1856 Democratic Platform: Slavery
25 Jun 2015, 1:24 pm
In 1854, angry with the Kansas–Nebraska Act ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas%E2 ... braska_Act ), anti-slavery Democrats left the party and joined Northern Whigs to form the Republican Party. In 1856, the remaining Democratic Party delegates published their platform which stated in part:
Presidency.UCSB.edu: "Democratic Party Platform of 1856" (June 2, 1856)
( http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29576 )
The same year, the first-ever Republican Party delegates published their platform which stated in part:
Presidency.UCSB.edu: "Republican Party Platform of 1856" (June 18, 1856)
( http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29619 )
Thus, in the lead up to the U.S. Civil War, this is how the political parties viewed the matter. It took until the Democratic Party Platform of 1868 for that party to recognize that "the questions of slavery and secession as having been settled for all time to come by the war, or the voluntary action of the Southern States in Constitutional Conventions assembled" and called for the same "equal [...] individual rights" to all citizens that the Republican Party Platform of 1840 had suggested almost three decades earlier.
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25 Jun 2015, 1:34 pm
Yup, one of life's great ironies. The Democratic party was pretty much a southern party for a long time. The Republicans, under President Lincoln, abolished slavery. Lincoln gave his incredible speech, the Emancipation Proclamation, into the third year of the Civil War, a speech in which he will be beloved and remembered.
Now we have the opposite. Democrats are representing the Northeast, Republicans the Southeast. Funny what a hundred or so years can do.
25 Jun 2015, 1:44 pm
Now we have the opposite. Democrats are representing the Northeast, Republicans the Southeast. Funny what a hundred or so years can do.
Jacoby
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25 Jun 2015, 1:57 pm
fwiw, the two parties were more divided regionally than ideologically until pretty recently. There were far left and progressive Republicans and ultra-conservative Southern Democrats, what the parties were back in the 1850s or whenever doesn't really have any influence on them now. Like, does anybody actually think that Thomas Jefferson or Andrew Jackson would be Democrats by modern standards?
You can't blame only the south for slavery, the north had slavery too but they didn't export crops like south did so it wasn't important to them economically. Indentured servitude occurred more frequently in the north, it existed until 20th century. Segregation started in the north, it was segregated even before the Civil War. Wage slavery in the north while "free" was not a much better than life than one on the plantation and often times worse since their bosses had nothing invested in them as workers and could care less about what their living conditions were like. I think it is wrong to castigate the south as somehow less than, its wrong to try to pawn off this nation's dark history as some foreign aberration.
25 Jun 2015, 2:19 pm
Now we have the opposite. Democrats are representing the Northeast, Republicans the Southeast. Funny what a hundred or so years can do.
it's pretty telling that the language there is couched in states right's when modern conservatives are also all about state's rights. funny coincidence eh
The Tenth Amendment's "states' rights" argument for slavery of 1856 was constitutionally more valid than a similar argument made today. The difference was the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment which made most U.S. residents national citizens, and required due process and equal protection of all citizens (something my Republican friends seem to forget). But, when the slavery question was debated, the Fourteenth Amendment hadn't yet been proposed, let alone ratified. So, the "states' rights" Democrats who supported slavery were correct that the Constitution for the United States of America didn't explicitly delegate authority for congressional action on the matter of slavery (something my Democratic friends seem to forget). The anti-slavery Republicans had to be creative and look elsewhere in the Constitution (the Bill of Rights generally) for a lawful reason to act. They succeeded, and the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments expressed their logic well.
But, all this doesn't change the ongoing influence of the Tenth Amendment. Sure, it was changed slightly by the Fourteenth Amendment in its effect regarding slavery, but all the Tenth Amendment's other influences exist still.
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Diagnosed in 2015 with ASD Level 1 by the University of Utah Health Care Autism Spectrum Disorder Clinic using the ADOS-2 Module 4 assessment instrument [11/30] -- Screened in 2014 with ASD by using the University of Cambridge Autism Research Centre AQ (Adult) [43/50]; EQ-60 for adults [11/80]; FQ [43/135]; SQ (Adult) [130/150] self-reported screening inventories -- Assessed since 1978 with an estimated IQ [≈145] by several clinicians -- Contact on WrongPlanet.net by private message (PM)
25 Jun 2015, 2:40 pm
A lot can change in almost a century.
The democratic party platform of 1948: Civil rights and gender equity.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29599
The Democratic Party is responsible for the great civil rights gains made in recent years in eliminating unfair and illegal discrimination based on race, creed or color,
The Democratic Party commits itself to continuing its efforts to eradicate all racial, religious and economic discrimination.
We again state our belief that racial and religious minorities must have the right to live, the right to work, the right to vote, the full and equal protection of the laws, on a basis of equality with all citizens as guaranteed by the Constitution.
We highly commend President Harry S. Truman for his courageous stand on the issue of civil rights.
We call upon the Congress to support our President in guaranteeing these basic and fundamental American Principles: (1) the right of full and equal political participation; (2) the right to equal opportunity of employment; (3) the right of security of person; (4) and the right of equal treatment in the service and defense of our nation.[1]
We favor the extension of the right of suffrage to the people of the District of Columbia.
We believe the primary step toward the achievement of world-wide freedom is access by all peoples to the facts and the truth. To that end, we will encourage the greatest possible vigor on the part of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations Economic and Social Council to establish the foundations on which freedom can exist in every nation.
We deplore the repeated attempts of Republicans in the 80th Congress to impose thought control upon the American people and to encroach on the freedom of speech and press.
Terms you might want to google include "dixiecrat" and "southern strategy". These will explain why the south is a republican stronghold today.
