Democratic Party, one of the two main political parties of the United States. Its origins can be traced to the coalition formed behind Thomas Jefferson in the 1790s to resist the policies of George Washington's administration. This coalition, originally called the Republican, and later the Democratic-Republican party, split into two factions during the presidential campaign of 1828. One, the National Republican party, was absorbed into the Whig party in 1834; the other became the Democratic party.

The Jacksonian Party

In the 1830s, under presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, the Democratic party developed the characteristics it retained until the end of the century. It was willing to use national power in foreign affairs when American interests were threatened, but in economic and social policy it stressed the responsibility of government to act cautiously, if at all. Democrats argued that the national government should do nothing the states could do for themselves, and the states nothing that localities could do.

The party's supporters in this period included groups as diverse as southern plantation owners and immigrant workers in northern cities. They all had in common a dislike of government intervention in their lives. The Democrats' opponents, the Whigs, on the other hand, believed in using governmental power to promote, regulate, correct, and reform.