The point is to show it is the same class of people as currently live in all the wealthy estates in the Northeast.
They were the ones the progressives imposed the income tax on, and a lot of them weren't happy about that.
And where was the progressive base? If you had to pick the geographic center of it, where would that have been?
New York City was a Democrat stronghold in 1860. Chicago was still Lincoln country and Boston was still puritan and abolitionist, but they would follow New York City after the war and vote Democrat.
New York had a lot of powerful Democrats in it, but I doubt the Cooper Union address was heard by many of them. Most likely the New York Democrats of 1860 only counted themselves as such for the purpose of looking out for their interests in the Southern export trade.
Their interests did not necessarily coincide with the manufacturing men as well as other titans of industry such as the railroad barons.
But yes, Massachusetts and New York formed a progressive coalition and it has remained such to this present day.
People who did want things from the government could wangle them out of any government, Whig, Democrat, Republican.
Only when they had influence on the majority of congress.
There was plenty of corruption in the Buchanan administration and the national debt and deficit skyrocketed.
But it seemed to reach it's peak under Grant. Why would that be?
One hundred years ago it was in states like Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Washington State. It certainly wasn't in New England. Many Southerners had their own version of progressivism. New York was always a big urban state with urban Democrats and some liberal Republicans like Theodore Roosevelt, but New Yorkers didn't much love the income tax imposed by states further South and West.
But yes, Massachusetts and New York formed a progressive coalition and it has remained such to this present day.
That was largely the Kennedys and the general shift of states in the Northeast to the Democrats. Few people would have said that the New England of 1910 or 1920 was especially "progressive," compared to other parts of the country. Penny pinching Yankees were once real. They are all gone now.
But you know, you've been saying the same thing over and over and over for years now. It's even less true now than it was when you started and it's gotten really boring.