The Missouri compromise addressed the issue of free versus slave states in congress, in order to hold a balance between the north and south. Northerners believed that the Southern whites were overrepresented in Congress, and wished to contain this issue. Henry Clay thus worked out a compromise, without addressing the moral issue of slavery at all.  

The debates of the Convention were held in secret, but are considered to be an equal representation of many different voices of the different writers and participants. The newspapers and the Federalist papers were thus unable to publish anything about the Constitution until its completion.

The creation of the national bank was the brainchild of Federalist Party member Alexander Hamilton and was supported by the President at the time, George Washington. It also had the support of John Adams. The only one of the four to oppose the creation of the national bank was Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson and Madison both believed that the creation of a national bank would be to the detriment of a sound money supply. They also believed that it would serve the interests of foreign investors and Northern commercial speculators better than it would serve the interests of the American people. The arguments of Hamilton won the day, however, and the bank was incepted by George Washington in 1791.

Although the proceeds of the Louisiana Purchase were put toward funding Napoleon's planned invasion of the UK, this was not the intention of President Thomas Jefferson.

The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions were written with the objective of garnering support for opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts. The primary argument of the documents was that the Alien and Sedition Acts violated protected First Amendment rights and that the Adams’ Presidency was acting unconstitutionally. In the second of his Kentucky Resolutions, Jefferson famously argues that the States have the right to nullify any Federal law which goes above and beyond the proscribed powers of the Federal government. Jefferson and Madison urge those who are wavering to demand the repeal of the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions became important documents in shaping the early ideology of Jefferson’s political party and campaigns. The public outrage at the Alien and Sedition Acts culminated in the defeat of the Federalist Party in the election of 1800 (the so-called Revolution of 1800) and the ascension of Jefferson and the Republican Party. 

The Free-Soil Party was a short lived political party that contested elections in 1848 and 1852. Its membership was mainly composed of anti-slavery Whigs and Democrats from the North-East of the country. The Free-Soil Party ran a campaign that slavery should not be allowed to expand into any of the Western territories. They very rarely went so far as to call for the immediate abolition of slavery, as even most abolitionists realized this would likely lead to civil war. The Party was accommodated into the Republican Party by the election of 1856. Another short-lived political party that argued for anti-immigration and anti-Catholic policies was the American Party (also called the “Know-Nothing Party”)

The Federalists and Republicans both developed around the election of 1796, when Adams and Jefferson faced off in the Presidential contest.  The Federalists favored th Executive, the Federal government, and business interests, while the Republicans favored the Legislature, the State governments, and agricultural interests.  In foreign policy, most decisions focused on Britain and France, while Spain and Austria were hardly considered by the new government,

William McKinley contested the elections of 1896 and 1900 for the Republican Party and won both elections. He ran against William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic and Populist candidate, on each occasion. McKinley represented the interests of big business and Imperialism whereas Bryan represented the views of Populism. McKinley’s support of high protective tariffs and the expansion of United States’ influence abroad assured him the support of the wealthy and middle classes. 

The Compromise of 1850 was designed to prevent the threat of Southern secession and outbreak of Civil War. The Compromise included the admittance of California as a free state, and the admittance of New Mexico and Utah (with the caveat that they be able to determine the issue of slavery through popular sovereignty); it also included that the slave trade would be abolished in the District of Colombia, and that Congress would pass a new Fugitive Slave Act. The Compromise was proposed by Henry Clay, so we can assume he would have been in favor of it. Likewise, Daniel Webster and Stephen A. Douglas were ardent supporters of the Compromise, arguing convincingly to President Millard Fillmore about its necessity. Fillmore was initially reluctant, but was eventually swayed by their convictions. Of these five, only John C. Calhoun opposed the Compromise, which he feared would take away a great deal of power and control from the South. For Calhoun it was far from a compromise, and rather more an imposition of Northern will.

The Populist movement of the 1890s grew out of the Grange movement, a coalition of farmers and labor activists in the Great Plains. The unifying feature of the Grange movement was the advocation of farmers' interests, most notably a change from the gold standard to bimetalism in currency, enforcement of new standards in banking and loans, and a focus on elections at all levels. These issues found sympathetic votes throughout the South and West, and in 1896 the Democratic Party nominated the Populist hero William Jennings Bryan, who garnered the nomination with his famous "Cross of Gold Speech."  Populist measures such as the direct election of Senators, banking restrictions, and agricultural reform eventually became law, but the Populist Party itself lost momentum by the end of the nineteenth century.