[Commander8]

The Democrat and Republican Parties were a lot different in 1862. For example, the Republicans in those days supported protective tarriffs, central banking and a graduated income tax. Democrats were for States' Rights, local autonomy and a Gold Standard. Parties change ideologies like I change socks.

[x]

The parties have changed their views a lot, but it's worth noting that the income tax was only a temporary war measure in the 1860s (in the South as well as in the North). There was no desire to make it permanent, and the tax was repealed at the war's end. The income tax came back in the 1890s, but more as a concession to populist discontent, rather than a Republican measure. It was declared unconstitutional, and a bipartisan effort gave us the Constitutional amendment authorizing it in 1913.

The Republicans favored national, rather than state, bank charters. I suppose that counts as centralization, but nowhere near on the 20th century scale. Seen in the context of the 19th century they were the national or centralizing party, but there was a big difference between what they intended and what, say, Lyndon Johnson, Teddy Kennedy or Walter Mondale wanted. The Democrats were the localist, state's rights party, but when one looks at what "state's rights" involved after Reconstruction, one can understand why lovers of liberty might still prefer the Republicans. Along the same lines, some will attack the Republicans for creating an empire, rather than a republic, but this ignores the expansionism of antebellum Democrats. Before the war, opponents of empire might well have been Whigs or Republicans.

Where the Confederacy fits in is another question. Their history ended in 1865. Had the Confederacy lasted, it would surely have had its own centralists and imperialists.

[Ditto]

"Democrats were for States' Rights, local autonomy and a Gold Standard."

If the Dems of that day were so in favor of States Rights, why did they push through legislation like the Fugitive Slave Act which trampled not only states rights, but individual rights? Why did they favor Dred Scott which for the first time in history told states who could and couldn't be a citizen of a state and effectively nullified equal protection under state constitutions?

The Slave Power (Democrat Party) didn't give a damn about states rights.