Also they lived in the very same areas of the country that today are dominated by Liberal Democrats."
Brooklyn Attitude: "You said all this already.
Are you saying the Republicans of today would be for slavery?
Or that the Repubs back then were generally for it?"
DiogenesLamp keeps posting this cr*p, even though he knows it's all lies.
The truth is that both Democrats and Republicans are the basically the same people today as we were in 1860.
Democrats then (and now) were/are:
- Big city immigrant voters controlled by political bosses like NY's Tammany Hall.
- Racially motivated block voters.
- Big globalized business, based on the cheapest available labor, to make themselves unimaginably wealthy.
In 1860 these were Southern slaveholders allied with Northern manufacturers, exporters and financiers. - Special interests of every imaginable kind, some in violent opposition to each other.
- Supporting Federal laws to enforce their own special privileges.
In 1860, those included Fugitive Slave Laws. - More corrupted, less concerned with traditional values.
- Supporting unlimited immigration.
- Supporting aggressive foreign adventurism, notably the 1858-59 Paraguay Expedition.
- Supporting infrastructure spending which favored their own voters, for examples, the construction of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor and a transcontinental railroad which routed near the home of Mississippi Democrat Senator Jefferson Davis.
- Supporting lower tariffs to make foreign imports cheaper, to drive down American wages and to drive US manufacturing out of business.
Democrat products were highly protected by US tariffs:
- Supporting higher tariffs to protect their own products, especially cotton, tobacco and sugar.
- Bent the US Constitution to the breaking point whenever that suited their own goals, most notably the 1857 SCOTUS Dred Scot ruling.
- Supporting extravagant Federal spending which under Democrats doubled the US national debt between 1856 and 1860.
- A disregard for the values of a strong currency and low inflation.
- In total rebellion against the US Founding Principles, especially, "all men are created equal".
- Supporting effective enslavement of certain groups for the benefit of Democrat voters.
- Demand conformity in speech and silencing of opponents, notably Congress' 1830s era "Gag Rules".
- Average middle-income Americans.
- Living in smaller towns, suburbs and rural areas.
- Family farmers, skilled workers, small business, professionals, managers, law enforcement and military.
- Traditional values, including Christianity and strict construction of the US Constitution.
Young Federalist John Quincy Adams:
- A more circumspect foreign policy that "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy", as John Quincy Adams colorfully put it in 1821.
- Support democracy and independence everywhere, as Adams himself put it in that same quote, the United States "is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all."
- Opposed all schemes of disunion or unconstitutional assaults on states' rights, be that to abolish slavery or abortion.
- Support strong national defense, as a deterrent against war, and when in war support maximum efforts to achieve the enemy's Unconditional Surrender.
Support for soldiers, sailors and veterans. - Oppose slavery in any forms, including unhealthy dependencies on drugs, government welfare or unnecessary regulations.
- Supporting opportunities for advancement through hard work, not guaranteed incomes for Democrat rent-seekers.
- Supporting equal rights not only for African Americans but also for women and legal immigrant citizens.
- Support minimum necessary government, to include balanced Federal budgets, and payment of national debts.
RR routes studied in the 1850s, built by 1880s:
- Support for traditional family values, opposed to polygamy among Mormons.
- Support infrastructure spending based on overall value to the US economy, not just special interests.
A prime example is the central route selected for the first transcontinental railroad. - Support tariffs necessary to protect all US manufacturing, not just those of Democrat voters.
- Supporting Federal government protecting the rights of American citizens abroad against being "abridged or impaired" by foreign governments.
- Support free speech, even when it's not politically correct, whether that be in the 1830s against slavery or today against equally insane Democrat interests.
This map from the 1876 presidential election well shows the political bases of Democrats and Republicans.
Democrats are strongest outside the South around big cities of New York, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, Washington, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, Cincinnati & St. Louis.
Republicans were strong in rural areas of Southern Unionism, in places where Southern freed blacks could vote and in Northern rural counties: