Also, a lot of people don't know this. But the Left and the Right wings started with Federalists and Anti-Federalists. When the Supreme court is interpreting the meaning of the Constitution, they often will refer to the Federalist Papers because Alexander Hamilton signed the Constitution and was the Author of most of the Federalist Papers. The Federalist Papers are a Pro-Constitutional collection of publications that were meant to explain to the people of New York and the people of the Colonies what the implications of the new Constitution were. And in the Supreme court the next most important document is the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution was written as a 2nd try, the first try at American Government was through the Articles of Confederation, but when there was a rebellion the Constitution was written in order to give a little more power to the Government, such as to raise an army in times of rebellion.
The Anti-Federalist Papers are the Right wing to the Federalist left wing, they put emphasis on the Bill of Rights (the 1st Amendment, 2nd Amendment, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th and 10th), saying that the Government should let the states make decisions.
An example of when these ideals were massively involved in a Political situation would be the Civil war. The North was preserving the Union while the South was fighting for the ability of States to make all of their own laws. Before the Civil war everyone was a citizen of their State, but not a citizen of the United States unless they wanted to be. But once the 14th Amendment was ratified, anyone born within the Jurisdiction of the United States became a citizen of the United States.