Historical continuity of Democrats and Republicans

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I find it interesting that we often hear that slavery is “America’s Original Sin” and we hear of “America’s Puritan Roots” whenever there’s a discussion about alcohol or sex, but the Puritans and the slaveowners hated each other. The slaveowners were Cavaliers, the enemies and polar opposite of the Puritans.

It's because the perception of the Puritans has changed so drastically in the past 100 years, from that of tolerant and liberal-minded individuals to censorious and prudish. Most Americans don't understand the Puritans as how they actually were in the context of their time, and instead project backward views and attitudes onto them they didn't hold. For most of their history, the Puritans nearly always found themselves opposed to despotism and on the side of liberty.

Slavery was sinful to the Puritans because it infringed on the equality of man under God. If that sounds like liberal rhetoric, it is no accident. Liberalism as an ideology owes its existence to radical Protestant theology, and its tenets flowed directly from it. Almost any historian would agree that the Puritans were the radicals of their day and on the "left" of the political spectrum, so I'm frankly tired of RINO Tom's revisionist attempts to prove otherwise.

What? I agree the Puritans in many respects are the forbearers of the American Radical tradition, but depicting the folks who planned the Salem Witch Trials as reactionary fundamentalists is hardly a novel take and not unique to the last 100 years. (Have you read The Scarlet Letter?) If anything, the interpretation you are offering is the more "revisionist." (That is not inherently a bad thing! Sometimes our notions about history are wrong and need to be revised.) The idea of the Yankee Congregationalist as a hard, intolerant, disdainful figure of the conservative elites is very old. You can argue that such is incorrect and lacks nuance, but it's not a new idea.

The pedant in me would point out that the Puritans were not strictly speaking "on the left," as the left/right divide begins in the Assemblée Nationale in 1789, but I know what you mean —and it's pretty indisputable that what we broadly refer to as liberal society (democracy, separation of powers, free market economics, universal education, the idea that people have a professional "calling" the pursuit of which gives meaning to their lives) starts with the Puritans. Dichotomies are always fraught, but I don't think anyone would seriously argue Charles I and his supporters were not functionally the conservative party in the English Civil War (using conservative in its Classical or pre-modern sense) and it was the Glorious Revolution, carried out by English Protestants for the overthrow of Charles' literal and ideological heir, that provides the settings for Locke's original exploration of liberal ideology. It's not an accident that the American Revolution began in New England, or that the post-1865 liberal order was instituted by Yankees and their descendants in the Northwest.

Doing research on an unrelated topic earlier this week, I ran across this quote that I think speaks to what you're getting at: "Liberalism as a principle of government is only possible for a people that practices rigorous moral discipline." (Report from the Citizens of Hamburg, 1909) Of course this refers to liberalism as a system rather than an ideology, but the two are related. The extent to which they are distinct, I think, accounts for much of the disagreement here.

[RINO Tom]

I find it interesting that we often hear that slavery is “America’s Original Sin” and we hear of “America’s Puritan Roots” whenever there’s a discussion about alcohol or sex, but the Puritans and the slaveowners hated each other. The slaveowners were Cavaliers, the enemies and polar opposite of the Puritans.

It's because the perception of the Puritans has changed so drastically in the past 100 years, from that of tolerant and liberal-minded individuals to censorious and prudish. Most Americans don't understand the Puritans as how they actually were in the context of their time, and instead project backward views and attitudes onto them they didn't hold. For most of their history, the Puritans nearly always found themselves opposed to despotism and on the side of liberty.

Slavery was sinful to the Puritans because it infringed on the equality of man under God. If that sounds like liberal rhetoric, it is no accident. Liberalism as an ideology owes its existence to radical Protestant theology, and its tenets flowed directly from it. Almost any historian would agree that the Puritans were the radicals of their day and on the "left" of the political spectrum, so I'm frankly tired of RINO Tom's revisionist attempts to prove otherwise.

Lol, what?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Viewing the Puritans as prudes and censorious was very common even in the 17th century in England. They banned Christmas for instance as well as the heavy handed actions under Cromwell. It was illegal for a number of years in Massachusetts and you were even penalized for skipping work as late as the 19th century in Boston for it.

It is also worth remembering that many people fled Massachusetts because of religious intolerance leading to the formation of Rhode Island for instance. Then there is the fact that MA had executed some Quakers at one point.

Yes they were dissenters from the Church of the England and yes they pioneered some anti-monarchical thought which contributed importantly to the growth of liberalism, but in the context of America they were perceived as being intolerant and authoritarian even in neighboring parts of New England, not to mention Quaker heavy Pennsylvania.

For all the talk of innate egalitarianism, it has to be strongly caveated that this was equal in the eyes of God, not equal under the law. Thus it only applied if you shared the same "ONE TRUE" faith, otherwise it was off to the gallows. In action, they formed their own oppressive and discriminatory establishment a large part of America's early political life hinged around opposition to this establishment and American Liberalism cut its teeth by dismantling the established region championed by this same group of "egalitarians". Obviously, something got lost in the pond on the boat ride over.

[Wikipedia delenda est]

I find it interesting that we often hear that slavery is “America’s Original Sin” and we hear of “America’s Puritan Roots” whenever there’s a discussion about alcohol or sex, but the Puritans and the slaveowners hated each other. The slaveowners were Cavaliers, the enemies and polar opposite of the Puritans.

It's because the perception of the Puritans has changed so drastically in the past 100 years, from that of tolerant and liberal-minded individuals to censorious and prudish. Most Americans don't understand the Puritans as how they actually were in the context of their time, and instead project backward views and attitudes onto them they didn't hold. For most of their history, the Puritans nearly always found themselves opposed to despotism and on the side of liberty.

Slavery was sinful to the Puritans because it infringed on the equality of man under God. If that sounds like liberal rhetoric, it is no accident. Liberalism as an ideology owes its existence to radical Protestant theology, and its tenets flowed directly from it. Almost any historian would agree that the Puritans were the radicals of their day and on the "left" of the political spectrum, so I'm frankly tired of RINO Tom's revisionist attempts to prove otherwise.

What? I agree the Puritans in many respects are the forbearers of the American Radical tradition, but depicting the folks who planned the Salem Witch Trials as reactionary fundamentalists is hardly a novel take and not unique to the last 100 years. (Have you read The Scarlet Letter?) If anything, the interpretation you are offering is the more "revisionist." (That is not inherently a bad thing! Sometimes our notions about history are wrong and need to be revised.) The idea of the Yankee Congregationalist as a hard, intolerant, disdainful figure of the conservative elites is very old. You can argue that such is incorrect and lacks nuance, but it's not a new idea.

To quote this review of a history of the Puritan political tradition for anyone who didn't see it in the other thread,

For several centuries the term "Puritan" was synonymous with democracy, enlightenment, rebellion against tyranny, freedom, and much else that was laudable. In the last century an entire reversal has occurred, making the term to mean repressive, hypocritical, censorious, prudish, and worse ... From 1620 to 1900 the great majority of commentators, including such non-Calvinists as Emerson, Thoreau, and Unitarians and liberals generally, expressed their profuse admiration of the Puritans.

So yes, while Nathaniel Hawthorne (I haven't read The Scarlet Letter btw, would you recommend it?) and most people in general would agree that the Salem Witch Trials were a bad thing, most 19th century liberals still held a positive view of the Puritans because they were willing to look past their obvious flaws and see them for what they were in the context of their time: fellow liberals. The ever faithful Southern reactionary George Fitzhugh, though he approves of the Witch Trials, was able to see the greater damage the Puritans had done to the conservative order. In his chapter on the Reformation from Cannibals All!, he bashes the Puritans for their liberalism, writing

The Puritans, in the early days of New England, acted it out; and if they hung a few troublesome old women, the good that they achieved was more than compensated for by any errors they may have committed. Liberty of the press, liberty of speech, freedom of religion, or rather freedom from religion, and the unlimited right of private judgment, have borne no good fruits, and many bad ones.

I also think we need to better define what we mean when we talk about Puritans. I'm mostly using the term to refer to English and colonial American Calvinists of the 17th and 18th centuries, rather than pietistic American Protestants of the 19th century. I may have used it that way a few times in this thread, but I think it's debatable whether it even makes sense to refer to "Puritans" as a group that existed beyond the 18th century; perhaps the better term would be "the descendants of the Puritans"?

The pedant in me would point out that the Puritans were not strictly speaking "on the left," as the left/right divide begins in the Assemblée Nationale in 1789, but I know what you mean —and it's pretty indisputable that what we broadly refer to as liberal society (democracy, separation of powers, free market economics, universal education, the idea that people have a professional "calling" the pursuit of which gives meaning to their lives) starts with the Puritans. Dichotomies are always fraught, but I don't think anyone would seriously argue Charles I and his supporters were not functionally the conservative party in the English Civil War (using conservative in its Classical or pre-modern sense) and it was the Glorious Revolution, carried out by English Protestants for the overthrow of Charles' literal and ideological heir, that provides the settings for Locke's original exploration of liberal ideology. It's not an accident that the American Revolution began in New England, or that the post-1865 liberal order was instituted by Yankees and their descendants in the Northwest.

Now this is where things get interesting (in other words, screw America, because it's English history time!). Obviously the literal idea of the left/right divide comes from where people were sitting in the French National Assembly, as we all know. I'd argue that the modern liberal/conservative dichotomy actually begins with the English Revolution of 1640, rather than the French Revolution 150 years later. I admit that I'm being revisionist here, as the conventional view says that modern ideologies basically formed in reaction to the French Revolution. But if you look at some of the things the Puritans were actually saying, you'll realize that they came to a lot of the same conclusions regarding democracy as the French Jacobins did in 1789.

You've probably heard of the Putney Debates, but I doubt everyone has in this thread. For those unaware, they were debates within the New Model Army over the nature of England's proposed new republican constitution. One of the main discussion points was universal male suffrage - in 1647. When did universal male suffrage become a reality in Great Britain? 1918. It almost seems too unbelievable to be true, that this was seriously being argued in the mid-17th century at the height of European absolutism, but we have the records to prove it and you can see for yourself. I don't doubt there were Republican theorists who had made similar arguments at around the same or earlier, but unlike the New Model Army they were not in a position of power to implement those ideas. The fact those ideas weren't in the end implemented in 1647 is irrelevant; it is astonishing enough that they were even considered in the first place.

Now we find ourselves at the Glorious Revolution, where I will once again play the part of the historical revisionist. You've admirably summarized the standard Whig history narrative, but that is a narrative which I dissent from. It's worth remembering that the catalyst for the Revolution was the imprisonment of seven leading Anglican bishops - these people were the sworn enemies of the Puritans. The case of the Seven Bishops outraged Tory opinion, always on the side of High Church Anglicanism, and brought them into common cause with Whig anti-Catholicism. When William of Orange invaded in 1688, it was a bipartisan group of Whigs and Tories that invited him and showed him support. It wasn't until the Hanoverian Succession that the Tories became a truly Jacobite party; in William and Anne's reign they were strong supporters of the Protestant monarchy.

The Glorious Revolution, then, was a revolution of the nobles and clergy, angered by James's attacks on the established church. What it precisely was not was a revolution of the Puritans. Indeed, that opportunity had come and gone in 1683 with the failure of the Rye House Plot. The truly radical elements of society, the old Cromwellians and Commonwealthmen, saw the Glorious Revolution for what it was: a betrayal and a sell-out of the Good Old Cause. No republic was forthcoming and the monarchy was clearly here to stay, forcing them to turn to a seemingly alien cause: Jacobitism. Many of those implicated in the Jacobite assassination plot of 1696 were Whiggish Jacobites, angered by William's tyrannical measures such as the creation of a large standing army. Among the (falsely) accused was William Penn, that constantly subversive advocate of religious tolerance.

Viewing the Puritans as prudes and censorious was very common even in the 17th century in England. They banned Christmas for instance as well as the heavy handed actions under Cromwell. It was illegal for a number of years in Massachusetts and you were even penalized for skipping work as late as the 19th century in Boston for it.

It is also worth remembering that many people fled Massachusetts because of religious intolerance leading to the formation of Rhode Island for instance. Then there is the fact that MA had executed some Quakers at one point.

Yes they were dissenters from the Church of the England and yes they pioneered some anti-monarchical thought which contributed importantly to the growth of liberalism, but in the context of America they were perceived as being intolerant and authoritarian even in neighboring parts of New England, not to mention Quaker heavy Pennsylvania.

For all the talk of innate egalitarianism, it has to be strongly caveated that this was equal in the eyes of God, not equal under the law. Thus it only applied if you shared the same "ONE TRUE" faith, otherwise it was off to the gallows. In action, they formed their own oppressive and discriminatory establishment a large part of America's early political life hinged around opposition to this establishment and American Liberalism cut its teeth by dismantling the established region championed by this same group of "egalitarians". Obviously, something got lost in the pond on the boat ride over.

I agree with you on the religious intolerance of the American Puritans. Massachusetts Bay was indeed a religiously intolerant society, as shown by the cases of Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson. But politically, New England was by far the most democratic region of the Thirteen Colonies. They held regular elections, allowed a relatively wide degree of suffrage, and elected state representatives from all walks of life. This perception still held in the 19th century, as evidenced by George Fitzhugh's scathing attack on New England liberalism.

In Puritan England the opposite was true, as there was little political freedom but widespread religious liberty. In the Protectorate period, Cromwell ruled as a military dictator and dissolved Parliament numerous times when it disagreed. The promising ideas of the Putney Debates were still clearly a long way off. But religiously, the English Puritans were far more tolerant than their American brethren. The 1650s saw a great proliferation of new Protestant sects, many of them millenarian and apocalyptic in nature. These groups were largely allowed to worship freely, as Cromwell was a religious Independent opposed to the idea of an established state church. Cromwell also allowed the Jews to return to England for the first time since they were expelled in the 13th century. Of course this toleration did not extend to the Catholics, but this was no change from Stuart policy.

[darklordoftech]

When did people starting advocating for the rights of blacks and women with liberal motives?

[RINO Tom]

When did people starting advocating for the rights of blacks and women with liberal motives?

I mean, some always have; and no one here has denied that.  However, I’d argue the association of advancing Black standards of life and increasing their rights with mainly liberalism formed as a result of the New Deal.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Once again this thread does not disappoint. That is a really excellent post —there might be points on which I might dissent, but on the whole I found it very compelling. The treatment of the Glorious Revolution is not one I've run across before, but fits nicely with what we know about how reform and revolution play out over generations. (For an American analogy, how members of the original Liberty party felt about the Republicans and Abraham Lincoln.)

I would caution against equating Fitzhugh too much with the Southern aristocracy as a whole. He is useful as the most extreme manifestation of attitudes that existed among the plantation class —but therefore definitionally, most of those would not have gone so far as to suggest, for instance, that the American Revolution was a mistake or that the very idea of a republic is folly. And, of course, there were slaveholders who Fitzhugh despised (Jefferson) who were notwithstanding very much part of the ruling elite.

On the whole, though, insofar as "liberal" denotes an advocate for the liberal system, I don't really disagree. I think this gets as well at the distinction between "liberals," "Liberals," and "Radicals" which I have teased once already, and will once again leave hanging for another day.

[Alcibiades]

I would like to echo the opinion that this thread has been full of excellent and informed posts.

I agree that the divisions which arose in the English Civil War were the foundation for English political divisions ever since, and that influence was obviously felt across the Anglosphere. The Tories are the heirs of the Royalists and the Liberals/Lib Dems (and arguably Labour) of the Parliamentarians. Thus Anglo-Saxon liberalism as we know it would probably not exist without the Puritans.

Whether this extends to the US is more debatable. The two main problems with trying to map English Civil War divisions onto American politics are:

a) Different religious composition: the US never had an established Church, and whereas in England Anglicans and Nonconformists were in direct opposition, they were allied in the US against Southerners and Catholics.

b) Only one major political tradition: In Europe, political parties tend to be heirs of traditions representing different groups in 19th century society with radically different views of society: conservatives of monarchists/aristocrats, socialists of the working classes, liberals of the bourgeoisie etc.  In America there was only one tradition: republican liberalism, which all groups in society largely accepted. No competing monarchism, Christian democracy or socialism. This is arguably why America has never developed a major social democratic party. An older, but still important, work on this is Louis Hartz’s The Liberal Tradition in America.

For this reason, I often find it most helpful to think of the pre-1932 parties as fairly non-ideological (not to say they didn’t have ideology, but it was the same (classical liberalism) so it didn’t really matter), and more culturally aligned big tent parties, a little like Fianna Fail and Fine Gael in Ireland. What policy differences did exist (e.g. tariffs) were more expressions of cultural and sectional divisions than ideological statements.

As for trying to compare British 19th century parties to American ones, I have always seen a certain similarity between the Democrats and the Liberals: representing religious and cultural minorities against the dominant establishment and both were staunch free-traders. But then the American equivalent of the nonconformist conscience, inextricably linked to the British Liberals, was largely found within the Republican Party, perhaps showing that such comparisons are messy and mostly futile.

[darklordoftech]

I would like to echo the opinion that this thread has been full of excellent and informed posts.

I agree that the divisions which arose in the English Civil War were the foundation for English political divisions ever since, and that influence was obviously felt across the Anglosphere. The Tories are the heirs of the Royalists and the Liberals/Lib Dems (and arguably Labour) of the Parliamentarians. Thus Anglo-Saxon liberalism as we know it would probably not exist without the Puritans.

Whether this extends to the US is more debatable. The two main problems with trying to map English Civil War divisions onto American politics are:

a) Different religious composition: the US never had an established Church, and whereas in England Anglicans and Nonconformists were in direct opposition, they were allied in the US against Southerners and Catholics.

b) Only one major political tradition: In Europe, political parties tend to be heirs of traditions representing different groups in 19th century society with radically different views of society: conservatives of monarchists/aristocrats, socialists of the working classes, liberals of the bourgeoisie etc.  In America there was only one tradition: republican liberalism, which all groups in society largely accepted. No competing monarchism, Christian democracy or socialism. This is arguably why America has never developed a major social democratic party. An older, but still important, work on this is Louis Hartz’s The Liberal Tradition in America.

For this reason, I often find it most helpful to think of the pre-1932 parties as fairly non-ideological (not to say they didn’t have ideology, but it was the same (classical liberalism) so it didn’t really matter), and more culturally aligned big tent parties, a little like Fianna Fail and Fine Gael in Ireland. What policy differences did exist (e.g. tariffs) were more expressions of cultural and sectional divisions than ideological statements.

As for trying to compare British 19th century parties to American ones, I have always seen a certain similarity between the Democrats and the Liberals: representing religious and cultural minorities against the dominant establishment and both were staunch free-traders. But then the American equivalent of the nonconformist conscience, inextricably linked to the British Liberals, was largely found within the Republican Party, perhaps showing that such comparisons are messy and mostly futile.

The Southern elite was also Anglican, and there was socialist movement in America before the Palmer Raids.

[Alcibiades]

I would like to echo the opinion that this thread has been full of excellent and informed posts.

I agree that the divisions which arose in the English Civil War were the foundation for English political divisions ever since, and that influence was obviously felt across the Anglosphere. The Tories are the heirs of the Royalists and the Liberals/Lib Dems (and arguably Labour) of the Parliamentarians. Thus Anglo-Saxon liberalism as we know it would probably not exist without the Puritans.

Whether this extends to the US is more debatable. The two main problems with trying to map English Civil War divisions onto American politics are:

a) Different religious composition: the US never had an established Church, and whereas in England Anglicans and Nonconformists were in direct opposition, they were allied in the US against Southerners and Catholics.

b) Only one major political tradition: In Europe, political parties tend to be heirs of traditions representing different groups in 19th century society with radically different views of society: conservatives of monarchists/aristocrats, socialists of the working classes, liberals of the bourgeoisie etc.  In America there was only one tradition: republican liberalism, which all groups in society largely accepted. No competing monarchism, Christian democracy or socialism. This is arguably why America has never developed a major social democratic party. An older, but still important, work on this is Louis Hartz’s The Liberal Tradition in America.

For this reason, I often find it most helpful to think of the pre-1932 parties as fairly non-ideological (not to say they didn’t have ideology, but it was the same (classical liberalism) so it didn’t really matter), and more culturally aligned big tent parties, a little like Fianna Fail and Fine Gael in Ireland. What policy differences did exist (e.g. tariffs) were more expressions of cultural and sectional divisions than ideological statements.

As for trying to compare British 19th century parties to American ones, I have always seen a certain similarity between the Democrats and the Liberals: representing religious and cultural minorities against the dominant establishment and both were staunch free-traders. But then the American equivalent of the nonconformist conscience, inextricably linked to the British Liberals, was largely found within the Republican Party, perhaps showing that such comparisons are messy and mostly futile.

The Southern elite was also Anglican, and there was socialist movement in America before the Palmer Raids.

Yes, many (though far from all) Southern elites were Anglican. I should have prefaced the above mention with “Northern”, though my point still stands that Protestant denominations were never really strong, opposing political identities as they were in England.

This socialist movement never developed into the main centre-left party as most did in Europe.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I would like to echo the opinion that this thread has been full of excellent and informed posts.

I agree that the divisions which arose in the English Civil War were the foundation for English political divisions ever since, and that influence was obviously felt across the Anglosphere. The Tories are the heirs of the Royalists and the Liberals/Lib Dems (and arguably Labour) of the Parliamentarians. Thus Anglo-Saxon liberalism as we know it would probably not exist without the Puritans.

Whether this extends to the US is more debatable. The two main problems with trying to map English Civil War divisions onto American politics are:

a) Different religious composition: the US never had an established Church, and whereas in England Anglicans and Nonconformists were in direct opposition, they were allied in the US against Southerners and Catholics.

b) Only one major political tradition: In Europe, political parties tend to be heirs of traditions representing different groups in 19th century society with radically different views of society: conservatives of monarchists/aristocrats, socialists of the working classes, liberals of the bourgeoisie etc.  In America there was only one tradition: republican liberalism, which all groups in society largely accepted. No competing monarchism, Christian democracy or socialism. This is arguably why America has never developed a major social democratic party. An older, but still important, work on this is Louis Hartz’s The Liberal Tradition in America.

For this reason, I often find it most helpful to think of the pre-1932 parties as fairly non-ideological (not to say they didn’t have ideology, but it was the same (classical liberalism) so it didn’t really matter), and more culturally aligned big tent parties, a little like Fianna Fail and Fine Gael in Ireland. What policy differences did exist (e.g. tariffs) were more expressions of cultural and sectional divisions than ideological statements.

As for trying to compare British 19th century parties to American ones, I have always seen a certain similarity between the Democrats and the Liberals: representing religious and cultural minorities against the dominant establishment and both were staunch free-traders. But then the American equivalent of the nonconformist conscience, inextricably linked to the British Liberals, was largely found within the Republican Party, perhaps showing that such comparisons are messy and mostly futile.

It gets less messy if you consider it terms of dominant religion versus the dissident religious views as opposed to zoning in on a particular faith. As you said America didn't have an established Anglican church, but it did have a dominant religious culture that was heavily influenced by more Calvinist and non-conformist sects and thus they became the religious establishment in the context of America. Faith as it governs politics often comes down to an equation of what it is their influence and dominance compared to what is seen as the dominant religious influence and are they part of that or are they at odds with it. This is why Catholics were on the liberal side in the US because they were on the outs.

It is also why Cavaliers would be on the liberal side in the US because Calvinism is inconvenient for their party life style. One thing that came about in the Restoration period in England was Charles II and the abundance of sex, booze and parties. These are all things that many puritans banned or at least considered horrific. This even goes down to the some of the voting patterns in 1928 and one of the reasons that Smith held up with some Plantation society elites because they wanted their booze back (emphasis one of the reasons).

So while political and anti-monarchical liberalism has origins from nonconformists, it must be stated the the "libertine" lifestyle of "Party boy aristocrats" the love for wine, women and song etc was very much Cavalier in origin and thus a level of disdain or scorn for traditional morals, religious restrictions and such forth. In the 19th century mindset because radicalism and revolutionary upheaval, we assume that because they were both targeted, that the church and the nobility were always allies but prior to such upheavals you often found a dynamic of strict religious fervor at odds with the dare I say "cavalier attitude towards responsible and pious behavior", among young and even old aristocrats with far too much money on their hands.

[Alcibiades]

I would like to echo the opinion that this thread has been full of excellent and informed posts.

I agree that the divisions which arose in the English Civil War were the foundation for English political divisions ever since, and that influence was obviously felt across the Anglosphere. The Tories are the heirs of the Royalists and the Liberals/Lib Dems (and arguably Labour) of the Parliamentarians. Thus Anglo-Saxon liberalism as we know it would probably not exist without the Puritans.

Whether this extends to the US is more debatable. The two main problems with trying to map English Civil War divisions onto American politics are:

a) Different religious composition: the US never had an established Church, and whereas in England Anglicans and Nonconformists were in direct opposition, they were allied in the US against Southerners and Catholics.

b) Only one major political tradition: In Europe, political parties tend to be heirs of traditions representing different groups in 19th century society with radically different views of society: conservatives of monarchists/aristocrats, socialists of the working classes, liberals of the bourgeoisie etc.  In America there was only one tradition: republican liberalism, which all groups in society largely accepted. No competing monarchism, Christian democracy or socialism. This is arguably why America has never developed a major social democratic party. An older, but still important, work on this is Louis Hartz’s The Liberal Tradition in America.

For this reason, I often find it most helpful to think of the pre-1932 parties as fairly non-ideological (not to say they didn’t have ideology, but it was the same (classical liberalism) so it didn’t really matter), and more culturally aligned big tent parties, a little like Fianna Fail and Fine Gael in Ireland. What policy differences did exist (e.g. tariffs) were more expressions of cultural and sectional divisions than ideological statements.

As for trying to compare British 19th century parties to American ones, I have always seen a certain similarity between the Democrats and the Liberals: representing religious and cultural minorities against the dominant establishment and both were staunch free-traders. But then the American equivalent of the nonconformist conscience, inextricably linked to the British Liberals, was largely found within the Republican Party, perhaps showing that such comparisons are messy and mostly futile.

It gets less messy if you consider it terms of dominant religion versus the dissident religious views as opposed to zoning in on a particular faith. As you said America didn't have an established Anglican church, but it did have a dominant religious culture that was heavily influenced by more Calvinist and non-conformist sects and thus they became the religious establishment in the context of America. Faith as it governs politics often comes down to an equation of what it is their influence and dominance compared to what is seen as the dominant religious influence and are they part of that or are they at odds with it. This is why Catholics were on the liberal side in the US because they were on the outs.

It is also why Cavaliers would be on the liberal side in the US because Calvinism is inconvenient for their party life style. One thing that came about in the Restoration period in England was Charles II and the abundance of sex, booze and parties. These are all things that many puritans banned or at least considered horrific. This even goes down to the some of the voting patterns in 1928 and one of the reasons that Smith held up with some Plantation society elites because they wanted their booze back (emphasis one of the reasons).

So while political and anti-monarchical liberalism has origins from nonconformists, it must be stated the the "libertine" lifestyle of "Party boy aristocrats" the love for wine, women and song etc was very much Cavalier in origin and thus a level of disdain or scorn for traditional morals, religious restrictions and such forth. In the 19th century mindset because radicalism and revolutionary upheaval, we assume that because they were both targeted, that the church and the nobility were always allies but prior to such upheavals you often found a dynamic of strict religious fervor at odds with the dare I say "cavalier attitude towards responsible and pious behavior", among young and even old aristocrats with far too much money on their hands.

You are right that the most important dynamic in any country’s religious politics tends to be that of in vs. out group. Nonetheless, there are certain features of e.g. Calvinism that remain constant, due to the nature of the religion, whether it is the in group (US) or out group (UK), namely a strong moralistic streak, a certain type of egalitarianism and a strong social conscience. For instance, they spearheaded the abolitionist movement in both countries.

Same with the Cavaliers; in both countries they advocated for a reactionary and hierarchical social system. For that reason they were definitely not “liberal”.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Same with the Cavaliers; in both countries they advocated for a reactionary and hierarchical social system. For that reason they were definitely not “liberal”.

If the politics does not question the hierarchy as it exists but instead operates on other concerns like say morality, then yes it is very possible for the elites to be liberal.

There is also going back to the in versus out group, if a group of elites locally can deflect blame to an opposed group of national elites then they can in effect operate as allies of the liberal side of politics. For instance you see this with tech companies today and many other rich business types that do in fact support the left. Does the fact that they are rich, make their positions on issues like abortion, gay rights, immigration any less liberal?

Does the fact that Jefferson was a plantation owner make his views on speculation, religious tolerance, egalitarian democracy (relative to the Federalists) any less liberal?

This is how you prove the inaccuracy of a simplistic narrative. Slave owners/rich people/elites cannot be liberals because they want to maintain the hierarchy. That is only true if the hierarchy is in doubt or in question. No one questioned the slave hierarchy prior to the 1840s in a substantial way and after reconstruction, no one challenged power structure in the South dominated by plantation elites using share croppers. Likewise after the English Civil War there were aristocrats on both sides of the Glorious Revolution and in both the Tory and Whig Parties. The political wheels keep turning and the politics finds its own natural divide and thus it is very possible for a group of elites depending their interests and values on other areas to be allied with or even be liberals.

That doesn't even get into the fact of the mistake of presuming consistency of monolithic purity of any given ideology by anyone, as such is very rare because someone will always have some pet issue that doesn't align perfectly. So why should we presume such about historical figures when we wouldn't dream of it today?

[Alcibiades]

Same with the Cavaliers; in both countries they advocated for a reactionary and hierarchical social system. For that reason they were definitely not “liberal”.

If the politics does not question the hierarchy as it exists but instead operates on other concerns like say morality, then yes it is very possible for the elites to be liberal.

There is also going back to the in versus out group, if a group of elites locally can deflect blame to an opposed group of national elites then they can in effect operate as allies of the liberal side of politics. For instance you see this with tech companies today and many other rich business types that do in fact support the left. Does the fact that they are rich, make their positions on issues like abortion, gay rights, immigration any less liberal?

Does the fact that Jefferson was a plantation owner make his views on speculation, religious tolerance, egalitarian democracy (relative to the Federalists) any less liberal?

This is how you prove the inaccuracy of a simplistic narrative. Slave owners/rich people/elites cannot be liberals because they want to maintain the hierarchy. That is only true if the hierarchy is in doubt or in question. No one questioned the slave hierarchy prior to the 1840s in a substantial way and after reconstruction, no one challenged power structure in the South dominated by plantation elites using share croppers. Likewise after the English Civil War there were aristocrats on both sides of the Glorious Revolution and in both the Tory and Whig Parties. The political wheels keep turning and the politics finds its own natural divide and thus it is very possible for a group of elites depending their interests and values on other areas to be allied with or even be liberals.

That doesn't even get into the fact of the mistake of presuming consistency of monolithic purity of any given ideology by anyone, as such is very rare because someone will always have some pet issue that doesn't align perfectly. So why should we presume such about historical figures when we wouldn't dream of it today?

As you have said, it is very possible for elites to find themselves in marriages of convenience  with liberals, and even hold some liberal views themselves.

Nonetheless, the planters were not liberal; in fact they were anti-liberal if we take liberalism to be the ideology of the Enlightenment. They were deeply reactionary and ultimately sought to recreate a mini-feudal Europe in the Southern states. In addition, while they were the out-group on the national scale, on the state and local level, where real power laid, they were the oppressive in-group.

Jefferson is an interesting example. He was, in spite of being a slaveholder, a liberal (and in fact was nowhere near as enthusiastic about slavery as most Southern elites), as he sought to establish a Republic on the values of the Enlightenment. He did of course a major effect on the politics of the South, but I would argue it was not his liberal values that effected it, but his Romantic and agrarian inclinations (which could be used to support either liberal or feudalist points of view).

[RINO Tom]

^ A couple of novice thoughts:

- Just as Puritans in America didn't necessarily inherit the spirit of their English ancestors' starting ideologies, I would argue that the Southern planters' obsession with being the successors of European aristocrats (compared to the trashy, uncultured industrialists of the dirty North) had a significantly different flavor.  They often chastised abolitionists as being anti-science, preferring a fluffy fantasy of racial equality where everyone got along, whereas they were an educated and enlightened elite who "got it."  Even though it was mostly nefarious and not genuine, the assertion on their part that slavery was a benevolent institution in place for the well-being of a fundamentally inferior race of people often led to the assertion that the GOP wanted slaves freed to even out the price advantage the planters had over Northern-made goods only to let these Freedmen starve on the streets of Northern cities or live dirt poor lives in the rural South with no master to care for them.  I agree that I would never call the slavers something as simple as "liberal," but some of their tone does resemble a modern liberal elitist living in a high rise rather than a modern conservative/reactionary elitist living in a McMansion in the exurbs.

- This comparison has fallen out of favor as the GOP base has shifted toward the South over the last several decades, but I remember reading once that the steam behind the first real pro-life movement after Roe v. Wade was that these people saw themselves as the second coming of the abolitionists - fighting for God's will against cold, unsympathetic and scientifically-minded pro-choice heathens to protect the unborn just as their political ancestors had fought to protect the slaves.  Now, as someone who happens to be pro-choice and has the advantage of being removed from the time, I obviously see where this comparison is lacking.  However, imagining a conservative point of view that sees the slaves and the unborn as helpless people in need of moral activism, both times facing a "less religious" (to them, anyway) and antagonistic force of "science" helps me see how slavers might not have seemed overly "conservative" to the Northern abolitionists who were more religiously motivated.  At least to me.  Again, these terms weren't widely used in the same way we use them today, so this is all kind of a lost cause (heh, heh).  However, I do find that point interesting.  As I said on another page, if abortion becomes outlawed someday and our descendants look back on it in 200 years as a barbaric practice, their analysis of the Republicans as "liberals" for fighting to end it would no doubt be flawed.

[Alcibiades]

^ A couple of novice thoughts:

- Just as Puritans in America didn't necessarily inherit the spirit of their English ancestors' starting ideologies, I would argue that the Southern planters' obsession with being the successors of European aristocrats (compared to the trashy, uncultured industrialists of the dirty North) had a significantly different flavor.  They often chastised abolitionists as being anti-science, preferring a fluffy fantasy of racial equality where everyone got along, whereas they were an educated and enlightened elite who "got it."  Even though it was mostly nefarious and not genuine, the assertion on their part that slavery was a benevolent institution in place for the well-being of a fundamentally inferior race of people often led to the assertion that the GOP wanted slaves freed to even out the price advantage the planters had over Northern-made goods only to let these Freedmen starve on the streets of Northern cities or live dirt poor lives in the rural South with no master to care for them.  I agree that I would never call the slavers something as simple as "liberal," but some of their tone does resemble a modern liberal elitist living in a high rise rather than a modern conservative/reactionary elitist living in a McMansion in the exurbs.

This type of paternalism that you describe was for many decades one of the hallmarks of conservatism. However, it really fell out of favour after the fusionist/neoliberal/movement conservative ascendency in the 70s and 80s. We must not also forget that liberalism was originally the ideology of the capitalist bourgeosie (as opposed to the conservative mercantilist aristocracy). Therefore it is not at all suprising if some 19th century perceptions of liberals was that they were immoral individualists only out to enrich themselves.

- This comparison has fallen out of favor as the GOP base has shifted toward the South over the last several decades, but I remember reading once that the steam behind the first real pro-life movement after Roe v. Wade was that these people saw themselves as the second coming of the abolitionists - fighting for God's will against cold, unsympathetic and scientifically-minded pro-choice heathens to protect the unborn just as their political ancestors had fought to protect the slaves.  Now, as someone who happens to be pro-choice and has the advantage of being removed from the time, I obviously see where this comparison is lacking.  However, imagining a conservative point of view that sees the slaves and the unborn as helpless people in need of moral activism, both times facing a "less religious" (to them, anyway) and antagonistic force of "science" helps me see how slavers might not have seemed overly "conservative" to the Northern abolitionists who were more religiously motivated.  At least to me.  Again, these terms weren't widely used in the same way we use them today, so this is all kind of a lost cause (heh, heh).  However, I do find that point interesting.  As I said on another page, if abortion becomes outlawed someday and our descendants look back on it in 200 years as a barbaric practice, their analysis of the Republicans as "liberals" for fighting to end it would no doubt be flawed.

This point that you raise about abortion is an interesting one, and a reminder that we must always view issues in their historical contexts and take into account the motives for holding political positions; pro-life positions are largely conservative because they are generally held (though of course not in all cases; there are actually liberal cases to be made against abortion) out of a desire for the state to enforce religious morality and traditional gender roles.

I’m not sure where you read that analogy about the abolitionists and pro-lifers. In the 40s, 50s and 60s, abortion was of course not really an issue at all, and vocal pro-life positions were almost exclusively confined to Catholic politicans. To that end, Yankee Republicans were some of the most prominent pro-choicers.

The abortion issue as we know it today was almost exclusively created by the Religious Right, which had its roots in the campaign to stop desegregation of private Christian academies in the South.

[RINO Tom]

^ The article I had read it in was actually critiquing the view that the Religious Right had of itself as the reincarnation of abolitionists (and arguing for the desegregation-related view point you mentioned), I was just making the point that this isn't how (at least a sizable number of) pro-lifers saw themselves, which I thought was relevant to the conversation about how abolitionists might have seen themselves vs. how we see them.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

This point that you raise about abortion is an interesting one, and a reminder that we must always view issues in their historical contexts and take into account the motives for holding political positions; pro-life positions are largely conservative because they are generally held (though of course not in all cases; there are actually liberal cases to be made against abortion) out of a desire for the state to enforce religious morality and traditional gender roles.

What are the liberal cases against abortion? It sounds like something that gets completely sidelined from the ordinary discourse.

[Alcibiades]

This point that you raise about abortion is an interesting one, and a reminder that we must always view issues in their historical contexts and take into account the motives for holding political positions; pro-life positions are largely conservative because they are generally held (though of course not in all cases; there are actually liberal cases to be made against abortion) out of a desire for the state to enforce religious morality and traditional gender roles.

What are the liberal cases against abortion? It sounds like something that gets completely sidelined from the ordinary discourse.

Not that I buy into these as applying to foetuses, but human dignity and protection of the vulnerable are liberal values.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

This point that you raise about abortion is an interesting one, and a reminder that we must always view issues in their historical contexts and take into account the motives for holding political positions; pro-life positions are largely conservative because they are generally held (though of course not in all cases; there are actually liberal cases to be made against abortion) out of a desire for the state to enforce religious morality and traditional gender roles.

What are the liberal cases against abortion? It sounds like something that gets completely sidelined from the ordinary discourse.

Not that I buy into these as applying to foetuses, but human dignity and protection of the vulnerable are liberal values.

Ah, I understand. I imagined so.
I think it rather a bad thing that 99% of that debate seems to be about "religious morality" and not about "protection of the vulnerable", if you ask me.
(I don't have a clear-cut side in the debate)

[Alcibiades]

This point that you raise about abortion is an interesting one, and a reminder that we must always view issues in their historical contexts and take into account the motives for holding political positions; pro-life positions are largely conservative because they are generally held (though of course not in all cases; there are actually liberal cases to be made against abortion) out of a desire for the state to enforce religious morality and traditional gender roles.

What are the liberal cases against abortion? It sounds like something that gets completely sidelined from the ordinary discourse.

Not that I buy into these as applying to foetuses, but human dignity and protection of the vulnerable are liberal values.

Ah, I understand. I imagined so.
I think it rather a bad thing that 99% of that debate seems to be about "religious morality" and not about "protection of the vulnerable", if you ask me.
(I don't have a clear-cut side in the debate)

Quite frankly, the fact that abortion is one of the biggest issues of the last few decades in the US baffles me. It is an issue which does not materially effect voters’ lives and which most don’t care for much. It’s not even like LGBT rights were a large proportion of people felt a natural disgust. Nonetheless, you have to say the Religious Right have been extremely successful at keeping it in the national spotlight, although, like virtually all other culture war issues, its almost impossible to see them gaining ultimate victory.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

This point that you raise about abortion is an interesting one, and a reminder that we must always view issues in their historical contexts and take into account the motives for holding political positions; pro-life positions are largely conservative because they are generally held (though of course not in all cases; there are actually liberal cases to be made against abortion) out of a desire for the state to enforce religious morality and traditional gender roles.

What are the liberal cases against abortion? It sounds like something that gets completely sidelined from the ordinary discourse.

Not that I buy into these as applying to foetuses, but human dignity and protection of the vulnerable are liberal values.

Ah, I understand. I imagined so.
I think it rather a bad thing that 99% of that debate seems to be about "religious morality" and not about "protection of the vulnerable", if you ask me.
(I don't have a clear-cut side in the debate)

Quite frankly, the fact that abortion is one of the biggest issues of the last few decades in the US baffles me. It is an issue which does not materially effect voters’ lives and which most don’t care for much. It’s not even like LGBT rights were a large proportion of people felt a natural disgust. Nonetheless, you have to say the Religious Right have been extremely successful at keeping it in the national spotlight, although, like virtually all other culture war issues, its almost impossible to see them gaining ultimate victory.

Well I agree much with your first sentence, in so far as it brings to a continual, stale, relitigation of policy and laws and what not and people seem shoved to join one of the two camps and the two camps get more and more polarized by party.

I don't know about the ultimate victory. I guess you could say that most European abortion laws have been ultimate victories of sorts for the pro-choice/left side, but I don't know.

[Alcibiades]

This point that you raise about abortion is an interesting one, and a reminder that we must always view issues in their historical contexts and take into account the motives for holding political positions; pro-life positions are largely conservative because they are generally held (though of course not in all cases; there are actually liberal cases to be made against abortion) out of a desire for the state to enforce religious morality and traditional gender roles.

What are the liberal cases against abortion? It sounds like something that gets completely sidelined from the ordinary discourse.

Not that I buy into these as applying to foetuses, but human dignity and protection of the vulnerable are liberal values.

Ah, I understand. I imagined so.
I think it rather a bad thing that 99% of that debate seems to be about "religious morality" and not about "protection of the vulnerable", if you ask me.
(I don't have a clear-cut side in the debate)

Quite frankly, the fact that abortion is one of the biggest issues of the last few decades in the US baffles me. It is an issue which does not materially effect voters’ lives and which most don’t care for much. It’s not even like LGBT rights were a large proportion of people felt a natural disgust. Nonetheless, you have to say the Religious Right have been extremely successful at keeping it in the national spotlight, although, like virtually all other culture war issues, its almost impossible to see them gaining ultimate victory.

Well I agree much with your first sentence, in so far as it brings to a continual, stale, relitigation of policy and laws and what not and people seem shoved to join one of the two camps and the two camps get more and more polarized by party.

I don't know about the ultimate victory. I guess you could say that most European abortion laws have been ultimate victories of sorts for the pro-choice/left side, but I don't know.

The very nature of being a social conservative is that you are always fighting a losing battle, with the goalposts of what is acceptably socially conservative constantly being moved further and further to the left. It’s hard to see support for legal abortion going down at all (currently the clear majority of Americans support it), especially as the country gets less and less religious.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Here's an excellent blog post (from 2012!) with analysis that inevitably leads to historical disruption of Democrats and (more importantly) Republicans for you, brought to you by modern American conservatism:

Where in ’57 (William F. Buckley, Jr.) had asserted a right even of a minority of whites to impose racial segregation by literally any means necessary, including breaking federal law, in ’04 Buckley expressed regret for having supposedly believed only that segregation would wither away without federal intervention. Stupid the man was not. He gets credited today both with honesty about his past and with having, in his own way, “evolved up.” Modern conservatives, more importantly, get to ignore the realities of their movement’s origins.

If conservatives today really mean to mark out an American conservative ethos with no remaining ties to racism, wouldn’t they need to reckon, far more seriously and realistically than they seem prepared to do, with the painful legacy of the postwar right when it comes to what was then called racial integration? With the Cold War, integration was the hot issue of the day, precisely at the time when the right wing was in the process of taking over the Republican Party. (Nelson Rockefeller, for example, was a fire-and-brimstone Cold Warrior but hyperliberal on race; he was the type the Buckleyites were trying to knock out.) Ties between conservatism and — no, not just theories of small government and “community standards” — but straight-up, hardcore racism were once so tight that for some of us with long enough memories, it can be bleakly comic to see racism on the part of TNR writers hopefully dismissed as some unhappy anomaly.

In 1952, William Rehnquist wrote a now-famous memo on “Brown vs. Board of Education.” The Times recently revived discussion of it, and of Rehnquist’s never, to me, credible denial that it reflected his own opinion. That memo put forth an idea related in interesting ways to Buckley’s ’57 “advanced race” essay.

In the memo, Rehnquist deemed the Supreme Court a poor place for ruling on individual rights, suggesting that the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment can’t be enforced by judicial review in communities where those rights are opposed by a majority. That is, they can’t be enforced. “In the long run,” Rehnquist wrote, “majorities will decide what the constitutional rights of minorities are.” And that’s at first what Buckley seemed to mean, too, when he said in the ’57 essay that the question of the white right to prevail could not be “answered by merely consulting a catalogue of the rights of American citizens, born Equal.”

But Buckley’s ’57 essay turns that already startling idea upside down. It says that even a minority of whites has a right — nay, a duty — to take measures necessary to prevail against a majority of blacks. That kind of romantic, questing elitism did not fit the Rehnquist-Goldwater populist argument on behalf of majority and states rights in resisting federal enforcement of racial integration. Really, Buckley’s view revealed too much of what “states rights” was so often code for: white supremacy.

https://williamhogeland.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/the-national-review-racist-writing-and-the-legacy-of-william-f-buckley-jr/

Can anyone honestly say that the Republican Party of the past half-century - and specifically, the modern conservative movement that has defined it for this period  - has more in common with the Party of Lincoln than it does with the Southern Democracy?

(Answer: No.)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Here's an excellent blog post (from 2012!) with analysis that inevitably leads to historical disruption of Democrats and (more importantly) Republicans for you, brought to you by modern American conservatism:

Where in ’57 (William F. Buckley, Jr.) had asserted a right even of a minority of whites to impose racial segregation by literally any means necessary, including breaking federal law, in ’04 Buckley expressed regret for having supposedly believed only that segregation would wither away without federal intervention. Stupid the man was not. He gets credited today both with honesty about his past and with having, in his own way, “evolved up.” Modern conservatives, more importantly, get to ignore the realities of their movement’s origins.

If conservatives today really mean to mark out an American conservative ethos with no remaining ties to racism, wouldn’t they need to reckon, far more seriously and realistically than they seem prepared to do, with the painful legacy of the postwar right when it comes to what was then called racial integration? With the Cold War, integration was the hot issue of the day, precisely at the time when the right wing was in the process of taking over the Republican Party. (Nelson Rockefeller, for example, was a fire-and-brimstone Cold Warrior but hyperliberal on race; he was the type the Buckleyites were trying to knock out.) Ties between conservatism and — no, not just theories of small government and “community standards” — but straight-up, hardcore racism were once so tight that for some of us with long enough memories, it can be bleakly comic to see racism on the part of TNR writers hopefully dismissed as some unhappy anomaly.

In 1952, William Rehnquist wrote a now-famous memo on “Brown vs. Board of Education.” The Times recently revived discussion of it, and of Rehnquist’s never, to me, credible denial that it reflected his own opinion. That memo put forth an idea related in interesting ways to Buckley’s ’57 “advanced race” essay.

In the memo, Rehnquist deemed the Supreme Court a poor place for ruling on individual rights, suggesting that the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment can’t be enforced by judicial review in communities where those rights are opposed by a majority. That is, they can’t be enforced. “In the long run,” Rehnquist wrote, “majorities will decide what the constitutional rights of minorities are.” And that’s at first what Buckley seemed to mean, too, when he said in the ’57 essay that the question of the white right to prevail could not be “answered by merely consulting a catalogue of the rights of American citizens, born Equal.”

But Buckley’s ’57 essay turns that already startling idea upside down. It says that even a minority of whites has a right — nay, a duty — to take measures necessary to prevail against a majority of blacks. That kind of romantic, questing elitism did not fit the Rehnquist-Goldwater populist argument on behalf of majority and states rights in resisting federal enforcement of racial integration. Really, Buckley’s view revealed too much of what “states rights” was so often code for: white supremacy.

https://williamhogeland.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/the-national-review-racist-writing-and-the-legacy-of-william-f-buckley-jr/

Can anyone honestly say that the Republican Party of the past half-century - and specifically, the modern conservative movement that has defined it for this period  - has more in common with the Party of Lincoln than it does with the Southern Democracy?

(Answer: No.)

Its more complicated than that.

You have to remember that the "Party of Lincoln" supported Lincoln because he was not a raving abolitionist. He was nominated precisely because he was seen as someone who would restrict slavery's spread and was not a radical abolitionist.

Furthermore, after the reconstruction period the Republicans tacitly accept the state of affairs as it is and even begin to succumb to it themselves. You have the move by state level parties in the South around 1900 to go white's only and this is then taken nationally in 1928 by Hoover.

The problem with your paradigm is that it rests too heavily on this presumption that the Republicans prior to the "takeover by the right" were some paragon of civil rights when their record was inconsistent at best and most often then not dictated by expediency. The Republican Party since at least the end of reconstruction and you can debate before that as well, has been the primary vehicle for industrialist interests, and thus most other things relating to Civil War legacy, and even vein attempts at civil rights were done so for the sake of expediency, to wave the bloody shirt or in some way advance/rally the base.

The other presumption is that the right was some alien force in the GOP. There has been a conservative wing of the GOP going back to 1854, and there had long been prior to WWII, large numbers of Germans, Catholics and other non-Yankee groups for whom the Civil War Legacy and cultural tropes didn't really have much sway. People like Joseph McCarthy didn't come out of nowhere, nor did William Jenner, and certainly not people like Ralph Owen Brewster hailing from a long nativist tradition (hence the KKK support). The Republicans had long been operating as a vehicle for business and conservative interests, what changes is by this point expediency dictates cozying up to and finding common cause with the alienated Democrats in the North and Dixiecrats of the South to formulate a grand Conservative alliance against the New Deal dominated elite and their WASP Republican enablers.

The only reason this is even possible is because there is already conservative wing of the GOP present to make that pitch to Irish and German Democrats and later on to Southern Democrats to come on over and join their fellow conservatives against their common foe.

Generally speaking civil rights has not been a dominate defining political issue for our political divisions. It has flare ups, you see some action and then people move onto other things. It is a sad reality, but it is true and the very proof of that is the fact that we still have so many problems today is precisely because people have short attention spans for what quickly become for many "side issues". It is like when the economy is bad, and politicians are talking about abortion or what have you, and they go too far and the other side says they are distracting from the economy being bad. When the economic situation is bad, people shift their focus to number one and this is what really sowed the seeds for the end of reconstruction. The economic panic of 1873 put Democrats in control of the House in 1874 and created the impetus in the GOP in 1876 to shift gears towards a more business-economic nationalist focused paradigm.

Don't kid yourself, the Republican Party has been bought and paid for since it was founded almost, any changes or evolution of the GOP on race or views towards the South were dictated precisely because of that impetus. The Rockefellers existed as a bridge to stay afloat in hostile terrain and once an alternative and much more enticing opportunity came along, they tossed them to side in favor of the Sunbelt Right ascendancy.