Racists Have No Place in the Conservative Movement (ZO!)

Zo has strong words for neo-confederate libertarians, especially those who infiltrated the CPAC conference. He reminds viewers why some libertarians have no place in the conservative movement, and why Republicans should embrace the vision of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.

When the old Federalist Party collapsed after the 1816 election...

It's worth noting that one of the factors in the Federalist collapse was the Hartford Convention, where the idea of secession was merely discussed and rejected, appearing nowhere in the final report of the convention. It was enough, though, for the south to loudly proclaim them as traitors. Here's what one Virginia newspaper said about it in 1814:

"No man, no association of men, no State nor set of States has a right to withdraw itself from this Union, of its own accord. The same power which knit us together can only unknit. The same formality which forged the links of the Union is necessary to dissolve it. The majority of States which form the Union must consent to the withdrawal of any one branch of it. Until that consent has been obtained, any attempt to dissolve the Union, or obstruct the efficiency of its constitutional laws, is treason-treason to all intents and purposes."

Sherman Logan: "Hate to get involved in a rather abstruse discussion, but I think you’re falling prey to a rather common mistake."

I'll show you where we disagree.

Sherman Logan: "So IMO the Whigs were every bit as much a continuation of the original Democratic-Republican Party as the faction that kept the Democratic name.
And so were the Republicans who eventually succeeded the Whigs in the role of opposition party to the Democratic machine."

Nice try, but that doesn't work.
The simple fact, with very few exceptions is: from the first real election in 1796, Southern states voted solidly for Jefferson Democratic-Republicans or Jackson Democrats.
At the same time, New England states voted consistently for Federalists, Republican Unionists, Whigs and then Republicans.

So your suggestion that both modern parties came from the same Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican root is just not right.
The better explanation is to apotheosize John Quincy Adams for his heroic efforts -- the last and futile attempt -- to reestablish the Founding generation's vision of a nation without political "factions" -- as parties were called then.

Adams, like his father was a close personal friend of Jefferson, joined Jefferson's party and tried to unite the country with a single-party leadership.
It didn't work, and party alignments soon returned, just as they had been in, for example, the 1800 presidential election.

If you doubt my explanation, then I'd invite you to do this:
Start here, with the 1796 election.

Note the map where South is green (Jefferson) and North orange (Adams).
Now, click on the link (upper right) for the 1800 election.
Note most states have the same colors.
Now if you'll click through each following election, you'll see that with very few exceptions, the South consistently voted for Jeffersonian/Jackson Democrats, the North for whatever party was in opposition -- Federalists, Republican Unionists, Whigs or Republicans.

So your suggestion that both modern parties came from the same Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican root is just not right.

Of course there was much continuity in New England from the Federalists to the Whigs to the Republicans. And much continuity in the South from the Democratic Republicans to the Democrats, from Jefferson through Jackson, Cleveland, Wilson, and Roosevelt.

But some people want to argue for a massive, monolithic, eternal conflict of Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians or Adamses and Jacksonians that leaves out most of the details in political history. So many people beat it into our heads "Good Jefferson, Bad Hamilton" or "Good Hamilton, Bad Jefferson" that it's not a bad thing to remember how porous party lines could be in the "Era of Good Feelings."

One has to make room somewhere for someone like Henry Clay, who started out as a Jeffersonian Democrat and became a Whig, or James Buchanan, who began as a Federalist and ended up a Democrat, or DeWitt Clinton, a stalwart Democratic-Republican who somehow became a Federalist nominee for president.

Obviously there were established Whig-Federalist and Jeffersonian-Jacksonian families and circles that continued down through the years, but the fact that the Opposition or Anti-Democrat forces picked the early name of Jefferson's own party for their own -- the Republicans -- suggests that the lines of descent were more complicated than some people believe.

Thanks. You appear to understand my point more clearly than I do.

It is perhaps interesting that both you and I are referring to the Whigs and Republicans as “the opposition,” when perhaps the greatest continuity in the “Democratic Party,” at least since the time of Jackson, is that it is a coalition of those who view themselves, accurately or not, as outside “the system,” and therefore opposed to it, while Whigs and Republicans have generally viewed themselves as being, or wanting to be, part of the controlling group.

Since Democrats have dominated politics in most of the last 75 years, this is an odd POV. But I think it is easy when looking at the way Democrats think and express themselves: feminists, liberals, enviros, union guys, blacks, hispanics, Jews, gays. The only thing they really have in common is opposition to what they view as The Man or The Establishment or whitey.

For instance, trying to turn the Democratic Party into a consistent bastion of what we now call Progressivism is just flatly untrue, and requires ignoring Teddy R. and all those other GOP Progressives.

In fact, I contend that the Democratic Party of today, almost excclusively “progressive,” versus the GOP of today, largely conservative, though not as exclusively as the Democrats are, is perhaps the starkest contrast in political parties, ideologically speaking, in American history.

I cannot figure out whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

x: "Of course there was much continuity in New England from the Federalists to the Whigs to the Republicans.
And much continuity in the South from the Democratic Republicans to the Democrats, from Jefferson through Jackson, Cleveland, Wilson, and Roosevelt."

Sherman Logan: "I would also like to point out that trying to project modern political POVs into the past, as if the Democratic Party of 1860 is somehow “the same” as the party of the same name in 2013 is an exercise in utter futility."

I doubt if many today could even describe the party platform differences between, say, a Federalist and a Jeffersonian Republican.
Let's see:

One wanted a bank, the other didn't, but then did.
One wanted higher tariffs, the other lower tariffs, except when imposing an embargo on the other's trade.
One was for looser interpretations of the Constitution, the other for stricter, except when Napoleon offered to sell Louisiana at a bargain price.
One wanted a stronger military, the other to pay off our national debt, except when Barbary pirates demanded tribute.

But which side was which, and how that might conceivably relate to today's politics is beyond most everyone.

My point of view is: in terms of today's politics, all of our early Founding generations -- Federalists, Jefersonians, Jacksonians, Whigs, etc. -- all were small-government, small "r" republicans.
None in their worst nightmares, even Alexander Hamilton, could imagine the bloated monstrosity their Constitution today supports.
All intended the Federal government should be kept as limited as possible.

And from the Founding of the Republic until the Progressive era 100 years ago, under whatever political party was in charge, the Federal Government consumed on average circa 2.5% of GDP, plus whatever it cost to pay for the previous war.
For example: in 1913 President Wilson inherited a Federal budget that was 2.5% of GDP, a national debt under 10% of GDP and falling.
Today Federal Government consumes around 24% (this before Obama-care fully kicks in), while national debt is 100% of GDP and growing rapidly.

That's why I say, in terms of small-government "good guys" versus big-government "bad guys", Founders were all "good guys" from our jaded perspective.

But among those small-government "good guys", Democrats usually dominated, and until 1860 Democrats were always dominated by the Constitutionally sanctioned 3/5 represented Southern Slave-Power.

So, while Southern Democrat majorities remained relatively constant, Northern minority parties shifted and changed, trying to find some formula, some platform which might appeal to enough voters to carry the next election.
But until 1860 Northerners were very seldom successful, and succeeded in 1860 mainly because the Southern Slave-Power, in effect, committed political suicide in order to justify secession.

My point of view is: in terms of today's politics, all of our early Founding generations -- Federalists, Jefersonians, Jacksonians, Whigs, etc. -- all were small-government, small "r" republicans. None in their worst nightmares, even Alexander Hamilton, could imagine the bloated monstrosity their Constitution today supports.

Agreed.

I would also like to point out that trying to project modern political POVs into the past, as if the Democratic Party of 1860 is somehow “the same” as the party of the same name in 2013 is an exercise in utter futility. For instance, trying to turn the Democratic Party into a consistent bastion of what we now call Progressivism is just flatly untrue, and requires ignoring Teddy R. and all those other GOP Progressives.

That it also true.

My own point was the more limited one that someone like Henry Clay might have considered himself a political descendant of Thomas Jefferson in the things he thought important, even though some would class him on the Hamiltonian, big government side of things today.

In 1800 Kentucky and Vermont were new states, recently frontier and strongly Jeffersonian. By 1840, Kentucky was more Whig than Democrat and Vermont was very strongly Whig (and would be very strongly Republican for a century).

I don't think they started to venerate Hamilton and Adams. It was just that new issues came to preoccupy them. They may have considered that the fight against the Federalists, like the fight against the British was in the past and the new priority was developing the country.

20 years later Lincoln was very concerned with balancing former Whigs and former Democrats in his appointments. For a first time voter in the 1860s, all that stuff from 20 years before could have been ancient history.

Lincoln gave us Wilson who gave us FDR who gave us Obama. Southerners got it then and get it today.

Here's the results from Wilson's first election in 1912.

Here's the results from the 1916 election that gave Wilson a second term>

Here the 1932 election, FDRs first term.

Then there is FDRs second term in 1936

Do I need to go on? The Solid South voted overwhelming for Wilson and FDR. So I guess the Southerners got exactly what they voted for.

If you're talking about what happened around 1912 or with the the best explanation of how things were in the 1910s or 1930s or why what happened back then happened.

The big break came when Teddy Kennedy got his pretty much 'open boarders' for the 3rd world Immigration Reform Act of 1965.

Look where those 3rd worlder's settled from the 60s on and you can pretty much tell what will be Red and what will be blue. It took most of a generation to get there, but there we are and on places like New York and California, there is no going back.

It's only going to get worse. Buy stock in the Free Obama Phone company.

lentulusgracchus: "when John Brown was executed in 1859, and Massachusetts Gov. Nathaniel Banks responded by standing up six regiments, fully armed and equipped for the field, ready to go to Virginia to put down the South."

Can anyone source and verify the claim that Banks responded to Brown's hanging by raising six regiments of Massachusetts state militia?
I'm guessing that, per the Militia Act of 1792, every state maintained a militia more-or-less ready to be called up if needed.
So state legislatures routinely provided funds to support their militias.

Does anyone know if something different happened in Massachusetts in 1859?

Remarkably difficult to find anything about what Banks did as governor. He was known for reorganizing the militia, but I can find nothing about this having any relation at all to JB.

The militia in almost all states was a severely decayed institution by 1859, but those in southern states were generally better organized than in the North. Brown’s raid started a frantic expansion, arming and reorganization of the southern militias.

Banks was a Democrat at the time, and therefore more or less by definition less anti-slavery than a Republican governor would have been.

I just finished reading this section of Battle Cry of Freedom. McPherson recounts the northern and southern reactions to Brown’s trial and execution. A good many northerners did celebrate him as a hero and martyr, but every one of the approving citations was from individuals or newspapers, not politicians or official bodies.

Democrats saw denouncing Brown as a way to rebuild bridges to the South, and Republicans scrambled frantically to disassociate themselves from him. Even five of the Secret Six who had supported and financed his Raid ran away and hid in Canada or lied about their support for him. None of this lines up well with the notion of MA preparing to invade VA to rescue him.

There were various plots to break him out, but JB refused to go along with them. He considered (accurately) that his execution would do more to forward the cause for which he fought than anything he might do if freed.

That said, IF the American Revolution is to be considered justified because it was a response by free men to attempts (they believed) to enslave them, I find it difficult to see how slave revolt and JB’s Raid were not much more justified in a moral sense.

Your reply demonstrates that you don’t understand the point I was making. It has nothing to do with who was voted in by whom in terms of political party.

My comment; “Southerners got it then and get it today.” is a reference to the correct belief that states had certain rights over and beyond the federal government. Southerners today who argue that the rights existed then and should still exist today is the reason we have these discussions and NOT because of some idiotic “still fighting the war” nonsense. The debate as to what rights states have is as important today as it was then. THAT issue was not settled because of the WBTS. This was clear in the full context of my postings. Your maps are meaningless in that context. Sorry you went through so much effort for nothing.

The threads that tie Lincoln, Wilson, FDR and Obama together are the belief that state rights are of little or no consequence and that they were/are the “progressives” of their eras. Obama’s total disregard for state rights and )so far successful) psychotic power grab was made possible by Lincoln and built upon by Wilson and FDR. Glenn Beck has done an excellent job of demonstrating and documenting this history. Only Lincoln sycophants would argue otherwise and create nonsensical threads about neo-Confederate “myths”.

As to the two gay guys who attacked me in re to my taking issue with the term neo-Confederate, one need only to look at my original comment to understand my perspective. Thinking, cognitive people reading that would understand that I was saying, you don’t have to be a neo-Confederate to hold the opinions and make the arguments that the poster laughingly tried to label as myths. I rather suspect that they will read this and still not understand the difference. But I don’t have time to waste on fools, morons and neo-Comms.

Thanks for at least trying to interject some actual intelligent comments and points.

Of course, a moderate in Massachusetts would look very radical in Virginia and points South.

John Andrew did help to organize legal aid for Brown. He became Governor after Banks in 1860, and with the coming of the war he would eventually call up regiments for the Union Army. But that was after Brown had been executed and the war had begun.

John Andrew was considered more radical than Banks. So maybe you should look at things Andrew said or things that were said about him or at other wild statements of the day. andrew wouldn't have had the power to actually call up troops in 1859, though.

lentulusgracchus: "when John Brown was executed in 1859, and Massachusetts Gov. Nathaniel Banks responded by standing up six regiments, fully armed and equipped for the field, ready to go to Virginia to put down the South."

BJK: "Can anyone source and verify the claim that Banks responded to Brown's hanging by raising six regiments of Massachusetts state militia?"

Sherman Logan: "Remarkably difficult to find anything about what Banks did as governor.
He was known for reorganizing the militia, but I can find nothing about this having any relation at all to JB."

x: "Banks’s biographer Hollandsworth says that Banks was a moderate who won support among those who thought Brown was too extreme."

On your mention of it, I bought Hollandsworth's book.
It describes Republican Banks in 1859 as a political moderate, a "trimmer" who tried to please all sides, and usually succeeded politically.
But Banks' opposition to the radical abolitionists who supported John Brown cost Banks a united Massachusetts delegation at the 1860 Republican convention.
That in turn lost Banks his opportunity to be on the Republican national ticket as President or Vice-President.

Hollandsworth mentions nothing specific about Governor Banks' relation to the Massachusetts militia, or whether in 1859 Massachusetts' was different from other state militias.

Yes, as a state legislator in 1853 Banks did speak in favor of a militia at his states' constitutional convention, and as Governor in 1859 Banks did watch a fine parade of his state militia.
But there's no evidence any of that had to do with John Brown, or some notion of being ready to go, in lentulusgracchus' words: "to Virginia to put down the South."

Finally, we might note that a Civil War regiment started with ten companies of 100 men each, so six regiments would be about 6,000 soldiers.
In November 1860, more than a month before declaring secession, South Carolina's legislature authorized raising a 10,000 man army.
On March 6, 1861 the Confederate Congress authorized a 100,000 man army, and on May 4, 1861 authorized another 500,000.
Eventually the Confederacy fielded 1,000,000 soldiers and the Union over 2,000,000.

So Banks' six regiments in 1859 -- even if that is the right number -- were hardly adequate to even think about "going to Virginia to put down the South"

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