| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Gerald Leonard. The Invention of Party Politics: Federalism, Popular Sovereignty, and Constitutional Development in Jacksonian Illinois. (Studies in Legal History.) Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 2002. Pp. x, 328. $45.00.

In this book, Gerald Leonard asks why mass political parties arose in Jacksonian America and comes up with some exciting new answers. Party formation was not preordained by the U.S. Constitution, whose authors shunned direct popular governance. Nor was it propelled by divisive issues or socioeconomic cleavages, since these were around long before parties began to exploit them. Leonard argues that deep antipathy to parties did not die with the founding generation but remained strong through the 1830s, the very years of party building. Parties developed not because anyone wanted them but to fill the constitutional vacuum left by the collapse of elite government. By the 1820s, it was established that the people should rule—but how? Through what mechanism? The Constitution offered no procedure for selecting presidential candidates. Yet voters still identified standing political organizations with selfish and subversive faction. Hence they shunned such regimenting devices as conventions, platforms, formal nominations, and party patronage.

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