Why were people afraid of political parties?

Party lines and loyalty were drawn to the point of personal bitterness and public destructiveness. Such division along party lines represented the most severe split between the two political factions since the inception of the republic. It made a deep impact upon Washington and the memory must have been in his mind as he wrote about the very real capacity of political parties to destroy the fragile unity holding the nation together.It is not that Washington failed to understand the contribution of parties, but he was greatly concerned that they had previously, and would again, grow seeking more power than other groups to the detriment of the whole.Washington was aware that other governments viewed political parties as destructive because of the temptation to manifest and retain power, but also because they would often seek to extract revenge on political opponents.So now we see from history that third party forays are limited in strength and often serve only to undermine one or another of the major parties in the capacity of a “spoiler.” If Washington could see America now, probably the only thing that he could say after getting over the shock, would be: “I told you so!”