Rhetoric and reality in American political pluralism : Jackson-Calhoun controversy in perspective

• Main Author: Wise, Margaret Spencer
• Format: Others
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1973
• Subjects: Jackson; Andrew; 1767-1845; Calhoun; John C (John Caldwell); 1782-1850; State rights; Federal government United States; United States Politics and government 1829-1837; American Politics; Political History; Political Science; Social and Behavioral Sciences; United States History
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/1821; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2820&context=uop_etds

The essential problem of politics are ancient general, and persistent. A particular political system, such as that of the United States, can be interpreted as a way of coping with recurring problems. Some of the ways a political system deals with problems may be unique, some commonplace. Because it meets its problems in a particular time and place with a special body of past experiences to go on, each political system is unique; so too the American system is unique. But because some problems have recurred ever since civilized men have tried to live together, every political system has had to deal with enduring dilemmas. Its solutions may be unique, the basic questions are not. The focus of this paper is directed toward one particular problem -- the issue of conflict and consensus, political power and political order, in a changing democratic society with politics seen as the means whereby the community balances the tension between conflict and consensus. The American ancestors chose to live in a community, with its numerous and obvious advantages. But, when strong human beings seek the company of one another, conflict seems to be an inescapable aspect of community and hence of the human condition. While conflict has been the focus of attention by many -- philosophers, historians, social scientists, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Locke -- it is James Madison who perhaps more than any other single individual gave shape to American conflict in his modeling the American constitutional system. He held the conflict is built into the very nature of man, and thus a system must be devised through which it is channeled and controlled. Conflict and consensus, among other things, involve the interaction of power, order, liberty, and flexibility. It is to the Age of Jackson and the political philosophies promulgated by the founding fathers, that this research turns to gain an insight into how "factions" are channeled and controlled in the United States -- to gain insight into basic pluralistic political patterns of the United States.