Hi koan; Re: "The Republicans before 1900 were northern liberals and liberal abolitionists.";
So you think the Republicans before 1900 were liberals? The reason liberals are so sure that they're right is that they rewrite history in their favor. No. The Republicans before 1900 were business conservatives. Always have been. They are the successor to the Whig party that was formed in opposition to the Democrats. Your Democrats. The Democrats who are still the liberal party.
The Whig Party was a political party active in the early 19th century in the United States. Four Presidents of the United States were members of the Whig Party. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s, [1] the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party. In particular, the Whigs supported the supremacy of Congress over the Presidency and favored a program of modernization and economic protectionism.
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The party was ultimately destroyed by the question of whether to allow the expansion of slavery to the territories. With deep fissures in the party on this question, the anti-slavery faction prevented the re-nomination of its own incumbent President Fillmore in the 1852 presidential election; instead, the party nominated General Winfield Scott. Most Whig party leaders thereupon quit politics (as Abraham Lincoln did temporarily) or changed parties. The northern voter base mostly joined the new Republican Party. By the 1856 presidential election, the party was virtually defunct.
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en.wikipedia.org
Throughout his career, Lincoln was a champion of the conservative Whig party and fought the liberal Jacksonian Democracy. [59] [60] He promoted business interests, especially banks, railroads and factories. The question of whether Lincoln was a liberal or conservative has been debated. Norman Graeber has argued in favor of Lincoln having conservative positions [61] while James Randall has argued in favor of Lincoln having 19th century liberal positions while at the same time emphasized Lincoln's tolerance and moderation "in his preference for orderly progress, his distrust of dangerous agitation, and his reluctance toward ill digested schemes of reform." Randall concluded that Lincoln was "conservative in his complete avoidance of that type of so-called 'radicalism' which involved abuse of the South, hatred for the slaveholder, thirst for vengeance, partisan plotting, and ungenerous demands that Southern institutions be transformed overnight by outsiders." [62] David Greenstone argues that Lincoln's thought was grounded in reform liberalism but notes his unionism and Whiggish politics had a deeply conservative side as well. [63]
en.wikipedia.org
Now do you see why historians classify the Republicans as "conservatives" and not as "liberals"? You modern liberals rewrite history by telling each other lies about the past. Your liberal ancestors *did not* free the slaves. They were in favor of keeping them in chains. It was *business* interests that freed the slaves. Labor didn't want to free the slaves because they knew that it would reduce wages. The Northern Republicans didn't have that worry and saw the freeing of the slaves as a righteous cause motivated by the Bible. (And the Southern Whigs saw things differently.)
-- Carl
P.S. And the Republicans are still in favor of modernization while Democrats run around scaring the public with tales about global warming, GMO foods, radio waves causing cancer, etc. On the subject of "economic protectionism" the Republicans have pretty much reversed, but then again, the situation of the country has also reversed. We're no longer the weak little developing country we were in 1860. Now we're the global powerhouse, the country that is economically the most powerful in the world.
And the Democrats are still in favor of slavery, but now they've redefined "slave" to mean the whole population. |
