Tertium quids
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The tertium quids (sometimes shortened to quids) refers to different factions of the American Democratic-Republican Party during the First Party System of the 1804-1812 period. The term "tertium quids" means "a third something" in Latin; quid was a disparaging term that referred to cross-party coalitions of Federalists with moderate Republicans.
The term was first used in Pennsylvania in 1804, referring to a faction of the Democratic-Republican party called "the Society of Constitutional Republicans." They gathered Federalist support and in 1805 re-elected Governor Thomas McKean, who had been elected by a united Republican party in 1802 but had broken with the majority wing of the party. In New York state the term "quid" was applied to the Republican faction that remained loyal to Governor Morgan Lewis after he was repudiated by the Republican majority led by DeWitt Clinton. The two "quid" factions had no connection with each other and there was no third party at the federal level, for the quids supported President Thomas Jefferson.
When Virginia Congressman John Randolph of Roanoke broke with Jefferson and James Madison in 1806, his Congressional faction was called quids. Randolph was the leader of the "Old Republican" faction that insisted on strict adherence to the Constitution and opposed any innovations. He made no effort to align with either Quid faction in the states and made no effort to build a third party at the federal level. Randolph supported James Monroe against Madison during the runup to the presidential election of 1808, but the state quids supported Madison. They were led by Randolph, who had started as Jefferson's leader in the House and became his bitterest enemy. Randolph denounced the Yazoo Purchase compromise of 1804 as totally corrupt. After Randolph failed in the impeachment of a Supreme Court justice in 1805, he became embittered with Jefferson and Madison, complaining, "Everything and everybody seem to be jumbled out of place, except a few men who are steeped in supine indifference, whilst meddling fools and designing knaves are governing the country. . . ." [Risjord 42]. He refused to help fund Jefferson's planned secret purchase of Florida from Spain. Increasingly Randolph felt that Jefferson was adopting Federalist policies and betraying the true party spirit. He wrote to an ally that "The Administration....favors federal principles, and, with the exception of a few great rival characters, federal men. . . . The old republican party is already ruined, past redemption. New men and new maxims are the order of the day." [Risjord 47] Randolph's increasingly strident rhetoric limited his influence, and he was never able to build a coalition to stop Jefferson. However, many of his supporters lived on and, by 1824, looked to Andrew Jackson to resurrect what they called "Old Republicanism."
[edit] References
- Noble E. Cunningham, Jr. "Who Were the Quids?" in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review Vol. 50, No. 2 (Sep., 1963), pp. 252-263 in JSTOR at [1]
- Norman K. Risjord; The Old Republicans: Southern Conservatism in the Age of Jefferson (1965) the standard history of the Randolph faction.
- Andrew Shankman. "Malcontents and Tertium Quids: The Battle to Define Democracy in Jeffersonian Philadelphia" Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring, 1999) , pp. 43-72 in JSTOR
