HISTORICAL NOTES: Three’s A Crowd

As every U.S. schoolboy knows, and some of his elders forget, the two-party system is not as old as the Liberty Bell.* But, as every practicing politician knows, no third party has seriously challenged the two major parties since the Civil War.

In the nation’s clamorous early years, parties grew, split and withered like excited amoebas. Hamilton’s Federalists and Jefferson’s Republicans faded away, and the Whigs and the Democrats took their place. Splinter parties were formed on such frenetic issues as a fanatical prejudice against Masons (the Anti-Masons), or a dislike for foreign-born citizens (the Americans or “Know-Nothings,” who carried six states in 1854, captured 22% of the popular vote in 1856 for Millard Fillmore). In 1844, the anti-slavery Liberty Party, with a piddling 62,300 votes, drew enough Whig support in New York to swing the state and the presidency to Democrat James Polk. Four years later, the Free Soil Party did the same thing for Whig Zachary Taylor.

Since the Civil War and the rise of the Republicans as an anti-slavery coalition, third parties have made much fuss, but to little effect. They have swung elections for others, have never been able to do much for themselves. They have elected Congressmen, a handful of Senators, but never a President.

Bull Moosers. The best try was made by the Progressives of 1912. Ex-President Teddy Roosevelt thought better of his resolution not to seek a third term, unlimbered his big stick and set out after the scalp of his hand-picked successor, William Howard Taft. Declaring that he “felt like a bull moose,” Roosevelt shrilly attacked “moneyed privilege” and “special interests,” polled 4,126,020 popular and 88 electoral votes to Taft’s 3,483,922 popular and eight electoral. But Democrat Woodrow Wilson, with a popular vote of 6,286,214—less than Taft and Roosevelt combined—walked away with 435 electoral votes.

In 1924, another Progressive Party, led by Senator Robert (“Old Bob”) La Follette and championing public control of railroads, power, and natural resources, polled nearly 5,000,000 popular votes, but captured only Wisconsin’s 13 electoral votes. The Progressives temporarily displaced the Democrats as the second party in eleven Western states.

Slivers & Martyrs. Other third parties have been more successful in nonpresidential years. The Greenback Party, which clamored for cheap money, elected 15 Congressmen in the off year of 1878, but could garner only 307,306 votes for its presidential candidate in 1880. The Populists of 1890, riding a storm of discontent among bankrupt farmers and laborers (“The makers of clothes are underfed; the makers of food are underclothed”), elected nine Representatives and four Senators, but could poll only 1,000,000 votes in 1892 for James B. Weaver.

There were other parties, most of them sliver-sized. The Prohibition Party has nominated a candidate for President ever since its formation in 1869, the Socialists since 1892. From 1900 to 1920, the Socialists’ candidate was Eugene V. Debs, “martyr” of the Pullman strike. He polled 919,799 votes in 1920 (when he was in jail for sedition), won no electoral votes.

Twice the Republicans have split to form pseudo-third parties. In 1872, the “Liberal Republicans” denounced the Grant Administration (“Turn the Rascals Out”), nominated Horace Greeley, whom the Democrats also endorsed. The Mugwumps of 1884, for much the same reasons, deserted James G. Elaine and helped elect Democrat Grover Cleveland.

The most recent third party (besides such hardy perennials as the Communists and the post-Debs Socialists) was the demagogic Union Party formed by a coalition of Coughlinites, Townsendites and Gerald L. K. Smith’s “Share the Wealthers,” which polled 882,479 votes in 1936 and then disappeared.

* The framers of the Constitution did not contemplate a two-party system. They set up the electoral college as an assembly of the nation’s ablest men who were to pick the President by independent decision. The man receiving the most votes would become President, the runner-up Vice President. In 1804, the Constitution was amended to require separate votes for the two offices. Originally, state legislatures picked the electors, but by 1828 all states (except South Carolina) had authorized their election by popular ballot.