EVEN BEFORE THE last shots of the Revolutionary War were fired, John Adams wrote a friend to warn, “There is nothing I dread so much as a division of the Republic into two great parties.” Alas, political scientists will tell you the winner-takes-all system the founders established virtually ensures consolidation into just two rival blocs. But that hasn’t stopped third-party and independent challengers from repeatedly rising up. They’ve sometimes pointed the way to a new politics, and sometimes scuttled other candidates’ path to power—a role that the 21st century’s razor-thin presidential elections have made all the more nerve-wracking.
1832: By carrying Vermont, former Attorney General William Wirt, once described as “possibly the most reluctant and most unwilling presidential candidate ever,” is the first minor-party contender to win electoral votes. Despite having been a Freemason, he ran with the Anti-Masonic Party, an upswelling of Protestant voters suspicious of a secret society of elites.
Andrew Jackson’s populist presidency undercuts the Anti-Masons
