Democrats and Republican: civil rights and history
I keep reading (slowly, ever-so-slowly) the Robert Kagan book Dangerous Nation, his take on the history of what he contends was a non-isolationist United States from its very inception (and yes, you might call him a neocon historian.)
I plan a couple of posts soon on his discussion of the Spanish-American War, including a comparison that comes to my mind about the Iraq War.
But for today, instead, here’s a bit of history about the Democratic and Republican parties. The 1960s are widely acknowledged to have been a time of great transition and upheaval, and this was true of the parties, as well. In a few respects, it seems as though they actually changed places. In other respects, they just changed.
You’ll have to read Kagan’s book to get the details and the full flavor of it all, but here are some excerpts:
…the Republican Party throughout the last half of the nineteenth century was the party of federal power and the active state, of “nationalism,” the Democratic Party remained in the 1889s and the early 1890s the party of States’ rights, local control, and suspicion of federal power.
Doesn’t sound very familiar. Of course, the Republican post-60s reputation as the party of smaller government—at least on domestic issues, spending, and local vs. federal control—has been attenuated to the point that many strict Libertarians feel they haven’t a home there any more. But they have even less of a home in the Democratic Party.
The post-Reconstruction period was the era of southern yellow-dog Democrats, a time in which the South was so solidly Democratic that the only contest was between members of that party for the nomination, and no Republicans need apply. This lasted for nearly a century. The long legacy of the Civil War and Reconstruction (championed, of course, by Republicans—a fact the South did not forget) meant that Democrats were essentially the only game in town, and they were dramatically opposed to voting rights for blacks. One reason, of course, is that blacks were assumed to be on track to becoming overwhelmingly Republican voters were they ever to get the vote. And there was no reason to believe otherwise.
Kagan points out the interesting fact that the post-Civil War South was the only part of the country that had known defeat in a major war (prior to Vietnam, that is, which I believe should also be counted as a defeat—whether self-imposed or not, we could argue ad nauseum). Subsequent to losing the war, the South underwent occupation as well, which was designed to radically alter that society.
Here’s Kagan:
Since the end of that occupation [the Reconstruction], southern leaders had aimed to restore the South’s economy, to win a measure of economic and political independence, to restore white supremacy and “home rule,” and to gain freedom from federal, which is to say northern, dictates. Not surprisingly, it was the common view in the South, as one southern leader put it, that “[n]o man has the right or duty to impose his own convictions upon others.”….If Republicans celebrated Lincoln and the Civil War, therefore, and looked fondly back to the nationalist tradition of Clay and Hamilton, Democrats looked back to the era of Jackson and adhered to the Jeffersonian principle that the federal government “governs best that governs least.”
I am old enough to remember this position. “States’ rights” was still the banner of the South when I was a child, and Orville Faubus standing in that Little Rock school door to block integration was one of its last gasps.
But this era came to an end in the 60s, and with it ultimately went the solidly Democratic nature of the South. It was left to Lyndon Johnson, a southerner and a Democrat, to change all that. Maybe that’s how it had to happen, just as it was Nixon who opened China. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a watershed not only for the country as a whole, but for the South and the Democratic Party:
It puzzles me how the Republican Party has subsequently become linked in some people’s minds with racial bigotry. Surely there are individual Republicans who are bigots, as well as individual Democrats—and we’ve heard a bit from both in recent years. But historically, civil rights is an arena in which the Republican Party shone, with the Democratic Party coming rather late to the game.
Of course, what matters now is the stance of the parties at the moment, not their history. But, once again, the Republican Party certainly continues to believe in equality for people of all races. The only difference I can see between the two parties on that score is that Republicans are more likely to favor equality of opportunity and Democrats equality of outcome—which, for the latter, means supporting policies such as affirmative action based on group membership.
And many Democrats are also inclined to think that African-Americans who are Republicans are anomalous traitors to their race. But nothing could be further from the truth.
[ADDENDUM: Obama should brush up on his history, as well.]
A post that really strikes home for me. Having grown up in the south, (until I joined the navy the farthest north I had ever lived was Tulsa and the farthest east was Bossier City, La), the sixties was really a period of change for the South. To those of us born in the 50’s we really got an education in the news and in the classroom.
Civics was a required course during that time period and as we discussed the bill of rights, etc we would go home and see the freedom walks, the discrimination and if you were of an open mind you had to say to yourself “What is not right here? Aren’t we all equal?”
I personally believe that a lot of us young people decided that it was indeed better to be judged by our actions instead of our color, which led to in a lot of cases a rejection of our family beliefs or bias (as in my case).
As for the change of the democrat vs republican dynamics, if you look at the leading southern democrats, they were mainly conservative on fiscal issues and social issues. The change came when Dr. Martin Luther King went from being non-partisan to strong Democrat due to Goldwater’s stance on state rights. That is when the Republican became associated with bigotry.
Still, having married a New England girl and now living in New England has opened my eyes about some of the stereotyping of the south. Of course my comeback to any thing that I believe is a ridiculous assertion is “That’s why I was 16 before I learned that Damn Yankee was two words”. If nothing else it usually gets a laugh from the person.
The south I grew up in believed the following:
1) It is best to have the government out of our lives as much as possible
2) That women should always be treated with respect and protected as much as they would allow you to protect them
3) That military service is a worthy career or if you decided on just a hitch of 3 or so years it should be applauded and the papers followed your career on each promotion while you were in the service.
4) Good neighbors help those in need no matter what your personal feelings about the individual
5) A true American believed in God, State and country. Love it or leave it.
6) Robert E. Lee characterized what every southern gentleman should strive to become.
The South became a significantly better society in regards to race relations within a fraction of a generation — surpassing much of the rest of the nation, and the world, for that matter.
In John Barry’s Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, there’s an interesting illumination on how the Republicans lost the black vote. IIRC, in Barry’s view it was more than just FDR’s policies
Those who fail to learn from history…
Maybe the “biggoted” southerner saw some things coming down the pipe that others just couldnt see. Like the fact that black would soon cease describing a race and instead describe a political position that was vehemently anti white. Like the fact that if whites werent careful how they went about integration and making amends, their own feelings of guilt would be used to unknowingly keep the black family from meaningful contributions for generations to come.
Maybe there was no clean cut way to resolve relations after an institution like slavery. I cant help but think that if we had the foresight to see where we would be today, we would have gone about things a little differently. The phrase “tough love” comes to mind.
We do have to remember that Lincoln died before he could affect the reconstruction of the South.
Equality was set back because revolutionaries killed a Republican leader, which brought in a Democrat, Andrew Johnson, which was always a sympathizer for the South.
This sustained cultural resentments, that war was supposed to have solved for the most part. Now the KKK saw a way to get what they want, another way. Politically and intimidation wise.
The blacks were de facto under the influence of the Democrats. And like East Germany, that has a long effect on political alliances. It doesn’t matter what is in people’s best interests, if they live in a place controlled by those that try to keep them down.
neo, I am a big fan of David Hackett Fischer. He revises the historical revisionists. Sometime you may want to try “Albion’s Seed,” a large volume that reads well. Fischer’s thoughts about the roots of Jacksonian America and the roots of Jeffersonian (Virginian) America are worth pondering.
Because of this historian, and others, I am disinclined to accept the popular views about today’s political parties, or the history of such parties. Indeed you point out some obvious discrepancies.
I suspect the rat in the woodpile is (as been discussed before) Marxism, which has effectively ended the American basis of the Democratic party. When Hillary and the Kennedys and the black leaders bombast, they are speaking from alien roots that are not American.
Racism is a favorite Marxist game. By painting America as a racist, imperial power ( with Vietnam as the chief example) Demo-marxists were able to gain the ‘upper moral hand’ in political, social, and judicial debate during the 60’s. Their victory can be seen in many ways.
Even to the point of social engineering, now a matter of policy in many areas of American life.
Today the success of their cause is visible in the power to effectively demonize or negate any player or group in American public life by simply using ‘racist’ ‘sexist,’ other Marxist category.
Can an European-idea elite control the future of a free democratic people through the manipulation of the press, courts, and academia? We are discovering if it can.
A race is a terrible thing to waste. Many black Americans know this reality only too well from the policies of the Demo-marxists since the 60’s. Hillary, much as her husband or Ted Kennedy, would flee debate with Alan Keyes or LaShawn Barber.
As you say (my paraphrase) educated black Americans offend Marxist thought and are virtual traitors in the eyes of the Democratic party.
Orville Wright,but Orval Faubus.C-Span’s Booknotes had on a biographer of Faubus , stated that Faubus’ only big regret was accidentally running over his dog.
ft.comYou might find this article interesting.
Are neo-cons history?
By Jacob Weisberg
Published: March 14 2007 19:17 | Last updated: March 14 2007 19:17
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/dc14fd96-d25c-11db-a7c0-000b5df10621.html
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The 19th Century Democrats kept black Americans cowed and dependent under their thumb with slavery and lynchings. The 20th Century Democrats kept black Americans cowed and dependent with welfare entitlements. Of course they hate black American intellectuals – they dared to be free.
Exactly WHY would a conscious minority, not on the payroll of, or an agent for, or under threat of penalty from an oppressive majority, vote to continue his or her own oppression?
Why is this so hard for my white conservative friends to comprehend?
–Cobra
I seem to recall a Buckley column from some years ago wherein he was discussing being in Liberia at a showing of Amistad. What struck him most odd was that the audience, mostly black, was cheering for the shipmasters, not the rebellious slaves.
The nearest he could figure, (and this is clearly an assumption, only offered as a possible answer) was that black people, more than whites, seem to be more authoritarian in their thought processes. They care more about the (ahem!) color of authority than they are of the color of their authorities.
If the data supported this, it would explain a lot about how they might be so toxic in their attitudes towards freedom.