By by Mark Lause Starting with the foundations, the American political system, like its social order and economic structure, began as a New World variation of that in Britain. The United States constituted a republic of sorts, though the representative features of its government remained inherently weak, allowing coequal status to deliberately unrepresentative and unelected branches of government.
Almost immediately, a party system appeared, promising to deepen these representative features by offering voters…

Source: A History of the Two-Party System: Part 1 (Colonial Era through the Civil War)