Political Partisanship

Of political divisiveness, Jefferson wrote, 

...Men have differed in opinion, and been divided into parties by these opinions, from the first origin of societies, and in all governments where they have been permitted freely to think and to speak. The same political parties which now agitate the United States have existed through all time.

Whether the power of the people or that of the aristocracy should prevail were questions which kept the states of Greece and Rome in eternal convulsions, as they now schismatize every people whose minds and mouths are not shut up by the gag of a despot." (Jefferson to John Adams)