To add another data point to the discussion, David Goodman Croly who was an early journalist and the father of the better known Progressive intellectual Herbert Croly wrote an interesting book called the
Glimpses of the Future: Suggestions as to the Drift of Things in 1888:
https://archive.org/details/glimpsesoffutur00crol/page/38/mode/2up?q=democratic. The book, despite acknowledging Democratic hypocrisy on slavery and black civil rights, equates the Democrats with the English Liberals and Republicans with the Tories. Most tellingly, it predicts that the Democratic Party will be more likely to adopt quasi-socialistic views in the 20th Century:
Sir Oracle. — Parties in all free governments should
represent — the one, order ; the other, progress. There
should be a conservative organization, and one that aims
at reform. Political parties represent, in other words,
the centripetal and centrifugal forces in the political
world. Hence you will find that parties are apt to sepa-
rate on a theory as to the functions of government ;
the conservatives holding that the central authority
should be strong and capable of doing many things
for the benefit of the entire community. A democratic
party, on the contrary, favors home rule, local indepen-
dence, and individual initiative. The distinctions I have
made will account for the Tory in England and the Fed-
erals and Whigs in the United States, both of which have
generally been the parties of authority and order. The
English Liberals and the American Democrats have
aimed to satisfy the aspirations of the people for reform
and improvement.
Voter. — Your generalizations are interesting, but I
think not quite accurate. In the slavery controversy
the Democratic party was the conservative one, and bent
all its energies to keep the black men enslaved.
Sir O. — History is full of such inconsistencies. The
old Democratic party was the foe of monopolies ; but its
States-right notions made it the defender of slavery as it
existed under State laws. But the Democratic party did
all it could to make every adult white male a voter, and
it favored equal rights to all except the negro.
Voter. — But in the new combinations of voters will
there not be some changes ? Will there not be other
ideals than those of the past which the great political or-
ganizations of the future will strive to follow
Sir O. — The Democratic party of the future will, I
think, become in a measure socialistic. If it aims to
placate the great wage-receiving class, it must consent
to using the machinery of the government for the benefit
of the mass of the community. This is the aim of the
social democracy of Europe. Kings, nobles, and priests
have heretofore made use of the powers of the State to
further their interests, and the progressive reformers will
insist that hereafter the authority of the general govern-
ment shall be so wielded as to advance the welfare of
the bulk of the people. Common schools, public roads,
government telegraphs, State control of railroads, recre-
ative parks, State and municipal sanitation, — all these
show the spread of State socialism. Indeed, from one
point of view tariff legislation is socialistic. It aims to
create conditions favoring the establishment of industries
beneficial to the community.
