Earlier this week, the Republican Party celebrated its 165th birthday.
In the years leading up to the Civil War, more and more Americans were growing eager for fresh leadership — and a renewed opposition to the Democratic Party, which had become a shadow of its Jeffersonian self. One think you’ll surely notice in this image is that the Republican Party, which effectively replaced the Whigs as the mainstream opposition, was formed almost entirely on the basis of abolishing slavery.
That’s right — the GOP’s very first issue had nothing to do with taxes, trade, religious freedom, or anything else it is known for today. It began as a single-issue abolition party.
Now, modern Democrats like to see themselves as the true successors to that legacy, based on the idea that the two parties “switched” some time in the mid 1960s. This isn’t true or anything. There was some geographical realignment as the South became more industrialized and thus more pro-business, but had little to do with the Civil Rights movement at the time.
This isn’t to suggest that modern Democrats are pro-slavery. It does, however, prove that the party has always been obsessed with race in one way or another, and Republicans have consistently stood against that.
~ Facts Not Memes
