Originally published in 1953. Between 1789 and 1803, the United States existed as a developing national state, sparsely settled. The de facto precedents of America's nascent political system had not yet been fleshed out by the generation of statesmen who paved its political way. Historians have examined the rise of the party system in US politics by emphasizing the Jeffersonians, who--led by Thomas Jefferson--helped to develop an agrarian voting bloc...