OMG! The Dems in 1868 were racist!

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Here's a little known historical tidbit about the two parties and the fight for civil rights from the 1868 Democratic Party platform:
"Instead of restoring the Union, it [the Republican Party] has, so far as in its power, dissolved it, and subjected ten States, in time of profound peace, to military despotism and negro supremacy." -http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29579
And yet Democrats still get away with smearing the Republican Party as racist.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Here's a little known historical tidbit about the two parties and the fight for civil rights from the 1868 Democratic Party platform:
"Instead of restoring the Union, it [the Republican Party] has, so far as in its power, dissolved it, and subjected ten States, in time of profound peace, to military despotism and negro supremacy." -http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29579
And yet Democrats still get away with smearing the Republican Party as racist.

Oh come on, you know full well that the words of Democrats in 1868 are completely different from the words of a Democrat in 2012. Haven't you ever heard of the "Southern strategy" that Republicans adopted?

Yes, I have, but it had nothing to do with race.  Pat Buchanan, who arguably created the Southern strategy,  has said that it was an effort to convince Southern moderates who supported civil rights reforms, many of whom had migrated from other parts of the country, to vote Republican as a protest against the segragationists in the Democratic Party.  Most of the segregationists NEVER became Republicans.  The only one who did was Strom Thurmond.  Meanwhile, Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, a former Kleagle in the KKK who filibustered against the 1964 Civil Rights Act and used the term "white n*****" three times in a 2001 interview, was praised as "the conscience of the Senate."  The last time I checked before he died, Senator Byrd was still a Democrat.  For more information on the real "Southern strategy," check out these articles:

http://www.freedomsjournal.net/2011/11/27/urban-legends-the-southern-strategy/#top

http://www.wnd.com/2002/12/16477/

I can also give you some more information that is not included in these articles if you would like.

PS: I'm not necessarily saying that the Dems of 1868 are the same as the Dems of today; I simply am saying that you can learn a lot about people (in this case, the Democratic Party), by looking into their history.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Republicans started to take the black vote for granted after a while, which was, along with the New Deal, a primary reason blacks started voting Democrat in the 1930s.  Republicans never gave up entirely on civil rights though: even in the 1940s Congressional Republicans were trying to pass antilynching laws.  And as recently as 1967, Democrats were filibustering against such antilynching laws (that's no typo: 1967!!!) The NAACP was founded in 1909 on the 100th birthday of President Abraham Lincoln by a group of black and white Republicans, including James Weldon Johnson, author of "Lift Every Voice and Sing", which is often referred to as the "black national anthem."  I don't think either party is "the racist party" today, but Democrats began paying lip servce to supporting civil rights as early as FDR and Truman.   Both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, who were Senators during the Eisenhower Administration, voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act.  During the 1963 March on Washington (in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave the "I Have a Dream" speech), President Kennedy expressed concern that the protesters would "sh*t" on the Washington Monument.  In 1964, President Johnson was quoted as saying, "I'll have those nig**rs" voting Democrat for the next 200 years" for signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  Some 80 percent of Congressional Republicans, led by Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (R-IL), voted for the 1964 CRA.  In comparison, only about 65 percent of Congressional Democrats did.  Aside from Strom Thurmond, nearly all the segregationists stayed with the Democratic Party and never became Republicans.  When David Duke ran as a Republican for the Senate and later Governor of Louisiana in the early 90s, the Republican Party actively campaigned against him in both races.  Simply put, if Democrats ever supported civil rights, it was only when it was popular, while you had some very brave Republicans who were being tortured and even killed fighting for civil rights when it wasn't popular.  I am NOT necessarily saying the Dems of 2012 are the same as the Dems of 1868.  I am simply saying that the Democratic Party, regardless of what they believe about racial issues now, has a long and well-documented history of racism and fighting against freedom for black Americans, and the Republican Party has a long history of fighting to make law the Founding Fathers' vision that "all men are created equal."  Both parties have indeed had their civil rights failings and civil rights triumphs, but this history is one of the most fundamental reasons that I am proud to call myself a Republican.  

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Nixon actually sped up desegregation of public schools to a rate that had never been achieved by any of his predecessors.  If the South was moving toward Republicans because of race, then it would seem to me that the trend would have stopped after the civil rights issues were resolved.  But not only did it continue, it got stronger.  Nixon was a strong supporter of civil rights and he did carry several Southern states in 1960, but that was mostly because of fears over JFK's Catholicism.  Nixon carried a large number of Southern states in 1968 as well, but that was mostly because George Wallace split the Democratic vote.  If you combine Humphrey and Wallace's totals, they actually exceeded Nixon's totals in all of the Nixon states in the South.  And Humphrey actually beat Nixon for second in three of the five Wallace states (all in the South.)  I appreciate your information because it seems interesting and well-considered, and I would like to see some of your sources.  But I disagree with certain elements your theory.  And for the sake of it, I will recommend yet another article.  This one is by a liberal professor who appears to subscribe to the "left-wing revisonist history" on the "Southern strategy" but nonetheless debunks the myth that the GOP surged in the South because of race:

http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.928/article_detail.asp

At the start of the 1968 campaign, this is where the three candidates stood in the polls:

Nixon- 42%
Humphrey- 29%
Wallace- 22%

On Election Day, this is what the final popular vote tally looked like:

Nixon- 43.4%
Humphrey- 42.7%
Wallace- 13.5%

Note that during the campaign, Wallace dropped 8.5%, and Humphrey rose 13.7%.  This suggests that the early Wallace supporters who changed their votes were voting for Hubert Humphrey.  Ike had carried or narrowly lost many Southern states in both his 1952 and 1956 victories, but he definitely wasn't pandering to bigots.  In Nixon's first inaugural address in 1969, he said the following about civil rights:

"We have given freedom new reach, and we have begun to make its promise real for black as well as white."

"No man can be fully free while his neighbor is not.  To go forward at all is to go forward together.  This means black and white together, as one nation, not two.  What remains is to give life to what is in the law: to ensure at last that as all are born equal in dignity before God, all are born equal in dignity before man."

Furthermore, Winthrop Rockefeller was elected Governor of Arkansas in 1966 as a pro-civil rights, pro-racial integration Republican, replacing the outgoing segregationist Democrat Orval Faubus.  The South actually started moving toward the Republicans as a result of anti-communism in the 1930s.  Most Southern states remained mostly Democratic at the statewide level until the 80s or 90s.  I would argue that religious conservatism was a large part of the shift as well, and especially when they coalesced around Ronald Reagan for president in 1980.  As president, Nixon established the Office of Minority Business Enterprise and the Philadelphia Plan (the first merits-based affirmative action program), doubled the federal budget for HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities), increased the civil rights enforcement budget by eight times, and appointed more blacks to federal positions than any of his predecessors, including Lyndon Johnson.  If you would like more information, I can give a LOT more of it.  I will recommend one more source: Bruce Bartlett's book Wrong On Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

What's the point of this thread?

To allow Oldiesfreak to score some partisan points, even though he's clearly misrepresenting history.

I am not misreprsenting history.  I am telling the truth as I know it, based on evidence from primary sources.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Shocking. And in 1804, Democrats like Aaron Burr were pro-dueling.

That was the Democratic-Republicans.  Andrew Jackson founded the Democratic Party in 1828 out of one of the factions in the Democratic-Republicans following the disputed 1824 presidential election.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Make no mistake: I realize that just about every political party has some skeletons in its closet, but it's also important not to ignore those entirely.