 12.

38. Dunn, Jefferson's Second Revolution, 196–213; Ferling, Adams vs. Jefferson, 164–165, 172–173, 176, 192–193.

39. Grodzins, “Political Parties,” 319; Sharp, American Politics in the Early Republic, 274–275; Dunn, Jefferson's Second Revolution, 206–207, 209–210.

40. Jefferson, Thomas, “From Thomas Jefferson. Washington Feb. 18. 1801,” in The Papers of James Madison (Volume 17, 31 March 1797–3 March 1801), ed. Mattern, David B. (Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 1991), 467Google Scholar; Madison, James, “To Thomas Jefferson. Feby. 28. 1801,” in The Papers of James Madison (Volume 17, 31 March 1797–3 March 1801), ed. Mattern, David B. (Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 1991), 475Google Scholar; Dunn, Jefferson's Second Revolution, 213; Sharp, American Politics in the Early Republic, 275.

41. Sharp, American Politics in the Early Republic, 10; Hamilton, Alexander, “To Washington, Aug. 10, 1796,” in The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Syrett, Harold C. (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1974), 298Google Scholar; Jefferson, Thomas, “The Anas. 1791–1806. Selections. February 4, 1818,” in Writings (New York: The Library of America, 1984), 672–673Google Scholar; Goodman, “The First American Party System,” 57; Hofstadter, The Idea of a Party System, 8; Grodzins, “Political Parties,” 318.

42. Goodman, “The First American Party System,” 86–87; Ferling, Adams vs. Jefferson, 85, 211–215; Hamilton, Alexander, “To Oliver Wolcott, Junior, New York Decr. 16. 1800,” in The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Syrett, Harold C. (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1974), 257Google Scholar; Dunn, Jefferson's Second Revolution, 86–87; Howe, Daniel Walker, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 95Google Scholar; Aldrich, “The Election of 1800,” 28.

43. Dangerfield, George, The Era of Good Feelings (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1952)Google Scholar, xi, 86–88, 98–99; Wilentz, Rise of American Democracy, 184.

44. Monroe, James, “First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1817,” in James Monroe, 1758–1831: Chronology-Documents-Bibliographical Aids, ed. Elliot, Ian (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana Publications, 1969), 32–33Google Scholar; Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 92–94; Dangerfield, Era of Good Feelings, 100, 101–102, 122, 160; Ammon, Harry, James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity (New York: McGraw Hill, 1971)Google Scholar, 380–381, 384–385; Adams, John Quincy, “Jan. 8, 1820,” in The Diary of John Quincy Adams, 1794–1845, ed. Nevins, Allan (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1951), 223Google Scholar.

45. Ammon, James Monroe, 382, 384, 387; Adams, “Jan. 8, 1820,” 223.

46. Dangerfield, Era of Good Feelings, 172–174.

47. Dangerfield, Era of Good Feelings, 176–179, 188; Ammon, James Monroe, 462–464, 471; Lenner, Andrew C., The Federal Principles in American Politics, 1790–1833 (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001)Google Scholar, 114, 123–124; Wilentz, Rise of American Democracy, 205–207, 209, 217; Clay, Henry, “To Jonathan Russell, Washington 10 h. April 1820,” in The Papers of Henry Clay, Volume 2, The Rising Statesman, 1815–1820, ed. Hopkins, James F. (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1982), 819Google Scholar.

48. Dangerfield, Era of Good Feelings, 237, 242; Ammon, James Monroe, 445, 449–450; Lenner, Federal Principles, 124, 126–127, 130–134, 137–138; Wilentz, Rise of American Democracy, 219, 231–232.

49. Clay, Henry, “To Adam Beatty, Washington, January 22, 1820,” in The Papers of Henry Clay, Volume 2, The Rising Statesman, 1815–1820, ed. Hopkins, James F. (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1982), 766Google Scholar; Ammon, James Monroe, 455; Lenner, Federal Principles, 137–138.

50. Adams, “Jan. 8, 1820,” 224.

51. Van Buren, Martin, Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States (New York: A. M. Kelley, 1867), 3Google Scholar; Ammon, James Monroe, 459; Watson, Harry, Liberty and Power: the Politics of Jacksonian America (New York: Noonday Press, 1990), 81Google Scholar; Wilentz, Rise of American Democracy, 252.

52. Robertson, “Voting Rites and Voting Acts,” 61, 69, 71, 74; Wiebe, Robert H., The Opening of American Society: From the Adoption of the Constitution to the Eve of Disunion (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984), 103Google Scholar; Jean Baker, “From Belief into Culture,” 547; Patchell, Edward, “Edward Patchell to Andrew Jackson. Pittsburg [sic], August 7, 1824,” in Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, Volume III, 1820–1828, ed. Bassett, John Spencer (New York: Kraus Reprint Co, 1969), 262–264Google Scholar.

53. Hofstadter, Idea of a Party System, 10, 18–23, 33–34; Wilson, “Republicanism and the Idea of Party,” 423–424, 430.

54. Hofstadter overstates the irreconcilability of Bolingbroke's theory of party on the one hand and those of Edmund Burke and Van Buren on the other. The data suggest that Van Buren selectively exploited the defensive prerogative of Bolingbroke republicanism to justify permanent party organization. Van Buren, Inquiry, 5, 422; Van Buren, Martin, “Martin Van Buren to Jackson. London, October 11, 1831,” in Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, Volume IV, 1829–1832, ed. Bassett, John Spencer (New York: Kraus Reprint Co, 1969), 355Google Scholar; Van Buren, Autobiography, 512.

55. Kruman, “Second American Party System,” 524; Watts, The Republic Reborn, 92.

56. Clay, Henry, “To William B. Lawrence, Lexington, November 21, 1830,” in The Papers of Henry Clay, Volume 8, Candidate, Compromiser, Whig, March 5, 1829–December 31, 1836, ed. Seager, Robert II (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1984), 300–301Google Scholar.

57. Jackson, Andrew, “To Martin Van Buren, Washington, November 18, 1832,” in Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, Volume IV, 1829–1832, ed. Bassett, John Spencer (New York: Kraus Reprint Co., [1928] 1969), 489Google Scholar.

58. Buchanan, Lamont, Ballot for Americans: a pictorial history of American elections and electioneering with the top political personalities, 1789–1956 (New York: Dutton, 1956), 26Google Scholar.

59. For the use of banners as a data source for subaltern subjectivity, see Wilentz, Sean, Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984)Google Scholar.

60. The 1824 electoral returns for Illinois and Clark County were retrieved from Tufts University Digital Collection and Archives, “A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns 1787–1825,” http://elections.lib.tufts.edu/aas_portal/index.xq (accessed 9 Jan. 2009). Note that in 1820, Chicago was part of Clark County. Cook County was organized in 1831. The 1824 electoral returns for Alabama and Tuscaloosa County are from the Alabama Secretary of State, “Election files - state and national, 1823-ongoing,” (Montgomery, AL: Office of the Secretary of State, State of Alabama, 1823-ongoing), housed at the Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery. The 1844 electoral returns for Illinois and Cook County are from the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, UNITED STATES HISTORICAL ELECTION RETURNS, 1824–1968 [Computer file], Study 1 Part 0057: Election Returns for Illinois, 1824–1878 (Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, 1999). For the 1844 electoral returns for Alabama and Tuscaloosa County, see the Tuscaloosa Democratic Gazette 28 Nov. 1844. The voting age white male population was extrapolated from U.S. Census data in ICPSR Study 3 by subtracting the number of free white males under 20 years of age from the total number of free white males. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, HISTORICAL, DEMOGRAPHIC, ECONOMIC, AND SOCIAL DATA: THE UNITED STATES, 1790–1970 [Computer file], Study 3 (Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, 197?). It should be noted that while the voting age in this period was 21, the number of 20-year-old free white men is likely to have been offset by the increase in population in the four years between the decennial census and the election in each case.

61. Benson, Lee, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy: New York as a Test Case (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 27Google Scholar; Formisano, The Birth of Mass Political Parties, 55. On the class side of the debate, see for instance, Thornton, J. Mills III, Politics and Power in a Slave Society: Alabama, 1800–1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978)Google Scholar; Ashworth, John, ‘Agrarians’ & ‘Aristocrats’: Party Political Ideology in the United States, 1837–1846 (London: Royal Historical Society; Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Sellers, Charles G., The Market Revolution: Jacksonian American, 1815–1846 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

62. Aldrich, Why Parties?; Martin Shefter, Political Parties and the State; Schlesinger, Joseph A., Ambition and Politics: Political Careers in the United States (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966)Google Scholar; Schlesinger, Joseph A., Political Parties and the Winning of Office (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991)Google Scholar.