Think for a moment about the word partition.

What does it mean to you?

Is it a term of praise that seems unlikely?

Instead words like partisan or corrupt probably spring to mind.

Many of America's founding fathers felt the same way.

They hoped the nation could be governed without political parties by citizens statesmen

who transcended their differences for the sake of the public good.

But that ideal proved hard to establish and even harder to maintain.

As a country grew, the economic and political interests of different groups diverged.

And disagreements over various issues, taxes, westward expansions, slavery, widened.

So much that they couldn't be smoothed over by simple appeals to patriotism.

The first American leader who embraced this reality was Martin Van Buren, the eighth president

of the United States.

The first president who deserves to be called a professional politician.

Van Buren recognized that political conflict was unavoidable.

The trick he realized was to make sure you had an organization to protect your interests.

Thus the significance of his crowning achievement, the forging of the Democratic Party.

This was his vehicle for promoting the political ideals of the founding father he most admired,

Thomas Jefferson, and those of the charismatic general with whom he became so closely associated,

Andrew Jackson.

There ideals, the preeminence of state and local concerns, the suspicion of a national

bank that catered to Eastern elites, and the wisdom of limiting the power of the federal

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