Abstract

Study of party origins has been confused by failure to discriminate between transitory alliances and more durable political formations: i.e., betwftn parties, interest groups, bodies of opinion, and factions. The emergence of the Federalist party out of the Hamiltonian faction was achieved by extensive cultivation of personal associations by the leaders, standardizing political activities and tactics, appealing to public opinion, and developing a partisan ideology. A durable relationship between leaders and followers, allowing co-ordinated activity; standardized political procedures; an ideology; and a comparatively stable combination of interests to which to appeal may be taken as characteristic of parties. The absence of a feudal past in America explains why parties, thus conceived, first arose there