ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the electoral basis for the partisan division of the period, noting how the regional distribution of partisan preferences throughout the nation was aggregated differently in each branch of the federal government. It explores the policy consequences of this pattern of partisan division, concentrating on the history of the protective tariff, one of the most important political issues of the era. The chapter discusses how congressional rules changed in response to chronic division, focusing on the mechanism of appropriations oversight in the House. The spate of divided government that characterized the decades at the end of the nineteenth century had its genesis in a combination of partisan preferences expressed by citizens and the rules that aggregated these preferences into electoral outcomes. In the arena designed to reflect popular sentiments most faithfully—the House—control was most likely to vacillate, although the Democrats ended up holding the House more often than not in the second half of the Third Party System.
