Posted on 03/20/2002 12:11:00 PM PST by Texans4Freedom
Have you ever wondered why African-Americans abandoned the party of Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party that fought to abolish slavery? This document provides a detailed look at how the RATS have deceived the blacks and continue to steal democracy.
The reason that the Black Community abandoned the Party that has done so much for them is simple. A large portion of the Black Community have their hand out, and those individuals know that the Dimocrats will put something in their open hand. In other words- it's a payoff!!
That explains it. It's a birth defect!!
Special Report
AFRICAN-AMERICANS & ELECTION 2000
By David Barton
Vice Chairman, Republican Party of Texas
In 1911, President Woodrow Wilson wisely observed:
A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is
trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have
been about.i
This is still true today, especially concerning African-American history. Since February is celebrated
nationally as Black History Month, and since four specific historical inaccuracies related to blacks and
politics were prominent throughout Election 2000, this newsletter will review the history of African-
American involvement in the political process.
Democrats, Republicans, & Blacks
One of the more surprising statistics of Presidential Election 2000 was the cohesiveness of the African-
American vote: blacks supported Democrats with a percentage higher than any other voting block. For
example, among traditional Democratic constituencies, union members voted for Democrats by a margin of
62 to 34 percent, and homosexuals by a margin of 70 to 25 percent, but African-Americans voted for
Democrats by a margin of 90 to 9 percent.ii Judging by such results, one could easily assume that blacks
have a long tradition of support for Democrats. Such, however, is not the case.
Historically speaking, political rights were largely unknown for blacks in America until after the Civil War.
Slavery had been introduced into America by the Dutch in 1619 and subsequently enforced upon the
Colonies by British authorities prior to the American Revolution. The American Revolution marked the
first change in the political rights of African-Americans, and many black patriots fought for and achieved
their freedom while fighting for the Colonies during the American Revolution.
Although the attitude toward the century-and-a-half institution of slavery began to change during the
Revolution (with over half the States abolishing slavery), emancipation still was not available to most
blacks in Southern States, even though Free Blacks (as opposed to Slave Blacks) in Southern States did
begin to taste some political freedoms not available to them before the Revolution. For example, in
Southern States, many Free Blacks gained the right to vote, saw educational opportunities opened to them,
and were largely treated the same as whites under the criminal codesiii franchises not available to Slave
Blacks.
The opposition to slavery that first emerged during the American Revolution continued to grow following
the Revolution. The pulpit grew louder in its denunciation of slavery, led especially by Quakers,
Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Unitarians, and Methodists, as well as by prominent political leaders like
John Quincy Adams and Daniel Webster. In fact, many Founding Fathers who advocated the abolition of
slavery in the 1770s and 1780s were still pursuing that goal half-a-century later.
One such Founder was Rufus King, a signer of the Constitution from Massachusetts. In 1785, King
persuaded the Continental Congress to prohibit slavery in all American-held territories, and in 1789, as a
member of the first federal Congress, he obtained passage of a measure to prohibit slavery in federally-held
territories. Due to these efforts, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and Iowa were all
admitted as free rather than slave States.iv
However, in 1819, the Missouri Compromise was introduced in Congress to alter those 1789 prohibitions.
Under that plan, States would be admitted to the Union in pairs six slave States with six free States. King,
still a member of Congress, vigorously opposed the modification of his original plan and fought the
admission of any federal territories as slave States.v Other Founders still alive at that time expressed similar
opposition to the Missouri plan.
For example, Elias Boudinot a president of Congress during the Revolution and, in 1789 as a member of
Congress, a supporter of the ban on slavery in federal territories and all new States warned that if the
Missouri Compromise passed, there is an end to the happiness of the United States.vi A frail John Adams
worried that lifting the slavery prohibition would destroy America;vii and an elderly Jefferson, then living in
political retirement, was appalled at the proposal, declaring:
I had for a long time ceased to read newspapers or pay any attention to public affairs, confident they were
in good hands. . . . But this momentous question, like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with
terror. I considered it at once as the knell [announcement of death] of the Unionviii. . . . In the gloomiest
moment of the Revolutionary War, I never had any apprehensions equal to what I feel from this source.ix
Notwithstanding this opposition, and because so many of the other Founders who opposed slavery had by
then died (e.g., Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush, William Livingston, John Hancock, Samuel Adams,
James Wilson, etc.), the Missouri Compromise passed.
The issue of slavery became a bright line of demarcation in America, with the abolition movement being
countered with equally staunch opposition from the supporters of slavery. Not surprisingly, political
movements formed reflecting the opposing views, with measures like the Fugitive Slave Law (allowing
slaves who escaped to free States to be brought back into slavery), the Lecompton Constitution (written by
pro-slavery forces in Kansas), and the Dred Scott decision (declaring that blacks were property and that
Congress could not restrict the spread of slavery) galvanizing the differences between the movements.
Following a vote in Congress to extend slavery into the Northwestern Territory in May, 1854, twenty
House Members coalesced themselves into a group they titled The Republican Party.x Its declared
purpose was to support the original anti-slavery principles of the federal government. The first Republican
Platform (1856) therefore declared:
Resolved. That with our Republican fathers, we hold it to be a self-evident truth that all men are endowed
with the inalienable right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. . . . That, as our Republican fathers,
when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that no person shall be deprived of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, it becomes our duty to maintain this provision of the
Constitution against all attempts to violate it for the purpose of establishing slavery.xi
(Significantly, every one of the nine planks in the original 1856 Republican Platform condemned slavery or
focused on securing equal civil rights for all.)
Offering Col. John C. Fremont as its first candidate for President, the anti-slavery Republican Fremont lost
to pro-slavery Democrat James Buchanan. Two years later, in 1858, Republican Abraham Lincoln faced
Democrat Stephen Douglas in a race for U.S. Senate in Illinois. That campaign became famous for the
Lincoln-Douglas debates, with Democrat Stephen Douglas defending slavery and Republican Abraham
Lincoln opposing it. Although Lincoln lost that senatorial election, two years later in 1860, he won the
presidency against Douglas, and for the first time Republicans became the prominent party in Congress.
Under Lincolns leadership, the Republican vision of equality moved forward with the Emancipation
Proclamation of 1863, followed by subsequent civil rights bills passed by the Republicans in Congress.
The Republican Platform of 1864 on which Lincoln was re-elected continued its original opposition to
slavery, even advocating a constitutional amendment to abolish that evil:
Resolved, that as slavery was the cause and now constitutes the strength of this rebellion, and as it must be
always and everywhere hostile to the principles of republican government, justice and the national safety
demand its utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the Republic, and that we uphold and maintain
the acts and proclamations by which the government, in its own defense, has aimed a death-blow at this
gigantic evil. We are in favor, furthermore, of such an amendment to the Constitution, to be made by the
people in conformity with its provisions, as shall terminate and forever prohibit the existence of slavery
within the limits of the jurisdiction of the United States.xii
That proposed amendment became reality when, as the Civil War was drawing to a close in 1865, the
Republicans enacted the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery. However, because Southern Democrats
sought to evade the civil rights guarantees intended by the 13th Amendment, Republicans subsequently
passed the 14th and 15th Amendments guaranteeing civil rights and securing voting rights for all former
slaves.
African-Americans promptly joined themselves to the Republican Party that had secured their freedom, for
not only had Republicans fought for the rights of blacks against Democrats but Republicans also offered
blacks political opportunities never before available to them. In fact, so strong was the black affiliation with
Republicans, that in many of the Southern States following the Civil War, the State Congresses were
dominated not only by Republicans but by black Republicans. And numbers of black Republicans were
elected to Congress. For example:
In 1869, Hiram Rhodes Revels (1827-1901) from Mississippi became the first black in Congress, holding
the position of U.S. Senator, being elected as a Republican to fill the Senate seat previously held by
Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Revels later served as the Secretary of State of Mississippi. He was
an ordained minister, serving both as a pastor and as a chaplain during the Civil War.xiii
In 1869, Republican Joseph H. Rainey (1832-1887) from South Carolina became the first black member of
the U.S. House of Representatives.xiv
In 1870, Jefferson Franklin Long (1836-1901) from Georgia was elected to Congress and was also a
delegate to the Republican National Convention of 1880.xv
In 1871, John Mercer Langston (1829-1897) of Virginia was appointed by Republican President U. S.
Grant as a member of the Board of Health of D.C., and in 1876, he was appointed by Republican President
Rutherford B. Hayes as U.S. Minister and Consul-General to Haiti. Langston also was a delegate to the
Republican National Conventions of 1876 and 1890, and was elected to Congress in 1890.xvi
In 1873, Robert Smalls (1839-1915) of South Carolina was elected to Congress, having previously served
as a Republican member of the South Carolina House and Senate.xvii
In 1871, Robert Brown Elliott (1842-1884) was elected to the U.S. House after having served as Speaker of
the House in South Carolina. Shortly after his election, Elliot faced off in a debate over a civil rights bill
against three pro-slavery Democrats: Alexander Hamilton Stephens of Georgia (the Vice-President of the
Confederacy elected as a Democrat to Congress after the Civil War), James Beck of Kentucky (elected in
1867), and John Thomas Harris of Virginia (elected in 1871).xviii Following an attack by those three
Democrats against the civil rights bill, the Republican Elliot rose and responded:
Mr. Speaker . . . it is a matter of regret to me that it is necessary at this day that I should rise in the presence
of an American Congress to advocate a bill which simply asserts rights and equal privileges for all classes
of American citizens. I regret, sir, that the dark hue of my skin may lend a color to the imputation that I am
controlled by motives personal to myself in my advocacy of this great measure of natural justice. Sir, the
motive that impels me is restricted by no such narrow boundary but is as broad as the Constitution.xix
Elliot then went on to recount how African-Americans had fought for America during the Revolution,
during the War of 1812, and during the recent Civil War. He then concluded with this stiff rebuke against
the Democrat Stephens:
He [Stephens] offers his government, which he has done his utmost to destroy, a very poor return for its
magnanimous treatment, to come here to seek to continue, by the assertion of doctrines obnoxious to the
true principles of our government, the burdens and oppressions which rest upon five millions of his
countrymen [slaves] who never failed to lift their earnest prayers for the success of this government when
the gentleman [Stephens] was asking to break up the Union of these States and to blot the American
Republic from the galaxy of nations.xx
The fact that, Elliot, a black, was such an accomplished and effective orator incensed the Democrats. As the
American Methodist Episcopal Church Review reported:
Mr. Beck of Kentucky, and other Democratic members of the House who had felt the force of Mr. Elliotts
rhetoric to their discomfiture, could not deny the merit of his speeches, so they denied his authorship of
them. . . . The charge of non-authorship was made by Democrats upon the general principle that the Negro,
of himself, could accomplish nothing of literary excellence.xxi
The Review also described Elliots work among recently-freed slaves:
From county to county he traveled, teaching them the first lessons in self-government. They sat as children
at his feet and learned from his lips the principles and deeds of the Republican party which had liberated
them and their children from cruel bondage and which was now to give them that silent but potent motive
power: the ballot the safeguard and bulwark of American freedom. . . . Thus early he won for himself
their confidence, and for the Republican party [their] love and devotion.xxii
There were many other notable black Republicans, including John Roy Lynch (1847-1939) of Mississippi.
In 1873, Lynch was elected to Congress and was also a delegate to the Republican National Conventions of
1872, 1884, 1888, 1892, and 1900. In fact, Lynch presided over the 1884 National Republican Convention
in Chicago. (Interestingly, African-American Sen. Edward Brooke presided over the National Republican
Convention in 1968, as did African-American Congressman J.C. Watts, Jr. in 2000. While three African-
Americans have presided over Republican National Conventions, only one African-American, Yvonne
Brathwaite Burke in 1972, has made it as high as Vice-Chair not even Co-Chair of a Democratic
National Convention.) In 1889, Republican President Benjamin Harrison appointed Lynch as Auditor of the
Treasury for the Navy Department, and in 1901, Republican President William McKinley appointed him
Army Paymaster.xxiii
In 1875, Blanche Kelso Bruce (1841-1898) of Mississippi was elected to the U.S. Senate the first black to
serve a full term in the Senate. In 1881, he was appointed by Republican President James A. Garfield as
Registrar of the U.S. Treasury.xxiv
In 1875, Charles Edmund Nash (1844-1913) of Louisiana was elected to Congress the first African-
American to represent Louisiana in Congress.xxv
In 1889, Henry Plummer Cheatham (1857-1935) of North Carolina was elected to Congress and also was a
delegate to the Republican National Conventions of 1892 and 1900.xxvi
In 1890, Thomas Ezekiel Miller (1849-1938) of South Carolina was elected to Congress, having previously
served in the State House and Senate.xxvii
In 1893, George Washington Murray (1853-1926) of South Carolina was elected to Congress and also was
a delegate to several Republican National Conventions.xxviii
In 1966, Republican Edward William Brooke III (1919- ) of Massachusetts became the first black to be
elected to the U.S. Senate after the 17th Amendment (providing for the direct election of Senators rather
than their appointment by State legislatures), thus making him the first black ever elected to the Senate by
popular vote.xxix
There are many more black Republican officeholders worthy of mention, one of whom is the Hon.
Pinckney Benton Stuart Pinchback who, in 1872, served as Governor of Louisiana, becoming the first black
Governor of any State.xxx Additionally, the first black presidential electors were Republicans and included
Robert Meacham, B.F. Randolph, Stephen Swails, and Alonzo Ransier. In fact, black Republican James H.
Harris was part of the committee which in 1868 informed U.S. Grant of his nomination for President.xxxi
There are many other examples of how blacks achieved numerous political firsts within the Republican
Party; and so great were the gains of blacks in the Republican Party that in 1866, the Ku Klux Klan was
formed to battle both Republicans and blacks with the declared purpose of breaking down the Republican
government and paving the way for Democrats to regain control in the elections.xxxii As a result, blacks
were terrorized by murders and public floggings (relief was granted only if blacks promised not to vote for
Republican tickets, and violations of this oath were punished by death), and Republican officials were
attacked both at home and at the office. In fact, in 1866, Democrats, in conjunction with the mayor and the
city police, attacked a Republican Convention of blacks and whites in New Orleans where they killed 40
and wounded 150.xxxiii
In historical retrospect, the story of the Republican Party is largely of their opposition to slavery and racism
while that of the Democratic Party is largely of their support for it. Similarly, African Americans made
their most significant political and civil rights progress while affiliated with the Republican Party.
In fact, in the history of Congress, 105 black Americans have been elected 101 to the House and 4 to the
Senate; and of the 4 blacks elected to the Senate, 3 have been Republicans (the lone Democrat was Carol
Mosley-Braun, elected in 1992 and defeated in 1998). And even today in 2001, there are 39 black Members
of Congress: one Republican and thirty-eight Democrats. The black Republican (one of 271 combined
Republicans in the House and the Senate) was elected by his Republican peers to a position of Republican
leadership in this Congress; but of the thirty-eight black Democrats (from among the 262 combined
Democrats in the House and the Senate), none was elected by his Democratic peers to any leadership
position.xxxiv
Al Gore, George Bush, and the Three-Fifths Clause
Judicial appointments were an issue during Presidential Campaign 2000. Bush promised to appoint strict
constructionists who would support the wording of the Constitution rather than rewrite it, while Gore
promised to appoint judges who viewed the Constitution as a living, organic document, reflecting the
philosophy set forth by Supreme Court Chief-Justice Charles Evans Hughes who declared, We are under a
Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.xxxv
Gore, trying to capitalize on the differences in their philosophies, and exploiting Americas historical
illiteracy, repeatedly warned black voters:
When my opponent, Governor Bush, says hell appoint strict constructionists to the Supreme Count, I often
think of the strictly constructed meaning that was applied when the Constitution was written how some
people (slaves) were considered three-fifths of a human being.xxxvi
According to Gore, Bush apparently would appoint racist Justices to the Supreme Court. This is based on
Gores belief that the three-fifths clause of the Constitution was a pro-slavery provision a provision
declaring blacks to be only three-fifths of a person. Significantly, however, the three-fifths clause was not a
pro-slavery clause, and it did not relate to human worth; rather, it was an anti-slavery apportionment
provision designed to limit pro-slavery Southern representation in Congress.
The Constitution allowed one Representative to Congress for each 30,000 inhabitants in a State. Since
slaves accounted for more than half the population in some Southern States, slave-owners in the South
therefore wanted to count slaves as if they were free inhabitants, thus potentially doubling the number of
their pro-slavery representatives to Congress. The abolitionists from the North strenuously objected to
counting the slaves, knowing that the fewer the pro-slavery representatives in Congress, the sooner slavery
could be eradicated.
Interestingly, the anti-slavery Founding Fathers, in debating this representation question, actually used
many of the Souths own arguments against them. One such example was that of William Paterson of New
Jersey, a signer of the Constitution later appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President George
Washington. Adopting the Southern arguments that slaves were property, Paterson argued that since
Negro slaves. . . . are no free agents, have no personal liberty, no faculty of acquiring property, but on the
contrary, are themselves property, and like other property, entirely at the will of the master, then those
slaves should not be used to calculate representation to Congress because, according to the true principles
of representation, legislative assemblies were the result of citizens sending representatives as their
substitutes.xxxvii Since slaves could not attend a meeting of citizens or send a substitute in their stead, they
therefore should not be used to allow slave-owners to gain more representatives to Congress.
Further exploiting the absurdity of the Southern reasoning, other anti-slavery Founders argued that if slaves
were nothing more than property but still were to be counted for the purpose of congressional
representation, then livestock in the North should also be included as the basis of calculating Northern
representation. For example, according to the records of the Constitutional Convention:
Mr. [Elbridge] Gerry [signer of the Declaration from Massachusetts] thought property not the rule of
representation. Why then should the blacks, who were property in the South, be in the rule of representation
more than the cattle and horses of the North?xxxviii
James Wilson of Pennsylvania, a signer both of the Declaration and the Constitution, agreed:
Are they [slaves] admitted as citizens? Then why are they not admitted on an equality with white citizens?
Are they [slaves] admitted as property? Then why is not other property admitted into computation?xxxix
The anti-slavery leaders fully wanted Free Blacks to be counted, but not slaves, since counting slaves
would increase the influence of slave-owners. Furthermore, Benjamin Rush of Pennsylvania, a signer of the
Declaration of Independence and a co-founder with Benjamin Franklin of Americas first abolition society,
argued that if only Free Blacks were counted, it would have the excellent effect of inducing the colonies to
discourage slavery and to encourage the increase of their free inhabitants.xl
When the issue finally came to a vote at the Constitutional Convention, slave-owners proposed that slaves
be counted as full persons for purposes of representation. The motion lost, with only the most strident
slave-owning States supporting the measure.xli With it clear that slaves would not be used as the means of
doubling Southern representation, Benjamin Harrison, a slave-owner in Virginia, proposed a compromise,
suggesting that two slaves be counted as one freeman.xlii The slave States, however, rejected this proposal,
wanting all slaves fully counted.xliii The final compromise was that only sixty percent that is, three-fifths
of slaves would be counted to calculate the number of Southern representatives to Congress.xliv
Yet, even though this measure reduced the number of slave-holding representatives to Congress, it was still
seen as unfair by many in the North. In fact, the Massachusetts legislature passed a resolution objecting to
the three-fifths clause because, in slave-holding States, a planter possessing fifty slaves may be considered
as having thirty votes, while a farmer of Massachusetts, having equal or greater property, is confined to a
single vote.xlv Clearly, the three-fifths clause was only a ratio used to calculate the amount of
representation and had nothing to do with the worth of any individual.
Based, therefore, on the self-evident historical records, two prominent professors summarize the meaning
of the three-fifths clause:
[T]he Constitution allowed Southern States to count three-fifths of their slaves toward the population that
would determine numbers of representatives in the federal legislature. This clause is often singled out today
as a sign of black dehumanization: they are only three-fifths human. But the provision applied to slaves, not
blacks. That meant that free blacks and there were many, North as well as South counted the same as
whites. More important, the fact that slaves were counted at all was a concession to slave owners.
Southerners would have been glad to count their slaves as whole persons. It was the Northerners who did
not want them counted, for why should the South be rewarded with more representatives, the more slaves
they held? Thomas West, Professor of Politicsxlvi
It was slaverys opponents who succeeded in restricting the political power of the South by allowing them
to count only three-fifths of their slave population in determining the number of congressional
representatives. The three-fifths of a vote provision applied only to slaves, not to free blacks in either the
North or South. Walter Williams, African-American Professorxlvii
Many of todays leaders, both black and white, tend to misrepresent the meaning of the three-fifths clause.
Al Gores invoking the three-fifths clause against George Bush is proof of this fact, and even Jesse Jackson
makes the same uninformed claim. In the Shadow Convention of Los Angeles in August, 2000, Jackson
complained: There was a lot of talk a few weeks ago [at the Republican National Convention in
Philadelphia] about the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. In that Constitution. . . . African-
Americans were considered three-fifths of a human being.xlviii
Those who make this claim would profit from a study of Frederick Douglass, the great black leader and
abolitionist. Douglass said that after his escape from slavery, he initially believed (like Gore and Jackson)
that the Constitution was pro-slavery. As he explained:
Brought directly, when I escaped from slavery, into contact with a class of abolitionists regarding the
Constitution as a slaveholding instrument . . . it is not strange that I assumed the Constitution to be just
what their interpretation made it.xlix
However, when Douglass became a writer and a spokesman for the abolition movement, he found that
accuracy and truth were important, and so, as he explained:
My new circumstances compelled me to re-think the whole subject, and to study, with some care. . . . By
such a course of thought and reading, I was conducted to the conclusion that the Constitution of the United
Statesl . . . not only contained no guarantees in favor of slavery, but, on the contrary, was in its letter and
spirit an anti-slavery instrument.li
How could Douglass say this? Had he not read the three-fifths clause? Yes, he had; and based on his own
study of the facts, Douglass learned to praise the three-fifths clause as an anti-slavery provision. Gore,
Jackson, and others could learn an accurate view of history and the Constitution from the example of great
black leaders like Frederick Douglass!
A
L GORE, GEORGE BUSH, AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS AND VOTING RIGHTS ACTS OF THE
1960S
When blacks were interviewed following Election 2000, many explained that they had supported Gore for
fear that if Bush were elected President, he would take away the right of blacks to vote a charge
circulated by Gore supporters. The basis for this charge is the fact that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 will
be up for renewal under the next President, and according to current folklore Republicans are racists
who oppose civil rights; why as the argument goes they even opposed the Civil Rights and Voting
Rights Acts of the 1960s and certainly would continue to oppose them today! Actually, historical facts
prove just the opposite.
The first civil rights act was that of 1866, passed by Republicans in Congress, making it illegal to deprive a
person of civil rights because of race, color, or previous servitude. Subsequent civil rights laws were passed
by Republicans in 1870, 1871, and 1875 to allow the national government in Washington, D.C. to protect
black Americans from white-dominated Democrat Southern State governments. However, it was nearly a
century later before similar additional civil rights laws were passed.
Why the delay? As explained by Professor Robert D. Lovey, author of A Brief History of Civil Rights in
the United States of America, the nationalization of black civil rights came to a complete end in 1892
when the Democrats gained control of the presidency and both houses of Congress for the first time since
the Civil War. By 1894, this Democratic Congress had succeeded in repealing most of the civil rights laws
that had been enacted during the post-Civil War period, most importantly the provisions that had to do with
voting rights. This wholesale removal of protections left the black citizen in the South almost completely at
the mercy of Southern State governments, and the result was a rash of State laws protecting the right of
white citizens to segregate themselves from black citizens in many aspects of social and political life.lii
African-Americans, therefore, being the victims of Democratic-sponsored racism and segregation,
continued their loyalty to Republicans well into the 20th century. In fact, in the 1932 presidential election,
incumbent Republican President Herbert Hoover received more than three-fourths of the black vote over
his Democratic challenger Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Roosevelt, however, won the election; but because civil rights bills were widely opposed by Southern
Democrats, and because Southern Democrats had been a key constituency in his victories, Roosevelt chose
not to introduce civil rights bills. He did use executive orders to help further some civil rights, and he also
established a Civil Rights Section in the Justice Department; he even directed much of the spending of the
New Deal programs toward blacks. As a result, black voters slowly began to switch from the
Republicans to the Democrats. As one civil rights historian explains, In the years following the New Deal,
the Democratic Party found it best to win black votes with economic benefits rather than by advancing the
cause of black civil rights.liii
Following President Roosevelt, Democrat President Harry S. Truman did propose a civil rights bill, but it
was not passed; and its introduction effectively ruined Trumans relationship with Southern Democrats in
Congress.
Even though Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower knew that it would be difficult to change the
Southern Democrats belief in racial segregation, he determined to eliminate racial discrimination in all
areas under his authority. He therefore issued executive orders halting segregation practices in the District
of Columbia, in the military, and in the federal bureaucracy. Furthermore, Eisenhower was the first
president to appoint a black, Frederic Morrow, to an executive position on the White House staff.
Eisenhower consequently received significant support from black voters in his reelection to the presidency
in 1956. In 1960, he introduced a civil rights bill, but it was promptly blocked by the Democratic Chairman
of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Although a Republican Senator and the Republican Attorney General
proposed compromise language, it, too, was rejected by the Democrats.liv
When Democratic President John F. Kennedy was elected in 1960, he was less willing than Eisenhower to
utilize executive orders to promote civil rights. In fact, Kennedy delayed for more than a year the signing of
an executive order to integrate public housing. But following the violent racial discord in Birmingham in
1963, Kennedy finally sent a major civil rights bill to Congress and then aggressively worked for its
passage, but was assassinated before he could see its success. To achieve passage of the measure, Democrat
successor Lyndon Johnson resurrected the compromise language proposed by Republicans under
Eisenhower in 1960, thus breaking a Southern Democratic filibuster of the civil rights bill and allowing
Johnson to sign into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.lv
While these two important civil rights acts were signed into law under a Democratic President, it was the
Republicans in Congress who made possible the passage of these Acts, for even though the Democrats
controlled both Houses by wide margins, they still could not garner enough of their own votes to pass the
bills. In fact, in the House, only 61% of the Democrats voted for the Civil Rights Act (152 for, 96 against)
while 80% of Republicans voted for it (138 for, 38 against).lvi In the Senate, only 69% of Democrats voted
for the Act (46 for, 21 against) while 82% of Republicans did (27 for, 6 against).lvii The passage of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would not have been possible without the strong,
cohesive support of the Republicans. In fact, all Southern Democrats voted against the Civil Rights Act,
including Sen. Al Gore, Sr., who voted with the Southern Democrats against civil rights whenever the
occasion arose.lviii
One other important civil rights note is that after the Democrats regained control of the federal and of many
State governments in the 1880s and 1890s, they instituted what became known as white primaries to keep
blacks from being placed on the ballot.lix Democrats also developed poll taxes to keep blacks from voting
because, according to prominent Democrat leader A.W. Terrell, the 15th Amendment guaranteeing black
voting rights was the political blunder of the century.lx
As confirmed by Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Democrats amended their State constitutions or drafted
new ones to include various disfranchising devices. When payment of the poll tax was made a prerequisite
to voting, impoverished blacks and often poor whites, unable to afford the tax, were denied the right to
vote.lxi How effective were the Democratic poll taxes in keeping blacks from voting? In Texas alone,
100,000 blacks had voted before the poll tax was instituted but only 5,000 afterwards.lxii
While an attempt was made in 1943 in Congress to repeal the poll tax instituted by Southern Democrats,
the repeal failed, with the floor of Congress becoming the site of ugly racist rhetoric.lxiii It was not until
1966 that the poll tax was ended, and it had only been in 1944 that the white primaries had finally ceased.
Significantly, it was not Democrats, but the Republicans, who had long championed the repeal of the poll
tax. In fact, as early as 1896, the Republican platform declared:
We demand that every citizen of the United States shall be allowed to cast one free and unrestricted ballot,
and that such ballot shall be counted and returned as cast.lxiv
Clearly, then, the charge that Republicans in general, and George Bush in particular, would not extend the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 is completely without any factual basis and relies solely on historical
revisionism.
Yet, despite the unequivocal (but often unknown) records of history, todays blacks often hold an opposite
view. As African-American professor Ronald Walters explains in Black Oklahoma Today:
[Blacks] vote their interests and when it appears that a person or party doesnt particularly like them, they
will take their business elsewhere. The elsewhere for blacks has generally been with Democrats, largely
because of the feeling that, even though Democrats have also done them wrong, they feel that Democrats
are less prone to be racist than Republicans.lxv
However, as black media personality R.D. Davis of Alabama correctly observes, History tends to
unilaterally and falsely depict Republicans as racists when Southern Democrats truly deserved this title.lxvi
Family Values, Blacks, and Party Politics
The history of blacks in the American political process shows that blacks were originally drawn to the
Republican Party for its values and made their greatest strides in civil rights and elected representation
under the Republican Party, but by economic allurements begun under President Roosevelt, were finally
enticed to join the Democratic Party. Notwithstanding their change in party affiliation, the current values of
African-Americans not only are generally more conservative than those of whites but are still best
represented by the Republican rather than the Democratic Party. For example, recent polls demonstrate that
blacks:
� Oppose the legalization of marijuana by a margin of 75% to 21% (while whites oppose it by a margin
of 73% to 24%);
� Support English as the official language by 84% to 15% (whites by 82% to 16%);
� Support a constitutional amendment to return prayer to schools by 80% to 17% (whites 71% to 26%);
� Oppose same-sex marriages by 71% to 23% (whites 66% to 29%);
� Support educational choice by 73% to 24% (whites 57% to 39%);
� Support charitable choice by 74% to 24% (whites 51% to 46%); and
� Support a flat tax by 51% to 24% (whites 52% to 44%).lxvii
Additionally, blacks:
� Support the death penalty by 64% to 31% and
� Support a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution by 75% to 24%.lxviii
Ironically, the Democratic Party as demonstrated both by its platform and by its voting record in
Congress not only opposes school prayer, educational choice, a flat tax, charitable choice, and a balanced
budget amendment to the Constitution but also supports same-sex marriages all positions opposite to
those held by most blacks.
While African-Americans currently have more in common with Republicans than with Democrats, it has
been a lack of knowledge of the political history of African-Americans that has allowed the current
fallacious misportrayals to be accepted a fact made clear during Presidential Election 2000.
Summary
In short, an historical review of black involvement in the political process demonstrates that: (1) African-
Americans made their greatest political advancements in the Republican Party (in fact, while Democrats
have talked the talk, Republicans have walked the walk); (2) the three-fifths clause was not a racist, proslavery
provision in the Constitution but rather was an abolition part of the Constitution; (3) the Civil
Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the 1960s were the product of Republicans, not Democrats, and therefore
were not in danger from Republicans in this election; and (4) black values generally continue to be
conservative and are best reflected by the values expressed in the Republican rather than the Democratic
platform.
Even though it was Democrats who actually committed the racial injustices of which they accuse
Republicans, many today believe just the opposite, thus affirming a statement attributed to William James
(the father of modern psychology):
There is nothing so absurd but if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it.
Now, more than ever, President Woodrow Wilsons declaration is true:
A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is
trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have
been about.lxix
R E P U B L I C A N P A R T Y O F T E X A S
There's obviously something wrong with this report. Everyone knows that slavery was introduced into America by Newt Gingrich and the Republicans in 1994.
</sarcasm>
Richard F.
What? That's bullcorn! George Wallace eventually became a Republican? Former Klan recruiter Senator Robert Bird became a Republican? No. Didn't happen that way.
There were far more of the segregationists who remained Democrats like Al Gore Sr., Lester Maddox, and Clinton's mentor, Wm. Fullbright. Another irony is that they called those old racist creeps "Conservatives"! There was nothing conservative about them. From Russell Long all the way up to Bobby Byrd, they were all feeding big time at Uncle Sams pork barrel. They were FDR Democrats who never saw a spending program they didnt love.
Bingo! This is precisely the reason. Black Americans have been sold the notion that nothing good is ever going to happen to them unless the government does it. They've literally becomes wards of the state. So, whomever promotes expansion of the state and state services, will get their support. This "slavish" support of the state and the statist party is literally a "plantation mentality" that is truly offensive and demeaning, considering the history of blacks in this nation.
The support for slavery reparations is a spinoff from this plantation mentality. Anyone who thinks that the US government, or the American people owe the descendents of slaves anything should go and read Lincoln's second inaugural address. They want money, but the freedom of slaves was paid for in the blood of people from both the north and south. 350,000 union soldiers alone gave their lives for Union and for the end of slavery -- the losses touched nearly every family in the nation. Why shouldn't white families ask for reparations from blacks for the loss of family members in the struggle which set the slaves free?
The kind of politics which the Democrat Party practices -- one that creates racial divisions, class envy, and dependence -- is criminal in my opinion. Thank God that many African Americans are freeing themselves from this plantation mentality, and it's no coincidence that these "emancipated blacks" are more aligned with the Republican Party.
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