Taubeneck's Laws: Third Parties in American Politics in the Late Nineteenth Century

Third parties were a persistent and important aspect of American politics after the Civil War and have been as well a continuing focus of scholarly interest. This article discusses both the history and the historiography of the most prominent third party by examining the attitudes and actions of Herman E. Taubeneck, the national chairman of the People's or Populist Party. Taubeneck drew from his participation in and study of American politics to formulate a set of laws that he believed defined the creation, organization, direction, and success of third parties in the American political context. His analysis remarkably foreshadowed the ways in which modern scholars, drawing from several different disciplinary perspectives and methodologies, have only recently begun to explain and clarify the complex course of Populism. But Taubeneck's incomplete application of his own principles helped to disrupt and destroy the Populist Party itself.