Historical continuity of Democrats and Republicans

[darklordoftech]

How did we go from Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover supporting Prohibition and Al Smith and FDR opposing it to Frank Lautenberg writing the National Minimum Drinking Age Act and Reagan having to be talked into it?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

How did we go from Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover supporting Prohibition and Al Smith and FDR opposing it to Frank Lautenberg writing the National Minimum Drinking Age Act and Reagan having to be talked into it?

After the failure of Prohibition both parties backed away from it obviously though you had state level holdouts in the South and parts of other states.

In the 1980s, suburban parents fearful of their kids hanging out with the wrong crowd was a big thing and both parties coveted this vote.  

[Wikipedia delenda est]

Response to Truman:

1)The Catholic Church was not uniquely reactionary on race, but it was uniquely illiberal and antidemocratic - not only at an institutional level, but among lay Catholics in America as well, as the papers I linked make abundantly clear. Most American Catholics agreed with the ultraconservative, ultramonatist views of Father Hughes, combining disdain and disgust at liberal revolutionaries in European with an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope. John Mitchel was not unusual among Irish Catholic immigrants, beginning life as an anti-British radical in Ireland and ending it a religious reactionary in America. As for the Know-Nothings, look. Their connections to liberals and radicals in Europe were very real; it's not like the author of the paper I quoted just made that up out of thin air. To contemporaries, the reason for this connection was obvious: both groups perceived Catholicism as an enemy of liberty and friend of arbitrary government. By writing the Know-Nothings off as simple-minded reactionaries, you're ignoring the complexity of motivations and reasons that inspired people to support the movement. Many of them, I have no doubt, earnestly believed they were protecting democracy even as they promoted undemocratic measures. It's not like this sort of thing was unprecedented. In 18th century Britain the Whigs enforced harsh anti-Catholic penal laws, which discriminated against members of the faith and prevented them from holding public office. The Whigs were also deeply anti-Irish and anti-Highland Scottish. As a result, these groups were basically Tory by default, but I don't think you'd argue that the Tories were actually liberals since they "welcomed" (not really) these religious and ethnic minorities into their fold. All they had in common was their shared enemy, the Whiggish supporters of "Butcher Cumberland" who had massacred Jacobite Highlanders at Culloden (not unlike Southerners' and Catholics' mutual hostility to Yankees). What really matters here, though, is what motivated the policy of the Whigs. They disbarred Catholics from office because, like any good 18th century liberal or radical, they believed them to be absolutists hostile to parliamentary government. Likewise, the Know-Nothings viewed Catholics as a threat to American democracy. They were fighting the same fight against tyranny as their English Whig ancestors, or at least they thought they were. I know NC Yankee is just about ready to come in here in say "one guy's revolutionaries are the next guy's establishment to be overthrown", but I honestly think that misses the point. What it fails to account for is that many of the rebels against the new order are not new revolutionaries, but reactionaries who want to return to the pre-revolutionary system. An establishment can be liberal, just as anti-establishment or populist movements can be conservative or reactionary. The Glorious Revolution established (see what I did there) a liberal constitutional order in Britain, just as the American Revolution did in America. The Whigs who ruled the country as an oligarchy for 50 years (1710s-1760s) were assuredly the establishment; but they were not the conservative party in 1700s England. It was the Tories (in permanent opposition) of the "country party", not the Whigs of the "court party", who sought to reverse the revolutionary settlement and return to absolutist government. In other words, it was the ideologies of the parties that determined their, well, ideology, not their position as the establishment or anti-establishment party. In America, the Know-Nothings, though in an establishment position, considered themselves defenders of liberty against Catholics hostile to the system of government established by the Revolution. Even if they were wrong, they were no more misguided than the Whigs of the 18th century, as most English Catholics (a tiny fraction of the population) were loyal British subjects and not Jacobites (even if Tories).

Well that was only one paragraph and it ended up being way longer than I intended, so I'll try to keep the rest short.

The institutional Catholic Church was not only opposed to organized labor and socialist movements, but liberal democracy itself, which as you later note were indeed different things. I can only say I'm a bit surprised that the Labour party were advocates for Catholics, since in the early 18th century they were mostly Tories, but I guess things had changed a little since then :P.

I did not say that the Democratic Party was an agent of the institutional Catholic Church, and neither did either of the papers I quoted. I believe you misinterpreted the sentence fragment "reactionaries who dominated both the Catholic Church and the Democratic Party at midcentury", which is admittedly confusing. I don't think the quote is saying that it was the same reactionaries who dominated the Church and the Democratic Party, but merely that both institutions were dominated by reactionaries who thought alike.

2) Yeah, but it's also easy to find Americans who opposed the 1848 revolutions, especially Catholic Americans. The newspaper I quoted from and John Hughes' denunciation of the Roman Republic is just one of many passages I could have pulled from those papers demonstrating Catholic hostility to the revolutions. That Polk quote is very interesting, though.

(Yes, and many of those Irish Catholics wound up as reactionaries once they made it to America, such as John Mitchel, as by the mid 19th century the radical democratic strain of Irish Catholicism had been all but extinguished. And as for the Germans, you're aware of what party the Forty-Eighters helped found, right?)

I have nothing to say in response to the abolitionist/socialist paragraph.

Indeed, and I have never conflated the two (socialism and liberalism). I have merely stated that the Republicans combined liberals and socialists under one tent against the conservative Southerners and Catholics in the Democratic party. I have also pointed out that abolitionists had strong ties to European socialists, just as Whig and Know-Nothing nativists did to liberals and radicals in Europe. I think it is foolhardy to ignore these across the sea ideological connections, as they bring much light onto the true ideologies of American political parties.

3) Fair enough, but look at the electoral maps of the Gilded Age. It's not like the sectional divide went away; to the contrary, it remained as present as during the Civil War. The United States did not return to the antebellum, more class-based system where men voted their class regardless of region, but remained deeply divided between North and South. Looking at those late 19th century maps, I know which side I'm on, and so does Frederick Douglass.

I might respond to the rest later, but I'm too tired now.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The institutional Catholic Church was not only opposed to organized labor and socialist movements, but liberal democracy itself, which as you later note were indeed different things. I can only say I'm a bit surprised that the Labour party were advocates for Catholics, since in the early 18th century they were mostly Tories, but I guess things had changed a little since then .

You know at the risk of being disrespectful, I would almost surmise that you view ones politics as genetic or hereditary. All Catholics have to be reactionaries because of the Pope, All Yankees have to be liberals because of Cromwell and even the poorest of Southern dirt farming Johnny Cash type has to be a far right reactionary.

This is not how the world works. People's political outlook is at once idiosyncratic and is derived from their socio-economic status, their surroundings, and their treatment by the dominant forces economic, religious, societal, racial and ethnically speaking.

Catholics in Britain were an oppressed minority, many occupied down market laboring jobs and were exploited by the wealthy classes, and you find it surprising that a "Socialist/Social Democratic" party would oppose religious discrimination and support workers rights?

Indeed, and I have never conflated the two (socialism and liberalism). I have merely stated that the Republicans combined liberals and socialists under one tent against the conservative Southerners and Catholics in the Democratic party. I have also pointed out that abolitionists had strong ties to European socialists, just as Whig and Know-Nothing nativists did to liberals and radicals in Europe. I think it is foolhardy to ignore these across the sea ideological connections, as they bring much light onto the true ideologies of American political parties.

For a party that combined two such things together, they did a pretty piss poor job in advocating for them and their interests aside from one single issue, which I think illustrates several points that you missed.

1. The Whigs were divided much more than just North and South, failing to account for that can lead to problems and there were reactionary elites in the North, in the Whig Party. Also the Free Soilers drew heavily from the Democrats in the North.

2. Connections, communication and personal delusions aside, religions intolerance and bigotry is still religious intolerance and bigotry even if one's personal anti-Catholicism deludes one into thinking otherwise Upholding the established demographics against an immigrant tide is the epitome of  a "conservative" action. And no amount of fear mongering about the Pope will change this reality that it is religious/ethnic/racial supremacy at work.

3. Since there were such reactionary elites in the North, who magically don't exist in your world where every Charles Emerson Winchester (the far right WASP in later seasons of MASH) is at least a liberal if not a socialist, you fail to consider that the Republicans were formed as broad coalition that incorporated a broad group of ideologies drawing from all existing parties in the North and spanning the ideological spectrum from socialist to conservative. 

The fact that Republicans at no point trained their fire on Northern business magnates during or just after the Civil War, when these "radicals" and "socialists" were arguably at their height with the most political power should and must illustrate the failure to account for a vast number of conservative business types.

3) Fair enough, but look at the electoral maps of the Gilded Age. It's not like the sectional divide went away; to the contrary, it remained as present as it had during the Civil War. The United States did not return to the antebellum, more class-based system where men voted their class regardless of region, but remained deeply divided between North and South. Looking at those late 19th century maps, I know which side I'm on, and so does Frederick Douglass.

I might respond to the rest later, but I'm too tired now.

This is so superficial of an analysis.

It is called cracking. Republicans cracked the working class vote via protectionism and used fear to say basically "vote for us, or Democrats will destroy your jobs". Republicans do this very same thing with the Coal miners today, so it shouldn't be too hard to contemplate in a past scenario where intimidation was more rampant, unions were very weak and Republicans held all of the cards.

This combined with the expansion of the industrial revolution through the Midwest gave Republicans a stranglehold on the region that the Democrats were shut out of except for when Republicans alienated religions minorities and/or immigrants or were split.

Southern elites still saw Republicans with disdain for nuking their political power and the Democrats were the vehicle for preserving Southern influence enough to protect Jim Crow. Even so, they would over the decades find themselves increasingly diverging from the rest of the party economically, and this is why you had the Dixiecrat revolt, only after people with direct memories of the Civil War, were dead and Democrats increasingly were looking to more appealing turf post-New Deal.

To summarize, the civil war map continued because of the following factors:
1. Economic policy preferences differing between the two regions, and at the same time uniting workers and elites together within each region for a period of time (Tariffs v. Free Trade).
2. Lingering memories of the conflict and hatred for each other derived from said conflict and its after effects both in terms of racial considerations and power relative to the nation as a whole.
3. Inability of Democrats to bridge the divide of the working class until time had past for Civil War generation to die off and Republican economic policies had crashed and burned (Smoot-Hawley). Worth noting that it was at this point that blacks flipped and never really looked back.
4. Inability of Republicans lure back Southern elites until the economic policies shifted, the Civil War generation died and Democrats were ever more discernibly leaving them to shift in the wind.

Things don't happen over night, especially with all the complicating factors.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

3) Fair enough, but look at the electoral maps of the Gilded Age. It's not like the sectional divide went away; to the contrary, it remained as present as it had during the Civil War. The United States did not return to the antebellum, more class-based system where men voted their class regardless of region, but remained deeply divided between North and South. Looking at those late 19th century maps, I know which side I'm on, and so does Frederick Douglass.

As you say it is much to late (or perhaps too early ) to respond to the whole of your post, but you have made this same or similar comment enough times to prompt me to reply to it now: do you just look at the state winners and conclude that there was a "solid North" that supported the Republicans throughout the later nineteenth century? Because the assertion that party politics in the Gilded Age were not first and foremost about class is laughably false. Of course, fraud and intimidation as well as a relentless racist propaganda campaign served to keep the lower South solidly in the Democratic column, and upper New England was almost as reliable for the Republicans; but the lower North and even to an extent the upper South remained competitive, especially down-ballot —a reality that is not reflected by the monotonous electoral college maps of the period. In 1880, no fewer than twelve states (146 electors) were decided by less than 5% of the vote; in 1884 it was 13 (172 ev); in 1888, 14 (189 ev). By contrast, in 1860 only 10 states (85 ev) were decided by fewer than 5% of the vote, almost all of them in the South —of the free states excluding California and Oregon, only Illinois did not vote for Lincoln by at least 7% of the vote, this owing of course to Douglas' influence. To state that the country twenty or thirty years later was similarly polarized along sectional lines is demonstrably false.

Yankee has already addressed the class dynamic, so I will not go into it further except to say there is a reason why we call it "the Gilded Age" and not "the Yankee Age" or "the War of Right-Wing Catholic Aggression."

I will also say, that while I have my own prejudices and favorite figures of this era, and enjoy the the subjective debates we have in the "who would you have voted for" threads and interactive TLs over on Individual Politics, when we are trying here to conduct a more-or-less objective analysis of the period, I do not think it helpful to approach these discussions from the point of view of arguing for your "side," and I somewhat resent the implication that I am somehow on the side of 'not Frederick Douglass.' I hope I am mistaken in my impression of this your last comment.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

The institutional Catholic Church was not only opposed to organized labor and socialist movements, but liberal democracy itself, which as you later note were indeed different things. I can only say I'm a bit surprised that the Labour party were advocates for Catholics, since in the early 18th century they were mostly Tories, but I guess things had changed a little since then .

You know at the risk of being disrespectful, I would almost surmise that you view ones politics as genetic or hereditary. All Catholics have to be reactionaries because of the Pope, All Yankees have to be liberals because of Cromwell and even the poorest of Southern dirt farming Johnny Cash type has to be a far right reactionary.

This is not how the world works. People's political outlook is at once idiosyncratic and is derived from their socio-economic status, their surroundings, and their treatment by the dominant forces economic, religious, societal, racial and ethnically speaking.

Catholics in Britain were an oppressed minority, many occupied down market laboring jobs and were exploited by the wealthy classes, and you find it surprising that a "Socialist/Social Democratic" party would oppose religious discrimination and support workers rights?

Because Catholics are evil, Yankee. Bloody Mary burned heretics at the stake and the Stuart monarchy waged war against parliament. Ergo every Catholic is a reactionary and every anti-Catholic bigot is a liberal crusader!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I will also say, that while I have my own prejudices and favorite figures of this era, and enjoy the the subjective debates we have in the "who would you have voted for" threads and interactive TLs over on Individual Politics, when we are trying here to conduct a more-or-less objective analysis of the period, I do not think it helpful to approach these discussions from the point of view of arguing for your "side," and I somewhat resent the implication that I am somehow on the side of 'not Frederick Douglass.' I hope I am mistaken in my impression of this your last comment.

To hear him tell the tale, the real Harry S Truman might as well be Jefferson Davis. Which becomes even more hilarious when you consider his display name, something I thought off at work the other day when thinking of you two going at it.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The institutional Catholic Church was not only opposed to organized labor and socialist movements, but liberal democracy itself, which as you later note were indeed different things. I can only say I'm a bit surprised that the Labour party were advocates for Catholics, since in the early 18th century they were mostly Tories, but I guess things had changed a little since then .

You know at the risk of being disrespectful, I would almost surmise that you view ones politics as genetic or hereditary. All Catholics have to be reactionaries because of the Pope, All Yankees have to be liberals because of Cromwell and even the poorest of Southern dirt farming Johnny Cash type has to be a far right reactionary.

This is not how the world works. People's political outlook is at once idiosyncratic and is derived from their socio-economic status, their surroundings, and their treatment by the dominant forces economic, religious, societal, racial and ethnically speaking.

Catholics in Britain were an oppressed minority, many occupied down market laboring jobs and were exploited by the wealthy classes, and you find it surprising that a "Socialist/Social Democratic" party would oppose religious discrimination and support workers rights?

Because Catholics are evil, Yankee. Bloody Mary burned heretics at the stake and the Stuart monarchy waged war against parliament. Ergo every Catholic is a reactionary and every anti-Catholic bigot is a liberal crusader!

Did you just OCize Henry Wallace?

[Don Vito Corleone]

I also fail to see how Wallace's argument could not also easily apply to far-right movements (particularly in Europe) which want to prevent Muslim immigration and violate their civil rights on the basis that Muslims tend to hold rather Conservative if not Reactionary views about society, and which also believe themselves to be defending freedom and liberal democracy.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

The institutional Catholic Church was not only opposed to organized labor and socialist movements, but liberal democracy itself, which as you later note were indeed different things. I can only say I'm a bit surprised that the Labour party were advocates for Catholics, since in the early 18th century they were mostly Tories, but I guess things had changed a little since then .

You know at the risk of being disrespectful, I would almost surmise that you view ones politics as genetic or hereditary. All Catholics have to be reactionaries because of the Pope, All Yankees have to be liberals because of Cromwell and even the poorest of Southern dirt farming Johnny Cash type has to be a far right reactionary.

This is not how the world works. People's political outlook is at once idiosyncratic and is derived from their socio-economic status, their surroundings, and their treatment by the dominant forces economic, religious, societal, racial and ethnically speaking.

Catholics in Britain were an oppressed minority, many occupied down market laboring jobs and were exploited by the wealthy classes, and you find it surprising that a "Socialist/Social Democratic" party would oppose religious discrimination and support workers rights?

Because Catholics are evil, Yankee. Bloody Mary burned heretics at the stake and the Stuart monarchy waged war against parliament. Ergo every Catholic is a reactionary and every anti-Catholic bigot is a liberal crusader!

As a Catholic I can confirm we are evil and all reactionaries, but as Henry's closest Atlas friend I have to admit he doesn't actually see us that way.

[Wikipedia delenda est]

It is telling that in no one's response was mentioned the main thrust of my post, the (rather fitting, I thought) parallel between the politics around Catholics in 19th century America and 18th century Britain. I must assume then that according to NC Yankee, the Algernon Sidney and Richard Price Whigs were the epitome of "conservative", men whose religious intolerance deluded them into thinking they were fighting for liberty. These bigots were doing the work of upholding the established Protestant church, and no amount of fear mongering about the Pope (which they certainly did) can change the reality that they were engaging in religious/ethnic/racial supremacy.

Richard Rumbold (or Thomas Jefferson, who quoted him) might like a word with you about who's really the deluded one here: "I may say this is a deluded generation, veiled in ignorance, that though popery and slavery be riding in upon them, do not perceive it."

Truman, I was not implying that you aren't on Frederick Douglass' (or my) side. Based on those threads you mentioned, our historical voting preferences are actually quite similar. My point was that between the "industry and progressive spirit of the North" versus "all that is left of an extinct system of barbarism", I am firmly on the former (Republican) side.

I also fail to see how Wallace's argument could not also easily apply to far-right movements (particularly in Europe) which want to prevent Muslim immigration and violate their civil rights on the basis that Muslims tend to hold rather Conservative if not Reactionary views about society, and which also believe themselves to be defending freedom and liberal democracy.

That is not a bad comparison, but again, wouldn't that make the Whigs of 18th century Britain far-right compared to the Tories, since they supported violating the civil rights of Catholics and Irishmen to protect the constitution? I'd like to see you make the argument that the Tories were actually liberals since they were more accepting of these ethnic and religious minorities, even while being deeply discriminatory toward Protestant dissenters (not unlike the Democrats' hatred of Black people). Also, 18th century Britain is a better parallel than modern Europe given that a) this is specifically about Catholics b) 19th century America is closer socially, politically and chronologically to 18th century Britain than to 21st century Europe and c) the American nativists used the same arguments and rhetorical strategies as the earlier British anti-Catholics.

The institutional Catholic Church was not only opposed to organized labor and socialist movements, but liberal democracy itself, which as you later note were indeed different things. I can only say I'm a bit surprised that the Labour party were advocates for Catholics, since in the early 18th century they were mostly Tories, but I guess things had changed a little since then :P.

You know at the risk of being disrespectful, I would almost surmise that you view ones politics as genetic or hereditary. All Catholics have to be reactionaries because of the Pope, All Yankees have to be liberals because of Cromwell and even the poorest of Southern dirt farming Johnny Cash type has to be a far right reactionary.

This is not how the world works. People's political outlook is at once idiosyncratic and is derived from their socio-economic status, their surroundings, and their treatment by the dominant forces economic, religious, societal, racial and ethnically speaking.

Catholics in Britain were an oppressed minority, many occupied down market laboring jobs and were exploited by the wealthy classes, and you find it surprising that a "Socialist/Social Democratic" party would oppose religious discrimination and support workers rights?

Because Catholics are evil, Yankee. Bloody Mary burned heretics at the stake and the Stuart monarchy waged war against parliament. Ergo every Catholic is a reactionary and every anti-Catholic bigot is a liberal crusader!

The thing is, I'm not even anti-Catholic, despite my reputation. Culturally and aesthetically, my tastes are actually quite "Catholic". I love theatrical baroque music, imposing religious artwork, foppish historical fashion like periwigs, and grand palaces and cathedrals. I'm not going to pretend like these things are not aesthetically "conservative", these idle trappings of aristocracy. The simplicity of Protestant churches, the humbleness of Protestant culture and its intentional lowliness, is much more "liberal" and modern. But that is not me; I recognize the "Catholic" aspect of myself which is quite culturally conservative. I have made clear my Ancien Regime Francophilia, and my belief that pre-1789 Europe was culturally superior to what came after.

And in regard to England specifically, I consider myself a Jacobite, albeit a "Whiggish" one. Still, I'm not going to pretend like this doesn't ultimately align me with the conservative, Tory supporters of the Catholic Stuarts. I strongly dislike the Whig oligarchy and the rule of Robert Walpole, and find the anti-Catholic penal laws which they enforced repulsive, but I recognize that these policies and those who supported them were in line with the liberalism of their day. Similarly, I am able to see that the Know-Nothings, though I may dislike them, were the successors of this liberal Whig tradition, engaged in the same global fight against Catholic despotism as their forebears, with the same sorts of connections and correspondences with radicals and liberals on the European continent.

[Don Vito Corleone]

I also fail to see how Wallace's argument could not also easily apply to far-right movements (particularly in Europe) which want to prevent Muslim immigration and violate their civil rights on the basis that Muslims tend to hold rather Conservative if not Reactionary views about society, and which also believe themselves to be defending freedom and liberal democracy.

That is not a bad comparison, but again, wouldn't that make the Whigs of 18th century Britain far-right compared to the Tories, since they supported violating the civil rights of Catholics and Irishmen to protect the constitution? I'd like to see you make the argument that the Tories were actually liberals since they were more accepting of these ethnic and religious minorities, even while being deeply discriminatory toward Protestant dissenters (not unlike the Democrats' hatred of Black people). Also, 18th century Britain is a better parallel than modern Europe given that a) this is specifically about Catholics b) 19th century America is closer socially, politically and chronologically to 18th century Britain than to 21st century Europe and c) the American nativists used the same arguments and rhetorical strategies as the earlier British anti-Catholics.

I can't speak to the relative positioning of the Whigs and the Tories as I don't know too much about the political situation in 1700s Britain (except for near the end with regards to the reactions to the French Revolution), but I made that point moreso because I am very suspicious of the idea that a group of immigrant-bashers who were extremely bigoted towards a poor immigrant group, most of whom would eventually fold into the right-wing major party, were anything but reactionary, and I especially am skeptical the idea that their bigotry was actually fine (not just fine actually, but good and small-l liberal) because the people they were bigoted towards tended to be personally conservative. As someone who is the son of Muslim immigrants, I have heard that argument many many times to excuse absolutely terrible beliefs people have towards people like me, and I can tell you that it is simply not true.

Besides, wouldn't your point make anti-immigrant parties, both in the US and in Europe, left-wing or at least small-l liberal?

[Wikipedia delenda est]

I also fail to see how Wallace's argument could not also easily apply to far-right movements (particularly in Europe) which want to prevent Muslim immigration and violate their civil rights on the basis that Muslims tend to hold rather Conservative if not Reactionary views about society, and which also believe themselves to be defending freedom and liberal democracy.

That is not a bad comparison, but again, wouldn't that make the Whigs of 18th century Britain far-right compared to the Tories, since they supported violating the civil rights of Catholics and Irishmen to protect the constitution? I'd like to see you make the argument that the Tories were actually liberals since they were more accepting of these ethnic and religious minorities, even while being deeply discriminatory toward Protestant dissenters (not unlike the Democrats' hatred of Black people). Also, 18th century Britain is a better parallel than modern Europe given that a) this is specifically about Catholics b) 19th century America is closer socially, politically and chronologically to 18th century Britain than to 21st century Europe and c) the American nativists used the same arguments and rhetorical strategies as the earlier British anti-Catholics.

I can't speak to the relative positioning of the Whigs and the Tories as I don't know too much about the political situation in 1700s Britain (except for near the end with regards to the reactions to the French Revolution), but I made that point moreso because I am very suspicious of the idea that a group of immigrant-bashers who were extremely bigoted towards a poor immigrant group, most of whom would eventually fold into the right-wing major party, were anything but reactionary, and I especially am skeptical the idea that their bigotry was actually fine (not just fine actually, but good and small-l liberal) because the people they were bigoted towards tended to be personally conservative. As someone who is the son of Muslim immigrants, I have heard that argument many many times to excuse absolutely terrible beliefs people have towards people like me, and I can tell you that it is simply not true.

Besides, wouldn't your point make anti-immigrant parties, both in the US and in Europe, left-wing or at least small-l liberal?

That's a shame you don't know much about the Whigs vs. Tories, as 17th-18th century Britain is in many ways the birthplace of modern political ideologies. Many figures of the time, from Algernon Sidney to Lord Bolingbroke to John Wilkes (not to mention John Locke), were major influences on the American Founding Fathers. Someone once posted this fun political compass quiz to find out where you'd land:

https://www.gotoquiz.com/political_compass_rage_of_party_queen_anne_ed

What major right-wing party are you referring to which the Know-Nothings supposedly folded into? Do you mean the antislavery party founded by exiled European socialists and former Whigs, or the formerly populist party that had come to be dominated by reactionaries and slavery apologists by the middle of the 19th century? Let me make clear, I don't like the Know-Nothings. But they clearly perceived themselves as defenders of liberty against popish tyranny, just like the Whigs of the previous century. They sponsored North American tours for European radicals like Kossuth and Gavazzi, and raised money for liberal nationalist insurgents in Europe. This was not an insular movement reflexively hostile to all outsiders. They were opposed specifically to what they saw as an illiberal Catholic ideology. 19th century American nativism cannot be viewed in a vacuum without regard to previous history or current events in Europe, because the nativists were very aware of these things. They were consciously part of an international, centuries-long movement against the reactionary Papacy, just as present in 1848 as in 1648. I have to go now but I should write more later.

[Alcibiades]

It’s important to remember that in the 19th century, liberalism was inextricably associated with nationalism (in opposition to the vast undemocratic multi-ethnic empires of Europe and in favour of the right to self-determination) and capitalism (as it was the economic system which enabled the creation of a middle class and thus threatened the power and privilege of the conservative aristocracy). So to look at a 19th century party which espoused nationalistic rhetoric and supported free market and business-friendly policies, and say that it cannot have been liberal because it doesn’t conform to our notion of 21st century liberalism, is wrong.

[Don Vito Corleone]

What major right-wing party are you referring to which the Know-Nothings supposedly folded into? Do you mean the antislavery party founded by exiled European socialists and former Whigs, or the formerly populist party that had come to be dominated by reactionaries and slavery apologists by the middle of the 19th century?

I still can't say I care for the rest of your argument, but I do think this is a good point. I hadn't realized at  the time the Know-Nothings folded into the Republicans they were still a big tent anti-slavery party, so I guess that's something.

Anyway, as for your overall point, I think the best way I can illustrate this is to circle back around to an earlier discussion in this thread. You remember the discussion about Grover Cleveland and his support for Gold? And how Yankee pointed out that Cleveland truly honestly believed himself to be a Classical Liberal as he was holding true to the ideology of King Andrew, and then you, in my opinion correctly, pointed out that just holding onto a position which was once liberal does not mean it will always be, and thus by the time of his Presidency Cleveland was a de facto conservative, at least on the gold question? Well the same applies here with regards to attitudes towards Catholics. Anti-Catholicism does not remain a small-l liberal position for all time and in all places because the Whigs were in 17th Century Britain. After all, I don't think you would argue that the anti-Catholic bigots who refused to vote for Al Smith or JFK were actually progressive.

And I want to emphasize, this isn't just a gotcha! I agree with you about Grover Cleveland, and I think your reasoning is sound. I just think you should also apply it here.

[Don Vito Corleone]

It’s important to remember that in the 19th century, liberalism was inextricably associated with nationalism (in opposition to the vast undemocratic multi-ethnic empires of Europe and in favour of the right to self-determination) and capitalism (as it was the economic system which enabled the creation of a middle class and thus threatened the power and privilege of the conservative aristocracy). So to look at a 19th century party which espoused nationalistic rhetoric and supported free market and business-friendly policies, and say that it cannot have been liberal because it doesn’t conform to our notion of 21st century liberalism, is wrong.

While this is true, it's important to remember that supporting the free-market and being pro-business were very much NOT the same thing in the 19th century. Quite the opposite, which is why classical conservatives tended to be considerably more economically interventionist than their classical liberal counterparts.

[Alcibiades]

It’s important to remember that in the 19th century, liberalism was inextricably associated with nationalism (in opposition to the vast undemocratic multi-ethnic empires of Europe and in favour of the right to self-determination) and capitalism (as it was the economic system which enabled the creation of a middle class and thus threatened the power and privilege of the conservative aristocracy). So to look at a 19th century party which espoused nationalistic rhetoric and supported free market and business-friendly policies, and say that it cannot have been liberal because it doesn’t conform to our notion of 21st century liberalism, is wrong.

While this is true, it's important to remember that supporting the free-market and being pro-business were very much NOT the same thing in the 19th century. Quite the opposite, which is why classical conservatives tended to be considerably more economically interventionist than their classical liberal counterparts.

While this may well have been true in America, which lacked an aristocracy, it was not in Europe, where the landed gentry were often in opposition to bourgeois businesses. A good example was that the cotton mill owners of Lancashire were mostly staunch Liberals, with the odd result that in certain pockets of the county, working-class support for the Tories persisted as late as the 1950s.

[Don Vito Corleone]

It’s important to remember that in the 19th century, liberalism was inextricably associated with nationalism (in opposition to the vast undemocratic multi-ethnic empires of Europe and in favour of the right to self-determination) and capitalism (as it was the economic system which enabled the creation of a middle class and thus threatened the power and privilege of the conservative aristocracy). So to look at a 19th century party which espoused nationalistic rhetoric and supported free market and business-friendly policies, and say that it cannot have been liberal because it doesn’t conform to our notion of 21st century liberalism, is wrong.

While this is true, it's important to remember that supporting the free-market and being pro-business were very much NOT the same thing in the 19th century. Quite the opposite, which is why classical conservatives tended to be considerably more economically interventionist than their classical liberal counterparts.

While this may well have been true in America, which lacked an aristocracy, it was not in Europe, where the landed gentry were often in opposition to bourgeois businesses. A good example was that the cotton mill owners of Lancashire were mostly staunch Liberals, with the odd result that in certain pockets of the county, working-class support for the Tories persisted as late as the 1950s.

That's honestly really interesting, I didn't know that. Is that why the Tories did respectably in Liverpool when you look at electoral maps from that period? Also, do you mean to tell me that the Liberals in Britain did tend to be pro-Business? Again, I didn't know that, very interesting.

[Alcibiades]

It’s important to remember that in the 19th century, liberalism was inextricably associated with nationalism (in opposition to the vast undemocratic multi-ethnic empires of Europe and in favour of the right to self-determination) and capitalism (as it was the economic system which enabled the creation of a middle class and thus threatened the power and privilege of the conservative aristocracy). So to look at a 19th century party which espoused nationalistic rhetoric and supported free market and business-friendly policies, and say that it cannot have been liberal because it doesn’t conform to our notion of 21st century liberalism, is wrong.

While this is true, it's important to remember that supporting the free-market and being pro-business were very much NOT the same thing in the 19th century. Quite the opposite, which is why classical conservatives tended to be considerably more economically interventionist than their classical liberal counterparts.

While this may well have been true in America, which lacked an aristocracy, it was not in Europe, where the landed gentry were often in opposition to bourgeois businesses. A good example was that the cotton mill owners of Lancashire were mostly staunch Liberals, with the odd result that in certain pockets of the county, working-class support for the Tories persisted as late as the 1950s.

That's honestly really interesting, I didn't know that. Is that why the Tories did respectably in Liverpool when you look at electoral maps from that period? Also, do you mean to tell me that the Liberals in Britain did tend to be pro-Business? Again, I didn't know that, very interesting.

The non-aristocratic business class were a stronghold of the Liberals in the 19th century, I believe. Tory strength in Liverpool was actually for a different reason, namely that sectarianism was rife in the city in the period with its large Irish Catholic immigrant population, and so many working class Protestants voted Tory.

[Wikipedia delenda est]

What major right-wing party are you referring to which the Know-Nothings supposedly folded into? Do you mean the antislavery party founded by exiled European socialists and former Whigs, or the formerly populist party that had come to be dominated by reactionaries and slavery apologists by the middle of the 19th century?

I still can't say I care for the rest of your argument, but I do think this is a good point. I hadn't realized at  the time the Know-Nothings folded into the Republicans they were still a big tent anti-slavery party, so I guess that's something.

Anyway, as for your overall point, I think the best way I can illustrate this is to circle back around to an earlier discussion in this thread. You remember the discussion about Grover Cleveland and his support for Gold? And how Yankee pointed out that Cleveland truly honestly believed himself to be a Classical Liberal as he was holding true to the ideology of King Andrew, and then you, in my opinion correctly, pointed out that just holding onto a position which was once liberal does not mean it will always be, and thus by the time of his Presidency Cleveland was a de facto conservative, at least on the gold question? Well the same applies here with regards to attitudes towards Catholics. Anti-Catholicism does not remain a small-l liberal position for all time and in all places because the Whigs were in 17th Century Britain. After all, I don't think you would argue that the anti-Catholic bigots who refused to vote for Al Smith or JFK were actually progressive.

And I want to emphasize, this isn't just a gotcha! I agree with you about Grover Cleveland, and I think your reasoning is sound. I just think you should also apply it here.

But all the evidence I've seen is that nothing had fundamentally changed in the discourse around Catholicism since the 17th century. Pardon me, but when the American nativists are using the exact same arguments as the Whigs, the same language about liberty and the constitution, and Catholics are responding with the same attitude of entrenching themselves deeper into conservatism and opposition to Protestant liberalism; it's hard not to think that it's the same fight of the 17th century just two centuries later. I mean, it's the same exact stuff about preventing arbitrary government, preserving religious toleration (by suppressing an inherently intolerant religion), etc. Even if the nativists supported undemocratic policies against Catholics (like the penal laws of the Whigs), I don't see their ideological orientation as being illiberal for the 19th century; especially since the reaction among most American Catholics was to double down on their ultramontanist and ultraconservative views. You could also consider the fact that it wasn't just nativists or evangelicals who supported restrictions on Catholicism. Just as Fitzhugh had warned, Northern "free society" led to the outgrowth of "isms" and "infidels" like the National Liberal League (a secular nonreligious group), which supported the Blaine Amendment and forged alliances with Republicans and Protestant preachers to prevent Catholics from imposing their religion. In fact, by the mid-19th century the North was already more secular than the South and its Protestantism more liberal (as it had always been), but that's another topic. In England, too, William Ewart Gladstone, the leader of the Liberals, published his famous pamphlet against the Catholic Church in the 1870s as a response to the Papal infallibility doctrine promulgated by Pius IX (an extreme reactionary and Confederate sympathizer).

Anti-Catholicism was different in the 20th century. Without Pius IX at the helm, the Catholic Church posed a much less obvious threat to democracy. As a result, anti-Catholic feeling shifted from the more democratic minded Northeast to the South, where their feelings were driven by pure religious bigotry without any of the Yankee values. While Northerners were suspicious of Catholicism because of its use in political repression and persecutory tendencies, Southerners had a more Tory like hatred of any who dared oppose the established church. As Fitzhugh said, "we would rejoice to see intolerance of error revived in New England".

Ultimately, I would probably say that the 19th century nativists were liberal-conservatives, committed to upholding the American republic from falling back into tyranny. They were indeed bigoted against Catholicism, like their Whig predecessors, and the immigration factor does probably tilt the Know-Nothings toward the right. However, their Democratic opponents were further right, as the 1850s party was in complete thrall to the slave power and defined themselves in opposition to abolitionist radicalism. You also have Stephen Douglas' 1860 campaign, which was quite conservative and appealing to supporters of the prevailing social order, who viewed Protestant liberalism as a threat to stability.

[Wikipedia delenda est]

It’s important to remember that in the 19th century, liberalism was inextricably associated with nationalism (in opposition to the vast undemocratic multi-ethnic empires of Europe and in favour of the right to self-determination) and capitalism (as it was the economic system which enabled the creation of a middle class and thus threatened the power and privilege of the conservative aristocracy). So to look at a 19th century party which espoused nationalistic rhetoric and supported free market and business-friendly policies, and say that it cannot have been liberal because it doesn’t conform to our notion of 21st century liberalism, is wrong.

While this is true, it's important to remember that supporting the free-market and being pro-business were very much NOT the same thing in the 19th century. Quite the opposite, which is why classical conservatives tended to be considerably more economically interventionist than their classical liberal counterparts.

But economic interventionism, if you mean things like tariffs and trade barriers or internal improvements, isn't an anti-capitalist position. In fact, it's one of the most capitalist positions possible, when it is used to support business like it was in the 19th century. State capitalism (which the US was never even close to, by the way) is still capitalism and no less so than laissez-faire. It's just a different approach, one which at the time was favored by bourgeois liberals and capitalist classes. It was traditional rural landowners and small farmers who liked free trade. So did Karl Marx. Nationalist economic policies like those of Friedrich List were more liberal and capitalistic, for their time, than free trade or economic libertarianism (not to mention Marxism).

It’s important to remember that in the 19th century, liberalism was inextricably associated with nationalism (in opposition to the vast undemocratic multi-ethnic empires of Europe and in favour of the right to self-determination) and capitalism (as it was the economic system which enabled the creation of a middle class and thus threatened the power and privilege of the conservative aristocracy). So to look at a 19th century party which espoused nationalistic rhetoric and supported free market and business-friendly policies, and say that it cannot have been liberal because it doesn’t conform to our notion of 21st century liberalism, is wrong.

While this is true, it's important to remember that supporting the free-market and being pro-business were very much NOT the same thing in the 19th century. Quite the opposite, which is why classical conservatives tended to be considerably more economically interventionist than their classical liberal counterparts.

While this may well have been true in America, which lacked an aristocracy, it was not in Europe, where the landed gentry were often in opposition to bourgeois businesses. A good example was that the cotton mill owners of Lancashire were mostly staunch Liberals, with the odd result that in certain pockets of the county, working-class support for the Tories persisted as late as the 1950s.

That's honestly really interesting, I didn't know that. Is that why the Tories did respectably in Liverpool when you look at electoral maps from that period? Also, do you mean to tell me that the Liberals in Britain did tend to be pro-Business? Again, I didn't know that, very interesting.

I can't speak for the 19th century, but in the early 18th century Whigs were usually richer than Tories. Bankers, overseas merchants, and the bourgeoisie generally tended to be Whigs while backwoods country gentlemen, manufacturers, and industrial traders provided support for the Tories. This somewhat misleadingly-titled "Political Radicalism in London after the Glorious Revolution" paper has a ton of information about which livery company supported which party, the average wealth of Whig and Tory councilmen, and which parts of London (richer or poorer) were represented by Whigs or Tories:

https://filebin.net/dpt6rrvm1m8jqd1m/Political_Radicalism.pdf?t=9qgf193e

Suffice it to say, it's the Tories who did better among poorer classes, just like the 19th century Democrats. Unless you want to argue that the Tories were actually liberal, I don't think that's a good argument to say the Democrats were always the liberal party. What matters more than class in determining ideology is what you stand for, and for the Tories that was High Church Anglicanism and absolute monarchy, making them obvious conservatives even if they got more support from Catholics, ethnic minorities, and the poor, just like the reactionary Democrats who stood for slavery.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

It is very difficult to frame an argument when you are always jumping from decade to decade like this, Henry. Obviously the Democrats of the 1880s are very different from the Democrats of the 1830s, and so on. But indeed, what matters in determining ideology is not the personal wealth of individual politicians or lawmakers —which is why it is so ridiculous that you continue to hold up the fact that certain leading Democrats were slaveholders in the period before 1850 as conclusive proof they were conservatives —but as you say, the policy aims of the respective parties. When we examine the period prior to 1850, we can see that the Democrats had the broad policy aim of distributing wealth more equally among the large mass of the people, while the Federalists and whigs had the broad aim of increasing the wealth of a few, which they believed would "trickle down" to the rest of the country.

(1) Unless you are specifically talking about the period from 1850 to 1865, it is inaccurate to say the Democrats were uniquely the pro-slavery party. As has been addressed many times in this thread, the Whigs and Federalists drew strong support from the slaveholding class until their collapse following the Kansas–Nebraska Act, and many of the most boisterous defenders of slavery (Alexander Stephens, for instance) continued to support various Whig successor parties right up until the outbreak of the Civil War. John C. Calhoun was a founding member of the Whig party in the 1830s, and Henry Clay actively sought a political alliance with the nullifiers in 1833 to strengthen the anti-Jackson coalition. Prior to 1850, slaveholders in the Western interior generally preferred the Whigs to the Democrats because the former supported the river improvements on the Ohio and Mississippi that allowed them to transport the produce of slavery to New Orleans where it could be sold to a global market. Even as late as 1861, slaveholders in Kentucky were reluctant to join their neighbors in Tennessee and Virginia in bolting the Union because they rightly perceived free and unencumbered passage along the Ohio essential to their interests. Before the Whigs, the Federalists drew strong support from slaveholders in the Carolinas up until their collapse in 1800, after which they effectively ceased to be a functioning party at the national level —Thomas and Charles C. Pinckney, Patrick Henry, John Marshall, Edward Rutledge, and of course George Washington were slaveowners.

(2) Even despite the vicious political rhetoric of the Antebellum period, in which candidates for public office were frequently denounced as cannibals, devil-worshippers, bloodthirsty murderers, and worse, nobody ever suggested the Democrats were a "Tory" party —quite the opposite. (I know this is not your specific contention.) The label most commonly applied to the Jacksonians was "agrarian." Agrarianism was, in fact, an early form of wealth redistribution; Webster's dictionary from 1864 defines socialism as "a new name for agrarianism." Keep in mind that even by 1850, the majority of Americans in all sections of the country still lived on farms. Land was the predominant form of wealth, more common in the West than hard currency, and selling land to poor landless men and new immigrants at low prices might be seen as an early precursor to universal basic income —an effort to ensure that every citizen had the means to support himself and his family, and that land (i.e. wealth) did not become concentrated in the hands of a rich few. This was the reason for Jackson's (misguided) policy of only accepting hard money as payment for land —requiring buyers pay in coin was an attempt to keep land out of the hands of speculators who would buy up all the land in an area and sell it back to the people at a massive markup. The Whigs, by contrast, portrayed themselves as the friend of speculation and the business interests. It is popular in the present day to ridicule agrarianism as "outdated" or evidence that the Democrats were just very stupid people who wanted everyone to live on farms, but I would argue it was no more unrealistic than any other leftist policy that has since been overtaken by the progress of society.

(3) After 1850 I would agree that Democrats were no longer functionally a liberal party; while they continued to use liberal rhetoric in their appeals for votes, in practical terms their only function was to serve as the political arm of the slave power, and they became increasingly reliant on appeals to racial prejudice to keep poor whites in the party. At this point the genuine liberals bolted the party, leaving only the craven and the genuinely pro-slavery to carry on the Democratic organization. After 1868, prominent Democrats (including Salmon P. Chase) began to advocate for a "new departure" —a return to the populist economic issues that had served them so well in the period before 1850. This succeeded in attracting some liberal elements back from the Republicans, while other leftists spurned both parties in favor of the Greenbacks and later the Populists. As I've said previously, I would consider the Bourbon Democrats of this period to be an essentially reactionary force —if not conservatives, then conservative liberals —and while I don't believe personal ideology should really play a factor in these discussions, I would take the average "Mugwump" or Republican "Half-breed" to a Bourbon Democrat any day of the week. Nevertheless, it is important to note that in the 1870s, the Democrats were the preferred of the two major parties among the labor movement, and men such as Eugene Debs were Democrats during this period. That isn't an accident.

(4) The stated purpose of Federalism and later Whiggery was to advance the interests of the capitalist class. You can take the accelerationist view that such was necessary to bring forward the evolution of genuine leftism, or you can argue that the wealth generated by the first half-century of the Industrial Revolution really did "trickle down" to the masses. What you cannot escape is that the Federalists and later Whigs supported policies that they and everyone else believed were to the benefit of the commercial interests, and were opposed by the socialists, labor organizers, and radical egalitarians of their day. There is a reason why Thoreau was a Democrat! There is a reason why the Working Men's party folded into the Jacksonian organization after the 1820s. In terms of the relative social and economic platforms of the two parties, the Federalists and later Whigs generally took the more conservative side of the argument, opposing disestablishment of the state church in Connecticut, the expansion of the vote to non-landowners in Rhode Island, supporting the Alien and Sedition Acts, etc. Unlike slavery, there was no bipartisan support for these measures at the time. The few Federalists and Whigs who deviated from the party line were abandoned by the party establishment, leading them to ally with the Democrats.

(5) The Republicans of the 1850s were quite clearly the party of the bourgeoisie. At a time when the principal struggle in society was between the representatives of the rising middle class and the entrenched Southern feudal class, this was arguably a left-wing position from an interpretive standpoint; at the very least, it is the side leftists should come down on. Hence Marx's support for the early Republican program, as you have noted. After 1869, Republican economic policy becomes decidedly more pro-business, and while still attracting significant support from workingmen due to (a) support for tariffs, (b) waving the bloody shirt, and (c) the Democrats' by this time outdated views on commerce and industry, they weren't a leftist party. One could make a fairly convincing argument, however, that after 1880 or so there was a significant proto-progressive minority within the Republican party; it was this minority that succeeded in nominating Benjamin Harrison in 1888 and later Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 and William Howard Taft in 1908. The first battle between the conservative and proto-progressive Republicans was at the 1884 convention, however, where the Mugwumps attempted to prevent the nomination of James G. Blaine. When their efforts failed, many deserted the party to support—yes—the Democratic nominee, Grover Cleveland (a decision they presumably came to regret).

[Wikipedia delenda est]

Well, the title of this thread is, after all, "Historical continuity of Democrats and Republicans", so maybe my decade-jumping can be excused .

1) Fair enough, but on the whole the Federalists and Whigs were more antislavery than their opponents, I think you'd agree, owing to their bases of power in the Northeast, even if there existed many individual pro-slavery Federalists/Whigs and antislavery Republicans/Democrats.

2) In naming themselves the "Whigs" and casting themselves as defenders of the Constitution against "King Andrew", I think there was at least some suggestion or implication that the Democrats were like Tories, but I'll defer to you on the names they called each other. But continuing on this point, it seems strange to me to refer to Jackson and his party as liberals when the sort of populist demagoguery and personal loyalty they engaged in was anathema to the liberalism of the time, which was protective of representative institutions and feared the too great concentration of power in one man. When Alexis de Tocqueville visited America, he had this to say about the President:

General Jackson, whom the Americans have for the second time chosen to be at their head, is a man of violent character and middling capacities; nothing in the whole of his career indicated him to have the qualities needed for governing a free people; moreover, a majority of the enlightened classes in the Union have always been against him. Who then put him on the President's chair and keeps him there still? It is all due to the memory of a victory he won twenty years ago under the walls of New Orleans.

The Jacksonians may have been democrats, as their name implies, but I don't see them as liberals. It is the constitutional rhetoric of the Whigs, moreover, which bears much closer resemblance to how liberals in Europe spoke at the time in their battles with monarchists.

3) Many would argue that this "new departure" was insincere or even nonexistent. Frederick Douglass had this to say in 1888 about the changing face of the Democrats:

Let it be remembered also that, in examining the claim of the respective parties, we are not to look at them as institutions of a day or a year, or as possessing a character very easily changed. They have a past, as well as a present and a future [...] we choose between parties of opposite policies, opposite tendencies, opposite antecedents and histories [...] 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. It has behind it a long line of beneficent achievements.

I know that the allusion to the past of the Democratic party is very distasteful to the members of that party. They shudder at the mention of it and cry out against it with frantic horror, like beings tormented before their time; and no wonder, for they see behind them a long list of blunders and of flagrant transgressions [...] From first to last the Democratic party has been the chief bulwark of Southern slavery and of Southern pretensions. Today it stands the natural ally of the solid South.
Fellow-citizens:
I would gladly think better of the Democratic party; I would gladly think that the enlightening and softening influences of time and events had created a clean heart and renewed a right spirit within it; but I find it at every turn the same old party, composed of the same elements as 35 years ago, having the same tendencies as at that time. Time and events have made no perceptible change in its character. It is still the party of the old master class; the party of the South. The sheet anchor of its hope is the solid South. On the questions of protection and free trade it stands with the South; on the question of National aid to education, it stands with the South; on the rights of American fisherman, it stands with the South; on the question of State sovereignty, it stands with the South; on the question of pensions to our needy soldiers and widows, it stands with the South; on the question of Constitutional amendment, it stands with the South; on the exercise of the veto power, it stands with the South; in fact, upon all questions of importance, it stands with the South. And why not? The South is the power by which it lives, moves, and has its being.

Perhaps no argument urged by those who would stampede the colored vote in the North to the Democratic party is less entitled to respect than that the Republican party has failed to protect negro suffrage at the South. The best answer given to this complaint is by our Republican candidate for the Presidency. "Against whom hast the Republican party failed to protect you?" In this question there is a whole volume of wisdom. Who but Democrats have by violence prevented the exercise of negro suffrage? Who but Democrats have employed the shot-gun to deter the negro from voting? We say to negro Democrats in the North, if your indignation against the Republican party is hot, it should be ten-fold hotter against the Democratic party. But it is not true that the Republican party has not endeavored to protect the negro in his right to vote. The whole moral power of the party has been from first to last on the side of justice to the negro and it has only been baffled in its efforts to protect the negro in his vote, by the Democratic party.

Geographically and socially and in all its traditions, the Democratic party stands to-day with the men who for two hundred years have bought, sold, and scourged us as they would dumb, driven cattle. That party has never retracted the doctrine that the amendments to the Constitution, making us citizens and investing us with the elective franchise, were revolutionary, unconstitutional, and void [...] The Republican party originated in the Free States. It represents the free schools, the free speech, the free institutions and the humane sentiments that distinguish the North from the South; the civilization of the century, as against the barbarism and race prejudices of by-gone ages.

I don't know about you, but I'm convinced. Also, which populist economic issues are you referring to which the Democrats returned to? They had always opposed the tariff and on the currency question they continued to advocate hard money, which was hardly a populist position in the 1870s when the Greenbackers were arguing for fiat currency.

4) But as Alcibiadies noted, capitalism was intrinsically tied up with liberalism at this point, so its advancement was not really a conservative objective. And I'm not sure everyone believed Whig policies were pursued only to help the rich; who are we to say they didn't genuinely believe in Listian economics and the necessity of developing US national industry, regardless of who the most benefits went to? In any case, bankrupting the slaveholders to enrich the capitalist class was a real step forward in the march of history, though it would've been nice if the Radical Republicans had succeeded in redistributing the wealth of the South to poor people as they intended.

5) Indeed, but I'm reminded of something Yankee once said in another thread (or perhaps earlier in this one). It was about how sometimes in history there have been ideological alignments which pitted conservatives and leftists/labor together against liberals. His claim was that the Republican Party at its founding included both conservative businessmen and socialists drawn together against Democratic liberals, but I'm increasingly getting the sense that the opposite was true, if you replace "businessmen" with "slave owners" and "socialists" with "labor". Even if socialist thinkers like Marx who understood the importance of the slavery battle supported the Republicans, most workingmen in the 1850s continued to vote Democratic based on the old economic issues and racist demagogic appeals. They were joined in the party by slave owners, of course, desperate to preserve their favored economic and political position from abolitionism. On the other side, in the Republican Party, we see Northern liberals and the bourgeois middle class, determined to liberate the oppressed slaves of the South. Examining the most extreme ends of both sides in the slavery debate, this reversal of Yankee's position bears out at an individual level too. While George Fitzhugh decried Northern capitalism and modernity and argued for his form of "Tory socialism", William Lloyd Garrison championed Lockean natural rights and the cause of individual liberty in his war against the slave power.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It is telling that in no one's response was mentioned the main thrust of my post, the (rather fitting, I thought) parallel between the politics around Catholics in 19th century America and 18th century Britain. I must assume then that according to NC Yankee, the Algernon Sidney and Richard Price Whigs were the epitome of "conservative", men whose religious intolerance deluded them into thinking they were fighting for liberty. These bigots were doing the work of upholding the established Protestant church, and no amount of fear mongering about the Pope (which they certainly did) can change the reality that they were engaging in religious/ethnic/racial supremacy.

I was not the one saying all members of a particular religious group must be exponents of a particular political view irrelevant of the context in which they live and exist in their time period simply because they adhere to that religion.

You concern yourself with avowed statements, I am more concerned with the practical consequences and impacts in a given power structure. People can claim to be fighting for whatever and do whatever to justify their actions, but at the end of the day, it is just as important to consider who is getting screwed over in the power dynamic in which they hold power and why.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

5) Indeed, but I'm reminded of something Yankee once said in another thread (or perhaps earlier in this one). It was about how sometimes in history there have been ideological alignments which pitted conservatives and leftists/labor together against liberals.

Yep, here we go

His claim was that the Republican Party at its founding included both conservative businessmen and socialists drawn together against Democratic liberals

Yes I did

but I'm increasingly getting the sense that the opposite was true, if you replace "businessmen" with "slave owners" and "socialists" with "labor".

Yes you would naturally.

Even if socialist thinkers like Marx who understood the importance of the slavery battle supported the Republicans, most workingmen in the 1850s continued to vote Democratic based on the old economic issues and racist demagogic appeals.

Old economic issues drawn heavily from a classical liberal policy base, combined with an opposition to monopolies, yes.

Even so, working voters were divided as I have repeatedly said since 1) Slavery was beginning to be seen as a threat to working people in the north as opposed to a salvation, post Dred Scott. 2) Republican Economic Nationalism was more befitting their economic interest then the Democrats agrarian+period liberal economic policy (which threatened deindustrialization in the eyes of many workers).

They were joined in the party by slave owners, of course, desperate to preserve their favored economic and political position from abolitionism.

Glad you finally acknowledge they were joining an egalitarian party out of mutual interest.

On the other side, in the Republican Party, we see Northern liberals and the bourgeois middle class, determined to liberate the oppressed slaves of the South.

And Northern Socialists, Northern Aristocrats, Northern Capitalists, Northern Speculators and Northern Landed Elites and everyone else who for a multitude of reasons listed below came to regard slave power as a threat to their situation or values.

1. Genuine moral outrage
2. Corruption of the Constitution and the courts
3. Violation of Northern State's with Fugitive Slave law
4. Fear of Slavery being spread north by the courts and out competing paid labor (Dred Scott and Bleeding KS before that)
5. Hindrance to the economic development of the country, getting in the way of desired policy outcomes (economic nationalism).
6. Hindrance to the spreading of the gospel to the unwashed

The problem with emphasizing the nature of "The Northern Middle Class" here is that it fails to account for the economic dynamic by which this middle class existed and the resulting altered policy orientation to which they existed towards the establishment. This is the same problem with failing to account for the relative dominance of more calvinistic sects in America and expecting the political relationship of dissenters in Britain and Calvinists/Pius Sects in the US  to be exactly the same. Power dynamics matter.

The Northern Middle Class, or at least that portion of which that was connected to and depended upon the Industrial Revolution, would be thus depended on a set of economically nationalist policies that would put it in contrast to say the middle class in Britain that depended on a trading empire and a free trade policy for its wealth. The effect of this in reality means this portion of the middle class is going to adhere to and behave similarly to the elites, in the US, more so then elsewhere and especially in Britain.

Also before we go further, there was strong middle class support from the Jacksonian era for the Democratic Party. Of course in your view every Catholic is a right wing reactionary Monarchist, but that would be one group of middle class support. Aside from them there would be middle class and likewise even elements of he Wall Street Class that supported Democratic policies precisely because they were engaged in industries that were harmed or at least not benefited directly by the economic policies of the Republican Protective System. Also anti-monopoly politics had a strong middle class appeal in an era where large portions of the middle class were getting screwed by monopolists, just like anti-speculation politics had a strong appeal to the small and poor farmers getting screwed by the speculators.

When you dig into this, you find a clear cleavage on an economic nationalist vs. "liberal" (mostly classical but also with some compromises in terms of opposing speculators/monopolists and trying to regulate that). This would cleave a minority of the Northern Wealthy into opposing the Republicans and an even larger group (though likely not a majority or even close) of the middle class and a significant group, perhaps even a majority of working class voters (variably by era), that would be supporting the Democrats.

Now I know you have repeatedly said you don't give a crap about economic and class dynamics, but just because you don't like it, doesn't mean that these dynamics don't exist.

Examining the most extreme ends of both sides in the slavery debate, this reversal of Yankee's position bears out at an individual level too. While George Fitzhugh decried Northern capitalism and modernity and argued for his form of "Tory socialism", William Lloyd Garrison championed Lockean natural rights and the cause of individual liberty in his war against the slave power.

For the millionth time, 95% of Americans would be considered "Liberals" in terms of international politics in the 19th century precisely because of the Revolution, and the Republic and the culture celebrating such. This would have been true outside of some extreme planters and New England blue bloods. These liberals were united for all of about 15 minutes once the revolution ended and then divided between along a new political fault line. Examining the extreme ends misses the mark because it presumes that everyone is polarized on the those extremes with everyone moderating out from those. That is not how this worked and the disparate motivations listed above, means that a large number of people would have supported the Republicans for reasons much different from Garrison and would have supported the South, while decrying Fitzhugh's conceptualization.

What you are trying to do here is fabricate a linear demonstration of anti-slavery politics with Fitzhugh on the right and Garrison on the left and trying force everyone onto that line graph. As someone who despises political matrices, I find this rather misguided and unnecessarily simplistic.

You can make a linear scale that makes you look 100% right, I can make one that makes me look 100% right. The key thing to understand here is that these matters are far too complex to be subject to this kind of superficial generality and reductionism.

The Jacksonians may have been democrats, as their name implies, but I don't see them as liberals. It is the constitutional rhetoric of the Whigs, moreover, which bears much closer resemblance to how liberals in Europe spoke at the time in their battles with monarchists.

Do you know where the name federalist comes from originally? It was originally the used by those who opposed a new constitution and favored the Articles of Confederation. It was hijacked by Nationalists to describe the compromises of the US Constitution, and thus forced their opponents to use the name Anti-Federalists. This was a remarkable case of defining yourself and your opponents first and it worked.

Fast forward 50 years, is it really surprising that the same group of wealthy elites is again stealing their name from the other side?