“The points in post 120? What points?”
Well let me help you out, BigOaf:
The Progressive Party was formed in 1912 out of a split in the Republican Party, contrary to this gem of ignorance posted up thread:
“The Confederacy, the Progressive movement, the People’s party, the KKK, were ALL democrat created and run”
As for the “People’s party”, the Populist Party, it had nothing at all to do with the Confederacy, despite what your Illustrated History of Late 19th Century Politics says between all the neat cartoon drawings. It was an agrarian movement formed in reaction to the prolonged deflation in agriculture prices, and it culminated in the Free Silver movement.
It’s greatest strength was in the Great Plains and the Southwest, which aren’t the old Confederacy, but perhaps maps aren’t your forte. The Populists did manage to elect a Republican governor in North Carolina, and when they joined forces with the Democrats in the 1890s they nominated William Jennings Bryan, late of Illinois and Nebraska, for President. Perhaps you labor under the impression that Illinois and Nebraska were part of the Confederacy, but alas they weren’t.
And then we had this curious claim of yours:
““Wilson the first democrat President after the Civil war filled much of cabinet with Confederate democrats””
I listed a few members of Wilson’s cabinet: McAdoo at Treasury, McReynolds Attorney General, Garrison War Dept, Wilson at Labor, and asked you which of these were ‘Confederate Democrats’, seeing as they hailed from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. I could have added Bryan at State who was from Nebraska.
Somehow you neglected to point out which of these fine yankees were secret Confederates. Perhaps you were just being coy. Or maybe these weren’t the guilty parties. Well don’t be shy, Iffy, tell us who the Confederates filling Wilson’s cabinet were. Inquiring minds want to know.
And as for this BigIffy gem, “ Wilson the first democrat President after the Civil war”, well once again the first Democratic President after the Civil War was Grover Cleveland not Woodrow Wilson, and old Grover was a pro-business Bourbon Democrat. Cleveland’s advocacy of the gold standard was one of the reasons the People’s Party formed to run against both the Democrats and the Republicans, the populists believing that both major parties were tools of the big bankers.
So those are a most of the points, Iffy. I also mentioned the enthusiasm Karl Marx and Frederick Engels expressed for Lincoln and Union cause, which those two gents regarded as the vanguard of the Revolution back in the day. Now it’s likely that Abe didn’t pay any attention to the two proto-communists, but they certainly believed he was a fellow Progressive.
So I hope that clears up “what points”, BigGuy. If not, well that invincible ignorance stuff is hard to overcome, that’s why they call it invincible. You may just have to live with it.
William Gibbs McAdoo was born in Georgia and educated in Tennesee. His uncle was a Confederate General out of Texas. McAdoo's law partner in New York was the son of John C. Pemberton, another Confederate General. McAdoo gave contributions to Confederate veterans groups and married Wilson's daughter. Generally a progressive, he won KKK support in his 1924 race for the Democratic nomination against Al Smith, a Catholic.
James Clark McReynolds was born in Kentucky and educated in Tennessee. Like McAdoo he lived and practiced in New York, but his roots were Southern. FWIW McReynolds, who Wilson later appointed to the Supreme Court was what used to be called a "colorful character" but is now described with other words:
McReynolds would not accept "Jews, drinkers, blacks, women, smokers, married or engaged individuals as law clerks". A blatant anti-Semite, "Time [magazine] called him 'Puritanical', 'intolerably rude', 'savagely sarcastic', 'incredibly reactionary', and 'anti-Semitic'". McReynolds refused to speak to Louis Brandeis, the first Jew on the Court, for three years following Brandeis's appointment and, when Brandeis retired in 1939, did not sign the customary dedicatory letter sent to justices on their retirement. He habitually left the conference room whenever Brandeis spoke. When Benjamin Cardozo's appointment was being pressed on President Herbert C. Hoover, McReynolds joined with fellow justices Butler and Van Devanter in urging the White House not to "afflict the Court with another Jew". When news of Cardozo's appointment was announced, McReynolds is claimed to have said "Huh, it seems that the only way you can get on the Supreme Court these days is to be either the son of a criminal or a Jew, or both." During Cardozo's swearing-in ceremony, McReynolds pointedly read a newspaper, and would often hold a brief or record in front of his face when Cardozo delivered an opinion from the bench. Likewise, he refused to sign opinions authored by Brandeis. Wikipedia
Must have been the New Yorker in him. There were a lot of Southerners who'd moved up to New York and voted Democrat. They were one important group the party could count on for contributions and talent.
Wilson's Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, was from North Carolina. His Postmaster General, Albert Sidney Burleson, was from Texas He was the son of a Confederate officer and was named after a Confederate General. Wilson's Secretary of Agriculture, David F. Houston, another Texan, was born in North Carolina and educated in South Carolina. He established his academic credentials by writing A Critical Study of Nullification in South Carolina (1896). Wilson's closest associate -- for a time (he seemed to fall out with all his friends) was yet another Texan, Edward M. House.
If what you're arguing about is whether Southerners and Southerners alone, Democrats and Democrats alone, were behind the development of modern American liberalism or progressivism, the answer is no. There were enough Northern Democrats as well as Progressive Northern Republicans. Even among Wilson's appointees and supporters, Southerners probably weren't a majority. And among the progressives of his day, plenty had Northern or Republican roots.
If you're arguing about whether Northerners and only Northerners were responsible for today's liberalism or progressivism the answer is also no. There were enough Southerners and Border Staters like Wilson, Truman, Johnson, and Clinton who made contributions to the liberal side in American politics.
The answer is bound to be more complicated. But since many people today tend to believe that Southerners or Confederates or former Confederates or the sons of Confederate veterans were always conservative, it doesn't hurt to point out that this wasn't always the case.
Well some of the answers you were looking for are already answered before I could respond but I’ll add a little anyway.
The People’s Populist party origniated with the ‘Farmers Alliance’ (a Confederate democrat movement) and swept largely through the Confederate South and was not conservative at all. They held many views that democrats still hold today.
Just as the Confederate democrats needed enemies based upon class warfare to define their political ideology so did the People’s party and do the Progressives. The system is always unfair to all three groups of malcontents.
It was in large part the popularity of the People’s party and populism that helped get Wilson elected. They then of course combined with the democrat progressive movement.
To try and hang your hat on the fact that these movements had influence over both parties when beginning is very weak because it is well known which party championed the progressive movement and the socialist mindset of todays democrat party. That was my claim and it is correct. It was the democrats and Woodrow Wilson which was the face of this movement. The first Southern democrat President since the Civil War.
Woodrow (Tommy) Wilson’s father (Joseph) served in the Confederate Army. Woodrow’s allegiance to the Confederacy was also what fixed his allegiance to the democrat party. (pg 24) Wilson while schooling in Virginia wrote an essay titled ‘Stray thoughts from the South’ whereas he condemned Reconstruction (just as all Lost Causers do) and lamented the South not fulfilling its natural destiny. (pg 37) When beginning his law practice in Atlanta, at a time when Atlanta was unofficially considered the capital of the ‘New South’ Wilson is quoted as identifying himself as a member of “that younger generation of Southern men who are just now coming to years of influence … [who are] full of the progressive spirit. (pg 38)
There are many articles that can be found that talk about Wilson’s southern Confederate democrat appointments. Here is one that even mentions how thrilled the South Confederate demcorats were. They celebrated and even played Dixie. And as is mentioned above he won all of the Confederate states.
http://reason.com/archives/2002/12/18/dixiecrats-triumphant
Wilson even with his northern stay used to speak at the Southern Society of New York (expatriates of the South where Wilson often spoke)and had his alliegances to the Confederate South.
Here is a Quotation from Woodrow Wilson’s History of the American People as reproduced in the film The Birth of a Nation.
“The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation ... until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country.”
Notice it does not say the North but the South. “The Southern Country” even. Woodrow Wilson showed this film in the White House.
To try and claim that it was the Republican pary of the time that ushered in the Progressive movement is either pure ignorance or pure propaganda.
Wilson was a Confederate at heart. He was also of the same party. He was also supported by the Confederate democrats. And the Confederates were always malcontents just as the democrat progresives are today and history shows that. He also was the grandfather of the Progressive movement as we know it.