IV.

New Political Alignments

Far-reaching changes in the U.S. economy and social structure resulted in the gradual formation of new political alignments within a one-party system. The principal changes behind these developments were westward expansion, the agricultural revolution in the South, and the development of manufacturing and capital accumulation in the North.

The expansion of the country westward led to the development of a large class of pioneer farmers, whose frontier communities represented a type of democratic society never before seen in any country. The agricultural revolution in the Southern states, following the invention of both the cotton gin by Eli Whitney and textile machinery, resulted in the dynamic growth of the slave system that produced cotton. Finally, the wealth and influence of manufacturers, merchants, bondholders, and land speculators in the Northern states grew considerably.

The ideas of limited government that became known as Jeffersonian democracy appealed strongly to the sectional and class interests of the Western frontier and the South, and also to the growing class of urban workers. The policies once advocated by the defunct Federalist Party, however, were still popular with the minority of Americans who favored a more active economic role for the federal government.