Democrats have always been democrats. Support for “states rights” only extended as far as their immediate desires. Far from being underdogs the democrats ruled the roost politically for most of the nation’s beginning.
As for supporting the “common man” almost every society has its class-consciousness but the Southern Slavocracy went a step further with a virtual caste system. Chances of breaking through the stratified layers were extraordinarily poor.
No, the parties didn’t “trade places” or any of that nonsense.
Thank you sir !
Its Hypocritical to state that only the south had a caste system. The caste system was very strong in the northeast: There were the bankers and corporate barons, followed by the merchants, then the lowly recent-immigrants and indentured servants. The recent immigrants and their children worked long hours in sweat shops and other labor intensive jobs. Later, Chinese immigrants and their families were used as low-wage laborers in the far west. Native Americans were being pushed westward.
The stratification in the south was bad as well. There were a very few but highly-influential plantation barons, a sizeable population with only a few slaves, a significant group of poor whites with no slaves, native Americans, and of course the unfortunate slaves. Even the slaves had their own caste system.