elephants and donkeys

Who's ever heard of red elephants and blue donkeys ? Every American has.

Elephants and donkeys are republicans and democrats. This article is a learning tool and looks into the evolution of both of these political parties of the USA. If you vote in America or in any free country, reading about the United States blue party and red party of America might make your electoral ballot choices more meaningful to yourself and to your country.

This page will definitely not cover the details of the bigger story of American political evolution and it is as accurate as per how we understand it at this time.

Just to break the ice, let's just mention a cynical view of American politics. In mythology the animals are often presented as half this and half that. In a few thousand years from now someone might remember an old legend about the Hell-a-phantass which was a giant purple monster found on the North American continent. The monster eventually devides into a red elephant and a blue donkey. In that time such a legend will have all types of conspiracy theorists talking.

But let's get serious. What about Democratic Rebublicans?  

In the early 1790's Alexander Hamilton is Treasury Secretary and the founding father of the Federalist Party which controlled the federal government until 1801. Major supporters of Hamilton had been mostly businessmen and Urban bankers. George Washington the first president of the United States had been sympathetic to the Federalists but remained independent of their fiscal policies. John Adams, the second American president however, presents himself as a Federalist.

The Federalist policies marked in the Jay Treaty which include banking policies and relations with the British are highly opposed by people like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison who have put their political devotion in a movement which they call " Republicans ". Historians of political science refer to the movement as the " Democratic-Republican Party " , or the " Jeffersonian Republican Party ".

The Jefferson movement was a means of moving the spirit of America away from the Federalists agenda which they deemed a potential threat of returning to the ways of monarchial British rule. Republicans of Jefferson's time denounced the national bank system implemented by Hamilton claiming that it was unconstitutional. A vote for the Democratic Republican party meant a vote for reforming the economic and foreign policies of the Hamiltonian Federalists.

New elections came and Jefferson wins the voice of America and thus moves the spirit of America towards the Republican agenda. Part of the Democratic Republican package that the voter bought could be termed the Yeoman Farmer clause. This was a political promise of giving primary consideration to the small but prosperous person or journeyman instead of to the bankers, aristocratic industrialists, rich mercantilists, and elite investors.

The republicans were never about a government that supports a welfare state. Ideologically they represented hard work ethics and successful self appreciation in competitive markets both inside America and on the foreign markets.

"We the people", liked the idea of Democratic Republicanism so much that the votes just kept coming and they ruled constitutional America through many presidencies. The ideologies of the Federalists went the way of the DoDo birds by 1820. However, the democratic republican family in the House of Jefferson, like any family, became disgruntled about issues and began dividing.

Up until the late 1700's the British ruled the New England colonies. Alexander Hamilton was born in either 1755 or 1757 in the British West Indies capital of Nevis. His father is James Alexander Hamilton and his mother is Rachel Lavien. James separates from Rachel in a story that is too long for the purpose of this elephants and donkeys story so we leave it at that.

Alexander Hamilton has a brother named James. Rachel attempts to raise the boys in Christiansted, a town on St. Croix in the Virgin Islands which at this time is a colony of the Dutch. However she passes away and Alexander Hamilton's faith is left in the hands of people who find means of educating him.

He shows a talent for writing and is sent off to New Jersey via Boston to study grammar. He ends up at Princeton University ( College of New Jersey ) then at Columbia University ( King's College in New York City). He is still not yet twenty years old and showing interest in political sciences. He is witnessing the political struggles of the Loyalists and the early American Revolutionaries. And he was writing and publishing for the cause of the Revolutionary albeit he was opposed to mob tactics against Loyalists who sided with the present form of government.

He becomes a lieutenant colonel answering to George Washington and becomes Chief of Staff with the responsibility of handling letters to the most powerful offices in Washington's court. Hamilton later becomes a field commander and fights at Yorktown where British military operations in North America effectively end.

Perhaps on the merits of his battle heroics, in 1782 he is elected as the New York representative of the Congress of the Confederation where he becomes a big supporter of Robert Morris and his staff who deal in financing the Confederation.

America 1776. Until 1775 the American was either a disgruntled Colonial American or a loyal servant of the lords of the British Empire and of the present governing powers of the British colonies. And to the Loyalists, God Save the King, the old anthem of the red ensign flag, continued to be good enough propaganda. So, why change a good thing. After all, what could be wrong with the Colonial American administration out of London, England.

But what of these Whigs, Rebels, Revolutionaries, Patriots even. They want to be free Americans and they present a problem to us Loyalist Tories.

There is nothing like a good war to settle the score. Hence the bayonnets and canons come out and the American Revolutionary War begins.

It ends with the Battle of Yorktown when the British lords say whoa to their cannons.

That's the beauty of evolution. Even in politics, it is always a " to be continued " story.

This story called elephants and donkeys is to be continued...

First update - Burgess - Thoughts on Thomas Jefferson and the House of Freemen

Second update - What the Fulk - a king of jerusalem set up on the border of the Levant between the east and the west - Are the Fulk looking to fight for freedom or are the looking to monopolize commerce and politics ?