In response to the enactment of the Alien and Sedition Acts by Congress in 1798, James Madison and the Virginia House of Delegates issued a declaration of principles known as the Virginia Resolutions.  The Resolutions expressed that “it views the powers of the Federal Government, as resulting from the compact to which the States are parties, as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact, as no farther valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact.”  Moreover, the Resolutions declared that, “the General Assembly doth particularly protest against the palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitution, in the two late cases of the ‘Alien and Sedition Acts,’ passed at the last session of Congress; the first of which exercises a power nowhere delegated to the Federal Government, and which, by uniting legislative and judicial powers to those of executive, subverts the general principles of free government, as well as particular organization and positive provisions of the Federal Constitution.”  In expounding a declaration of principles, the Virginia Resolutions came to be known as the first platform of a political party. 

In 1800, at a convention of Republican congressman, for the first time a party platform was adopted for a Presidential campaign.  In nominating Thomas Jefferson for President, the Republican platform cemented the party’s anti-federalist view by affirming, [p]reservation to the States of the powers not yielded by them to the Legislature of the Union its Constitutional share in division of powers.” 

Twelve years later, in 1812, the Federalist party held the first national convention of a political party in the United States.  At the convention, the Federalists nominated De Witt Clinton of New York for President and adopted an official party platform, which became known as the Clintonian Platform.  The Platform advocated for “the election of De Witt Clinton as the surest method of relieving the country from all the evils existing and prospective, for the reason that his great talents and inflexible patriotism guarantee a firm and unyielding maintenance of our national sovereignty, and the protection of those commercial interests which were flagging under the weakness and imbecility of the [Madison] administration.” 

After the Clintonian Platform in 1812, it was another 20 years before another party would release a platform.  In 1832, the Democratic Party, having been formed in 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, released a platform which affirmed the party’s support for the “adequate protection of American industry,” for “a uniform system of internal improvements,” and against “the indiscriminate removal of public officers for a mere difference of political opinion is a gross abuse of power.” 

During the election of 1844, for the first time, both major political parties of the day, the Democratic Party and the Whig Party, released platforms.  From that election onward, the major political parties would release a platform during every Presidential year except for the Republicans in 2020, when they did not release a platform. 

In 1856, the modern Republican Party, formed by Northern Whigs, released its first party platform.  Its platform affirmed the party’s objection to the extension of slavery in American territories, stating, “the Constitution confers upon Congress power over the Territories of the United States for their Government, and that in the exercise of this power it is both the right and the imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery.”

While the Party Platform website analyzes the Democratic and Republican Party Platforms, third parties have also issued platforms since the 1800s, starting with the Anti-Masonic party in 1830.  The positions asserted by some of the third parties have a significant impact on American history.   For example, the Prohibition Party first platform in 1872 asserted “[t]hat the traffic in intoxicating beverages is a dishonor to Christian civilization, a political wrong of unequaled enormity, subversive of ordinary subjects of government, not capable of being regulated or restrained by any system of license whatever, and imperatively demands for its suppression effective legal prohibition both by State and national legislation.  While it took nearly fifty years, the Prohibition party was ultimately able to achieve their aim, albeit briefly.

Party Platforms have evolved since 1800.  What were once simple statements of principles have become long form sales pitches, detailing policy proposals, issue positions, and outlining a party’s values and beliefs.  The tradition of releasing a party platform also has important historical significance.   Each platform is a primary document which allows a reader to view the country through the eyes of past party leaders.  Without the benefit of hindsight, the platforms are unvarnished accounts of the issues and events that have faced America every four years, nearly since its founding.