A common phrase during the 2016 Republican nomination has become, “If Donald Trump wins the nomination, it will be the death of the party of Lincoln." But these people have it quite wrong. The Republican party of today is not the party of Lincoln and hasn't been for a long time, just as the Democratic party is not the party of Jefferson, Jackson, or Stephen Douglas. How did this happen?
This is the beginning of a four or five
article series about the Republican Party Platform, Lincoln,
Roosevelt, The Radical Republicans, and Southern Democrats of 1860.
This first article will look at the
early Republican Party platform, and how it changed over time.
A party platform is a summary of planks (issues) that the party wants to address in a presidential election. It includes accusations against the other
party, self-congratulations about its past achievements, and a vision
for the future. It also includes a list of policy proposals. In
1860 the Republican list started smaller, but over time has expanded, because of easier
communication between party officials.
The Republican Party officially formed
in 1854 and launched its first presidential campaign in 1856. The first
Republican candidate John C. Fremont failed, both in capturing the presidenicy and public
enthusiasm. He remained in political mix, joining Lincoln's
cabinet, but left no imprint on the public mind. So it was
Abraham Lincoln, as the second Republican presidential nominee, and
first successful winner, who came to represent the Republican party.
Not only did he represent it, but he laid the foundation, giving it a
new birth, and recasting its essential ideas. His legacy is so
strong, that until recently, the Republican Party was called the
party of Lincoln. It is in name, but the recent nomination
contest has shown the candidates prefer to associate with the recent figure of Reagan.
And Reagan and Lincoln are not the
same. The Grand Old Party that they both presided over is not the
same. Like all institutions they changed over the passing of time.
Requiring the Republican party to never change would be like thinking
that Constitution is rigid and unyielding, contained in some sort of
mythical 1789 time-warp.
The best way to examine honw they have
changed is reading the party platforms of each presidential year.
These can all be found here.
There are some difficulties to consider when reading them. First, the
writers of a platform (Democratic or Republican) can say anything
they want. It requires some reading between the lines to determine their true meaning. It's
just as important to look for what disappears over time as to what appears, whether it's planks
or certain words. Individual words such as liberty, progressive, or
free labor, or equality set a tone, and when they disappear it's crucial to notice. Their disappearance isn't accidental. It marks a shift
in the beliefs of the party. It's also important to notice how much
writing is devoted to each topic. If a topic receives only a
sentence, it can't be as important as another that has twenty
sentences devoted to it.
Finally,
not all planks are discussed. Since this article is about how the
party changed, there are some planks left unmentioned. For instance, the Republican party has nearly always believed in a strong military. All the
planks in the first (1860) platform have been included.
The Republican party was originally
birthed out of the Free Soil, or Abolitionist party. It incorporated
the ideas of the Whig Party (which had collapsed) and the National
Republicans (who were a splinter of the Jeffersonian Democrats, and led by Henry Clay). With this combination it
published its first platform with these key planks:
All men are created equal: white and
black
The Union must be preserved
The federal government is supreme, but
states have rights as well
No slaves in the territories and no
resuscitation of African slave trade, but slavery shall remain
Supported tariffs
Supported homesteading
Full rights to all immigrants and
immigration should be fostered
Supported improvement of infrastructure
and railroad
Over the course of the next forty years
(1860 - 1900) it held to these planks, expanding to include:
Supported introducing silver coinage
(Previously the United States used only gold for coins)
Funding for education, but no public
funds for sectional schools (no funds private or catholic schools)
Pacification of Rebellious States until
they accept equal rights and freedoms for African Americans
Opposed land grants to businesses
(Republicans wanted land to go to the citizenry)
A vigorous and just system of taxation
The National Government is Supreme
Supported Public Regulation of railways
and businesses
Supported Eight hour work days, and
opposed child labor
Unrestricted access to the ballot box
for all men of all races
Supported international law and
solutions, particularly referencing the Hague
Supported separation of Church and
State
But then something happened. The
changes were slow, but accelerating. In the late 1800s and in the
early 1900s the Republicans began to reject immigration, the coinage
of silver, and free labor. The party wanted to exclude Chinese from
immigrating to the United States.
The changes continued. From 1910 to
1930 the party platform became more business friendly. It stopped
using the words free labor and reduced planks that regulated
business. For citizens it included the newer term “individual
liberties”. The party abandoned the freedom and importance of
community for business and individual freedom to work. Earlier the
Republicans embraced the title, progressive, and they still
championed many causes. But they didn't entirely change. They wanted a federal law against lynching,
an independent judiciary, and legislation to prevent corporations
from contributing funds (directly and indirectly) to elections. They
still wanted the eight hour work day and to protect wage earns, but
instead of regulating businesses, they wanted communications such as the telephone services and other public utilities to be held by private corporations. They also removed their plank in support of
schools, though they occasionally stressed their support of vocational education.
In 1932, the first election during the
Great Depression, the Republican platform listed a series of limited
measures to aid business, in the hope of increasing employment, but
not to aid citizens. The Republicans appeared afraid to take on debt
to act, and though they had previously claimed the supremacy of the
federal government, they declared that unemployment and relief were
the problem of the individual states. They urged dramatic cuts in
all programs at both a nation level and state level.
As the New Deal of FDR continued they
accused the Democrats of introducing corruption into government and
destroying the currency of the United States by severing it from the
value of gold. They also turned from the urban centers of labor
(presumably because of their anti-immigrant stance) and wrote mostly
about how they would aid farmers. There are about five sentences
about labor and fifty about farming in the 1936 platform.
The same continued during FDR's final two
terms. The Republican platform was still strongly for African
Americans, but other aspects were lost. They wanted to confine
Government to essential services, shrink regulation of business, and
halt immigration. The New Deal, they said, was sapping strength and vigor from
the citizens as they became dependent on government.
Looking back at the original platform,
only a few ideas remained. They had abandoned infrastructure,
immigration, a supreme federal government, and homesteading. They no
longer discussed public education, silver, or opposed giving public
land to businesses.
To get to today is a bit more of a
stretch, and that will be for next time. Perhaps you can already see
that much of the original party had been lost, and how the Republican
party of Reagan (or Trump) had started taking shape.
Next week a further look at Republican
platform into modern times and Lincoln's influence on the original
Republicans.
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