Two Great Parties

There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other.  This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.

-- John Adams (1735 - 1826), American lawyer, author, and political theorist, second president of the United States, Letter to Jonathan Jackson (2 October 1780), "The Works of John Adams", vol 9, p. 511