_The Republican Party_ has contended for a liberal interpretation of the Federal Constitution, especially those parts relating to the powers of the national government, which it desires to see extended; it has shown less sympathy than the Democratic party for the rights of the states; it is the champion of the protective tariff, of internal improvements under federal auspices, of colonial expansion, liberal pensions for soldiers and sailors of the Civil War, of subventions for the merchant marine, negro suffrage, and of a gold monetary standard. From the accession of the Republican party to power in 1860 with the election of Abraham Lincoln as President, down to 1913, it controlled the executive department of the national government continually with the exception of eight years when Grover Cleveland was President (1885-1889; 1893-1897). During most of that period it controlled Congress, though several times the Democratic party had a majority in one or the other house and occasionally for a short time it was in the majority in both houses. Some state governments are controlled by one party, and some by the other. Since 1875 the Democratic party has usually been in power in nearly all of the Southern states, and the Republican party in more than half of the other states; but in some states control often shifts from one party to the other. _The Progressive Party_ was organized in 1912 mainly but not wholly by those members of the Republican party who felt that this party was not sufficiently progressive in its policies and that it attached rather too much importance to the interests of special classes and too little to the rights of the masses of the people. First of all, it advocated a larger social and industrial justice for men and women, especially the working classes. It favored national jurisdiction over such matters as cannot be effectively regulated by the states; public ownership of forests, coal and oil lands, and water power; and suffrage for women. At the election of 1912 the new party polled a total vote of 4,100,000 for its presidential candidate, Theodore Roosevelt; but a few years later the party went out of existence. _The Prohibition Party._--Besides the Democratic, Republican, and Progressive parties, there are several minor parties with organizations of a national character. The oldest of these is the Prohibition party, organized in 1872 to promote the movement for the abolition of the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors. Since its organization, it has regularly nominated candidates for President and Vice President of the United States, and in many states it nominates candidates for state offices and for the legislature. Not infrequently it has succeeded in electing some of its candidates to the legislature, and it has been instrumental in securing the enactment of local option laws and even state-wide prohibition laws in several states.