ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the authors present a simple model of party realignment that is based on the spatial model. They seek evidence in the roll call voting behavior of realignments in Congress that would be concurrent with changes in the mass electorate that occurred during the 1850s, 1890s, and 1930s. The authors find that only in the early 1850s does a major change in the structure of congressional voting occur; the realignments of the 1890s and 1930s occurred along the line of cleavage that solidified after the Civil War. The late 1930s witnessed the birth of a second realignment focused on the issue of civil rights for African-Americans. The authors investigate how new issues are accommodated within an existing spatial structure. In the galaxy of policy issues that confronts Congress, no other issue was as intense or enduring as the question of race, which led to the realignment of the 1850s and the perturbation of the 1940s to the 1970s.