Reprinted Courtesy of: Intellectual Conservative
Author: Robert Oliver
Before the Civil War, the Democrat Party was united in its support for slavery. After the war, Democrats founded the Ku Klux Klan, established Jim Crow Laws, and repeatedly defeated anti-lynching and other federal legislation that became necessary in order to dismantle Democrat-created segregation in South.
There is a saying – “God cannot change the truth.”
I’m an African-American political independent. The purpose of this article is not to debate the merits of belonging to a certain political party nor to pursue political converts. The purpose is to clarify history and to ask, does the Democratic Party owe African-Americans an apology for past support of slavery and racism?
February is Black History Month. Sometimes Black History needs clarification. For example, a friend told me that an African-American employee in his New York City office thought that President Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat. Another African-American friend, a former liaison between the Democrats in the California State Legislature and the Clinton White House, as well as a campaigner for Bill Clinton’s presidency, thought that the slave owners in the Old South were all Republicans. He thought that the worst Democrat was better than the best Republican. I was even told that an African-American woman in Illinois actually thought that it was illegal for a Black person to vote Republican! Based on that sampling, is it possible that a vast number of African-Americans are laboring under similar false beliefs about Democrats and Republicans?
For the full article go to:
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2008/02/18/should-the-democratic-party-apologize-for-supporting-slavery
1 comment:
A little history. Exactly. Just a little, but definitely not all of it. Or even most of it. But that’s the point, right? This is just another revisionist look at history from some right wing nutjob, who isn’t interested in truth. Kudos for pointing out that Democrats once supported slavery and that Republican, Abe Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves. Furthermore that it was Democratic Party supporters/members who founded the Ku Klux Klan. By itself and in the light you’ve provided, that might look really bad, except that it happened a very long time ago and a lot has changed. And if that’s your party’s last great accomplishment, I might not make too big a deal out of that. But I’ll humor your assertion..
What you fail to mention is that prior to the Civil War, the Democratic Party was the more conservative party while Republicans were the more liberal party. The Civil War was a pivotal moment in the history of our political parties, well the two major ones, for it was then that Lincoln took his liberal party and in the process of preserving the Union, he re-built the party on a conservative platform.
That change didn’t happen overnight, as many of the ultra-right wing Democrats in the South refused to join forces with the party that took away their slaves and forced them back into the USA, even though their ideologies were remarkably similar in terms of economics and foreign policy. The difference was the religious fanatacism of the southern conservatives in the Democratic Party, aka Dixiecrats. Even still, there were many liberal Republicans, particularly in the Northeast well into the 20th century, even as Democrats were growing more and more liberal everywhere but the South.
For the next century after the Civil War, there was much division in ideology within both major parties, which were more influenced by the local subcultures of the areas they represent than by a national agenda. As a result, there were significantly more examples of “crossing the aisle” than what we see today. It wasn’t until Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 that the ideology of each party was more clearly defined and unified on a national level. The old Southern Democrats who had clung to the party to the bitter end, were so disillusioned by LBJ betraying what they thought their party stood for by signing the CRA, they began jumping ship and becoming Republicans.
What’s even better than your deliberate attempt at revising history is that regardless of who freed the slaves, who founded the KKK, who opposed Civil Rights, Women’s Suffrage, or anything else you want to blame on the Democrats of today, is how the Republican Party today, right now would wipe all of that out in the stroke of a pen given the opportunity
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