From my vantage point everything about opposition to slavery and segregation is liberal in nature, from a belief in individual rights, to the equality of man, to opposition to unjustly enforced hierarchies. I just can't see any way in which opposition to these institutions is ideologically conservative, so please explain your position if you will. And no, just because many abolitionists made moral and religious arguments, that doesn't make them conservative. Not to sound too much like Pete Buttigieg, but religion and morality are not exclusive domains of the political right, contrary to what conservative evangelicals would have you think. This is a point I've made a lot with you, but I think it bears repeating. Liberalism as an ideology literally has its roots in radical Protestant theology, and the two often went hand-in-hand well into the 19th century. Finally, I'd like to note that while conservatives did sometimes support an end to segregation, that doesn't make the position itself a conservative one. Henry Cabot Lodge Sr. was a conservative who supported liberal racial policies, not for ideological reasons, but because he sought to enfranchise black Republican voters in the South.
I haven't played much of a role in this thread, but there's so much wrong with this that I couldn't pass it by. The first two sentences essentially state,
it is impossible to be a conservative and anti-slavery/anti-racist, or at the very least,
it is impossible to oppose slavery or racism for conservative reasons —but this is clearly false, and betrays a massive failure of imagination on your part. A Northern capitalist who opposed slavery for purely economic reasons (and there were many of them) and an anti-amalgamationist who opposed slavery because it forced whites to live in close proximity with blacks surely don't conform to any version of egalitarian liberalism —yet both were important constituencies in the Republican party of the 1850s. For every Frémont or Hamlin, there was a Preston Blair who didn't give a sh*t about black people but saw opposing slavery as in their economic self-interest. It really should not be terribly difficult to see how someone who supports free markets, corporate interests, and "traditional family values" would be anti-slavery.
Both Radicals and liberals flocked to the Republican party in the early years of its existence because it's foundational issue (limiting the spread of slavery) has obvious egalitarian connotations. These elements held a controlling share in the party during the 1856 campaign and remained a powerful contingent until 1876, surviving in some form until the 1960s. Meanwhile, those Republicans who were conservatives (a rapidly-growing majority after 1876) were
Northern conservatives —and while certainly not "woke" by any modern standard, were at least friendlier to the idea of
political equality for blacks than were Southern conservatives (who were, in fact, Democrats during this period). But this is a cultural distinction rather than an ideological one. As has already been noted, Phil Scott is obviously not conservative in the way Brian Kemp are Greg Abbot are conservatives; but that does not make him a liberal, except perhaps in a relative sense. The realignment of American politics along cultural lines has helped push these New England Yankees into the Democratic fold, but as we saw in Massachusetts this year, not every New England Democrat is on the left of the party.
There's a lot more that could be said (particularly with regard to equating Radicalism with Liberalism, the two being closely related but not identical movements), but it's late and this post is long enough already.
