[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "If you don't see the connection between expanding the voting franchise to poor ignorant people who love more government, and liberals gaining power, then you are a bit dense.
It's always about gaining power.
It's never about morality or human kindness."

Of course, you realize, don't you, that Thomas Jefferson's "Democratic" party got its name because Jefferson was all in favor of expanding the voter rolls to include not just property owners -- which had enfranchised women and freed-blacks -- but all men "free, white and 21".
Jefferson's new laws which expanded the vote to all adult men also disenfranchised property owning women and African Americans.

And Jefferson was 100% successful in that his Democratic Party dominated US national politics until they declared secession and war on the United States in 1861.

My point is that this idea of guaranteed election victories by adding more of your own voters to the rolls is as old as the Republic itself.
Jefferson's "Democratics" played that game successfully from 1800 to 1860, then lost it when Republicans were able to fill western states & territories with anti-slavery immigrant farmers, until 1932, when the Great Depression caused many of them to remember their European socialist roots and vote for the closest thing they could find here, Democrat Franklin Roosevelt.

Democrats have always been an alliance of Big City immigrants with globalized Big Business, which back in the Old Days was King Cotton.

As for "morality or human kindness", no human being in all of history could say "no" to the opportunity to make money and gain political power by selling voters their own version of "morality or human kindness".

[DiogenesLamp]

Of course, you realize, don't you, that Thomas Jefferson's "Democratic" party got its name because Jefferson was all in favor of expanding the voter rolls to include not just property owners -- which had enfranchised women and freed-blacks -- but all men "free, white and 21". Jefferson's new laws which expanded the vote to all adult men also disenfranchised property owning women and African Americans.

And Jefferson was 100% successful in that his Democratic Party dominated US national politics until they declared secession and war on the United States in 1861.

BroJoeK, I'm surprised at you. Normally you are more accurate in the bits of history you want to relate. You apparently have fallen for the old claim that Jefferson founded the Democrat party. This is completely wrong. Jefferson's party was the Democratic-Republican party. Andrew Jackson is the actual founder of the Democrat party.

And by the way he was anti-secession, so I guess that puts him on your side. :)

[jeffersondem]

“Of course, you realize, don't you, that Thomas Jefferson's “Democratic” party got its name because Jefferson was all in favor of expanding the voter rolls to include not just property owners — which had enfranchised women and freed-blacks — but all men “free, white and 21”.”

I can't make any sense of this sentence. Did your storied dislike of Jefferson cause you to make an inadvertent misstatement?

Or was it advertent?

[jeffersondem]

“Of course, you realize, don't you, that Thomas Jefferson's “Democratic” party got its name because Jefferson was all in favor of expanding the voter rolls to include not just property owners — which had enfranchised women and freed-blacks — but all men “free, white and 21”. Jefferson's new laws which expanded the vote to all adult men also disenfranchised property owning women and African Americans.”

You contend that Jefferson was “all in favor of expanding the voter rolls and in the same sentence include something about enfranchising women and freed blacks.”

In the very next sentence you state Jefferson was responsible for disenfranchising women and African Americans.

Enfranchise and disenfranchise are not the same thing. They are opposites.

[FLT-bird]

Of course, you realize, don't you, that Thomas Jefferson's "Democratic" party got its name because Jefferson was all in favor of expanding the voter rolls to include not just property owners -- which had enfranchised women and freed-blacks -- but all men "free, white and 21". Jefferson's new laws which expanded the vote to all adult men also disenfranchised property owning women and African Americans. And Jefferson was 100% successful in that his Democratic Party dominated US national politics until they declared secession and war on the United States in 1861. My point is that this idea of guaranteed election victories by adding more of your own voters to the rolls is as old as the Republic itself. Jefferson's "Democratics" played that game successfully from 1800 to 1860, then lost it when Republicans were able to fill western states & territories with anti-slavery immigrant farmers, until 1932, when the Great Depression caused many of them to remember their European socialist roots and vote for the closest thing they could find here, Democrat Franklin Roosevelt. Democrats have always been an alliance of Big City immigrants with globalized Big Business, which back in the Old Days was King Cotton.

You supposedly teach history? No wonder kids are so ignorant about history today.

Thomas Jefferson of course did not found the Democrat Party. That would be Andrew Jackson in 1828. Jefferson had founded the Democratic-Republicans a generation earlier.

The Democrat party was not at the start a party of big cities. It drew substantial support from the countryside throughout the South and had a decent amount of support in the Midwest as well.