How does Hayes, the guy who let the Klan completely take over the south and who murdered striking workers, have a positive rating? What redeeming qualities does he have that people are basing their FF votes on? Genuinely curious.
Me too, but how can you possibly actually believe that Grant's GOP was this leftist party as you've insinuated in the past, and the magically the next decade was everything wrong with American conservatism? Things simply don't shift that quickly.
Also, Ljube, I'd still absolutely LOVE to hear why Andrew Johnson was a better President than Abraham Lincoln, LOL.
As the GOP was to the left of the democrats, until about 1896.
Highly, highly, highly debatable. Immigration? GOP was clearly to the right. Moral issues like prohibition? GOP was clearly to the right. Corporate favoritism? I'd say the GOP is clearly to the right again. One could say opposing slavery was "liberal" (though I fundamentally reject such a simplistic classification, as many arguments defending slavery drew upon the "scientifically proven" inferiority of Blacks and much of the steam for the earliest serious abolitionist movements came from some of the most conservative religious denominations like the Quakers), but even then that's just one issue. If we're going to go ahead and equate enlightened racial views with liberalism, then I'd say the GOP's blatant racism toward Irish and Italian immigrants (who were not considered White by many Americas well into the early 20th Century) kind of cancels out its "liberal" views on Black civil rights (and vice versa for the Democrats).
Really, it's just messy to use a simple left-right scale for pre-New Deal politics for issues that aren't kind of timeless (class issues, immigration, etc.).
Your point is mostly correct, but I'm not sure why you say the Quakers were so conservative. They may have been conservative in personal style, but they've long been staunch advocates for peace and social justice. They were a liberal group that voted overwhelmingly Republican. Their advocacy for Native Americans might have also been a reason why Grant appointed Quakers as Indian agents as part of his "peace policy."
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