Editing Democratic-Republican Party (section)

=={{anchor|Claims to the Party's Heritage}} Legacy==
{{further|Second Party System}}
{{see also|Thomas Jefferson#Legacy}}
[[File:Andrew jackson head.jpg|thumb|upright=1|[[Andrew Jackson]] led a faction of Democratic-Republicans that ultimately coalesced into the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]].]]
The Federalists collapsed after 1815, beginning a period known as the [[Era of Good Feelings]]. After the [[1824 United States presidential election|1824 presidential election]] the Democratic-Republicans split into factions. The coalition of Jacksonians, Calhounites, and Crawfordites built by [[Andrew Jackson]] and [[Martin Van Buren]] coalesced into the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]], which dominated presidential politics in the decades prior to the Civil War. Supporters of [[John Quincy Adams]] and [[Henry Clay]] would form the main opposition to Jackson as the [[National Republican Party]], which in turn eventually formed part of the [[Whig Party (United States)|Whig Party]], which was the second major party in the United States between the 1830s and the early 1850s.<ref name="auto" /> The diverse and changing nature of the Democratic-Republican Party allowed both major parties to claim that they stood for Jeffersonian principles.{{sfnp|Brown|1999|pp=18–19}} Historian [[Daniel Walker Howe]] writes that Democrats traced their heritage to the "Old Republicanism of [[Nathaniel Macon|Macon]] and [[William H. Crawford|Crawford]]", while the Whigs looked to "the new Republican nationalism of [[James Madison|Madison]] and [[Albert Gallatin|Gallatin]]."{{sfnp|Howe|2007|p=582}}

The Whig Party fell apart in the 1850s due to divisions over the expansion of slavery into new territories. The modern [[History of the United States Republican Party|Republican Party]] was formed in 1854 to oppose the expansion of slavery, and many former Whig Party leaders joined the newly formed anti-slavery party.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/tp&CISOPTR=46379&CISOSHOW=46363 |title=''The Origin of the Republican Party'', A.F. Gilman, Ripon College, 1914 |publisher=Content.wisconsinhistory.org |access-date=January 17, 2012}}</ref> The Republican Party sought to combine Jefferson and Jackson's ideals of liberty and equality with Clay's program of using an active government to modernize the economy.<ref>Gould (2003), p. 14.</ref> The Democratic-Republican Party inspired the name and ideology of the Republican Party, but is not directly connected to that party.{{sfnp|Howe|2007|pp=66, 275, 897}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lipset |first=Seymour Martin |url=https://archive.org/stream/politicalmansoci00inlips#page/292/mode/2up |title=Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics |publisher=Garden City, N.Y.,: Doubleday |year=1960 |page=292 |author-link=Seymour Martin Lipset}}</ref>

Fear of a large debt is a major legacy of this party. Andrew Jackson believed the national debt was a "national curse" and he took special pride in paying off the entire national debt in 1835.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Remini |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D8VbWdnrWmkC&pg=PA180 |title=Andrew Jackson |publisher=Macmillan |year=2008 |isbn=9780230614703 |page=180 |first=Robert V.}}</ref> Politicians ever since have used the issue of a high national debt to denounce the other party for profligacy and a threat to fiscal soundness and the nation's future.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nagel |first=Stuart |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xJHKeXEhn4MC&pg=PA503 |title=Encyclopedia of Policy Studies |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=1994 |isbn=9780824791421 |edition=2nd |pages=503–504}}</ref>