Replies

Who between Bryan and McKinley supported the Constitution and limited government? Usually it’s the Democrats who have always wanted unconstitutional government expansion. How was it different in 1896?

The election of 1896 was a watershed in American History. Up until that point the Republicans were the (for that time period) progressive party and the Democrats were the more conservative. Of course the concept of progressive and conservative were vastly different in those days. But the Democrat Grover Cleveland was a strict constitutional conservative who favored the smallest possible government and a policy of sound money (Gold) and low tariffs. Up until then the GOP favored compulsory public education (mostly to suppress private (non-Protestant) religious schools and ensure Protestant instruction for Catholic children. Religious education in public schools was still normative then. The GOP was generally the home of other progressive agitators including those favoring prohibitionism and women's suffrage. Republicans also wanted restrictions on non-Protestant immigration. (At the time there was a wave of Catholic and Jewish immigration coming from southern and Eastern Europe.) The GOP was also more or less openly in favor of American Imperialsm and Colonialism while Democrats were anti-imperialists.

But the great issue of the campaign was monetary policy which was where you saw the two parties begin to cross to opposite ideological sides. The GOP was more sympathetic to those favoring bi-metalism (the silverites) who wanted free coinage of silver at a Federally mandated exchange rate of 15 oz of silver to 1 oz of gold. This of course was preposterous since the real value of silver was less than half that. The Free Silver men also demanded the repeal of gold clauses in bonds and other debt instruments which required repayment of lent money (gold) with gold at the specified interest rates. In effect what they were demanding was the cancellation of half of all debts in the United States via currency debasement. Hence the reference to "repudiation." To say that this would have been catastrophic would be a gross understatement.

But in 1896 this began to change. Bryan was a progressive populist who was an implacable enemy of the gold standard and wanted inflation and repudiation of gold backed debt by demanding that silver be accepted at twice its true value. He also supported prohibition and various other causes of a like nature. By contrast McKinley came out in firm defense of sound money and a more restrained government. The Democrats (many of whom were still in favor of sound money) split in 96 and huge numbers defected to McKinley and the Republicans. After McKinley's assassination in 1901 Theodore Roosevelt became the first and last radical progressive Republican President. Thereafter all Republican Presidents have been at least moderately conservative (Nixon being an arguable exception). And beginning with Woodrow Wilson all Democratic presidents have been liberals.

Before the rise of William Jennings Bryan and the Populist movement, the Democrats were considered the party of the farmer and the workingmen. They were the party supporting states' rights, free trade, limited internal improvements, a limited military force, and a relatively weak Federal government. Grover Cleveland was that type of Democrat, with an ideology closer to Ron Paul in our time than any other contemporary politician. The Republican Party was a pro-business party, favoring Federal supremacy, protective tariffs, a stronger infrastructure, whether public or subsidized private, a strong military, and an activist Federal government. Most of the Republicans, from Lincoln to McKinley, were pro-business.

Bryan maintained traditional Democrat positions on foreign and military matters. However, he favored massive regulation of business, government control of utilities, and a loose money supply. His campaigns laid the groundwork for the rise of Woodrow Wilson, the first true liberal President in the modern sense.