The “Party of Lincoln” Problem

Until 1948, whites in the South identified with the Democratic Party’s respect for states’ rights and resistance to the aggressive plans of Northern liberals, Republicans, and civil rights activists. The Democratic party has split again and again over civil rights, and the Northern branch of the party has consistently favored civil rights far more than the prevailing party in the South, regardless of its name. In the “Southern Strategy,” the Republican party captured the hearts and minds of the Southern Democrats, bringing them into the Republican Party. The fact is, it’s those Northern liberals, Republicans, and civil rights activists who are the “party of Lincoln,” and not the Southern Republicans of today. Today’s Republican party includes both “party of Lincoln” descendants and the descendants of the Southern Democrats, while today’s Democratic Party is the result of a series of splits that isolated the Northern, pro-civil-rights wing.

Claiming that today’s Republican Party is the Party of Lincoln is simply bad history.

The Democratic Party split over slavery began in the 1850s, with the Southern Democrats in favor of the expansion of slavery throughout the land, and the Northern Democrats opposed. The Republican Party formed in 1854 to oppose slavery expansion, and many Northern Democrats joined it.

During the Civil War, Northern Democrats split again into the War Democrats, who supported Lincoln’s military policies, and the Copperheads, who opposed them. In the Confederacy, no political parties were allowed, as they were seen as unwise during wartime.

In 1948, Truman’s executive order mandating equal treatment of black servicemen drove another wedge between the Northern and Southern branches of the Democratic party.

The Democratic Party split again over the Civil Rights act of 1964; the Southern Democrats opposed it. Southern Democrats (including Strom Thurmond) abandoned the party, and in the 1968 presidential race the electoral votes of every Confederate state but Texas went to either Nixon or Wallace. Lyndon Johnson proclaimed: “We have lost the South for a generation,” and so far he’s been proven correct. From Wikipedia, about Southern Strategy:

“Although the phrase ‘Southern strategy’ is often attributed to Nixon’s political strategist Kevin Phillips, he did not originate it but popularized it. In an interview included in a 1970 New York Times article, Phillips stated his analysis based on studies of ethnic voting:

‘From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don’t need any more than that…but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That’s where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.’”

I wonder how long that generation will last.