History
The Massachusetts Democratic Party and the National Democratic Party trace their roots to the latter half of the 18th century, when politicians forged alliances based on common national interests. In 1792, Thomas Jefferson founded the Democratic-Republican Party, commonly referred to as the “party of the common man.” Jefferson’s new party was adamantly opposed to what it saw as the Federalist Party’s elitist agenda. Jefferson served two consecutive terms as the first Democratic Republican President of the United States beginning in 1800. James Madison, another Democratic-Republican, succeeded Jefferson in 1808, followed by fellow party member James Monroe in 1812. The party was briefly divided during the election of John Quincy Adams in 1824, in which four Democratic candidates ran for office. Andrew Jackson assumed the leadership of the party following this period, and reunified its constituents. Jackson defined the party’s platform and established the Democratic National Convention as a means of organizing and implementing the party’s agenda on a national scale. With consecutive presidential victories in 1828 and 1832, Jackson succeeded in solidifying the Democratic-Republicans as a powerful national political party. The name was simplified to the Democratic Party at the Democratic National Convention of 1844. The Civil War and the question of slavery divided many of the nation’s Democratic Party members. But as the 19th century was ending, the party found a new strength in an old ideal. The Democrats’ long-held suspicions of aristocratic leaders and the wealthy elite struck a chord with immigrants and working class citizens during the early half of the 19th century. This sentiment solidified the party’s ranks in the decades following the Civil War, particularly in Massachusetts, where Irish immigrants, rural farmers, fishermen, and skilled laborers flooded the city of Boston and the surrounding towns. At the same time, the Republican Party had emerged from the Civil War with strong northern support for its anti-slavery stance. As the 20th century unfolded, both parties would strengthen their ranks and form the current two-party system of American politics.
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“You treat world history as a mathematician does mathematics, in which nothing but laws and formulas exist, no reality, no good and evil, no time, no yesterday, no tomorrow, nothing but an eternal, shallow, mathematical present.”
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)
“... that there is no other way,
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“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)