Historical continuity of Democrats and Republicans
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Unconditional Surrender Truman
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« Reply #200 on: November 08, 2020, 07:25:02 PM »

Found this down a rabbit hole while researching the 1836 election: a very interesting source on the 1840s Democratic party in New Hampshire. The author summarizes the Whig program as "Let government take care of the rich, and the rich will take care of the poor" and describes the Democrats as the party of the laborer. He notes that many Whigs have accused the Democrats of "radicalism" and "agrarianism" —Webster's 1864 dictionary defines socialism as "a new name for agrarianism."

While the source is obviously heavily biased toward the Democratic worldview, I thought it was illustrative of what that worldview was.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #201 on: November 10, 2020, 06:29:18 PM »

Found this down a rabbit hole while researching the 1836 election: a very interesting source on the 1840s Democratic party in New Hampshire. The author summarizes the Whig program as "Let government take care of the rich, and the rich will take care of the poor" and describes the Democrats as the party of the laborer. He notes that many Whigs have accused the Democrats of "radicalism" and "agrarianism" —Webster's 1864 dictionary defines socialism as "a new name for agrarianism."

While the source is obviously heavily biased toward the Democratic worldview, I thought it was illustrative of what that worldview was.

The mindset was certainly a trickle down one but instead of gov't cutting taxes and it would trickle down, the gov't would subsidize and spend money on things beneficial to business and it would trickle down.
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Alcibiades
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« Reply #202 on: November 10, 2020, 06:42:26 PM »

Here’s an interesting question - what was the earliest point at which someone would have, if you asked them to briefly explain the differences between the two major parties (or you looked it up in an encylopaedia), responded that the Democrats were the more liberal/left-of-centre party, and the Republicans the more conservative/right-of-centre party?
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Unconditional Surrender Truman
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« Reply #203 on: November 10, 2020, 08:40:54 PM »

Here’s an interesting question - what was the earliest point at which someone would have, if you asked them to briefly explain the differences between the two major parties (or you looked it up in an encylopaedia), responded that the Democrats were the more liberal/left-of-centre party, and the Republicans the more conservative/right-of-centre party?
Probably quite recently, but that tells us basically nothing about the parties' ideological pedigrees: prior to the twentieth century Americans used conservative to mean "moderate," while "liberal" broadly suggested a nationalistic/capitalistic outlook. In the nineteenth century radical is the commonest term for a left-of-center worldview, and it is applied to the Democrats and their antecedents as early as 1796 or before, while the corresponding term (ultra)—though less common—was being used to describe the American right decades before the GOP took the stage. More often, if one wanted to suggest a party or candidate was a died-in-the-wool reactionary prior to 1850, one would just call them a Federalist —it got the point across and was a fairly effective smear long after the Federal party* ceased to exist.



*Much as with the Jeffersonian "Democratic-Republicans," who in fact called themselves Republicans only for lazy political scientists to apply the "Democratic-" antecedent centuries later (thus confusing the Jeffersonians' relationship to the Jacksonians, who really did call themselves Democratic Republicans, and the National Republicans led by Henry Clay), it appears the nominative form of the name of Alexander Hamilton's political organization was Federal, and Federalist is an adjective used to describe people or things associated with that party.
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Paul Weller
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« Reply #204 on: December 13, 2020, 09:46:46 PM »

In my view, the political spectrum for the 1872 election was something like this:

Left-wing<--(Radical) Republicans--Liberal Republicans|Democrats--Straight-out Democrats-->Right-wing

President Grant and the Radical Republicans ran the most radical and uncompromising campaign on Reconstruction, with the potential to completely uproot Southern society and redistribute land and wealth, while the Liberal Republicans - though still on the left side of the spectrum -  were more willing to compromise with the Democrats on the issue. Likewise most Democrats were willing to put their differences aside and field a joint candidate with the Liberal Republicans, but for the hardline conservatives in the Straight-Out faction Greeley was way too radical.
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darklordoftech
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« Reply #205 on: December 20, 2020, 10:39:06 PM »
« Edited: December 20, 2020, 10:46:53 PM by darklordoftech »

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/22/us/the-candidates-debate-transcript-of-the-reagan-mondale-debate-on-foreign-policy.html

MODERATOR: Miss Geyer, your question to Mr. Mondale. IMMIGRATION REFORM

Q: Mr. Mondale, many analysts are now saying that actually our No. 1 foreign policy problem today is one that remains almost totally unrecognized. Massive illegal immigration from economically collapsing countries. They are saying that it is the only real territorial threat to the American nation-state. You yourself said in the 1970's that we had a ''hemorrhage on our borders'' yet today you have backed off any immigration reform such as the balanced and highly- crafted Simpson-Mazzoli Bill. Why? What would you do instead today if anything? MONDALE: Ah, this is a very serious problem in our country and it has to be dealt with. I object to that part of the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill which I think is very unfair and would prove to be so. That is the part that requires employers to determine the citizenship of an employee before they're hired. I am convinced that the result of this would be that people who are Hispanic, people who have different languages or speak with an accent would find it difficult to be employed. I think that's wrong. We've never had citizenship tests in our country before. And I don't think we should have a citizenship card today. That is counterproductive. I do support the other aspects of the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill that strengthens enforcement at the border, strengthens other ways of dealing with undocumented workers in this difficult area and dealing with the problem of settling people who have lived here for many many years and do not have an established status. I further strongly recommend that this Administration do something it has not done. And that is to strengthen enforcement at the border, strengthen the officials in this Government that deal with undocumented workers and to do so in a way that's responsible and within the Constitution of the United States. We need an answer to this problem. But it must be an American answer that is consistent with justice and due process. Everyone in this room, practically, here tonight, is an immigrant. We came here loving this nation, serving it and it has served all of our most bountiful dreams. And one of those dreams is justice. And we need a measure, and I will support a measure that brings about those objectives, but avoids that one aspect that I think is very serious. The second part is to maintain and improve relations with our friends to the south. We cannot solve this problem all on our own. And that's why the failure of this administration to deal in an effective and good-faith way with Mexico, with Costa Rica, with the other nations in trying to find a peaceful settlement to the dispute in Central America has undermined our capacity to effectively to deal diplomatic in this, diplomatically in this area as well.

Q: Sir, people as well-balanced and just as Father Theodore Hesburgh at Notre Dame, who headed the Select Commission on Immigration, have pointed out repeatedly that there will be no immigration reform without employer sanctions because it would be an unbalanced bill and there would be simply no way to enforce it. However, putting that aside for the moment, your critics have also said repeatedly that you have not gone along with the bill, or with any immigration reform, because of the Hispanic groups - or Hispanic leadership groups, who actually do not represent what the Hispanic Americans want because polls show that they overwhelmingly want some kind of immigration reform. Can you say, or how can you justify your position on this, and how do you respond to the criticism that this is another, or that this is an example of your flip-flopping and giving in to special interest groups at the expense of the American nation?

MONDALE: I think you're right that the polls show that the majority of Hispanics want that bill, so I'm not doing it for political reasons. I'm doing it because all my life I've fought for a system of justice in this country, a system in which every American has a chance to achieve the fullness of life without discrimination. This bill imposes upon employers the responsibility of determining whether somebody who applies for a job is an American or not, and just inevitably they're going to be reluctant to hire Hispanics or people with a different accent. If I were dealing with politics here, the polls show the American people want this. I am for reform in this area, for tough enforcement at the border, and for many other aspects of the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill , but all my life I've fought for a fair nation and, despite the politics of it, I stand where I stand, and I think I'm right. And before this fight is over, we're going to come up with a better bill, a more effective bill, that does not undermine the liberties of our people. Q: Mr. President, you too have said that our borders are out of control. Yet this fall, you allowed the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill, which would at least have minimally protected our borders and the rights of citizenship because of a relatively unimportant issue of reimbursement to the states for legalized aliens. Given that, may I ask what priority can we expect you to give this forgotten national security element; how sincere are you in your efforts to control, in effect, the nation's states, that is, the United States.

REAGAN: Georgie, and we, believe me, supported the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill strongly, and the bill that came out of the Senate. However, there were things added in in the House side that we felt made it less of a good bill; as a matter of fact, made it a bad bill. And in conference, we stayed with them in conference all the way to where even Senator Simpson did not want the bill in the manner in which it would come out of the conference committee. There were a number of things in there that weakened that bill - I can't go into detail about them here. But it is true our borders are out of control, it is also true that this has been a situation on our borders back through a number of Administrations. And I supported this bill, I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here, even though some time back they may have entered illegally. With regard to the employer sanctions, we must have that - not only to ensure that we can identify the illegal aliens but also, while some keep protesting about what it would do to employers, there is another employer that we shouldn't be so concerned about, and these are employers down through the years who have encouraged the illegal entry into this country because they then hire these individuals and hire them at starvation wages and with none of the benefits that we think are normal and natural for workers in our country. And the individuals can't complain because of their illegal status. We don't think that those people should be allowed to continue operating free, and this was why the provisions that we had in with regard to sanctions and so forth. And I'm going to do everything I can, and all of us in the Administration are, to join in again when Congress is back at it to get an immigration bill that will give us once again control of our borders. And with regard to friendship below the border with the countries down there, yes, no Administration that I know has established the relationship that we have with our Latin friends. But as long as they have an economy that leaves so many people in dire poverty and unemployment, they are going to seek that employment across our borders. And we work with those other countries. Q: Mr. President, the experts also say that the situation today is terribly different - quantitatively, qualitatively different - from what it has been in the past because of the gigantic population growth. For instance, Mexico's population will go from about 60 million today to 120 million at the turn of the century. Many of these people will be coming into the United States not as citizens but as illegal workers. You have repeatedly said recently that you believe that Armageddon, the destruction of the world, may be imminent in our times. Do you ever feel that we are in for an Armageddon or a situation, a time of anarchy, regarding the population explosion in the world?

REAGAN: No, as a matter of fact the population explosion, if you look at the actual figures, has been vastly exaggerated - over-exaggerated. As a matter of fact, there are some pretty scientific and solid figures about how much space there still is in the world and how many more people can have. It's almost like going back to the Malthusian theory, when even then they were saying that everyone would starve with the limited population they had then. But the problem of population growth is one here with regard to our immigration. And we have been the safety valve, whether we wanted to or not, with the illegal entry here; in Mexico, where their population is increasing and they don't have an economy that can absorb them and provide the jobs. And this is what we're trying to work out, not only to protect our own borders but to have some kind of fairness and recognition of that problem.

MODERATOR: Mr. Mondale, your rebuttal.

MONDALE: One of the biggest problems today is that the coutries to our south are so desparately poor that these people who will almost lose their lives if they don't come north, come north despite all the risks. And if we're going to find a permanent, fundamental answer to this, it goes to American economic and trade policies that permit these nations to have a chance to get on their own two feet and to get prosperity so that they can have jobs for themselves and their people.

And that's why this enormous national bebt, enigneered by this Administration, is harming these countries and fueling this immigration.

These high interest rates, real rates, that have doubled under this Administration, have had the same effect on Mexico and so on, and the cost of repaying those debts is so enormous that it results in massive unemployment, hardship and heartache. And that drives our friends to the north - to the south - up into our region, and we need to end those defiecits as well.

MODERATOR: Mr. President, your rebuttal.

REAGAN: Well, my rebuttal is I've heard the national debt blamed for a lot of things, but not for illegal immigration across our border, and it has nothing to do with it.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/09/us/reagan-raises-new-obstacle-to-house-bill-on-immigration.html

The Reagan Administration has raised a new objection to the House version of a comprehensive immigration bill, saying it goes too far in protecting the rights of legal aliens and Hispanic workers.

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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #206 on: December 21, 2020, 12:44:39 AM »

In my view, the political spectrum for the 1872 election was something like this:

Left-wing<--(Radical) Republicans--Liberal Republicans|Democrats--Straight-out Democrats-->Right-wing

President Grant and the Radical Republicans ran the most radical and uncompromising campaign on Reconstruction, with the potential to completely uproot Southern society and redistribute land and wealth, while the Liberal Republicans - though still on the left side of the spectrum -  were more willing to compromise with the Democrats on the issue. Likewise most Democrats were willing to put their differences aside and field a joint candidate with the Liberal Republicans, but for the hardline conservatives in the Straight-Out faction Greeley was way too radical.


A linear spectrum has limitations thus precisely because it is necessarily myopically focused on a single issue and thus loses sight of the forest for the trees.

The whole story of the 1870's was one of the country moving beyond the Civil War and Reconstruction and refocusing on issues that directly affected them and their daily lives. Republican "radicalism" on the South occurred simultaneously with the growth in power and blind eye to corruption on Wall Street, the ties between Grant's own family and robber barons like Jay Gould as well as the vast disparity in wealth inequality that would come to define the Gilded Age.

For all the radicalism on land reform and crippling the old elite in the economic back water of the south, there was a hell of a lot money being accumulated under Republican policies by a select few in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco, just one of these cities probably had more rich people then all eleven of the ex-Confederate States combined.  And all of these people were just fine with destroying the Plantation owners who had prevented their rise to political and economic dominance and as long as at no point was this "radicalism" turned on them. Fun Fact: It wasn't! Grant was the best friend they ever had. When you consider the attempts by Northern business types to cash in on this situation during reconstruction itself, this looks far more like right wing crony capitalism then any kind of principled leftism. And remember "Progress" is subjective, for these types this was Progress in a Socially Darwinian sense, one set of elites giving way to another.

Now don't get me wrong, Abolition was a great thing and it should have happened, but the only reason it actually happened was because rich business types in the North saw it as a road to profit and signed off on the project. Some were on board from the beginning, others were concerned about the disruption of a potential conflict that the abolitionists threatened. They also realized after 1857, that as concerning as the abolitionists might be, the Democrats risked nuking the whole economy (as happened after Dred Scott with collapse in railroad stocks) to please the South's radicalism and they became the bigger threat to their power and wealth. Lincoln and his embrace of Clay Economic Nationalism represented not just a compromise candidate on slavery (stopping the spread as opposed to outright abolition as the pitch in 1860), but a compromise candidate that brought traditionally pro-Whig Northern business onside.

As I have stressed numerous times, it is fully possible and historically present the world over for a Conservative elite to sign off on a "liberal" or "radical" policy to facilitate success on the larger scheme of things. We even see examples of this today on a smaller scale and I have stated some in the past such as NCLB under Bush, Cameron and LGBT Rights.

Also never underestimate the craven willingness of wealthy elites to sell out on a particular issue or sell out another group of rich people, to keep their own money on hand and/or keep their heads firmly affixed in the proper place. Even down to throwing Southern Planters to the red wolves, and Southern Planters were fully willing to damage their northern counterparts as demonstrated by Southern policy efforts in the 1850s.
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« Reply #207 on: December 21, 2020, 12:50:13 AM »

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/22/us/the-candidates-debate-transcript-of-the-reagan-mondale-debate-on-foreign-policy.html

MODERATOR: Miss Geyer, your question to Mr. Mondale. IMMIGRATION REFORM

Q: Mr. Mondale, many analysts are now saying that actually our No. 1 foreign policy problem today is one that remains almost totally unrecognized. Massive illegal immigration from economically collapsing countries. They are saying that it is the only real territorial threat to the American nation-state. You yourself said in the 1970's that we had a ''hemorrhage on our borders'' yet today you have backed off any immigration reform such as the balanced and highly- crafted Simpson-Mazzoli Bill. Why? What would you do instead today if anything? MONDALE: Ah, this is a very serious problem in our country and it has to be dealt with. I object to that part of the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill which I think is very unfair and would prove to be so. That is the part that requires employers to determine the citizenship of an employee before they're hired. I am convinced that the result of this would be that people who are Hispanic, people who have different languages or speak with an accent would find it difficult to be employed. I think that's wrong. We've never had citizenship tests in our country before. And I don't think we should have a citizenship card today. That is counterproductive. I do support the other aspects of the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill that strengthens enforcement at the border, strengthens other ways of dealing with undocumented workers in this difficult area and dealing with the problem of settling people who have lived here for many many years and do not have an established status. I further strongly recommend that this Administration do something it has not done. And that is to strengthen enforcement at the border, strengthen the officials in this Government that deal with undocumented workers and to do so in a way that's responsible and within the Constitution of the United States. We need an answer to this problem. But it must be an American answer that is consistent with justice and due process. Everyone in this room, practically, here tonight, is an immigrant. We came here loving this nation, serving it and it has served all of our most bountiful dreams. And one of those dreams is justice. And we need a measure, and I will support a measure that brings about those objectives, but avoids that one aspect that I think is very serious. The second part is to maintain and improve relations with our friends to the south. We cannot solve this problem all on our own. And that's why the failure of this administration to deal in an effective and good-faith way with Mexico, with Costa Rica, with the other nations in trying to find a peaceful settlement to the dispute in Central America has undermined our capacity to effectively to deal diplomatic in this, diplomatically in this area as well.

Q: Sir, people as well-balanced and just as Father Theodore Hesburgh at Notre Dame, who headed the Select Commission on Immigration, have pointed out repeatedly that there will be no immigration reform without employer sanctions because it would be an unbalanced bill and there would be simply no way to enforce it. However, putting that aside for the moment, your critics have also said repeatedly that you have not gone along with the bill, or with any immigration reform, because of the Hispanic groups - or Hispanic leadership groups, who actually do not represent what the Hispanic Americans want because polls show that they overwhelmingly want some kind of immigration reform. Can you say, or how can you justify your position on this, and how do you respond to the criticism that this is another, or that this is an example of your flip-flopping and giving in to special interest groups at the expense of the American nation?

MONDALE: I think you're right that the polls show that the majority of Hispanics want that bill, so I'm not doing it for political reasons. I'm doing it because all my life I've fought for a system of justice in this country, a system in which every American has a chance to achieve the fullness of life without discrimination. This bill imposes upon employers the responsibility of determining whether somebody who applies for a job is an American or not, and just inevitably they're going to be reluctant to hire Hispanics or people with a different accent. If I were dealing with politics here, the polls show the American people want this. I am for reform in this area, for tough enforcement at the border, and for many other aspects of the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill , but all my life I've fought for a fair nation and, despite the politics of it, I stand where I stand, and I think I'm right. And before this fight is over, we're going to come up with a better bill, a more effective bill, that does not undermine the liberties of our people. Q: Mr. President, you too have said that our borders are out of control. Yet this fall, you allowed the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill, which would at least have minimally protected our borders and the rights of citizenship because of a relatively unimportant issue of reimbursement to the states for legalized aliens. Given that, may I ask what priority can we expect you to give this forgotten national security element; how sincere are you in your efforts to control, in effect, the nation's states, that is, the United States.

REAGAN: Georgie, and we, believe me, supported the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill strongly, and the bill that came out of the Senate. However, there were things added in in the House side that we felt made it less of a good bill; as a matter of fact, made it a bad bill. And in conference, we stayed with them in conference all the way to where even Senator Simpson did not want the bill in the manner in which it would come out of the conference committee. There were a number of things in there that weakened that bill - I can't go into detail about them here. But it is true our borders are out of control, it is also true that this has been a situation on our borders back through a number of Administrations. And I supported this bill, I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here, even though some time back they may have entered illegally. With regard to the employer sanctions, we must have that - not only to ensure that we can identify the illegal aliens but also, while some keep protesting about what it would do to employers, there is another employer that we shouldn't be so concerned about, and these are employers down through the years who have encouraged the illegal entry into this country because they then hire these individuals and hire them at starvation wages and with none of the benefits that we think are normal and natural for workers in our country. And the individuals can't complain because of their illegal status. We don't think that those people should be allowed to continue operating free, and this was why the provisions that we had in with regard to sanctions and so forth. And I'm going to do everything I can, and all of us in the Administration are, to join in again when Congress is back at it to get an immigration bill that will give us once again control of our borders. And with regard to friendship below the border with the countries down there, yes, no Administration that I know has established the relationship that we have with our Latin friends. But as long as they have an economy that leaves so many people in dire poverty and unemployment, they are going to seek that employment across our borders. And we work with those other countries. Q: Mr. President, the experts also say that the situation today is terribly different - quantitatively, qualitatively different - from what it has been in the past because of the gigantic population growth. For instance, Mexico's population will go from about 60 million today to 120 million at the turn of the century. Many of these people will be coming into the United States not as citizens but as illegal workers. You have repeatedly said recently that you believe that Armageddon, the destruction of the world, may be imminent in our times. Do you ever feel that we are in for an Armageddon or a situation, a time of anarchy, regarding the population explosion in the world?

REAGAN: No, as a matter of fact the population explosion, if you look at the actual figures, has been vastly exaggerated - over-exaggerated. As a matter of fact, there are some pretty scientific and solid figures about how much space there still is in the world and how many more people can have. It's almost like going back to the Malthusian theory, when even then they were saying that everyone would starve with the limited population they had then. But the problem of population growth is one here with regard to our immigration. And we have been the safety valve, whether we wanted to or not, with the illegal entry here; in Mexico, where their population is increasing and they don't have an economy that can absorb them and provide the jobs. And this is what we're trying to work out, not only to protect our own borders but to have some kind of fairness and recognition of that problem.

MODERATOR: Mr. Mondale, your rebuttal.

MONDALE: One of the biggest problems today is that the coutries to our south are so desparately poor that these people who will almost lose their lives if they don't come north, come north despite all the risks. And if we're going to find a permanent, fundamental answer to this, it goes to American economic and trade policies that permit these nations to have a chance to get on their own two feet and to get prosperity so that they can have jobs for themselves and their people.

And that's why this enormous national bebt, enigneered by this Administration, is harming these countries and fueling this immigration.

These high interest rates, real rates, that have doubled under this Administration, have had the same effect on Mexico and so on, and the cost of repaying those debts is so enormous that it results in massive unemployment, hardship and heartache. And that drives our friends to the north - to the south - up into our region, and we need to end those defiecits as well.

MODERATOR: Mr. President, your rebuttal.

REAGAN: Well, my rebuttal is I've heard the national debt blamed for a lot of things, but not for illegal immigration across our border, and it has nothing to do with it.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/09/us/reagan-raises-new-obstacle-to-house-bill-on-immigration.html

The Reagan Administration has raised a new objection to the House version of a comprehensive immigration bill, saying it goes too far in protecting the rights of legal aliens and Hispanic workers.

That last point by Mondale is rather weak in terms of tying it back to Reagan though he is not entirely wrong on the root problem.
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darklordoftech
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« Reply #208 on: December 21, 2020, 01:58:10 AM »

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/22/us/the-candidates-debate-transcript-of-the-reagan-mondale-debate-on-foreign-policy.html

MODERATOR: Miss Geyer, your question to Mr. Mondale. IMMIGRATION REFORM

Q: Mr. Mondale, many analysts are now saying that actually our No. 1 foreign policy problem today is one that remains almost totally unrecognized. Massive illegal immigration from economically collapsing countries. They are saying that it is the only real territorial threat to the American nation-state. You yourself said in the 1970's that we had a ''hemorrhage on our borders'' yet today you have backed off any immigration reform such as the balanced and highly- crafted Simpson-Mazzoli Bill. Why? What would you do instead today if anything? MONDALE: Ah, this is a very serious problem in our country and it has to be dealt with. I object to that part of the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill which I think is very unfair and would prove to be so. That is the part that requires employers to determine the citizenship of an employee before they're hired. I am convinced that the result of this would be that people who are Hispanic, people who have different languages or speak with an accent would find it difficult to be employed. I think that's wrong. We've never had citizenship tests in our country before. And I don't think we should have a citizenship card today. That is counterproductive. I do support the other aspects of the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill that strengthens enforcement at the border, strengthens other ways of dealing with undocumented workers in this difficult area and dealing with the problem of settling people who have lived here for many many years and do not have an established status. I further strongly recommend that this Administration do something it has not done. And that is to strengthen enforcement at the border, strengthen the officials in this Government that deal with undocumented workers and to do so in a way that's responsible and within the Constitution of the United States. We need an answer to this problem. But it must be an American answer that is consistent with justice and due process. Everyone in this room, practically, here tonight, is an immigrant. We came here loving this nation, serving it and it has served all of our most bountiful dreams. And one of those dreams is justice. And we need a measure, and I will support a measure that brings about those objectives, but avoids that one aspect that I think is very serious. The second part is to maintain and improve relations with our friends to the south. We cannot solve this problem all on our own. And that's why the failure of this administration to deal in an effective and good-faith way with Mexico, with Costa Rica, with the other nations in trying to find a peaceful settlement to the dispute in Central America has undermined our capacity to effectively to deal diplomatic in this, diplomatically in this area as well.

Q: Sir, people as well-balanced and just as Father Theodore Hesburgh at Notre Dame, who headed the Select Commission on Immigration, have pointed out repeatedly that there will be no immigration reform without employer sanctions because it would be an unbalanced bill and there would be simply no way to enforce it. However, putting that aside for the moment, your critics have also said repeatedly that you have not gone along with the bill, or with any immigration reform, because of the Hispanic groups - or Hispanic leadership groups, who actually do not represent what the Hispanic Americans want because polls show that they overwhelmingly want some kind of immigration reform. Can you say, or how can you justify your position on this, and how do you respond to the criticism that this is another, or that this is an example of your flip-flopping and giving in to special interest groups at the expense of the American nation?

MONDALE: I think you're right that the polls show that the majority of Hispanics want that bill, so I'm not doing it for political reasons. I'm doing it because all my life I've fought for a system of justice in this country, a system in which every American has a chance to achieve the fullness of life without discrimination. This bill imposes upon employers the responsibility of determining whether somebody who applies for a job is an American or not, and just inevitably they're going to be reluctant to hire Hispanics or people with a different accent. If I were dealing with politics here, the polls show the American people want this. I am for reform in this area, for tough enforcement at the border, and for many other aspects of the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill , but all my life I've fought for a fair nation and, despite the politics of it, I stand where I stand, and I think I'm right. And before this fight is over, we're going to come up with a better bill, a more effective bill, that does not undermine the liberties of our people. Q: Mr. President, you too have said that our borders are out of control. Yet this fall, you allowed the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill, which would at least have minimally protected our borders and the rights of citizenship because of a relatively unimportant issue of reimbursement to the states for legalized aliens. Given that, may I ask what priority can we expect you to give this forgotten national security element; how sincere are you in your efforts to control, in effect, the nation's states, that is, the United States.

REAGAN: Georgie, and we, believe me, supported the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill strongly, and the bill that came out of the Senate. However, there were things added in in the House side that we felt made it less of a good bill; as a matter of fact, made it a bad bill. And in conference, we stayed with them in conference all the way to where even Senator Simpson did not want the bill in the manner in which it would come out of the conference committee. There were a number of things in there that weakened that bill - I can't go into detail about them here. But it is true our borders are out of control, it is also true that this has been a situation on our borders back through a number of Administrations. And I supported this bill, I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here, even though some time back they may have entered illegally. With regard to the employer sanctions, we must have that - not only to ensure that we can identify the illegal aliens but also, while some keep protesting about what it would do to employers, there is another employer that we shouldn't be so concerned about, and these are employers down through the years who have encouraged the illegal entry into this country because they then hire these individuals and hire them at starvation wages and with none of the benefits that we think are normal and natural for workers in our country. And the individuals can't complain because of their illegal status. We don't think that those people should be allowed to continue operating free, and this was why the provisions that we had in with regard to sanctions and so forth. And I'm going to do everything I can, and all of us in the Administration are, to join in again when Congress is back at it to get an immigration bill that will give us once again control of our borders. And with regard to friendship below the border with the countries down there, yes, no Administration that I know has established the relationship that we have with our Latin friends. But as long as they have an economy that leaves so many people in dire poverty and unemployment, they are going to seek that employment across our borders. And we work with those other countries. Q: Mr. President, the experts also say that the situation today is terribly different - quantitatively, qualitatively different - from what it has been in the past because of the gigantic population growth. For instance, Mexico's population will go from about 60 million today to 120 million at the turn of the century. Many of these people will be coming into the United States not as citizens but as illegal workers. You have repeatedly said recently that you believe that Armageddon, the destruction of the world, may be imminent in our times. Do you ever feel that we are in for an Armageddon or a situation, a time of anarchy, regarding the population explosion in the world?

REAGAN: No, as a matter of fact the population explosion, if you look at the actual figures, has been vastly exaggerated - over-exaggerated. As a matter of fact, there are some pretty scientific and solid figures about how much space there still is in the world and how many more people can have. It's almost like going back to the Malthusian theory, when even then they were saying that everyone would starve with the limited population they had then. But the problem of population growth is one here with regard to our immigration. And we have been the safety valve, whether we wanted to or not, with the illegal entry here; in Mexico, where their population is increasing and they don't have an economy that can absorb them and provide the jobs. And this is what we're trying to work out, not only to protect our own borders but to have some kind of fairness and recognition of that problem.

MODERATOR: Mr. Mondale, your rebuttal.

MONDALE: One of the biggest problems today is that the coutries to our south are so desparately poor that these people who will almost lose their lives if they don't come north, come north despite all the risks. And if we're going to find a permanent, fundamental answer to this, it goes to American economic and trade policies that permit these nations to have a chance to get on their own two feet and to get prosperity so that they can have jobs for themselves and their people.

And that's why this enormous national bebt, enigneered by this Administration, is harming these countries and fueling this immigration.

These high interest rates, real rates, that have doubled under this Administration, have had the same effect on Mexico and so on, and the cost of repaying those debts is so enormous that it results in massive unemployment, hardship and heartache. And that drives our friends to the north - to the south - up into our region, and we need to end those defiecits as well.

MODERATOR: Mr. President, your rebuttal.

REAGAN: Well, my rebuttal is I've heard the national debt blamed for a lot of things, but not for illegal immigration across our border, and it has nothing to do with it.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/09/us/reagan-raises-new-obstacle-to-house-bill-on-immigration.html

The Reagan Administration has raised a new objection to the House version of a comprehensive immigration bill, saying it goes too far in protecting the rights of legal aliens and Hispanic workers.

That last point by Mondale is rather weak in terms of tying it back to Reagan though he is not entirely wrong on the root problem.
My point was to show that Democrats have always been for more leniant immigration laws and Republicans for more restrictive immigration laws.
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Unconditional Surrender Truman
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« Reply #209 on: December 21, 2020, 02:21:50 AM »

I'm not sure who would suggest that Walter Mondale isn't part of the liberal Democratic tradition, but I would love to hear Henry's taken on how Reagan is actually a radical Western Republican. Wink
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darklordoftech
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« Reply #210 on: December 21, 2020, 02:27:08 AM »

I'm not sure who would suggest that Walter Mondale isn't part of the liberal Democratic tradition, but I would love to hear Henry's taken on how Reagan is actually a radical Western Republican. Wink
Who’s Henry?
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« Reply #211 on: December 21, 2020, 02:56:31 PM »

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/22/us/the-candidates-debate-transcript-of-the-reagan-mondale-debate-on-foreign-policy.html

MODERATOR: Miss Geyer, your question to Mr. Mondale. IMMIGRATION REFORM

Q: Mr. Mondale, many analysts are now saying that actually our No. 1 foreign policy problem today is one that remains almost totally unrecognized. Massive illegal immigration from economically collapsing countries. They are saying that it is the only real territorial threat to the American nation-state. You yourself said in the 1970's that we had a ''hemorrhage on our borders'' yet today you have backed off any immigration reform such as the balanced and highly- crafted Simpson-Mazzoli Bill. Why? What would you do instead today if anything? MONDALE: Ah, this is a very serious problem in our country and it has to be dealt with. I object to that part of the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill which I think is very unfair and would prove to be so. That is the part that requires employers to determine the citizenship of an employee before they're hired. I am convinced that the result of this would be that people who are Hispanic, people who have different languages or speak with an accent would find it difficult to be employed. I think that's wrong. We've never had citizenship tests in our country before. And I don't think we should have a citizenship card today. That is counterproductive. I do support the other aspects of the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill that strengthens enforcement at the border, strengthens other ways of dealing with undocumented workers in this difficult area and dealing with the problem of settling people who have lived here for many many years and do not have an established status. I further strongly recommend that this Administration do something it has not done. And that is to strengthen enforcement at the border, strengthen the officials in this Government that deal with undocumented workers and to do so in a way that's responsible and within the Constitution of the United States. We need an answer to this problem. But it must be an American answer that is consistent with justice and due process. Everyone in this room, practically, here tonight, is an immigrant. We came here loving this nation, serving it and it has served all of our most bountiful dreams. And one of those dreams is justice. And we need a measure, and I will support a measure that brings about those objectives, but avoids that one aspect that I think is very serious. The second part is to maintain and improve relations with our friends to the south. We cannot solve this problem all on our own. And that's why the failure of this administration to deal in an effective and good-faith way with Mexico, with Costa Rica, with the other nations in trying to find a peaceful settlement to the dispute in Central America has undermined our capacity to effectively to deal diplomatic in this, diplomatically in this area as well.

Q: Sir, people as well-balanced and just as Father Theodore Hesburgh at Notre Dame, who headed the Select Commission on Immigration, have pointed out repeatedly that there will be no immigration reform without employer sanctions because it would be an unbalanced bill and there would be simply no way to enforce it. However, putting that aside for the moment, your critics have also said repeatedly that you have not gone along with the bill, or with any immigration reform, because of the Hispanic groups - or Hispanic leadership groups, who actually do not represent what the Hispanic Americans want because polls show that they overwhelmingly want some kind of immigration reform. Can you say, or how can you justify your position on this, and how do you respond to the criticism that this is another, or that this is an example of your flip-flopping and giving in to special interest groups at the expense of the American nation?

MONDALE: I think you're right that the polls show that the majority of Hispanics want that bill, so I'm not doing it for political reasons. I'm doing it because all my life I've fought for a system of justice in this country, a system in which every American has a chance to achieve the fullness of life without discrimination. This bill imposes upon employers the responsibility of determining whether somebody who applies for a job is an American or not, and just inevitably they're going to be reluctant to hire Hispanics or people with a different accent. If I were dealing with politics here, the polls show the American people want this. I am for reform in this area, for tough enforcement at the border, and for many other aspects of the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill , but all my life I've fought for a fair nation and, despite the politics of it, I stand where I stand, and I think I'm right. And before this fight is over, we're going to come up with a better bill, a more effective bill, that does not undermine the liberties of our people. Q: Mr. President, you too have said that our borders are out of control. Yet this fall, you allowed the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill, which would at least have minimally protected our borders and the rights of citizenship because of a relatively unimportant issue of reimbursement to the states for legalized aliens. Given that, may I ask what priority can we expect you to give this forgotten national security element; how sincere are you in your efforts to control, in effect, the nation's states, that is, the United States.

REAGAN: Georgie, and we, believe me, supported the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill strongly, and the bill that came out of the Senate. However, there were things added in in the House side that we felt made it less of a good bill; as a matter of fact, made it a bad bill. And in conference, we stayed with them in conference all the way to where even Senator Simpson did not want the bill in the manner in which it would come out of the conference committee. There were a number of things in there that weakened that bill - I can't go into detail about them here. But it is true our borders are out of control, it is also true that this has been a situation on our borders back through a number of Administrations. And I supported this bill, I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here, even though some time back they may have entered illegally. With regard to the employer sanctions, we must have that - not only to ensure that we can identify the illegal aliens but also, while some keep protesting about what it would do to employers, there is another employer that we shouldn't be so concerned about, and these are employers down through the years who have encouraged the illegal entry into this country because they then hire these individuals and hire them at starvation wages and with none of the benefits that we think are normal and natural for workers in our country. And the individuals can't complain because of their illegal status. We don't think that those people should be allowed to continue operating free, and this was why the provisions that we had in with regard to sanctions and so forth. And I'm going to do everything I can, and all of us in the Administration are, to join in again when Congress is back at it to get an immigration bill that will give us once again control of our borders. And with regard to friendship below the border with the countries down there, yes, no Administration that I know has established the relationship that we have with our Latin friends. But as long as they have an economy that leaves so many people in dire poverty and unemployment, they are going to seek that employment across our borders. And we work with those other countries. Q: Mr. President, the experts also say that the situation today is terribly different - quantitatively, qualitatively different - from what it has been in the past because of the gigantic population growth. For instance, Mexico's population will go from about 60 million today to 120 million at the turn of the century. Many of these people will be coming into the United States not as citizens but as illegal workers. You have repeatedly said recently that you believe that Armageddon, the destruction of the world, may be imminent in our times. Do you ever feel that we are in for an Armageddon or a situation, a time of anarchy, regarding the population explosion in the world?

REAGAN: No, as a matter of fact the population explosion, if you look at the actual figures, has been vastly exaggerated - over-exaggerated. As a matter of fact, there are some pretty scientific and solid figures about how much space there still is in the world and how many more people can have. It's almost like going back to the Malthusian theory, when even then they were saying that everyone would starve with the limited population they had then. But the problem of population growth is one here with regard to our immigration. And we have been the safety valve, whether we wanted to or not, with the illegal entry here; in Mexico, where their population is increasing and they don't have an economy that can absorb them and provide the jobs. And this is what we're trying to work out, not only to protect our own borders but to have some kind of fairness and recognition of that problem.

MODERATOR: Mr. Mondale, your rebuttal.

MONDALE: One of the biggest problems today is that the coutries to our south are so desparately poor that these people who will almost lose their lives if they don't come north, come north despite all the risks. And if we're going to find a permanent, fundamental answer to this, it goes to American economic and trade policies that permit these nations to have a chance to get on their own two feet and to get prosperity so that they can have jobs for themselves and their people.

And that's why this enormous national bebt, enigneered by this Administration, is harming these countries and fueling this immigration.

These high interest rates, real rates, that have doubled under this Administration, have had the same effect on Mexico and so on, and the cost of repaying those debts is so enormous that it results in massive unemployment, hardship and heartache. And that drives our friends to the north - to the south - up into our region, and we need to end those defiecits as well.

MODERATOR: Mr. President, your rebuttal.

REAGAN: Well, my rebuttal is I've heard the national debt blamed for a lot of things, but not for illegal immigration across our border, and it has nothing to do with it.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/09/us/reagan-raises-new-obstacle-to-house-bill-on-immigration.html

The Reagan Administration has raised a new objection to the House version of a comprehensive immigration bill, saying it goes too far in protecting the rights of legal aliens and Hispanic workers.

That last point by Mondale is rather weak in terms of tying it back to Reagan though he is not entirely wrong on the root problem.
My point was to show that Democrats have always been for more leniant immigration laws and Republicans for more restrictive immigration laws.

OF course though naturally it should be noted that during the 1980s, it was the height of Republican Moderation on immigration for the simple fact that the politics of the sunbelt at least for the time lent itself to such because of the heavy interest by many monied interests in having cheap labor imported to keep costs down.

That being said during the Bush years, this was not uniform even and people talk of "Republicans use to sound like this on immigration citing Reagan or Bush", need to account for the fact that the House Republican Caucus throughout this period was almost uniformly hawkish on the border and somewhat restriction favored, the 2005 enforcement only bill comes to mind. This is especially so because of demographic pressure and suburban crime fears by many Representatives in the sunbelt.
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« Reply #212 on: December 21, 2020, 03:42:19 PM »

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/22/us/the-candidates-debate-transcript-of-the-reagan-mondale-debate-on-foreign-policy.html

MODERATOR: Miss Geyer, your question to Mr. Mondale. IMMIGRATION REFORM

Q: Mr. Mondale, many analysts are now saying that actually our No. 1 foreign policy problem today is one that remains almost totally unrecognized. Massive illegal immigration from economically collapsing countries. They are saying that it is the only real territorial threat to the American nation-state. You yourself said in the 1970's that we had a ''hemorrhage on our borders'' yet today you have backed off any immigration reform such as the balanced and highly- crafted Simpson-Mazzoli Bill. Why? What would you do instead today if anything? MONDALE: Ah, this is a very serious problem in our country and it has to be dealt with. I object to that part of the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill which I think is very unfair and would prove to be so. That is the part that requires employers to determine the citizenship of an employee before they're hired. I am convinced that the result of this would be that people who are Hispanic, people who have different languages or speak with an accent would find it difficult to be employed. I think that's wrong. We've never had citizenship tests in our country before. And I don't think we should have a citizenship card today. That is counterproductive. I do support the other aspects of the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill that strengthens enforcement at the border, strengthens other ways of dealing with undocumented workers in this difficult area and dealing with the problem of settling people who have lived here for many many years and do not have an established status. I further strongly recommend that this Administration do something it has not done. And that is to strengthen enforcement at the border, strengthen the officials in this Government that deal with undocumented workers and to do so in a way that's responsible and within the Constitution of the United States. We need an answer to this problem. But it must be an American answer that is consistent with justice and due process. Everyone in this room, practically, here tonight, is an immigrant. We came here loving this nation, serving it and it has served all of our most bountiful dreams. And one of those dreams is justice. And we need a measure, and I will support a measure that brings about those objectives, but avoids that one aspect that I think is very serious. The second part is to maintain and improve relations with our friends to the south. We cannot solve this problem all on our own. And that's why the failure of this administration to deal in an effective and good-faith way with Mexico, with Costa Rica, with the other nations in trying to find a peaceful settlement to the dispute in Central America has undermined our capacity to effectively to deal diplomatic in this, diplomatically in this area as well.

Q: Sir, people as well-balanced and just as Father Theodore Hesburgh at Notre Dame, who headed the Select Commission on Immigration, have pointed out repeatedly that there will be no immigration reform without employer sanctions because it would be an unbalanced bill and there would be simply no way to enforce it. However, putting that aside for the moment, your critics have also said repeatedly that you have not gone along with the bill, or with any immigration reform, because of the Hispanic groups - or Hispanic leadership groups, who actually do not represent what the Hispanic Americans want because polls show that they overwhelmingly want some kind of immigration reform. Can you say, or how can you justify your position on this, and how do you respond to the criticism that this is another, or that this is an example of your flip-flopping and giving in to special interest groups at the expense of the American nation?

MONDALE: I think you're right that the polls show that the majority of Hispanics want that bill, so I'm not doing it for political reasons. I'm doing it because all my life I've fought for a system of justice in this country, a system in which every American has a chance to achieve the fullness of life without discrimination. This bill imposes upon employers the responsibility of determining whether somebody who applies for a job is an American or not, and just inevitably they're going to be reluctant to hire Hispanics or people with a different accent. If I were dealing with politics here, the polls show the American people want this. I am for reform in this area, for tough enforcement at the border, and for many other aspects of the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill , but all my life I've fought for a fair nation and, despite the politics of it, I stand where I stand, and I think I'm right. And before this fight is over, we're going to come up with a better bill, a more effective bill, that does not undermine the liberties of our people. Q: Mr. President, you too have said that our borders are out of control. Yet this fall, you allowed the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill, which would at least have minimally protected our borders and the rights of citizenship because of a relatively unimportant issue of reimbursement to the states for legalized aliens. Given that, may I ask what priority can we expect you to give this forgotten national security element; how sincere are you in your efforts to control, in effect, the nation's states, that is, the United States.

REAGAN: Georgie, and we, believe me, supported the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill strongly, and the bill that came out of the Senate. However, there were things added in in the House side that we felt made it less of a good bill; as a matter of fact, made it a bad bill. And in conference, we stayed with them in conference all the way to where even Senator Simpson did not want the bill in the manner in which it would come out of the conference committee. There were a number of things in there that weakened that bill - I can't go into detail about them here. But it is true our borders are out of control, it is also true that this has been a situation on our borders back through a number of Administrations. And I supported this bill, I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here, even though some time back they may have entered illegally. With regard to the employer sanctions, we must have that - not only to ensure that we can identify the illegal aliens but also, while some keep protesting about what it would do to employers, there is another employer that we shouldn't be so concerned about, and these are employers down through the years who have encouraged the illegal entry into this country because they then hire these individuals and hire them at starvation wages and with none of the benefits that we think are normal and natural for workers in our country. And the individuals can't complain because of their illegal status. We don't think that those people should be allowed to continue operating free, and this was why the provisions that we had in with regard to sanctions and so forth. And I'm going to do everything I can, and all of us in the Administration are, to join in again when Congress is back at it to get an immigration bill that will give us once again control of our borders. And with regard to friendship below the border with the countries down there, yes, no Administration that I know has established the relationship that we have with our Latin friends. But as long as they have an economy that leaves so many people in dire poverty and unemployment, they are going to seek that employment across our borders. And we work with those other countries. Q: Mr. President, the experts also say that the situation today is terribly different - quantitatively, qualitatively different - from what it has been in the past because of the gigantic population growth. For instance, Mexico's population will go from about 60 million today to 120 million at the turn of the century. Many of these people will be coming into the United States not as citizens but as illegal workers. You have repeatedly said recently that you believe that Armageddon, the destruction of the world, may be imminent in our times. Do you ever feel that we are in for an Armageddon or a situation, a time of anarchy, regarding the population explosion in the world?

REAGAN: No, as a matter of fact the population explosion, if you look at the actual figures, has been vastly exaggerated - over-exaggerated. As a matter of fact, there are some pretty scientific and solid figures about how much space there still is in the world and how many more people can have. It's almost like going back to the Malthusian theory, when even then they were saying that everyone would starve with the limited population they had then. But the problem of population growth is one here with regard to our immigration. And we have been the safety valve, whether we wanted to or not, with the illegal entry here; in Mexico, where their population is increasing and they don't have an economy that can absorb them and provide the jobs. And this is what we're trying to work out, not only to protect our own borders but to have some kind of fairness and recognition of that problem.

MODERATOR: Mr. Mondale, your rebuttal.

MONDALE: One of the biggest problems today is that the coutries to our south are so desparately poor that these people who will almost lose their lives if they don't come north, come north despite all the risks. And if we're going to find a permanent, fundamental answer to this, it goes to American economic and trade policies that permit these nations to have a chance to get on their own two feet and to get prosperity so that they can have jobs for themselves and their people.

And that's why this enormous national bebt, enigneered by this Administration, is harming these countries and fueling this immigration.

These high interest rates, real rates, that have doubled under this Administration, have had the same effect on Mexico and so on, and the cost of repaying those debts is so enormous that it results in massive unemployment, hardship and heartache. And that drives our friends to the north - to the south - up into our region, and we need to end those defiecits as well.

MODERATOR: Mr. President, your rebuttal.

REAGAN: Well, my rebuttal is I've heard the national debt blamed for a lot of things, but not for illegal immigration across our border, and it has nothing to do with it.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/09/us/reagan-raises-new-obstacle-to-house-bill-on-immigration.html

The Reagan Administration has raised a new objection to the House version of a comprehensive immigration bill, saying it goes too far in protecting the rights of legal aliens and Hispanic workers.

That last point by Mondale is rather weak in terms of tying it back to Reagan though he is not entirely wrong on the root problem.
My point was to show that Democrats have always been for more leniant immigration laws and Republicans for more restrictive immigration laws.

OF course though naturally it should be noted that during the 1980s, it was the height of Republican Moderation on immigration for the simple fact that the politics of the sunbelt at least for the time lent itself to such because of the heavy interest by many monied interests in having cheap labor imported to keep costs down.

That being said during the Bush years, this was not uniform even and people talk of "Republicans use to sound like this on immigration citing Reagan or Bush", need to account for the fact that the House Republican Caucus throughout this period was almost uniformly hawkish on the border and somewhat restriction favored, the 2005 enforcement only bill comes to mind. This is especially so because of demographic pressure and suburban crime fears by many Representatives in the sunbelt.

Even so, I bet some of the OC crazies took a pretty hard line on immigration during the 80s (Bob Dornan blamed his defeat to Loretta Sanchez in 1996 on illegal immigrants voting).
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« Reply #213 on: December 22, 2020, 03:21:09 PM »

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/22/us/the-candidates-debate-transcript-of-the-reagan-mondale-debate-on-foreign-policy.html

MODERATOR: Miss Geyer, your question to Mr. Mondale. IMMIGRATION REFORM

Q: Mr. Mondale, many analysts are now saying that actually our No. 1 foreign policy problem today is one that remains almost totally unrecognized. Massive illegal immigration from economically collapsing countries. They are saying that it is the only real territorial threat to the American nation-state. You yourself said in the 1970's that we had a ''hemorrhage on our borders'' yet today you have backed off any immigration reform such as the balanced and highly- crafted Simpson-Mazzoli Bill. Why? What would you do instead today if anything? MONDALE: Ah, this is a very serious problem in our country and it has to be dealt with. I object to that part of the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill which I think is very unfair and would prove to be so. That is the part that requires employers to determine the citizenship of an employee before they're hired. I am convinced that the result of this would be that people who are Hispanic, people who have different languages or speak with an accent would find it difficult to be employed. I think that's wrong. We've never had citizenship tests in our country before. And I don't think we should have a citizenship card today. That is counterproductive. I do support the other aspects of the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill that strengthens enforcement at the border, strengthens other ways of dealing with undocumented workers in this difficult area and dealing with the problem of settling people who have lived here for many many years and do not have an established status. I further strongly recommend that this Administration do something it has not done. And that is to strengthen enforcement at the border, strengthen the officials in this Government that deal with undocumented workers and to do so in a way that's responsible and within the Constitution of the United States. We need an answer to this problem. But it must be an American answer that is consistent with justice and due process. Everyone in this room, practically, here tonight, is an immigrant. We came here loving this nation, serving it and it has served all of our most bountiful dreams. And one of those dreams is justice. And we need a measure, and I will support a measure that brings about those objectives, but avoids that one aspect that I think is very serious. The second part is to maintain and improve relations with our friends to the south. We cannot solve this problem all on our own. And that's why the failure of this administration to deal in an effective and good-faith way with Mexico, with Costa Rica, with the other nations in trying to find a peaceful settlement to the dispute in Central America has undermined our capacity to effectively to deal diplomatic in this, diplomatically in this area as well.

Q: Sir, people as well-balanced and just as Father Theodore Hesburgh at Notre Dame, who headed the Select Commission on Immigration, have pointed out repeatedly that there will be no immigration reform without employer sanctions because it would be an unbalanced bill and there would be simply no way to enforce it. However, putting that aside for the moment, your critics have also said repeatedly that you have not gone along with the bill, or with any immigration reform, because of the Hispanic groups - or Hispanic leadership groups, who actually do not represent what the Hispanic Americans want because polls show that they overwhelmingly want some kind of immigration reform. Can you say, or how can you justify your position on this, and how do you respond to the criticism that this is another, or that this is an example of your flip-flopping and giving in to special interest groups at the expense of the American nation?

MONDALE: I think you're right that the polls show that the majority of Hispanics want that bill, so I'm not doing it for political reasons. I'm doing it because all my life I've fought for a system of justice in this country, a system in which every American has a chance to achieve the fullness of life without discrimination. This bill imposes upon employers the responsibility of determining whether somebody who applies for a job is an American or not, and just inevitably they're going to be reluctant to hire Hispanics or people with a different accent. If I were dealing with politics here, the polls show the American people want this. I am for reform in this area, for tough enforcement at the border, and for many other aspects of the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill , but all my life I've fought for a fair nation and, despite the politics of it, I stand where I stand, and I think I'm right. And before this fight is over, we're going to come up with a better bill, a more effective bill, that does not undermine the liberties of our people. Q: Mr. President, you too have said that our borders are out of control. Yet this fall, you allowed the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill, which would at least have minimally protected our borders and the rights of citizenship because of a relatively unimportant issue of reimbursement to the states for legalized aliens. Given that, may I ask what priority can we expect you to give this forgotten national security element; how sincere are you in your efforts to control, in effect, the nation's states, that is, the United States.

REAGAN: Georgie, and we, believe me, supported the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill strongly, and the bill that came out of the Senate. However, there were things added in in the House side that we felt made it less of a good bill; as a matter of fact, made it a bad bill. And in conference, we stayed with them in conference all the way to where even Senator Simpson did not want the bill in the manner in which it would come out of the conference committee. There were a number of things in there that weakened that bill - I can't go into detail about them here. But it is true our borders are out of control, it is also true that this has been a situation on our borders back through a number of Administrations. And I supported this bill, I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here, even though some time back they may have entered illegally. With regard to the employer sanctions, we must have that - not only to ensure that we can identify the illegal aliens but also, while some keep protesting about what it would do to employers, there is another employer that we shouldn't be so concerned about, and these are employers down through the years who have encouraged the illegal entry into this country because they then hire these individuals and hire them at starvation wages and with none of the benefits that we think are normal and natural for workers in our country. And the individuals can't complain because of their illegal status. We don't think that those people should be allowed to continue operating free, and this was why the provisions that we had in with regard to sanctions and so forth. And I'm going to do everything I can, and all of us in the Administration are, to join in again when Congress is back at it to get an immigration bill that will give us once again control of our borders. And with regard to friendship below the border with the countries down there, yes, no Administration that I know has established the relationship that we have with our Latin friends. But as long as they have an economy that leaves so many people in dire poverty and unemployment, they are going to seek that employment across our borders. And we work with those other countries. Q: Mr. President, the experts also say that the situation today is terribly different - quantitatively, qualitatively different - from what it has been in the past because of the gigantic population growth. For instance, Mexico's population will go from about 60 million today to 120 million at the turn of the century. Many of these people will be coming into the United States not as citizens but as illegal workers. You have repeatedly said recently that you believe that Armageddon, the destruction of the world, may be imminent in our times. Do you ever feel that we are in for an Armageddon or a situation, a time of anarchy, regarding the population explosion in the world?

REAGAN: No, as a matter of fact the population explosion, if you look at the actual figures, has been vastly exaggerated - over-exaggerated. As a matter of fact, there are some pretty scientific and solid figures about how much space there still is in the world and how many more people can have. It's almost like going back to the Malthusian theory, when even then they were saying that everyone would starve with the limited population they had then. But the problem of population growth is one here with regard to our immigration. And we have been the safety valve, whether we wanted to or not, with the illegal entry here; in Mexico, where their population is increasing and they don't have an economy that can absorb them and provide the jobs. And this is what we're trying to work out, not only to protect our own borders but to have some kind of fairness and recognition of that problem.

MODERATOR: Mr. Mondale, your rebuttal.

MONDALE: One of the biggest problems today is that the coutries to our south are so desparately poor that these people who will almost lose their lives if they don't come north, come north despite all the risks. And if we're going to find a permanent, fundamental answer to this, it goes to American economic and trade policies that permit these nations to have a chance to get on their own two feet and to get prosperity so that they can have jobs for themselves and their people.

And that's why this enormous national bebt, enigneered by this Administration, is harming these countries and fueling this immigration.

These high interest rates, real rates, that have doubled under this Administration, have had the same effect on Mexico and so on, and the cost of repaying those debts is so enormous that it results in massive unemployment, hardship and heartache. And that drives our friends to the north - to the south - up into our region, and we need to end those defiecits as well.

MODERATOR: Mr. President, your rebuttal.

REAGAN: Well, my rebuttal is I've heard the national debt blamed for a lot of things, but not for illegal immigration across our border, and it has nothing to do with it.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/09/us/reagan-raises-new-obstacle-to-house-bill-on-immigration.html

The Reagan Administration has raised a new objection to the House version of a comprehensive immigration bill, saying it goes too far in protecting the rights of legal aliens and Hispanic workers.

That last point by Mondale is rather weak in terms of tying it back to Reagan though he is not entirely wrong on the root problem.
My point was to show that Democrats have always been for more leniant immigration laws and Republicans for more restrictive immigration laws.

OF course though naturally it should be noted that during the 1980s, it was the height of Republican Moderation on immigration for the simple fact that the politics of the sunbelt at least for the time lent itself to such because of the heavy interest by many monied interests in having cheap labor imported to keep costs down.

That being said during the Bush years, this was not uniform even and people talk of "Republicans use to sound like this on immigration citing Reagan or Bush", need to account for the fact that the House Republican Caucus throughout this period was almost uniformly hawkish on the border and somewhat restriction favored, the 2005 enforcement only bill comes to mind. This is especially so because of demographic pressure and suburban crime fears by many Representatives in the sunbelt.

Even so, I bet some of the OC crazies took a pretty hard line on immigration during the 80s (Bob Dornan blamed his defeat to Loretta Sanchez in 1996 on illegal immigrants voting).

Certainly, its a dynamic I have given some analysis towards when you have an area whose politics is being transformed by demographic change

1. Resist
2. Compromise
3. Succumb

Sometimes stage two is skipped, a lot of immigration restrictions in Socal were replaced by Democrats with no in between.

The interesting dynamic know is that Republicans are doing better in the diverse areas then the more heavily white ones because of the education divide. Go back to 2012, people would have said that CA-39 is on borrowed time but the seat held formerly by Walters was viewed as being safer long term.
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darklordoftech
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« Reply #214 on: December 25, 2020, 01:24:48 PM »

I wonder where parties in other countries stood on women’s suffrage and alcohol prohibition.
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« Reply #215 on: December 28, 2020, 12:28:43 AM »

I'm not sure who would suggest that Walter Mondale isn't part of the liberal Democratic tradition, but I would love to hear Henry's taken on how Reagan is actually a radical Western Republican. Wink
Who’s Henry?

I think he's referring to me Tongue
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« Reply #216 on: February 07, 2021, 02:22:46 PM »

I was searching for references to "popery and slavery" for a different post when I came across a couple interesting findings, namely these two university papers:

https://ir.library.louisville.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3440&context=etd

https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/55595/PDF/1/play/

If you Ctrl-F and search for the terms "liberal" and "radical", you'll find that 90% of the time or more they are used in reference to Protestantism, the North, and the Republicans; while "conservative" and "reactionary" are used with the same frequency to describe Catholicism, the South, and the Democrats. Just some food for thought.
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The Mikado
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« Reply #217 on: February 07, 2021, 06:40:59 PM »

I wonder where parties in other countries stood on women’s suffrage and alcohol prohibition.

Rather famously, the French left was deeply skeptical of women's suffrage because many in the French socialist party thought that women were more religiously inclined than men and more apt to be swayed by the Roman Catholic Church.
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« Reply #218 on: February 09, 2021, 12:11:36 AM »

Expanding on my last post, I would strongly encourage everyone reading this to spend some time scrolling through the links I posted above. To be honest it felt incredibly vindicating to read page after page describing the deep conservatism of 19th century American Catholics and how it conflicted with the Protestant liberal values of the country. There are so many passages I could post here to help back up the points I've made throughout this thread, but for now I'll share only a few from each source.

From Louisville:

Quote
Not only did Church officials perceive the Republicans to be anti-Catholic and associate them with the nativist riots that occurred during the prewar period, but prelates and priests also argued that the party of Lincoln represented the ill-effects of Protestantism in American society. Clergy considered the Republican antislavery platform and the party’s association with abolitionism to be examples of Protestant fanaticism. Although by 1860 nearly all Protestant sects contained an antislavery faction, almost all members of the Church—in both the United States and Europe—denounced abolitionism as a radical movement that opposed Catholic teachings. Catholic leaders considered abolitionism to be a product of Protestant liberalism which threatened to upend the social and legal status quo in the country. As abolitionists demanded an immediate end to slavery, despite American laws that protected the institution, Catholic leaders sought to preserve order by upholding the sanctity of the Constitution. Thus, prelates and priests believed that the Republican Party—the party of northern Protestants—endangered the stability of the country by advancing its antislavery platform. In particular, ultramontane clergy—like Francis Patrick Kenrick and Spalding—adhered to the belief that slavery remained a legitimate human relation that fit within a structured social hierarchy. Clergy referenced Catholic theology, doctrine, and dogma to offer an alternative course of action than the one pursued by abolitionists and antislavery Republicans. According to members of the American hierarchy, Catholicism defended national laws, protected the social order, and prevented political factionalism because it provided a central authority—the Church—to settle internal disputes. On the other hand, prelates and priests contended that Protestantism allowed for lawlessness, fomented social disorder, and led to political disunion because, without the acceptance of a central moral authority, Protestantism allowed each man (or woman) to become a law unto himself (or herself). Thus, not only did clergy oppose the Republican Party because of its perceived anti-Catholic stance, but prelates and priests also disparaged the party of Lincoln because it represented the interests of northern Protestants, a group that Catholics considered uninformed religious fanatics that fomented disunion.

Note how they refer to the Protestants as "fanatics" - this is the exact same language that Tories used to describe radical Protestants and Whigs in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Quote
Although the clergy in Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri did not publicly endorse or campaign for a candidate in the presidential election of 1860, the majority of prelates and priests privately supported Stephen Douglas, the northern Democratic candidate from Illinois. The clergy’s antebellum experiences with nativism and anti-Catholicism forged a strong bond between members of the Church and Democrats. However, by the summer of 1860, the Democratic Party had divided into northern and southern wings, forcing Border State Catholics to decide between Douglas and John C. Breckinridge of the southern Democratic Party. Although some Catholics backed Breckinridge—particularly fellow Kentuckians from the western portion of the state—most members of the Church in the region supported Douglas. The northern Democratic candidate promoted unionism and vowed to uphold the status quo, which, to Catholic clergy, meant an adherence to the law and the preservation of social order. As Catholic historian William B. Kurtz explained, “Catholics’ faith and religious worldview, which emphasized stability over reform, also made them predisposed to favor a conservative and national party.” Douglas gained the support of Catholics because he advocated the policy of popular sovereignty to decide the fate of slavery in the West, opposed abolitionism, promised to protect the rights of immigrants, and promoted the sanctity of the Union by running a national campaign. For example, regarding the dispute over slavery in the western territories, the Douglas Democratic platform pledged to “abide by the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States [the Dred Scott decision] upon these questions of Constitutional law.” Thus, clergy from the Border States viewed Douglas as the candidate least influenced by Protestant liberalism and most committed to the interests of the Church and the nation.

From Rutgers:

Quote
By midcentury many leading American Catholics held that Catholicism melded more easily with the hierarchical and illiberal culture of the slaveholding South than with the ultra-democratic and commercial values of the Yankee North. This notion of the South as a kind of “quasi-Catholic society,” flawed and superficial as it was, would soon spread beyond American shores and exert a powerful hold over the Catholic elite of Europe. As the United States descended into Civil War, many of the Catholic monarchists, nobles, and reactionaries of the Old World came to regard the struggle between an abolitionist North and slaveholding South as a mirror image of the longstanding struggle between liberal democracy and reactionary monarchism that had roiled Catholic Europe since 1789. The Confederacy, on this view, was a traditional, aristocratic society besieged by the modern forces of democracy and industrialism embodied in the “Yankee Leviathan” of the North. Eager to witness the dissolution of the American Republic, the Catholic elite of France, Spain, Germany, Austria and Italy, including many of the leading representatives of the Holy See itself, would prove among the most stalwart allies of the Confederacy.

[...]

Moreover, the view of the Confederacy as a traditional, aristocratic society besieged by a revolutionary and ultra-democratic North was itself a key article of Confederate propaganda during the Civil War. Eager to enlist foreign allies and shape public opinion overseas, the Confederacy between 1862 and 1864 funded an extensive agitprop campaign in Europe aimed at reinforcing the perception of the American South as a conservative, traditional society at war with the radical and materialistic “Yankees” and “Puritans” of the industrial North. Particularly in France, Ireland, Spain, and Italy, a central pillar of this propaganda campaign was the argument that the aristocratic South was, in terms of culture, religion, politics, and national origins, a kind of colonial outpost of the Catholic Old World. To help disseminate this message, the Confederate government enlisted a number of American Catholic churchmen, including Rev. John Bannon of St. Louis and Bishop Patrick Lynch of Charleston, to travel to Europe as diplomatic agents. But this propaganda campaign also benefited from the more informal support of a wide array of pro-Confederate American Catholic clergymen, including Martin John Spalding, the intellectual luminary of the American hierarchy, who sought to leverage their Old World influence into stronger diplomatic ties between Richmond and Rome

Quote
The ultramontane assault against the secular world, however, rarely applied to the world of urban machine politics, where support for the Democratic Party remained a hallmark of immigrant life. If anything, the ultramontane revolution actually strengthened Irish-Catholic attachment to the increasingly reactionary Democrats, which amid the bitter sectional debates of the 1850s emerged as the de facto party of the South. By steadfastly denouncing abolitionism as an outgrowth of “the Lawless liberalism” that had convulsed Europe, the ultramontane Church legitimized the proslavery stance of Southern Democrats and further estranged Irish-Catholics from the reformist impulse of the Whig and Republican parties. In truth, the democratic-republicanism of Irish-born radicals like Thomas Addis Emmet and Thomas O’Connor had always mixed uneasily with the proslavery apologetics of Jefferson and Jackson, and in this respect the ultramontane emphasis on tradition, order, and hierarchy helped resolve longstanding cultural differences between aristocratic Southern elites and hardscrabble working-class Irish. When Charles O’Conor in 1859 praised African slavery as an “institution ordained by nature,” he voiced a sentiment that would have rattled his father, the former political radical, but hardly seemed out of place to the reactionaries who dominated both the Catholic Church and the Democratic Party at midcentury.

Quote
In 1863 Father John Bannon of Missouri, an Irish-American Catholic priest serving as a Confederate agent abroad, published a series of pamphlets in Ireland addressed to the local Catholic clergy. Intended to quell Irish-Catholic support for the Union Army, which relied heavily on the enlistment of immigrant Irish, the letters cast the American Civil War as epic spiritual struggle between the “all-domineering materialism” of the Yankee North—a society purportedly defined by vulgar industrialism, rampant individualism, and a tawdry ultra-republican political culture—and the “remnant of Christian civilization” that still prevailed in the rural South. The spiritual conflict between North and South, Bannon insisted, owed to the very origins of the European settlement in North America. Whereas New England Yankees were the spiritual heirs of anti-Catholic Protestant radicals like Oliver Cromwell, the planters of the South were descended from the aristocratic families of Catholic Europe, and retained many of the pieties and prejudices of their Old World ancestors. In an age of ever-advancing secularism, liberalism, and materialism, the Southern planter class, much like the Roman Catholic Church itself, remained a pillar of conservative Christian culture. "The Southern People,” Bannon affirmed to his Irish-Catholic audience, were “by race, religion and principles, the natural ally of the foreigner and Catholic.”

Quote
But perhaps nothing more strongly influenced the rise of ultramontanism in the American Church than the outspoken support of Protestant nativists, middle-class reformers, and urban evangelicals for the political convulsions that had roiled Catholic Europe. Covering the uprisings in Italy as a correspondent for the New York Tribune, one the leading organs of the Whig Party, Margaret Fuller, the Massachusetts-born reformer and litterateur, wrote glowingly of the Italian “cause for freedom” while condemning the backwardness and conservatism of the Catholic clergy. (She was particularly critical of the Jesuit Order, which she accused of being “always against the free progress of humanity.”) After nationalist forces conquered the Papal States and drove Pius into exile, a wide array of American Protestant luminaries, including Horace Greeley, voiced vigorous support for the Roman Republic, much to the horror of the nation’s Catholics. “They have plundered the churches—they have extorted money from the people—they have almost legalized assassination where ever their authority,” Hughes said of nationalist uprising in Italy. “And this is the phalanx recognized by Mr. Greeley as the Roman Republic.” Such objections, however, did little dampen American Protestant support for liberal nationalism. In the aftermath of the Roman revolution a number of leading European radicals, including Louis Kossuth of Hungary and Alessandro Gavazzi of Italy, made extended tours through North America, denouncing “popery” as a threat to human freedom while soliciting financial contributions for nationalist insurgents in Europe. Typically sponsored by leading American evangelicals, these lecture tours only reinforced the obvious parallels between anti-Catholic nativists in the U.S. and secular liberals in Europe. By the mid-1850s, the apparent links between European liberals and American Know-Nothings had all but extinguished the radical democratic strain of Irish Catholicism.

Hmm...Ms. Fuller's reaction to the Italian revolution of 1848 seems suspiciously reminiscent of how Jefferson and his Republicans talked about the French Revolution. But no, it can't be, because the Whigs were elitist anti-revolutionary nativist conservatives, right?
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« Reply #219 on: February 09, 2021, 01:21:31 AM »

One more quote, this time to show that it wasn't just Southerners and Catholics who perceived the Civil War as the same old fight between tradition and monarchy against liberty and republic, but Northerners and Protestants too. From The Puritan Origins of American Patriotism:

Quote
"Slavery," wrote Henry Adams in 1907, "drove the whole Puritan community back on its Puritanism." He was reflecting on his early teenage years in the 1850s, the time when he first tried to picture the forces arrayed against each other in America. "The Slave power took the place of Stuart kings and Roman popes" in his imagination, while on the other side the antislavery politicians became the new Puritan liberators, bravely battling tyranny and obscurantism. Growing up in Boston as a scion of a revolutionary family but somewhat adrift in the nineteenth century, Adams found that this image of an earlier struggle renewed his sense of community. His politics "were no longer so modern as the eighteenth century, but took a strong tone of the seventeenth." He was "no longer an isolated atom in a hostile universe, but a sort of herring-fry in a shoal of moving fish." Eventually he discovered that Massachusetts politics were more complicated and less pristine than those of his imagined Puritan past; patronage swaps and other Faustian bargains had to be struck with proslavery Democrats, bargains that were justified as tactical truces in the struggle against slavery and meanwhile served the career ambitions of Whig and Free Soil politicians. But that was to come later. For a thirteen-year-old, the sides were clearly drawn: it was the Roundheads versus the Cavaliers, and the Roundheads were on the side of God and the Republic.
Adams's adolescent typology was widely shared in the decade prior to the Civil War and felt with particular intensity during the war itself. For Northern antislavery spokesmen, the Puritans and "Pilgrims" - terms they often used interchangeably - had laid the groundwork for self-government in America by inculcating habits of hard work, self-discipline, and moral idealism. It was "the blood of those Puritans who planted themselves on these shores," wrote the abolitionist Theodore Parker, "which gave their descendants ad Power of Idea and a Power of Action, such as no people before our time ever had." In contrast, "the Southern States were mainly colonies of adventurers, rather than establishments of men who for conscience' sake fled to the wilderness." Unschooled in religion and morality, at least in comparison to the inhabitants of the "sterner and more austere colonies of the North," the people of the South were all too prone to accept the institution of slavery.
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Unconditional Surrender Truman
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« Reply #220 on: February 11, 2021, 02:50:19 PM »

I don't have a lot of time right now, but three general observations:

(1) The vast majority of white Americans—Protestant and Catholic—would have described evangelical abolitionists as fanatics at any point prior to the Civil War. Your analysis is further marred by the fact that it cites Southern Catholics almost exclusively, at a time when Protestant and Catholic churches alike were dividing along sectional lines. (To give an example from the Protestant side, Northwestern Christian University—today Butler University—was established by the Hoosier Disciples of Christ in 1849 under the direction Ovid Butler, a prominent editor and abolitionist, as a counter to the denomination's other school, Bethany College in Kentucky, whose president was noted slavery apologist Alexander Campbell. When the Civil War began, Butler's sons went into the Union Army, while Campbell's fought for the Confederacy.) If Catholics as a group were on average more hostile to abolitionism than Protestants, it is because most American Catholics at the time were poor Irish and German immigrants who received pro-slavery propaganda warning of the millions of freed slaves who would come North to take their jobs with ready ears. For obvious reasons, well-to-do New England Congregationalists did not share these concerns. There were, in fact, several prominent Catholic abolitionists active in the Antebellum period —Orestes Brownlow comes to mind.

(2) But even discounting all of that, as has been remarked many times in this thread already, there is liberalism as a sociopolitical system and there is liberalism as an ideology. There is a reason libertarians and other modern-day reactionaries often stupidly call themselves "classical liberals." The well-to-do Congregationalist Yankee upper classes of the 1860s were certainly liberal in the sense that they facilitated the rise of the modern industrial market economy. They were not, by any stretch of the imagination, "left wing" unless one focuses exclusively on slavery (as you are wont to do). It is perfectly possible to be both pro-slavery or indifferent to the institution and also left-wing on the class and economic issues which were the basis for partisan rivalry in the nineteenth century, excepting the period from 1854 to 1874. When I have run across "liberal" in contemporary (1860s) sources, it is usually in reference to a nationalist and, yes, socially conservative program favored by the upper middle classes who went on to become robber barons and industrialists during the Gilded Age.

(3) Once again, the "clash of civilizations" narrative that you are pushing here has a certain amount of merit ... as it pertains to the Civil War. In the sense that Northern society circa. 1860 represented a democratic, progressive force in world history relative to the feudalistic and reactionary South, I agree with your assessment of the ideological direction of the parties. That analysis does not hold water prior to 1854, however, and it is doubtful at best following the de facto end of Congressional Reconstruction in 1874/76. As was observed by another poster in another recent thread, quoting politicians and public figures from the 1850s is not a good way to understand the 1830s!
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« Reply #221 on: February 11, 2021, 10:25:41 PM »

1) So would most Englanders have described Puritan commonwealthmen as fanatics at any point post-Restoration, including many fellow dissenters and Presbyterians (who were major opponents of "sectaries" or Independents). My point was simply that it started out as a Tory insult and American Catholics seem to have used it in the same way to imply that their religious and political opponents were dangerous enemies of the social order. You are incorrect in stating that I have only cited Southern Catholics. If you spent any time reading the Rutgers paper, you would know that it pulls from as least as many Northern as Southern Catholics. It cites Archbishop John Hughes of New York more than any other single Catholic, whose sentiments were in fact quite reactionary. It also cites newspapers such as The Freeman’s Journal and Catholic Register of New York, which denounced the "infidel and Red Republican struggles" of 1848. And yes, it has plenty on Orestes Brownson (his surname appears more than 100 times), but it makes clear that he was a religious outsider who bemoaned the conservatism of his American co-religionists. Liberal Catholics like Brownson lost the battle for the hearts and minds of their brethren against Archbishop Hughes, in large part because liberalism was associated with their Protestant enemies. In other words, "By the mid-1850s, the apparent links between European liberals and American Know-Nothings had all but extinguished the radical democratic strain of Irish Catholicism."

2) But you can't be ideologically liberal without supporting liberalism as a sociopolitical system, which is what the ideology is based upon. The "reactionaries who dominated both the Catholic Church and the Democratic Party at midcentury" did not support that system, or at least were certainly less supportive of it than their political opponents. They were horrified by the liberal revolutions that had afflicted Europe in 1848, while Whig publications like the New York Tribune celebrated them. You say "It is perfectly possible to be both pro-slavery or indifferent to the institution and also left-wing on the class and economic issues", and while technically true that was very often not the case. There were strong links between the abolitionist movement and socialists and leftists in Europe, just as there were strong links between pro-slavery advocates and European reactionaries. Abolitionists were often accused of socialism by their opponents, and many former abolitionists moved on to agitating for radical economic causes after abolition. You also mention a "socially conservative program" supported by Yankees that was described at the time as "liberal", and I would have to agree with the contemporaneous latter description if you're referring to what I think you are. The temperance movement was linked with progressive more often than conservative causes, as many of its supporters saw themselves as crusading moral reformers as opposed to upholders of the status quo. You yourself are certainly aware of this, as the egalitarian platform of the Prohibition Party in Get Off the Track! shows.

3) If you asked Frederick Douglass, the state of the Republican and Democratic parties was much the same in 1888 as it had been 20 years earlier: "One represents the culture, the industry and progressive spirit of the North, and the other affiliates with the South and finds its main support in all that is left of an extinct system of barbarism." Elsewhere (still in 1888), he writes: "One of these parties is historically anchored to the past, and is apparently incapable of adjusting itself to the demands of the present and future. The other is the party of progress." The clash of civilizations remained alive and well.
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« Reply #222 on: February 12, 2021, 12:25:33 AM »

(1) The point, Henry, is that abolitionists made up a minority of the population as a whole prior to 1860. I never claimed Orestes Brownlow was representative of the average Catholic. It is not surprising that most American Catholics were anti-abolitionist, because most Americans were  anti-abolitionist. Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, even Congregationalists —practically every major Christian denomination except Quakers —produced many prominent pro-slavery theologians of both Northern and Southern origin in the period between 1830 and 1850. It is very strange to me that, as evidence of your claim that Catholics were uniquely reactionary among Antebellum religious groups, you cite the Know-Nothings —objectively the most reactionary and anti-democratic American political movement to come out of the first half of the nineteenth century. If Catholics were put off from what you call "liberalism" by a xenophobic, reactionary cult-like order that wanted to purify America of foreign influences, perhaps that's because those people were not exactly good radicals themselves.

That said, it is a historical fact that the institutional Catholic Church was fiercely opposed to the doctrines and organizing of the early labor movement and remained a staunch enemy of labor unions and socialist political parties well into the twentieth century —so I'm not going to argue that the Catholic clergy was something other than politically reactionary. Where there are notable exceptions to that rule (Father Edward McGlynn comes to mind), they were denounced and in some cases actually excommunicated. Globally, the most noteworthy exception to this rule was the British Labour party, whose advocacy on behalf of Catholics as a religious minority earned them a pass from the Vatican in their regular attacks on socialism.

Fundamentally, though, while Republicans in the post-war period loved to decry the party of "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion," the majority of Democrats in this era were Protestants. Trying to portray the Democratic party as an agent of the institutional Catholic Church is propagandistic in the extreme. Catholics as a group supported the Democratic party because (a) they were mostly poor immigrants, and the Democratic party was the party of poor immigrants; and (b) the Whigs and Republicans were always talking about how they weren't "real" Americans and shouldn't be allowed to vote.

(2) I find your argument in this section frankly hard to follow, but I will do my best.

It is easy to find Americans of all political stripes who supported the 1848 revolutions: attacking the conservative monarchies of Europe was a popular cause with Americans in the first half of the nineteenth century, who (rightly) saw themselves as engaged in a common struggle against the stubborn remnants of a feudal order past its time. Even President Polk, hardly a radical egalitarian, was sympathetic to the revolutionaries, remarking of the overthrow of the Bourbons in France:

         
"all our sympathies are naturally enlisted on the side of a great people who, imitating our example, have resolved to be free. That such sympathy should exist on the part of the people of the United States with the friends of free government in every part of the world, and especially in France, is not remarkable. We can never forget that France was our early friend in our eventful Revolution, and generously aided us in shaking off a foreign yoke and becoming a free and independent people. We have enjoyed the blessings of our system of well regulated self-government for near three-fourths of a century, and can properly appreciate its value. Our ardent and sincere congratulations are extended to the patriotic people of France upon their noble and thus far successful efforts to found for their future government liberal [!!!] institutions similar to our own."[/size]

(Among those Americans sympathetic to the revolutionaries, incidentally, were the many thousand Irish and German Catholics who arrived in the United States during this period, many of them fleeing the reactionary governments that followed their unsuccessful attempts to introduce liberal democracy on the continent.)

Much has been made of the link between the abolitionists and socialist movements, and not without cause. There was obviously a fair degree of overlap between people who supported freedom for working people everywhere and people who found slavery morally unacceptable, for what I hope are obvious reasons. (I would love to discuss this more at length in another thread, because it is a subject that fascinates me, and that I find particularly amusing in light of the attempts by Dinesh D'Souza and other associated halfwits to argue that slavery was a byproduct of Democrat socialism.)  However, obviously the vast majority of abolitionists were not socialists, and the movement drew significant support from upper middle class New Englanders whose views on issues apart from slavery were notably less-than-liberal. Hence the split between male abolitionists and suffragists when the Fifteenth Amendment failed to extend the vote to women as well as black men; hence the failure of Congressional Reconstruction to attack private property with the same vigor it went after the political legacy of slavery.

But while this is very interesting, it is also somewhat moot, because socialism is not liberalism. So if you want to say that the bankers and industrialists who ruled the Gilded Age like petty tyrants were "liberals" promoting a program of "liberalism," I guess I am okay with that, provided that we establish that liberalism is not synonymous with leftism, and after 1880 or so was arguably in opposition to it. The liberalism of the Gilded Age was of the strain that survives in Europe as the Liberal Democrats, the FDP, and other similar parties that are identified broadly with the right. I think I have said before, but if not I will say now, that I consider the Bourbon Democrats to be objectively on the right, and arguably to the right of some Republicans (Henry Teller, for instance, or Sherman in his later years). Historians who deal with this period in European history often write about "conservative liberals," and I suppose I would not object to that characterization of a certain kind of Republican who existed after 1880 or so.

(3) Frederick Douglass was one person, and while obviously a man of exceptional intelligence, I wouldn't say he was terribly representative of the average Republican for what should be obvious reasons. It shouldn't be surprising that Douglass far preferred the social systems of the North to those of the South, and I doubt if many Northern Democrats would have argued that the country should become more like the former Confederacy in the 1880s. In any case, I don't see how this quote is very significant. Practically every political party that has existed since 1789 has called themselves the party of progress and their opponents the party of the past; it's not a unique or particularly interesting rhetorical formula.


I feel like we're losing the train of the conversation here, though. My position throughout all of this has been:

(a) The Federalists and their successors (the Whigs from 1834 to 1854 and the Republicans from ~1874 through to the end of the nineteenth century and beyond) represented the established monied interests and the New England upper classes, who were mostly Protestants;
(b) The Jeffersonian Republicans and the Democrats (except for the period from 1854 to 1874) represented those left behind in the tumult of the Industrial Revolution and who did not share in the massive wealth being created in nineteenth century America: namely, poor farmers and immigrants, wage laborers, and religious minorities, who for various reasons disliked and resented the hegemony of the aforementioned ruling class;
(c) In the South, the reactionary planter class initially favored the Federalists and later the Whigs as a check on the democratic impulses of their lower classes (including slaves), but gradually switched over to the Democrats as sectional politics became more important and the Jacksonian obsession with "states' rights" became a convenient cover for their pro-slavery and anti-democratic agenda in light of the growing national anti-slavery majority;
(d) After the Civil War, this group stayed with the Democrats and successfully leveraged racial politics to establish a one-party state throughout the former Confederacy which necessitated that aspiring politicians of all ideological persuasions become Democrats if they hoped to be elected;
(e) The Republican party, by contrast, was organized primarily on opposition to the institution of slavery and was initially dominated by its powerful liberal wing, who nominated ex-Democrat John C. Frémont in 1856, and whose strength was augmented by the addition of radical ex-Whigs;
(f) Beginning in 1872, and in earnest after 1874, the exodus of liberals and leftists from the Republican party made it so that by 1880, the average Republican supported an essentially right-wing economic program designed to serve the interests of wealthy industrialists, while in the Northern states the Democrats were at least nominally more welcoming of economically left-leaning politicians (Eugene V. Debs was elected as a Democrat in Indiana during this period), despite personal and regional idiosyncrasies we have discussed at length;
(g) While the conservative-liberal Republicans and the liberal-conservative Democrats bickered over the tariff and monetary policy, each torn internally between moderates and hardliners, the political left was developing on the margins via a series of third parties, culminating in the joint nomination of William Jennings Bryan by the Democrats, Populists, and Silver Republicans in 1896, a fusion made possible by the Democrats' Jeffersonian pedigree and popularity with two key components of the left coalition: immigrants and farmers.


If we want to debate the role of religion in shaping emergent nineteenth century industrial capitalism or views on women's liberation, I'm happy to have that conversation, but so much time has passed since this thread was started that I wanted to clarify what we're talking about.

P.S. While this strays into the realm of subjective historical interpretation, I will submit as an olive branch that whether the Whig/Republican economic program was inherently conservative or liberal in character, it was certainly necessary for the rise of the industrial proletariat, and so from an accelerationist point of view there is an argument to be made that Republican governance in the 1880s and 90s was at least conducive to leftist ends —if that's your sort of thing.
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« Reply #223 on: February 12, 2021, 03:02:37 AM »

I have not the energy to time tonight to dive head first into these matters, besides Truman is doing a great job on most fronts.

The thing about Douglass is that he is committed to the politics of the era in which he became prominent and for him, the Republicans were the messiah who delivered his people from bondage. However, after the 1870s, it is brutally clear who the Republicans were looking out for and that is industrial tycoons and whatever their interests were. I would bet you that Douglas was not fond of what happened in 1876, but guess who was just fine with it. 

For later generations, Republicans were basically seen as taking them for granted and doing nothing in the here and now, grateful for actions of Republicans in the past they may be.

A good exemplar of this attitude and why blacks shifted toward the Democrats is illustrated by the words of W.E.B. Dubois:

Quote
In 1912 I wanted to support Theodore Roosevelt, but his Bull Moose convention dodged the Negro problem and I tried to help elect Wilson as a liberal Southerner. Under Wilson came the worst attempt at Jim Crow legislation and discrimination in civil service that we had experienced since the Civil War. In 1916 I took Hughes as the lesser of two evils. He promised Negroes nothing and kept his word. In 1920, I supported Harding because of his promise to liberate Haiti. In 1924, I voted for La Follette, although I knew he could not be elected. In 1928, Negroes faced absolute dilemma. Neither Hoover nor Smith wanted the Negro vote and both publicly insulted us. I voted for Norman Thomas and the Socialists, although the Socialists had attempted to Jim Crow Negro members in the South. In 1932 I voted for Franklin Roosevelt, since Hoover was unthinkable and Roosevelt's attitude toward workers most realistic.

This is a story of slow building disenchantment. Douglass would be resistant to this mindset and seek to re-emphasize that Democrats as the party of Jim Crow, the south and and backwards ideals to put a damper on building discontentment and feelings of being taken for a ride.

Dubois was not an idiot either. He didn't back the Democrats because they were the party of Jim Crow, and "Regressive Southern politics", he backed Wilson and later FDR because he saw in the Democrats an egalitarian party economically speaking that was willing to take assertive actions on issues of poverty and labor that Republicans just would not and could not have done even in the 1860s and much less in the 1900s-1930s. He was certainly disappointed in Wilson, but he was still disillusioned with Republican priorities.

So the question becomes when did Republicans start to prioritize business uber alles? It wasn't 1896 though that was a very transformative year for Democrats. It was 1860-1876. In 1860, Lincoln got elected while backing the traditional Whig economic agenda, and by 1876, the business tycoons this attracted were calling the shots enough to sell reconstruction down the river.

Democrats were most always a party dominated by poor small farmers, and immigrant laboring concerns. Republicans were able to crack this labor vote with the protectionist issue, but the Democrats were most always the less pro-business party, and the one more likely to challenge monopolists and the policies they pushed, through the Republican Party. The Democrats have at points lost sight of this and had a base revolt that pulled it back to its roots, this is what Jackson did with Jefferson's Party and it is what WJB did with Jackson's Party. This party was very racist, and "reactionary" on race issues bc poor whites were bloody fing racist at the time. Small farmers in the South and West, Irish immigrants in NYC, and so forth are well known for their racist views and this is why the party took the stances it did in the 1860's and 1870s on those issues and why Redeemers/Conservatives/Plantation Southerns slid into the Party regardless of pre-war allegiance, with relative ease.

It also just so happens that the economic policies that benefited industrialists in the North were seen as hostile to their economic interests. It is not like post New Deal where you could make a country-wide pro-rich economic platform.
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« Reply #224 on: February 13, 2021, 07:23:33 PM »

Also a quick point on this whole "Southern Catholic thing", in Holt's book on the Whig Party when talking about Maryland, he mentions that Catholics in the state tended to be Whigs and this continued until the Whigs began to tie themselves in with the Nativists and the Know-Nothings. Once this happened, the Catholics shifted wholesale towards the Democrats while non-Catholics shifted towards the Know-Nothings/American Party and some later towards the Republicans.

However, this happened in the mid 1850s and previously their was strong associations between Catholics including Catholic Planters and the Whig Party both in Maryland but also in Louisiana if memory serves me though I am less familiar with that.

The problem here should be obvious, that is these "Conservative" catholics were aligned with the "conservative" party until the realignments provoked by the Civil War and its run-up. Their opposition to the Calvinist Yankees and the invocation of historical parallels makes sense from a political expedience standpoint since Yankees destroyed the power and wealth, and took away their slaves.

However, the important thing to remember here is that you cannot take for granted everything a given person in a set period says, just like what Douglass said has to be put into a particular context of self association, likewise these Catholics need to be viewed in the same light. They are seeking to paint themselves in a positive light and cast their tribal political opponents and also the people seeking policies hostile to their interests in a particular light.

The other important thing is that these are not the only rich elites and nor do they speak for rich elites across the country. They are sectional elites, whose interests class with those in the North and with the Republican ascension and afterwards those elites are calling the shots.

Throughout this thread I have stated that the Republicans started off as a "Grand Coalition" opposed to slavery and Lincolns selection was that of a moderate that could bridge this coalition, get elected and then keep it together to fight and win the war as well a to abolish slavery. Also, I have stated that this would not succeed without the support of Northern elites who would benefit from the crippling of the planter class as it would open the door to the country becoming an industrial powerhouse and here is the key point with them controlling the helm of the ship. Based on what we know from the gilded era, can you honestly say that is not what ended up happening? Of course it is.

The inevitable outcome of this, especially with all of their opponents accrued to the Democratic Party (from immigrant labors, to small farmers and now the Conservative Planter class), is that they would manifest via the Republican Party and over time come to dominate it to the exclusion of other forces and influences, yielding the notions that have been taken for granted as largely true for time immemorial, that Republicans are the party of "business and the rich", it is just that during this period it was sectional to business and the rich in the North. The understanding of the Southern Strategy as being an attempt to evolve this into a more national pro-business basis is therefore the proper way to interpret it as opposed being some manifested flip of ideology.

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