Republican History
1854: Founding Principles
A primary reason for the founding of the Republican party in 1854 was that black lives matter.
As the anti-slavery party, slavery ended under our first republican president, Abraham Lincoln.
Ever since, the Grand Old Party's (GOP) core principles have been All Lives Matter and all have inalienable rights. We are the party of freedom and liberty - civil rights, shared with the principles of free markets, economic growth & upward mobility, that we are a nation of laws - not men, and without law & order there cannot be peace & stability to provide the education needed to enjoy economic growth and upward mobility.
Republican principles and history are often distorted by political opponents and the media, and we hope to address these distortions here.
We are the party of ideas, not the party of identity groups with little to nothing in common except for republican opposition. We believe in the words of civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King, jr that "people will [should] not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Again, republican president Abraham Lincoln with Union general, and future president, Ulysses S Grant, (1868/ 1872) freed the slaves.
John Wilkes Booth, an actor and confederate spy, shot president Lincoln the night of April 14th 1865, just three days after he attended a Lincoln speech promoting voting rights to blacks. Lincoln died the next morning. He was the first of three republican presidents assassinated in 36 years.
Lincoln's vice president, Andrew Johnson, a democrat, chosen as VP by a cantankerous party convention in '64, became president. Johnson, who opposed the 14th Amendment which later gave citizenship to freed slaves, saw the formation of the Ku Klux Klan during his presidency.
Timeline: Lincoln through 1876 Election
Lincoln presidency: March 4th 1861 - April 14th, 1865
January 31st, 1865: Congress passes 13th amendment abolishing slavery
April 9th, 1865: End of Civil War
April 11th, 1865: Confederate spy John Wilkes Booth listens to Lincoln speech promoting voting rights for blacks.
April 14th, 1865: President Lincoln assassinated by Booth
April 15th, 1865: Democrat Andrew Johnson becomes president
December 6th, 1865: 13th Amendment ratified; slavery abolished.
December 24th, 1865: Ku Klux Klan formed by democrats in Pulaski TN
June 14th, 1866: Congress passes 14th amendment to give citizenship to freed slaves. Democrat president Johnson opposes 14th amendment.
July 9th, 1868: 14th amendment ratified.
November 3rd, 1868: Lincoln's Union general, republican Ulysses S Grant elected president
February 26th, 1869: Congress passes 15th amendment, to give freed African Americans right to vote
February 3rd, 1870: 15th amendment ratified
July 1st, 1870: Department of Justice created with primary intent to prosecute acts committed by democrat formed KKK
November 17th, 1871: National Rifle Association (NRA) formed with primary intent to arm freed slaves to defend themselves against democrat KKK
1872: Republican president Grant re-elected.
1876 is considered one of the most disputed elections in history. Republican Rutherford B Hayes won the election by one electoral vote (185-184) due to the Compromise of 1877. Democrats conceded 20 contested electoral votes from 3 states including Florida and 1 vote in Oregon to Hayes in exchange for withdrawing federal troops from the south, which formally ended the Reconstruction era, but unknowingly gave democrats the ability to enact Jim Crow laws.
Post Reconstruction
Jim Crow was not a real person, but an early 19th century character that portrayed a clumsy dimwitted slave.
Democrats enacted Jim Crow laws as they began to regain and dominate southern state legislatures in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as they were designed to enforce racial segregation and to "disenfranchise and remove political and economic gains made by blacks during the Reconstruction period." Policies included poll taxes, literacy taxes, and election fraud to suppress black/ republican votes and candidates.
Wiki further states, "as a body of law, Jim Crow institutionalized economic, educational, and social disadvantages for African Americans living in the South."
It should be noted that in the 68 years between 1860-1928, including the elections in those years, only two democrats won the presidency: Grover Cleveland (1884 - NY) and Woodrow Wilson (1912 - NJ); both for one term.
During this time of republican dominance at the presidential level, the Second Industrial Revolution took place, generally considered between 1870 -1914. The 2nd IR saw the beginning of many of today's manufacturing and technological techniques and products.
In 1915 the KKK's second period began at Stone Mountain GA, just a few miles from Atlanta - a city that has not elected a republican mayor since 1879. It's sharp rise in membership led the 1924 democrat convention to be called a 'Klanbake', a play on the more festive word clam bake. Calvin Coolidge, a Massachusetts republican, won the election.
It should also be noted that while republicans had presidential dominance during these decades due to new western states typically voting republican, democrats were slowly gaining in northern states while maintaining their southern stronghold.
Today, the breakdown in the northern cities are overwhelmingly entrenched democrat, while the republican suburbs have become typically red.
twentieth Century & Civil Rights
The republican party is also the party of civil rights - then and now.
In both women's suffrage (19th amendment) and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a higher percentage of republicans voted in favor than democrats.
Women's Suffrage: As stated by WIKI, "between January 1918 and June 1919, the House and Senate voted on the federal amendment five times. Each vote was extremely close and southern Democrats continued to oppose giving women the vote", and after "democrats abandoned a filibuster, 37 Republican Senators were joined by 19 Democrats to pass the amendment . . . ultimately, 76% of Republican Senators voted in favor, while 60% of Democrat Senators voted against."
Regarding the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 80% of republicans voted in favor (138-34) while only 60% of democrats did (152-96). Both the father of Bill Clinton's vice president, Al Gore Sr, and the last KKK member in Congress, democrat Robert Byrd, of whom Hillary Clinton called a mentor after his death in 2010, voted against it.
How are the histories of the republican and democrat parties relevant to today? Past is prologue and maybe, of all people, Rod Serling of the Twilight Zone said it best, in the opening narration of "The Obsolete Man".
Serling stated “You walk into this room at your own risk because it leads to the future. Not a future that will be but one that might be. This is not a new world. It is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who’s ever planted a ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach, to the destruction of human freedom, but like any one of the super-States that preceded it, it has one iron rule – logic is an enemy and truth is a menace.”
Serling was speaking of the left wing ideologies of Socialism/ Communism/ Fascism, and of course, Marxism, which are all fundamentally opposite of republican and American principles.
1964 -2016
After the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, republican president Richard M Nixon signed into law Title IX in 1972, effectively expanding girls' athletic and sports opportunities at the high school and college levels, though it was designed as an anti-discrimination bill.
There has traditionally been bipartisan consensus that Nixon's foreign policy was very successful. It has been said without Richard Nixon there is no Ronald Reagan.
After the disastrous Jimmy Carter administration, America rebounded economically under president Ronald Reagan, and with Margaret Thatcher, defeated the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War.
In 1994 Newt Gingrich led the historic 'Contract with America' election that gave republicans their first House majority in 40 years. Until this election, republicans only had majorities in the House and Senate for 4 years between 1933-1995.
The Contract took, in part, ideas from Reagan's 1985 State of the Union speech and policy ideas from the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation.
With the Cold War won and historic republican majorities following the Reagan Revolution, a tech boom began (remember the Industrial Revolution during republican dominance in the late 19th and early 20th centuries). The economy was strong, however, democrat Bill Clinton's foreign policy alongside (arguably) some domestic decisions, would not be fully realized until the morning of September 11th, 2001.
Current Events & Trump
With, at best, a stagnant economy, crippling regulations, the doubling of the national debt, foreign policy based on appeasement, and rampant illegal immigration during the Obama-Biden administration, with deteriorating cities controlled for decades by democrats, Donald J Trump ushered in an era of historic economic strength.
The events of 2020 are well known, and will be best resolved by republican principles. The republican party believes in peaceful protest but also law & order because they, like American ingenuity, are the foundations of peace, stability, economic prosperity and upward mobility.
It is not a coincidence the cities facing rioting looting and destruction are controlled by democrats. It is not a coincidence they're the same cities where people of color predominately live have failing public schools, high crime rates, and various yet similar other problems.
The democrat party has stayed the same; it has only become more refined, technologically advanced, with a more sophisticated approach to keep people of color, and blacks in particular, down.
Are 2020 democrats the same as 19th century Jim Crow democrats? Jim Crow democrats committed voter fraud to regain power. Today they support Mail In Voting in which fraud is widely acknowledged will happen as they attempt to regain power.
Jim Crow democrats segregated and underfunded schools. Today, democrat controlled cities have the worst performing school systems in the country. Charter schools are competition to public schools so how does a democrat beholden to teachers unions (campaign donations) support their competition? Republicans support Charter schools and school choice.
Jim Crow democrats opposed the NRA because they armed freed slaves to help them protect and defend themselves. Today they're opposed to the NRA and support strict gun control laws despite the results in democrat controlled cities like Chicago, which is primarily black on black crime.
Jim Crow democrats institutionalized financial difficulties on people of color so they couldn't get ahead. Today democrats support higher taxes and more regulations to prevent people from economic growth and upward mobility.
Democrats opposed the 14th amendment that gave citizenship to freed slaves. Today democrats support open borders and want to give amnesty to non-citizens making it more difficult for lower income American minorities to get financially get ahead.
And while democrats continue to support Virginia's democrat blackface wearing governor, democrats strongly support Planned Parenthood knowing blacks are 12% of the population yet account for 39% of abortions.
President Trump believes all lives matter. Before the Chinese virus president Trump's economic policies created the best economy in history as blacks, Hispanics, women, and those without college degrees enjoyed record low unemployment. It is president Trump that signed into law criminal justice reform and supported many black causes. President Trump is also against 'Mail In Voting' because he wants to protect your right to have your vote count and not discounted because of fraud.
President Trump, in his rhetoric and actions, wants America to be strong, safe, stable, and peaceful so everyone can enjoy the freedoms and economic growth & upward mobility that past republican presidents have fought for since our founding in 1854.
