It is absolutely true, that the Democratic party was the party of rich southern slave owners.
It is also true, that the Republicans in NY rioted against the draft, not wanting to die to defend a bunch of southern slaves.
No one's hands are clean.
"No one's hands are clean."
You got that right. I am wondering why we are focusing on the civil war though. I thought we were discussing the evolution of the republican party during King's era?....lol
It is false that the riots in NY were by Republicans. In truth the rioters were almost all poor Irish many fresh off the boats who were being integrated into Tammany Hall's DEMOCRAT political machine. The rioters attacked Republicans and Blacks and considered them the protectors of Blacks and the reason the War was being fought.
NYC was RAT run during the War and consistently opposed it and Lincoln.
One set of hands may have a smudge or speck of dirt while the other was dripping with the blood of the tortured and enslaved. There is NO moral equivalency and it is hard to believe anyone who has looked into this would make such a mistake.
Please read the contemporaneous reports you can find in THE GREAT RIOTS OF NEW YORK 1712-1873, by Joel Tyler Headley and THE GANGS OF NEW YORK, by Herbert Asbury.
"It is absolutely true, that the Democratic party was the party of rich southern slave owners."
That is absolutely not true.
There are now and were then, "subsets" of Democrats.
My family have, historically, all been Dems since the party started and they are unbelievably "right wing".
In western MD, nearly everybody was a Dem until relatively recently.
[the "Reagan Democrat" effect began the shift]
There was little or no slavery out here.
People were almost too poor to afford to live themselves, much less own slaves.
They were coal miners and subsistence farmers.
In fact, the richest man locally was free black who owned all the property that's now the Ft. Frederick state park.
Dems here were [and most still are] God-fearing, strict, moral and conservative people.
Maryland politics are unlike any other, anywhere in the US, mainly because of the war and the declaration of martial law during the war.
Ironically, western Marylanders overwhelmingly ideologically supported abolition but they also certainly opposed and resented being placed "under arrest", for all intents and purposes for something in which they had no active part or stake.
That, more than anything else bascially locked in the Dem vote for well over a century.
Word travels slowly out here and they're only now realizing that the Dems are little more than thinly disguised socialists.
Hmmm....
The riots were chiefly among the poor, largely Irish immigrants.
No, that is not true. The so-called New York Draft Riots were instigated by the race bating Wood brothers who lead the New York Democrat party (Tammany Hall) and both of who hated Lincoln and the Republicans with a passion. Fernando Wood, who was mayor of New York in 1860, actually attempted to have the city secede from the Union upon Lincoln's election. The rioters themselves were mostly recent Irish immigrants who were easy prey for the demagogic Woods and the Democrat Copperheads.
The Draft Riots were entirely a Democrat operation that resulted in the deaths of over 100 blacks unfortunate enough to cross the rioters path.