Washington's immediate circle of advisers, including Hamilton and Madison. By the 1790s, different views of the new country's proper course had already developed, with those holding the same views banding together. The followers of Alexander Hamilton (the "Federalist") favored a strong central government that would support the interests of commerce and industry. The followers of Thomas Jefferson, ("Democratic-Republicans") preferred a decentralized agrarian republic. By 1828, the Federalists had disappeared as an organization, replaced first by the National Republican Party and then by the Whigs, while the Democratic Republicans evolved into the Democrats led by Andrew Jackson, and known for celebrating "the common (white) man" and the expansion of suffrage to (most) of them. In the 1850s, it was the Whigs' turn to disappear, undone by the issue of whether slavery should be allowed to expand into the country's new territories in the West. The Whigs were eventually replaced by the Republican Party which opposed slavery expansion and whose first successful candidate for the presidency was Abraham Lincoln. Democratic and Republican parties In the 150+ years since the Democratic and Republican parties have been America's two major parties, though their policies, base of support and relative strength have evolved considerably. Some eras in American politics include: Reconstruction era and Gilded Age. After the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, Democrats celebrated "state's rights", a principle dear to the "Solid South" (i.e. solidly Democratic) where "repressive legislation and physical intimidation" of Jim Crow prevented the "newly enfranchised African Americans from voting". Nationwide it supported cheap-money, and opposed banking and tariffs. Another element in its coalition were mostly urban Catholics. After the defeat of the Confederacy, the Republican Party, associated with the successful military defense of the Union and often known as "the Grand Old Party", became the dominant party in America. the Progressive Era. Progressive programs —municipal reforms, civil service reform, corrupt practices acts, and presidential primaries to replace the power of politicians at national conventions—strove to clean up politics, revitalize democracy, bringing to bear scientific solutions to social problems. Progressive leaders included Republicans Theodore Roosevelt, Robert M. La Follette, and Charles Evans Hughes; Democrats William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson, and Al Smith. The New Deal. These programs of Democrat president Franklin D. Roosevelt designed to deal with the disruption and suffering of the Great Depression — raising of the minimum wage, the establishment of the Social Security and other federal