Here is primary source material to demonstrate that Jefferson founded the Republican Party, not the Democratic Republican Party
5th Congress (1797-1799)
Majority Party: Federalist (22 seats)
Minority Party: Republican (10 seats)
Other Parties: 0
Total Seats: 32
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6th Congress (1799-1801)
Majority Party: Federalist (22 seats)
Minority Party: Republican (10 seats)
Other Parties: 0
Total Seats: 32
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7th Congress (1801-1803)
Majority Party: Republican (17 seats)
Minority Party: Federalist (15 seats)
Other Parties: 0
Vacant: 2
Total Seats: 34
"Historians do not agree on the details surrounding the origin of Parties. Some believe that Jefferson forged the Republican party from coalition of existing state and local parties"....[in the 1790's].
Page 31, Political Parties in America by Robert Huckshorn( most popular Political Science text on parties in USA.
"Although people were still deeply ambivalent about political parties, although one party did not necessarily recognize the legitimacy of the other, and although men on both sides were nostalgic- at one time or another- for the imaginary golden age of political harmony, few people could be found in the early 1790's who believed the parties did not exist. The parties had names: Federalist and Republican."
- Susan Dunn, Jefferson's Second Revolution.
"In referring to political parties I have adopted the names which the respective parties used in self-designation. Thus the Jeffersonian party has been referred to throughout as the Republican Party. This name came into use early in the 1790's among persons who considered themselves of a common political "interest", and the term "Republican interest" was generally used until it was replaced by the more definite "Republican Party".
The Jeffersonian Republicans( the formation of Party organization (1789-1801) by Noble E. Cunningham,Jr.
-During a conciliatory moment at his Inauguration Jefferson said: "today we are all Republicans, we are all Federalists." (referring to the two majors parties at the time)
We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
- When Jefferson won the election of 1800 the National Gazette headline was, "Complete triumph of Republican firmness over the "obstinacy" of the Aristocrats"! ( what Republicans called big government Federalists)
Brutus - does it occur to you that the term "Republican" could have different meanings in different times? We were founded as a "Republic", right? My guess is that Jefferson, above all, favored the continuation of the union as a representative republic of states (versus a loose confederation held together only by a common language and geographic proximity). It was in this form that he used the term republican. It is true he spoke often about the perils of an increasingly large central government...no argument. But it strains reason to think that he was imagining the creation of anything remotely approaching the modern "republican party". His stance on organized religion, for one, would deny him access to real standing in the party today.
Your tactic is obvious, and a bit tired - haul out a "founding father", proclaim him as "yours", in an effort to demonstrate that the founding fathers would have favored your particular politics today.