which the federal government had limited power. The Jeffersonians came to power in 1800 and the Federalists were too elitist to compete effectively. The Federalists survived in the Northeast, but their refusal to support the War of 1812 verged on secession and was a devastating blow when the war ended well. The Era of Good Feelings under President James Monroe (1816–1824) marked the end of the First Party System and a brief period in which partisanship was minimal. Second Party System: 1828–1854 By 1828, the Federalists had disappeared as an organization. Jackson's presidency split the Democratic-Republican Party "Jacksonians" became the Democratic Party; those following the leadership of John Quincy Adams became the "National Republicans", (no connection to the later Republican Party that exists today). After the 1832 election, opponents of Jackson coalesced into the Whig Party. National Republicans, Anti-Masons and others joined the new party led by Henry Clay. The two party political system continued but with two different parties. The early Democratic Party stood for individual rights and state rights, supported the primacy of the Presidency over the other branches of government, opposed banks (namely the Bank of the United States), high tariffs, as well as modernizing programs that they felt would build up industry at the expense of the farmers. It styled itself as the party of the "common man". Presidents Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren and James K. Polk, were all Democrats who defeated Whig candidates, but by narrow margins. The Whigs, on the other hand, advocated the supremacy of Congress over the executive branch as well as policies of modernization and economic protectionism. Central political battles of this era were the Bank War and the Spoils system of federal patronage. Jackson introduced the practice of "hosting barbecues and cultivating a national network of affiliates" and with his campaigns began the tradition of not just voting for a Democrat but identifying as a Democrat. "Parties were becoming a fixture not just in America’s politics but also in its social life." In the 1850s, the issue of slavery took center stage, with disagreement in particular over the question of whether slavery should be permitted in the country's new territories in the West. The Whig Party attempted to straddle the issue with the Kansas–Nebraska Act, where the status of slavery would be decided based on "popular sovereignty", (i.e. the citizens of each territory, rather than Congress, would determine whether