And much like today it cloaks their real agenda which is pure political power.
Modern day Dems wish to use black bloc political power and exploit it and they do.
Radical Republicans were simply extending a rift they had with the Southern states from inception over congressional representation of black population counts in the south even though blacks did not vote....course plenty of others did not vote till the 1850s(?) in both the north and south....there were many other issues too
The more slavery spread, the more diminished northern political power became with slave state whites outweighing them disproportionately due to things like the 3/5ths compromise etc
and so it goes....now instead of Republicans from states with tiny black populations demanding how the South should act, we have Democrats from northern states with smaller black populations telling us with large black populations how to act.
and of course the Republicans were not much on States Rights same as the Dems today
I could go on and on but you knew all this already, you’re not stupid Ditto...you just prefer to frame your views by your perspective same as I and from probably the same facts
I have never bought the notion that both parties are comparable over a long timeline....very inaccurate to me.
The white south is not GOP today because we changed but rather because the parties did.
The largest factor (aside from the Democrat party lurch to the far left on military and foreign affairs issues in the late 1960s) is likely the population shifts that occurred during the decades after WWII when white Republican professionals from Norther States began relocating to the South. (Thanks to air conditioning and the Cold War growth of the military and areospace industry in that region.) Guys with names like Gingrich, Barr and Bush. I have a number of friends and family members who are among those imported "Southern Republicans" and trust me, they have absolutely no relationship with the FDR New Deal segregationist Democrats who ran the "Solid South" of my youth.
The more slavery spread, the more diminished northern political power became with slave state whites outweighing them disproportionately due to things like the 3/5ths compromise etc
Kind on a confusing argument since the 3/5ths compromise only really mattered in congressional apportionment. Slaves, be they in Alabama or some new State, counted exactly the same in terms of congressional seats. How would spreading that slave population out over additional states effect the balance of power in Congress?