Historical continuity of Democrats and Republicans

[Don Vito Corleone]

Seeing as the Civil War/Slavery were non-ideological issues, did the early Republican Party have many or a lot of people who were former Democrats and who were on other issues Jeffersonians/Jacksonians? I know Fremont and Hamlin were former Democrats (and I'm assuming that they had been typical Democrats when they had been Democrats) but were former Democrats like them common in the early Republican party, and to the extent that they existed, were they noticeably different to the former Whigs? Like, was Fremont noticeably more Jeffersonian/liberal in philosophy from his co-partisan Lincoln, with significant divergences outside of the national question? Or was there not much difference?

[Don Vito Corleone]

With regards to that discussion about Progressivism, I found this section in the 1916 Republican Platform that I think is relevant:

The Republican party has long believed in the rigid supervision and strict regulation of the transportation and of the great corporations of the country. It has put its creed into its deeds, and all really effective laws regulating the railroads and the great industrial corporations are the work of Republican Congresses and Presidents. For this policy of regulation and supervision the Democrats, in a stumbling and piecemeal way, are within the sphere of private enterprise and in direct competition with its own citizens, a policy which is sure to result in waste, great expense to the taxpayer and in an inferior product.

The Republican party firmly believes that all who violate the laws in regulation of business, should be individually punished. But prosecution is very different from persecution, and business success, no matter how honestly attained, is apparently regarded by the Democratic party as in itself a crime. Such doctrines and beliefs choke enterprise and stifle prosperity. The Republican party believes in encouraging American business as it believes in and will seek to advance all American interests.

[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.

[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?

[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.

[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.

[Don Vito Corleone]

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.

Yes? You seem to be arguing against a point I never made.

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).

Now that is quite the claim. For one thing, List was writing in a particular place; Continental Europe. His influence was not the same everywhere. After all, you're not going to dispute that the British Liberals were pro-free-market, are you? For another thing, as has been pointed out by both Truman and Alcibiades, the tendency of Classical Liberals to be economically interventionist and supportive of Business was even less so in America, so using his writings as proof that the pro-business economic nationalism of both the Federalists and the Whigs is indicative of liberalism is misleading.

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.

Well believe it or not, quite a lot changed in 150 years . Again, I'm not too knowledgeable on the political issues in 17th Century Britain, but I know the basics. After the Glorious Revolution, a Catholic absolute monarch had just been overthrown. In America, there had never been an absolute monarch period, nevermind a Catholic one. Furthermore, by the 1850s, any claim, in either Britain or America, that Catholics were about to reconstitute an absolute monarchy was laughable, considering that by this point Catholics held little political power and had been a maligned minority for over a century. If this doesn't sway you (as I suspect it doesn't) and you still believe that American anti-Catholicism was in line with Whig tradition, consider what the Whigs themselves were doing. In 1829, when Catholic Emancipation was finally introduced in Britain, the Whigs were the staunchest supporters of it, and the Tories (where they were supporters at all, which oftentimes they weren't) were considerably more hesitant. I found this excellent 25 page article from the English Historical Review which highlights the political situation a few years before Emancipation*. You really should read the whole thing, but I've pulled a few select quotes which highlight the Whigs more enthusiastic support for Emancipation:

For it seemed that the Catholic cause was being removed from the Whigs and was coming to rest within the nerveless grasp of the Government, where its champions, lulled by office, would be content to let the stalemate continue.

The impact of the Catholic association sharpened the current division of opinion on the Catholic question between English political groups. The radicals welcomed the association, and the orthodox Whigs sympathized with it. But the anti-Catholics denounced it, and the pro-catholic Tories wished to suppress it as a menace to peaceable government and a quiet settlement of the Catholic Claims. Thus the pro-catholic Tories became still further divided from the Whigs along party lines.

This one in particular I want to highlight because it shows the Ultra-Tories (more on them later) viewed the Tory Government's position as too friendly to Catholics and thus too "liberal"

Letters show that there was a movement among Ultra peers to form a group which would demand repressive action. John Cam Hobhouse was told that the Duke of Newcastle, the Earl of Lonsdale and others '. . . are said to disclaim the present Administration on account of its Liberalism

Whereas the Whigs would not agree to suppress the association unless emancipation was simultaneously granted, the Tory Pro-catholics would not consider emancipation unless the association was
previously suppressed. This sharp division of opinion was intensified by the prevailing Whig Scepticism of the sincerity of government pro-Catholics. Grey was especially suspicious of Canning, whom he attacked in a letter to Lord Holland:
"I am prepared for measures against the Catholic Association, & for Canning's taking advantage of the alarm occasioned by it, and for which it is made a pretence, to relieve himself of the embarrassment of the Catholick [sic] Question. He will of course be for coercion, increase of army, and all its consequences, and our friends I suppose will go on praising him for his liberality."

Although certain Tory pro-Catholics, such as Charles Wynn, thought that the danger of the Catholic association had been exaggerated, many others were as alarmed as the ultras at the threatened destruction of ' our Church Establishment & our Protestant Constitution ',* and all were in favour of suppression.

George Tierney claimed that Plunket had, by taking office, abandoned the Catholic cause; Burdett condemned the whole system of a Cabinet divided on the Catholic question; and Brougham attacked Canning for not using his talents to carry emancipation,' as he might easily do if he list. On 15 February, the bill passed its first reading by 278 votes to 123, and these figures showed the exerted party cleavage. Most of the minority were at once Whig and pro-Catholic, but there were nine exceptions. Six of these were Whigs who had hitherto voted anti-Catholic in the current parliament: perhaps, as Whigs, they were loath to see a popular association put down, while they did not want to support the general question of Catholic relief because it was antipathetic to their constituents. The three other exceptions were Tory pro-Catholics.

Not only was O'Connell convinced that his own example would persuade the Irish Catholics to forget their dislike of securities, but it seemed that many pro-Catholic Whigs were prepared to accept them in order to make the relief measure more palatable to the Tory pro-Catholics.

Frankly, I could quote the entire thing, but I'll stop there, and recommend again that you read it.

Consider also the existence of the faction of Ultra-Tories, who were fiercely opposed to Emancipation. Notice that no such faction label exists for the Whigs. This is not a coincidence. In fact, so large and influential were the Ultra-Tories (174 Tory MPs voted against Emancipation) that their anger was key to the downfall of Wellington's Ministry. Notice too that eventually the Ultra-Tories would return to the Tories after the episode passed. 

So then, we can see that by 1829 the Whigs were decidedly less hostile to Catholics than the Tories. So, if I accept your premise that the Glorious Revolution made it so that hostility to Catholics was automatically a liberal position and support for them was automatically conservative, then by 1829 the Whigs are now conservative and the Tories are now liberal. Obviously, this was not the case. As has been repeated many times in this thread, issues and the political circumstances around them do not stay fixed, and this is one such case. As such, we can see that by the early 19th Century, hostility to Catholicism was no longer a small-l liberal or left-wing position. I keep repeating 1829 intentionally because I want to underline all this is occurring 3 decades before the rise of the Know-Nothings in America. Therefore, it's a little silly to say the Know-Nothings were merely hostile to a poor immigrant group because they were acting in-line with Whig principles and traditions when the Whigs themselves didn't even believe that Catholicism was a menace anymore. Unless you think there was also a party switch in England wherein the Whigs became Tories and the Tories became Whigs I guess.

One more example, partly just because this one is close to my own heart. After Confederation (the formation of Canada in 1867), in Ontario the Catholic Church was supportive of the provincial Liberal Party, because the Conservatives were filled with Nativist Protestants who were shall we say not the biggest fan of Catholics, especially as many of them were poor immigrants. However, in Quebec where Catholics were the overwhelming majority and the Church had a near endless list of special privileges and little fear of protestant prosecution, the Church was strongly aligned with the provincial Conservative Party, with Clergy often telling their church flock that "Heaven is Blue, Hell is Red" in a not very subtle ploy to tell their followers to vote Tory (Blue was and is the colour of the Conservatives in Canada and Red was and is the colour of the Liberals). This was because the Church was fearful that the provincial Liberals were a radical anti-clerical bunch who would emulate their European cousins in their concentrated attacks on religious power.

Now the issue of course, arises when you try and apply a blanket position to either support of hostility to Catholics. If we say, as you do, that hostility to Catholicism and Catholics is a liberal position, then the Ontario Tories are now liberals. If we say that support of Catholicism is a liberal position, then now the Quebec Tories are liberals. Obviously, neither of these were the case. The solution then is recognizing that Ontario and Quebec had completely different political environments, and that this means that both the Quebec and Ontario Tories were conservatives just as the Quebec and Ontario Liberals were both liberals, even if that manifested as the literal exact opposite position on a key political issue. And that's in the same country at the same time, imagine just how different political allies could be in more varied circumstances. Say, in different countries across an ocean 150 years apart ?

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.

Catholics were also very much not a threat to democracy in the 19th Century in America or Britain, and the Whigs, the Democrats, and later the British Liberals recognized this. Besides, you don't seriously mean to tell me that you think the Know-Nothings were keeping up with Catholic Doctrine?

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).

I am aware of Gladstone's pamphlet, but here's the thing about that: Gladstone was opposed to Catholic doctrine and hierarchy, he was not racist against Catholics (at least, not as much as his Conservative Peers). Consider Gladstone's decade long struggle for Irish Home Rule, which was deeply tied into questions about the rights of Irish Catholics. It is not a coincidence that opponents of Home Rule used the phrase "Home Rule means Rome Rule". It is also not a coincidence that when quite a few members of Gladstone's own Liberal Party objected to his plans for Home Rule, they bolted and formed their own "Liberal Unionist" Party which was allied the Conservatives, and it was definitely not a coincidence that the Liberal Unionists formally merged into the British Tory Party in the 1910s. Gladstone also pushed (successfully) for the Disestablishment of the Church of Ireland which freed Irish Catholics from having their tax money support a Church actively hostile to them. Yet more proof that in the 19th Century, hostility to Catholics was a purview of the right, not the left.   

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".

Now, I could point out to you that the North held on to Established Churches for longer than the South did, or that Jefferson and his Republicans who led the charge for Disestablishment were Southerners, but I don't want to get into that right now. What I will say is I have outlined why I am very skeptical of the idea that 19th century Anti-Catholicism in America was anything other than an unfortunate and ugly episode of naked bigotry, and also I will say that Smith and Kennedy very much did face bigotry on the basis of their religion in the North. Smith in particular had to deal with a very much Northern-based Republican Party that had little issue exploiting his faith for political advantage. To the extent that this was less than the Know-Nothings, it should be remembered the Catholic population in these Northern states had increased dramatically from the heydey of the Know-Nothings to their respective runs for President, and that (in Kennedy's case at least) they were also doing better in the South than previously.

Also, I find it interesting you keep citing George Fitzhugh as a representative of the South considering he was very much not in line with common opinion anywhere, ever.

*G. I. T. MACHIN, The Catholic Emancipation Crisis of 1825, The English Historical Review, Volume LXXVIII, Issue CCCVIII, July 1963, Pages 458–482, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/LXXVIII.CCCVIII.458
Copyright © 1963, Oxford University Press

EDIT: Forgot to address this in the original post

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.

Henry, I really, really, really, really, cannot emphasize enough just how little the personal beliefs of American Catholics matters in this question. I don't even know if what you're saying is true, but even if I accept it, it's really not anymore relevant than the personal opinions of a Muslim immigrant on Abortion or any other political issue when it comes to whether restricting his civil liberties is liberal or conservative.

[Don Vito Corleone]

I know it was just a misplaced word, but the image of Oliver Cromwell abolishing the Church of England is very funny.

[Don Vito Corleone]

I know it was just a misplaced word, but the image of Oliver Cromwell abolishing the Church of England is very funny.

Why? It’s what happened. Anglicanism was disestablished and partially replaced with a semi-Presbyterian mode of governance, though Protestants (including Anglicans) were free to worship however they chose.

I know what you mean, but I've only ever seen "disestablished" used to refer to that, so when you said "abolished" I pictured him storming in and declaring the CoE was now illegal.

[Don Vito Corleone]

As you say, whether it is a conservative or liberal policy is down to who backs it and why. In the case of economic nationalism, its supporters believed it was necessary to modernize and develop the industry of the country. Certainly the industry owners could expect to make a profit, but that wasn't the main purpose.

I would not conflate Modernization with an opposition to Conservatism. There are countless examples in history of Conservative Modernizers. For a recent example, Thatcher without question modernized Britain's economy, with all that entails, good and bad. I doubt you would say she was not a Conservative due to this. Even in America, you don't mean to tell me you think Alexander Hamilton and his Federalist Party weren't right-wing forces?

Northern capitalists were in no sense the "monarchy" of 19th century America. Perhaps the most signifying tenet of Yankee liberalism is a deep commitment to individualism and meritocracy, an utter hatred of the hereditary principle.

Firstly, if you mean in the strictest sense of "opposing a literal landed aristocracy", then yes, I suppose part of the "Yankee values" in the 19th century included "an utter hatred of the hereditary principle". But of course, that was hardly unique to Northerners. Basically no one after the revolution supported a landed aristocracy; even Hamilton, who is often derided (rightly, I think) as an aristocrat and pseudo-monarchist did not support a landed aristocracy. This is because, as has been stated countless times by NC Yankee in this thread, American society took on a certain inherent liberal character after the revolution, in terms of its position on a landed aristocracy and a monarchy. That Northern Protestants opposed this was not remotely unique, nor was it remotely indicative of liberalism outside that inherent liberalism common to America after the Revolution.

Secondly, the claim that because the Northern Business Elite did not support a literal landed aristocracy that they then were believers in "meritocracy" is laughable. Or, if they were believers in meritocracy, they certainly had an odd way of showing it, with what their support of political parties that worked to increase the wealth and power of said Elite and which worked against the ability of the working class to move up in society. Unless you again mean "did not believe in a literal landed aristocracy" as your definition for meritocracy, the Northern Business Elite very much did not believe in a meritocracy; I mean really, these are the same Elite who oftentimes did not even want people without property to be able to vote. I think Yankee's comparison of them to a European Aristocracy is very good, because these Elites did very much want to keep their wealth in their family and class, and did think they were simply better than everyone else.