Dems, Republicans, and the 'party of civil rights'
By Steve Benen Thursday Jul 17, 2008 3:40pm
In light of John McCain’s appearance before the NAACP’s national convention, Bruce Bartlett makes the case in a WSJ op-ed that McCain should argue that the Republican Party, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, is the party of civil rights. (If this sounds familiar, Bartlett wrote a book on this subject, called “Wrong on Race.”)
Everyone knows this, but it’s worth repeating: the Republican Party is the party of Abraham Lincoln and was established in 1854 to block the expansion of slavery. The Democratic Party was the party of slavery. […]
After the war, it was the Republican Party that rammed through the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution over Democratic opposition…. Historically speaking, the Republican Party has a far better record on race than the Democrats. Sen. McCain should not be shy about saying so.
This comes less than two weeks after the National Black Republican Association put up billboards in Florida and South Carolina saying the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican (a claim which is demonstrably ridiculous).
Now, we’ve been down this road before, but if the right sincerely intends to push this argument again this election year, we might as well go to the trouble of pointing out how foolish — and frankly, intellectually lazy — this entire tack really is.
The inescapable fact is, the Republican Party of the 19th century bears no resemblance to, and has no bearing on, the modern-day Republican Party. The problem isn’t that Bartlett’s history is wrong; it’s that his history is irrelevant and badly misses the point.
One need not have a doctorate in American history to know that the nation’s two major political parties have shifted significantly for the better part of nearly two centuries. The Democratic Party, in the first half of the 20th century, was home to competing constituencies — southern whites with abhorrent views on race, and African Americans in the north, who sought to advance the cause of civil rights. The party struggled, ultimately siding with a progressive, inclusive agenda.
On race, Democrats changed and became the party of civil rights. Republicans, meanwhile, changed and became the home of racists who no longer felt comfortable in the Democratic Party.
As Matt Yglesias recently argued:
Decades ago, the Democratic Party was, among other things, the political home of white supremacy in the United States. In the 1960s, the party’s leadership decisively broke with that record. At around the same time, part of the rise of the conservative movement inside the Republican Party was the growing prominence of folks like Barry Goldwater who opposed the Civil Rights Act and who found in his 1964 campaign that the main electoral constituency for his brand of conservatism was … white supremacists. Other white supremacist politicians (some of whom, unlike Goldwater, would forever remain unrepentant) like Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms moved into the GOP column. And of course while explicit advocacy of segregation has long since vanished from the top ranks of the Republican Party, major conservative leaders have been heard in recent years issuing paens to the work of Thurmond and Helms, with key legislative leaders specifically regretting that Thurmond’s 1948 white supremacist presidential campaign failed, and pointing to Helms as exemplifying what conservatism is all about.
Bartlett’s central point seems to be that voters should be aware of the parties’ pasts, because the Dems’ generations-old record has to matter. I’m very much inclined to agree — because that party broke from that past to become champions of civil rights. Equally important, then, is the Republicans’ present — the party not only welcomed the racists who left the Democrats, they became the party of the “Southern Strategy,” opposition to affirmative action, campaigns based on race-baiting, vote-caging, discriminatory voter-ID laws, Katrina, boycotting minority debates, and opposing legislative remedies to problems that affect the African-American community most.
Ultimately, this isn’t much of a campaign pitch: “Vote Republican: The Party Was Right Before It Was Wrong.”
Login or Register to post comments.
Every time I hear the clapping every 5 mins ......... I think of the nodding dogs in the back of cars .......
Err 30 seconds I mean !
(woo hoo first)
Yeah right! The party of Strom Thurman for civil rights? After years and years of suppressing the black vote in the South? The party that was Lincoln's no longer exists. In fact I think Lincoln and our Founding Fathers are spinning in their graves. Republican is now a dirty word. You know, like Liberal was.
To paraphrase an old saying " What have you done for us lately?".
Yup, when your most recent example is in the mid 19th century, you might be fighting a losing battle.
lincoln was a republican.
that's why the southern democrats opposed civil rights.
that was the beginning of the southern republican.
short form: the southern strategy
can I get a amen, brother?
The party of the "Southern Strategy" so the (molstly southern) race phobe Dems could run to the Republican side.
wsj?
that the print version of fux bizniss, right?
I rest my case!
Afriend of mine`s daughter designed a tee shirt right before Buish started the Iraq war.It was a picture of Lincoln with tears in his eyes.The caption:"It`s My Party And I`ll Cry If I Want to."
The party of Lincoln,my ass.
The sothern stratety of Nixon has put that notion of the repubs to rest 40 years ago. Now they have a white man runnig for prez that oppossed MLK day in the senate and when that failed, he tried to get done in AZ until the NFL said that the super bowl will never go to AZ, at which point money spoke and racism went back into the repub closet.
CoIntelPro for Pronktastic Victory Over SCLM, DIEBOLD, ESS and SEQUOIA! @ 6:
Amen,Brother
My girlfriend just remined me of two words to put this to rest:
DAVID DUKE
the party of jesus, right? jesus musta been one hateful sumbitch!
where in the bible did they have the lynching party? when did jesus preach jim crow?
I could never find the passage.
does that make me a bad christian? a bad republican? both?
sully18 @ 9:
amen. brother!
Teddy Roosevelt (R) established the first National Park. Now the Repugs want to destroy those same parks in the name of commercial enterprise. WTF
You know what's "demonstrably ridiculous", Steve? Making (false) claims that are easily debunked (and/or linking to other sites that either don't say what you say they do or make the same error that you are).
With that said, I agree that neither Lincoln nor MLK would be members of the current Republican Party.
John @ 5:
Can't blame mcgramps for being nostalgic about his high school days though...
jeff @ 10:
a lot like houston could not get a baseball team until they ended legalized segregation and whites-only everything.
geez!
Jusker @ 15:
and since they have been given to the oil companies, we can only wait until the slime ruins everything.
Certainly not.
In fact, anyone whose political views are at all closer to the pre-9-11 definition of 'conservative' than to the current crypto-fascist insanity MUST vote Democratic unless they want to betray their principles.
There is absolutely nothing Christian, "conservative", or American about the current Republican party, and they'll never get another vote of mine until they remember their 8th grade civics classes. It's not really that hard.
Until then, bad luck to all of them.
And people should remember that by the time of Ulysses Grant, there were no more radical Republicans, but bootlickers of the Guilded Age. Leaving the Democratic South to impose Jim Crow laws, sharecropping, prisoner forced labor, and lynchings to basically in effect reinstall slavery. That is until the liberal wing of the Democrats picked up on the Civil Rights issue, and white business interests became jealous of black entrepreneurs profitabally selling all manner of goods to their own communities.
The GOP is the party of Civil Rights? Next will they claim also to be the party of peace and prosperity?
Isn't Submit Comment rather groveling?
JTM @ 16:
Feel free to debunk. I'm not following your criticisms. None of them appear to be correct.
Hell, it isn't even the party of Teddy Roosevelt anymore. You know, the conservationist who called for universal health care and universal insurance? The guy who slugged it out against the business giants, including oil companies? Feh. If Teddy were alive today, he'd go postal on Bu$hCo's craven asses what they've done to this country for their energy company paymasters.
unfortunately, the dems are helping undermine the Constitution, which fux each and every one of us, not just a 'target demographic'.
ysbaddaden @ 23:
Only if not quoteworthy.
Is there any minority that McChimpy is winning over Obama?
I haven't seen any polls that address this, only Latino and Black are the ones I have seen. Are there any for the other minorities othet than this two groups, I understand that they are not big factor in a nation wide race, but still it would be interesting to see.
They seem to like to go back 100 years to find an image. After TR the whole lot of them have been crooks except probably Eisenhower. They spend years shining up Reagan and that's all they've got.
I can see why McCain and other republican mention Lincoln when they
complain about how poor they have done in getting the black vote.
Abe Lincoln in his last public address stated that he was willing to let only EDUCATED BLACK and those who had served in the MILITARY the right to VOTE.
I can see why McCain and other republican mention Lincoln when they
complain about how poor they have done in getting the black vote.
Abe Lincoln in his last public address stated that he was willing to let only EDUCATED BLACK and those who had served in the MILITARY the right to VOTE.
History's interesting, and in McCain's Civil War era childhood possibly relevant. Deluded to imagine relevance now. We've also been at war with Canada and Mexico. Swastika used to be a good luck symbol. Britain used to be our arch nemesis. Interesting that Republican's wish to lead us forward into the 1800's.
The problem with this argument is the chosen terminology. Let's have this same discussion and use the words "liberal" and conservative." It was the liberals who wanted to end slavery. It was the liberals who pushed through the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments despite the protestations of the conservatives.
Lincoln was a liberal and the acknowledged father of the Republican Party, and that begs the question: what the hell happened to the Republicans to make them veer so far off course?
Answer: Power and money. In the 1876 presidential election, the Democratic Party had proof that Republican tampering led to a Hayes victory and threatened to take the case to court. The evidence must have been pretty solid because the Republicans were very happy to make a deal. The deal was to end Reconstruction and pull all federal troops out of the south. That led to the Jim Crow era and another 70 years of oppression for southern blacks.
So when the Republicans talk about Lincoln, remind them that they sold out every single African-American in the south in 1876. Bastards!
The Democratic party shouldn't shy away from the fact that they USED to be the party of discrimination. (If they try to cover it up, the Republicans will only make a bigger issue of it.) We all know, however, that that relationship was turned upside down in 1968 when LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act, and the Republicans (under Nixon) decided to bring in their 'Southern Strategy.'
If the Republicans insist on making an issue of this, I'd suggest waiting until close to the election, and then use the Confed. Flag issue as a wedge. Force Obama and McCain to declare their stance on it, as well as the MLK national holiday. The MLK day issue being an obvious weakness for pretty much all the Republicans, not just McCain.
Lincoln and the Republican Party oh my. With the down fall of the GOP in the pass 7 years now they use Lincoln. If the current Republican Party had it their way minorities will be back to being slaves. Look at how the GOP speaks of African Americans today. The Republican Party is divided by the few honest ones and the larger group of liars. McCain once stood for something then brought in with Satan's Bush Administration. John sold his soul to the Devil and nothing will go right again for him. Attacking Mrs. Obama or even buying reporters wont work this time. Bush is even backing Obama in hopes of getting help with the crimes he committed over the pass 7 years. Cheney will get enough from the US Treasury to buy his way out of jail. Jan. 20th the Republican rats will be turning on each other. Karl Rove and Gonzelas will be changed the crimes they committed.
Party Schmarty. A political party's identity and agenda are determined by the people who vote for them, not the other way around.
At the state level and up until the mid-1960s, people who opposed Civil Rights legislation, particularly in the South, voted for Democrats. Since the mid-1960s, when Democratic presidents began to SIGN INTO LAW Civil Rights legislation, those same people abandoned the Democratic Party and began to vote for Repubilicans.
The fact that Democratic Presidents began to push for and pass Civil Rights legislation in the mid-1960s is one of the reasons the Democratic Party LOST the South. In fact, no Democratic President has won the majority of white votes in the entire country since 1964.
A "liberal" Senator from the Northern State of Illinois (Lincoln) would NOT have been elected by the registered Republican voters in the South now.
Prior to the mid-1960s, there really was such a thing as a "liberal" Northern Republican. Extremely rare since then.
A co-worker once told me that Lincoln was a conservative. I said "And that would make Jefferson Davis a ..."
It's been 4 years and I'm still waiting on his answer.
Reagan and his moral majority religious crackpots killed the true Republican party.
This must be part of the McCain campaign's plan to win by getting only 25% of the African-American vote.
Fortunately, while Florida Republicans might be stupid enough to believe this sign, Florida African-Americans are not.
Peter G @ 24:
MLK was a Republican.
“Someone once asked me why I was a democrat, I told them that the republicans promised every black man 40 acres and a mule. As long as I’m still waiting for my 40 acres I’ll ride this donkey as far as it will take me!” --- Al Sharpton
It's Me @ 36:
Nice post. It's very easy to see historical politics as conforming to our present political political situation. Unfortunately you yourself provide an example of such behavior by declaring Lincoln to be a Senator. Strange as it may be by today's standards, he was elected President in 1860 as a former 1 term congressman. He never served in the U.S. Senate and was a Representative from '47 to '49. By today's standards he would be a political nobody.
Comparing the Republican Party of then to the party of today is meaningless. It makes as much sense as assuming that the Russia of today was the one of the Tsars or that the People's Republic of China is the next Qing Dynasty. The US has changed dramatically. The Republicans proved to have spines of wet kleenex when the South established Jim Crow, they did nothing to stop it. However, points must be made about the changing definitions of "liberal" and "conservative." In Europe for the majority of the 19th Century a liberal was basically today's GOP, supporting capitalism and a corporate democracy, a conservative supported divine right of kings and a traditional (read: Medieval) economy. In the US, the concepts didn't exist as much owing to a lack of a common US identity, which was forged in the bloody cauldron of the Civil War. Prior to the Civil War, both North and South saw the Union as a federation of quasindependent pseudonations. After the sectionalist issue was dealt with, the US began to develop (it still hasn't finished) a national identity based on the Northern way of life.
The Republicans also had a different type of US in the 19th Century. The US was then a mostly English-in-ancestry nation, as opposed to the predominately Irish, German, Italian, and Polish European groups which outnumber together the English ancestry group. The US also was in the process of creating a unified North American empire by destroying Natives and booting out Europeans. The US also allowed a near-slavery to become built out of the ashes of the old one. The United States had scientific racism, was also based on mostly Creation science, the progressives and conservatives both supported eugenics and phrenology (if for different reasons), the US's big boogeymen were Catholic Irish and Poles and the Yellow Peril (which was treated identically to "islamofascism" today) and also there was the Sundown Towning.
P.D. @ 3:
Lincoln and the Founders would find nothing wrong with the GOP attitude on race. An enlightened society was not exactly 18th and 19th Century America, as Jefferson's attitudes on blacks combined with the wording of the declaration shows.
If you refer to people as conservative or progressive - REGARDLESS of party affiliation - there is NO WAY they can win this. Conservatives, REGARDLESS of party affiliation, have ALWAYS held back civil rights.
Just like when that dickhead Hannity points out that Congress' approval numbers are lower than Bush's - I feel like saying "hey dickhead, what would Congress approval numbers be if they did what they were suppose to do, which is THE OPPOSITE of what you want, and ended the Iraqi War? Tell me dickhead. You know they'd be DOUBLE what the president's is right now".
cubiclegrrl @ 25:
TR would break up most corporations of today as trusts.
It`s like George Carlin says.these guys are just working for the real owners of us all,and they pass laws and do things to fuck with us just because they can.So do everything you can to speak truth,peace,and fuck with them any time you can.
I'm thinking that Bush and "heckuva job Brownie", in their wonderful response to the city of New Orleans after hurricane Katrina, pretty much underscored how important blacks are as they relate to inclusion for the GOP.
Note: I'm not saying this negates the poor effort by state and local leadership in that crisis, but just feel the overall leadership by our supposed national "leaders" was so pathetic, one can only conclude none of the gave a rats behind.
mcbush pandering for votes he won't get.......not many anyways
Johnny Come Lately McCain opposed the MLK holiday. How many Democrats and progressives have lost their seats in congress at the state, federal and local levels over the years trying to advance civil rights? Likewise how many Republicans particularly in the south got their seats and were re-elected by opposing civil rights? It's widely believed Jesse Helms eeked out a narrow victory every 6 years simply by race baiting and gay baiting towards the end of every campaign like this ad Helms ran against Harvey Gantt when Helms came from behind and won in the closing days after this ad was run continuously in the last couple of weeks of the campaign http://youtube.com/watch?v=KIyewCdXMzk. Helms wasn't the Republican exception, he was the rule. Now that Democratic sacrifices have paved the way for many civil rights to be accepted as mainstream (gay civil rights being the last) now Republicans like McCain want to raise their hands and say "me too!" by standing on the backs of the political sacrifices of progressives. 10-20 years from now when gay marriage is widely accepted, after Republicans have done everything they can to stand in the way of it, Republicans like McCain will be pimping for gay votes claiming "me too, I support gay rights! I support gay marriage!"
To hell with them. My memory's not that short.
Weak... damned weak... If that's the best This Bartlett character can come up with... 150 plus year old facts that are totally irrelevant to the here and now??.... Then he should just pack it in.. Go home dude... What utter garbage... Frankly someone should fire his ass over that weakass shit... Who gives a flying fuck about what the repuke party 'use' to stand for... They abandoned ay pretense to what that charter was all about fucking decades ago!!!... BTW, Abe would vomit in his grave at what this current generation of dolts, con-sharks and immoral greed-mongers have turned his party into..... if he wasn't so busy spinning over it..... Republican cheer leaders make me SICK!!! JD
Everyone knows this, but it’s worth repeating: the Romans are the people that once conquered the world. The United States of America wasn't even born yet at that time.
After they conquered, people of the conquered lands became citizens of Rome, over some objections. Historically speaking, Rome has a better record of running wars and occupations like Iraq, has legitimate title to the world, and the Pope should not be shy about saying so.
We need to find a word to describe the white Southern political grouping that moved from the Democratic to the Republican Party beginning in the 1960s and pretty much completing its move by the 1980s. In Virginia, this group was exemplified by Governor Mills Godwin, who served two non-consecutive terms, the first as a Harry Byrd Democrat, and the second as a Republican. Strom Thurmond, Trent Lott and many others began as Democrats, but left the party in protest against the increasing power of African-Americans in the party. That white Southern group has been the most powerful single force in US politics since the 1850s, despite its treason in 1861.
"Everyone knows this, but it’s worth repeating: the Republican Party is the party of Abraham Lincoln and was established in 1854 to block the expansion of slavery. The Democratic Party was the party of slavery."
The Republican Party was founded in 1854 to further the interests of the Corporate Capitalists who wanted to use "free labor" to expand the American Empire. No "upfront" costs with "free labor" - people work for days, weeks, even months before you have to pay them. Slaves you gotta pay for upfront, and you gotta feed them & care for them like draft animals. "Free labor" buys his food on credit from the company store - it's deducted from his wages. And if he gets injured, sick, or dies .. there's always another "free man" looking for work.
Lincoln was a Railroad Lawyer.
Connect the dots.
http://therealmccain.com/ pass it on!
McCain was asked to leave the NAACP meeting after he referred to its members as "colored people".
Larry Yates @ 53:
There is a word: Dixiecrats.
And the shifting alliances among respective Democratic and Republican coalition groups has been going on since the two parties had a duopoly on the federal government. The Republicans were severely split in the early 20th Century, a split that ultimately put Democrat Woodrow Wilson in the White House when Theodore Roosevelt broke from the Republicans, and ran against President Taft as a member of the [brace yourselves] Progressive Party.
Franklin Roosevelt's progressive platform later began to transform the Democratic Party into one that pushed for a stronger federal government, one that could ensure the welfare of all Americans, and one that could begin to address the plight of racial minorities. Harry Truman continued in that tradition by adding Universal Health Care to the official Democratic platform and racially integrating the military. Infuriated long-time Democrats like Strom Thurmond began leaving the party in the 1940s, and Thurmond once ran for president as a Dixiecrat on the slogan, "Segregation Now, Segregation Forever."
With a coalition of strong-fed progressives and more traditionalist holdovers in the south, the Democrats might have been unstoppable, had Richard Nixon not perceived a winning "Southern Strategy" -- bring the racist Dixiecrats over to the Republicans in droves, and forge a coalition of Goldwater Republicans and Crazy, Authoritarian, Racist Republicans.
About the only thing the modern Republican Party has now with its founders is the faith in free markets, though their devotion to fiscal responsibility has been tossed out the window in favor of unlimited war spending. Their embrace of outright Theocrats -- a neo-Southern Strategy, if you will -- has pushed their more libertarian/Goldwater elements to the left, and soon there will be nothing left of the so called Party of Lincoln.
Republicans are no longer the GOP. They are the party of WASTE:
Warmongering, Authoritarian, Spendthrift, Talibaptist Egotists.
Neither Abraham Lincoln, nor Teddy Roosevelt, nor Barry Goldwater nor Martin Luther King would have anything to do with them.
Krishnan@47
What is your point?
It was CONSERVATIVE democrats who supported segregation. Then, they just changed to Republicans after the civil rights movement.
sully18 @ 58:
Am I going nuts or was there a comment by someone named Krishnan that told a story of someone moving from house to house,district to district with a bunch of his friends?and it sounded as if they were in India or Pakistan;somewhere where the currency was Rs.Then the comment disappeared and mine was moved from 48 to 47.
Please help out with this Mr. or Ms site monitor.
[It was spam, so it was deleted. Site Monitor]
Actually, it is the same exact party. The slave traders were all in the north (94% of all slaves were sold to the Caribbean and South America), the Confederate Constitution banned the import of slaves, and it was all about money and international trace. The solution was taking away states rights and lying about the war to gain popular support. Sound familiar?
ec @ 61:
Yes, the Confederate Constitution banned the import of African slaves. Methinks the CSA would have found a few ways to get around that, that's as old as the ape lineage.
Karen @ 52:
MountainMan23 @ 54:
@ MountainMan23:
Go to hell. You're apologizing for keeping people in chains, their kids in chains, their kid's kids in chain, beating them till they could barely walk, using horrific methods if the slaves justifiably revolted against their maltreatment, taking away their religion in order to keep the property in line by using the gospel of liberation for enslavement, all of that? If C&L had an ignore list, you'd be on it. They did not have to feed, nor clothe, nor care for slaves even after the slave trade was banned, you could always buy a new buck n*gger if you used up the old one, they were just dumb draft animals anyway after all, or so the reasoning went in that era of savagery. Northern capitalism most definitely had its issues, but compared to slavery it was more than benevolent, it was a godsend. I'm from the Deep South, from a family where mom and dad's ancestors both fought for the Confederacy. I'm more than qualified by that shame and evil in my family's history to speak on this.
@Karen: Actually, the person with the best title to continuation of Roman leadership is the Bishop of Istanbul, not the pope. Roman sovereignty in the West was over by 476, it did not end in Constantinople until 1453, but that's neither here nor there. The person with the best claim to rule the world would be the descendants of Temujin, whose descendants forged an empire far larger than the wildest dreams of the Caesars or Basileusae, or the Huangdis, or the Osmanlis. Mongolians, in other words, have the best title. Not any European, Han, or Turk.
Yes, the Republican Party was founded in opposition to slavery, championed civil rights amendments a century ago, and was the minority party in the Democrat-controlled segregationist South in the first half or more of the 20th Century. But in OUR lifetime, well, that's another story. When Harry Truman reinvented his party as a force for racial equality, those segregationist Democrats took flight and followed Strom Thurmond, first to his Dixiecrat Party, and then to the Republican Party. By the mid-1960's, there were just enough old-line southern Democrats in Congress to mount an internecine challenge to Lyndon Johnson's civil rights legislation, but Johnson won the day. And by the end of that decade, it was the Republican Party that took up the obstructionist cause. The idea was to wrest the South from Democratic control by appealing to the segregationist sensibilities that remained in many parts of the South. It was called the Southern Strategy, and it worked. One by one, Republicans championing "states' rights" and other anti-civil rights causes were elected to seats in the House and Senate long held by Democrats. Only one Democratic presidential candidate -- a southerner, Jimmy Carter, in 1976 -- has won the South since 1968. And from 1980 forward, the South has been a virtual presidential-year lock for Republicans. Fortunately, the principle of racial equality has won-over most Americans, Republicans and Democrats in the North and South. But to say that the Republican Party is the party of civil rights is to reinvent America's modern, and most relevant, history.
General_Rennenkampf @ 63:
I don't think MountainMan23 was defending slavery at all. He was noting that the mid-19th Century Republican Party's motives for ending it were not entirely noble.
Well, yeah. But I think my way is funnier. When lampooning Republicans, the more historical inaccuracies, the more accurate the picture of the right-winger. :)
sully18 @ 60:
Thanks,now I can breath a little easier about the guys ib the black SUV and night vision goggles sitting across the street looking at my house.Just kidding
The RNC is also the party of morons.
and quite right too, keep on protecting and hiding that elephut.
sully18 @ 66:
go buy one of those million candle power hand held rechargeable flash lights. bring some light and joy into the lives of the watchers.
Karen @ 65:
Mountainman23's arguments are directly identical, rhetoric and all, to words used by fireeaters in my part of the country to justify slavery and secession against modernity. If he wasn't defending it, he has some explaining to do about plagiarizing pro-Secessionist apologists for the "peculiar institution." As a person fully aware of the South's long list of shames, it perks up my antenna when I see something like that.
That was a lampoon? :0
Karen @ 52:
All hail Charlemagne
The Party of Nixon, who ignored MLK in jail, until JFK paid him a visit.
Change ONE WORD... and the statements becomes totally true:
The Republicans are the party of Civil Wrongs.
It really irks me when this current crop of republicans compares themselves to Lincoln or the republicans of the 19th century in any way. Not to mention that after the Emancipation Proclimation and the ensuing Constitutional amendments outlawing slavery, it took this country over a century to pass the Civil Rights Bill.
Besides, Pres. Lincoln was a very staunch upholder of the Constitution. He didn't pen the Emancipation Proclimation until almost 2 years into his presidency because, while he thought slavery was morally reprehensible, it was at the time still protected by the Constitution. The Bushies look for anyway they can to subvert and undermine our Constitution.
The republican party is now the party of bush, cheaney, reagan, helms, thurmond, and the entirely clueless mccain. The party of Lincoln and Seward and even T. Roosevelt , as it relates to the current party, is but a long distant memory.
So stop, please, invoking their ghosts and attempting to tarnish their legacy by attaching yours to it.
SpacemanDewey @ 73: