1. Introduction
There has been a burgeoning literature seeking to explain policy-making and its
counterpart, gridlock, in American politics with a focus on identifying the best analytical tools,
political parties or legislators’ preferences, to account for policy change.
political parties may be the fundamental mechanism that links party members to the party
leadership as members can be rewarded and punished for towing the party line, whether through
instrumental incentives or by gaining electoral advantages from a well-established party brand
name. By examining the homogeneity of party members’ preferences, partisan capacity on the
house and senate floor, voting power and cohesion relative to other parties, we can make
predictions about the timing and direction of policy change. On the other hand, legislators’
preferences may provide the key to understanding policy-making. Political parties are rather an
assembly of likeminded individuals and by focusing on the distribution and intensity of
legislators’ preferences we can provide accurate predictions of policy change and gridlock.
I find that neither approach, either partisan or preference theories, can accurately account
for policy-making during the early antebellum period from 1790 to the early 1840s. Honing in on
one of the most contested policies in this period, the enactment and repeal of financial
institutions, during the first fifty years, policy change only came about when there was either a
window of opportunity or an adverse shock.
The strength of partisan capacity or the distribution
of member preferences did not predict the timing or direction of policy change.
The first national bank, supported by the Federalist Party but deeply opposed by the soon
to form Democratic-Republican Party, was granted a twenty year charter in 1791 when the
country was in a deep financial crisis. When the Democratic-Republicans won majorities in both
chambers and the executive in the election of 1800, with Jefferson at the helm they had an
opportunity to repeal the much hated bank. Despite high partisan strength and capacity and the
median legislator’s preferences moving significantly toward the median preferences of the
Democratic-Republicans, no efforts were made to reverse Hamilton’s policies.
Only in 1811, more than a decade later, when a window of opportunity presented itself
with the bank’s recharter, did the Democratic-Republicans barely muster the necessary majorities
1
Binder, Sarah A. 1999. “The Dynamics of Legislative Gridlock, 1947-96.” American Political Science
Review. 93(3): 519-533. Brady, David, and Craig Volden. 1998. Revolving Gridlock. Boulder, CO:
Westview. Jones, David R. 2001. “Party Polarization and Legislative Gridlock.” Political Research
Quarterly. 54(1): 125-141. Krehbiel, Keith. 1998. Pivotal Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press. Mayhew, David R. 1991. Divided We Govern. New Haven: Yale University Press.
2
See especially Jenkins, Jeffrey A., and Marc Weidenmier. 1999. “Ideology, economic interests, and
congressional roll-call voting: Partisan instability and Bank of the United States legislation, 1811-1816.”
Public Choice. 100: 225-243.
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Convention