Talk:Democratic-Republican Party

This was not a left wing party.

Why is the democratic republican party left wing? They are nothing like modern democrats. For one, they supported slavery, which is something dems don't. They also did not support big government. To me the Jefferson party was closer to modern libertarianism than progressivism. 76.137.118.7 (talk) 19:10, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

The Federalist Party supported slavery, and nobody in that Party is notable for having opposed it. Conversely, Jefferson, while in the Virginia legislature, introduced a bill to outlaw slavery. His Vice President, Aaron Burr, did the same during his tenure in the New York legislature. Burr also introduced a bill to bar the government from discriminating based on racial background in any official capacity. He was also an outspoken proponent of the equality of women. I would dare you to find a more left-wing founding father than Aaron Burr, who for all intents and purposes invented the institution that is the Democratic Party as we know it today (and, his then New York based faction is what began calling it the Democratic Party as opposed to the Republican Party). SecASB (talk) 06:39, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

The terms "left wing" and "right wing" originated from the French Revolution. Supporters of the Revolution sat on the left. Opponents sat on the right. The Democratic-Republicans supported the French Revolution. By the most literal of definitions, they were left-wing. The rest of your statements are dubious, but this is really the only thing that bares saying on the topic. --2601:19C:4480:DF90:95DD:C1CA:6929:CE37 (talk) 15:13, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Political spectrum

The hidden comment at the very top of the page says to not add a political spectrum. However, there is a "center-left to left-wing" spectrum in the infobox. One of these should be removed, but I don't know which one. CLYDE ^{TALK TO ME}/_{STUFF DONE} (I will not see your reply if you don't mention me) 23:06, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

IIRC the comment was added this year, and the guy who added it was dragged to ANI over it. Regardless, the sourcing is marginal (one source is a consultant and professor of "instructional leadership"), and it's misleading to have in the infobox, since we know that 60% of mobile readers read no more than the infobox and lead, and won't see this information contextualized. Readers will wrongly interpret this in the context of the modern politics they're familiar with. It promotes assimilation over accommodation (Piaget), which an encyclopedia should avoid. DFlhb (talk) 01:34, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

I think all evidence shows that the Party in question (the Republicans, or the Democrats — as the New York faction under Burr, and Western elements of the Party under his younger allies like Jackson, increasingly called it) was the left-wing party in this particular Party Era.

First, the Federalist were more right-wing economically. Particularly under the policies promoted by Hamilton, they used the government to support the interests of wealthy elites such as bankers. Burr's whole gambit in creating the Manhattan Company, other than ostensibly providing clean drinking water to the seminal tenements in New York, was to undermine the Federalist-dominated banking clique of New York. They used the banking powers the charter granted, which they intentionally snuck through the legislative approval process, to give loans to renters for the purpose of collectively buying small parcels of land outside of the city where land was cheap — so they'd technically be landowners, so they could technically vote (for Burr's slate). Many of the then Federalist in New York at that time were former right-wing monarchists who were rallying under Schuyler, as the previous (pre-"anti-federalist") political identification of "violent Whigs" who Burr sided with had wanted to disenfranchise them for their treason during the revolution.

Second, the Federalist were more right-wing socially. While Jefferson and Burr both introduced bills to eliminate slavery in their respective state legislatures, their opponent Hamilton was a leader in the New York Manumission Society, which stated that slaves were still inherently property and therefore couldn't be freed except by voluntary action by the slaveholders. We see no efforts by prominent Federalist to eliminate slavery. Similarly, Burr being integral to the faction of the Party that eventually emerged victorious, we see that he was pro-immigrant, a proto-feminist who promoted womens' rights, and someone who sponsored bills to promote legal equality regardless of race.

I'd love to expand on any aspect of why the left-right understanding of politics absolutely does apply in this era, but I'll leave it at this for now and encourage debate. SecASB (talk) 05:10, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Infobox title

The title at the top of infoboxes usually contain the official name of whatever organization the infobox is about [ex: Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition (Spanish Inquisition)], so I think at the top of the infobox it should say Republican Party, as that was the name the party actually used. MattiasLikesOxygen (talk) 18:18, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I do think it's possibly confusing to use the term Democratic Republican Party, as that was almost never used in actual history, other than in a few documented cases of local political clubs writing to Jefferson and congratulating him on his election. In this, we see that the Party was already at that time quickly shifting from describing itself as "Republican" to "Democratic." There are other cases still of local Party clubs that only call themselves "Democratic." And while the somewhat dominant Jeffersonian wing of the Party still preferred "Republican" at that time, the Burr faction (which started in New York, but fostered the Western adherents that would culminate in the election of Jackson) quickly adopted the title of "Democratic," and the end of the 'Era of Good Feelings' conceals a split in the Party that ended with the "Democratic" faction being eventually ascendant. SecASB (talk) 06:23, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Martin Van Buren has an RfC

Martin Van Buren has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Emiya1980 (talk) 04:35, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Why was the political position removed?

The political position (which used to say Left-wing) was removed from infobox and I don't know why. not that is needed, but it was perfectly fine to be there, tho Social Liberalism is considered centre to centre-left nowadays and Republicanism is "apolitical", for the time of the political party the description of left-wing is perfectly accurate. 179.125.243.167 (talk) 18:29, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Due to the insistence of GlowstoneUnknown to remove it. ErickTheMerrick (talk) 13:58, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Well, GlowstoneUnknown is just plain wrong. You absolutely can obviously tell that this Party was the left-wing one just based on their attitude regarding the French Revolution versus what the Federalist thought of it, but also on any and every other issue prominent at the time — even with a rather modern lense. They might be overly reductive and think that the anti-federalist heritage of the Party in this timeframe is the same ideological nucleus as the "states rights" argument of the 1860s, but they would be very wrong about that. It's notable that the only reason Lincoln got elected is because the majority of the Democratic Party Convention Delegates in 1860 adopted anti-slavery platform planks at the 1860 Convention, so the southern delegates walked out and formed their own Party to nominate their own pro-slavery Presidential candidate, splitting the vote. SecASB (talk) 05:34, 12 May 2025 (UTC)