2. The national government, as we have seen, is based on a system of dividing or
decentralizing power. Political parties, on the other hand, are a means of organizing
or centralizing power. The framers of the Constitution decentralized power in
separate branches and a federal system partly to avoid the development of powerful
factions that could take over the government. This very decentralization of power,
however, created the need for parties that could pull together or centralize that power.
Pattern