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A sea-change has occurred in political historywriting since the 1950s. Gone, for the most part, are many of the broad, sweeping generalizations that used to characterize this field. The terms employed in such endeavors -- the American Mind, the American Way of Life, American Civilization, the American Spirit (all titles of books published in the mid-twentieth century) -- seem anachronistic, if not downright ridiculous, today. Whatever it is that defines the values and direction of American politics, this set of cultural markers seems a good deal more elusive today than it did to scholars like Louis Hartz, Daniel Boorstin, and Richard Hofstadter in the postwar era. In the place of studies of America, the disciplines of history, political science, and sociology have turned to careful, highly focused studies of particular eras, areas, and groups. National character is out, local cultures are in. Adapted from the source document.

"There are billions of potential conflicts in any modern society, but only a few become significant," E. E. Schattschneider (1960: 66) pointed out many years ago. Accordingly, the most important political struggles are not issue conflicts butissue-cleavageconflicts, "arguments about what the argument is about" (ibid.: 70–71). The definition of alternatives, from a Schattschneiderian perspective, is the primal act of politics. If the sine qua non of a political party is the selection of leaders, then the quintessential act of a political system is the selection and framing of issues, which is to say, "the domination and subordination of conflicts" (ibid.: 66).

Conventional wisdom states that where ideas and values have mattered in American political life they have usually been the product of a single, overarching political culture. The United States, it is argued, has had political conflict but notideologicalconflict. Perhaps nowhere is this premise more noticeable than in the study of political parties. According to Du-verger, "[T]he two parties are rival teams, one occupying office, the other seeking to dislodge it. It is a struggle between theinsand theouts, which never becomes fanatical, and creates no deep cleavage in the country." Everett Carll Ladd writes, "[T]he need to seek support within an overarching ideological consensus, has historically imposed certain characteristics on the major American parties – social group inclusiveness, accommodationism, a 'non-ideological' stance vis-a-vis their principal opponents (which, after all, accept the same ideology)."

AMERICAN POLITICAL PARTIES HAVE BEEN STUDIED PRIMARILY AS ELECTORAL ORGANIZATIONS AND AS AGGREGATIONS OF PARTICULAR CONSTITUENCIES. THE SUBJECT OF PARTY IDEOLOGY IS COMMONLY IGNORED OR TREATED AS A PRODUCT OF THE AGGREGATED VIEWS OF THE PARTY-IN-THE-ELECTORATE. CONSEQUENTLY, WE HAVE A CONCEPTION OF AMERICAN PARTIES AS VOTE-GETTING MACHINES AND AN UNDERSTANDING OF AMERICAN POLITICAL CULTURE AS THE PRODUCT OF HEGEMONIC LIBERAL TRADITION. THIS ARTICLE, WHICH FOCUSES ON THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, CHALLENGES THESE VIEWS. USING PARTY PLATFORMS AND PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SPEECHES, IT RECONSTRUCTS THAT PARTY'S CORE IDEOLOGY FROM 1828 TO 1892 AND FINDS IT REMARKABLY CONSISTENT IN ITS BASIC VALUES.