Political parties are the basis of the American political system. Curiously, the Constitution makes no provisions for political parties nor for their role as the vehicle by which candidates for public office are proposed to the voters (Katz).
At the national level, the United States employs a two-party system that has remained remarkably durable throughout the nation's history, even though rival national parties have appeared and disappeared from the political scene. The Federalists, for example, who rallied around President George Washington, disappeared slowly after 1800; and the Whig Party, which arose in the 1830s in opposition to President Andrew Jackson, a Democrat, collapsed two decades later. Today, the Democratic Party, which traces its origins back to the nation's third president, Thomas Jefferson, and the Republican Party, founded in 1854, continue to dominate politics at the federal, state and local levels (Dalrymple).
One explanation for the longevity of the Republican and Democratic parties is that they are not tight ideological organizations, but loose alliances of state and local parties that unite every four years for the presidential election. Both parties compete for the same broad center of the American electorate, and although Republicans are generally more conservative than Democrats, both parties contain relatively liberal and conservative wings that continually vie for influence (Brown, Reid).
American self-government is founded on a set of basic principles. Some grow out of the organic characteristics of the nation, and others have evolved from the practical application of the fundamental theses expressed in the preamble to the Constitution (Osborne).
The judicial system is premised on a belief in the equality of all individuals, in the inviolability of human rights and in the supremacy of the law. No individual or group, regardless of wealth, power or position, may defy these principles. No person, for any reason, may be denied the protection of the law (Bolick)...............
