Nonprofit Tech
Aug 8, 2017 · 2 min read

Wow! You’ve got this talking point wrong. Yes, the Republican Party likes to state that Democratic Party was the party for slavery, and while historically that’s true based on party name. It totally ignores the history of a split party and the re-adoption of names for Democrats and Republicans that totally changed parties. It’s a ‘the devil is in the details’, statement and you’ve gotten the details wrong.

In the 1800’s, especially around the time of and after the Civil War, the Democratic Party was mostly the political party of the south and pro-slavery, opposed the expansion of government powers, pro-small government, etc., etc. Sound familiar. Yes, because essentially, the Democratic Party of today and after 1930 or so, was the Republican Party of pre-1930.

It’s kind of confusing, and I’ll admit to not knowing all the ends-and-outs, but in 1860 the Democratic Party split. The former party found itself split down regional boundaries on issues of state’s rights and slavery.

The Northern Democrats vs the Southern Democrats— the Northern Democrats weren’t necessarily anti-slavery, but they were anti- the expansion of slavery, and the call of the West was huge during this time period, so the issue of whether or not then current slave owners could take their slaves west was a big deal.

This split lead to the creation of the ‘modern’ Democratic and Republican Parties. Basically, Northern Democrats joined the Republican Party (then the party of Lincoln), Southern Democrats hunkered down on their issues, and somehow or another the party names switched during that 50–60 year period of transition.

But in terms of party alignment. If you compare 1936 Democratic president Franklin Roosevelt against his Republican contender, Alf Landon you could clear see the transformation of the two parties. The Democrats believed in and pushed for regulation of financial institutions, founding of welfare and pension programs, infrastructure development and more. Roosevelt won in a landslide on the strength and popularity of the New Deal. While Republicans became the party in opposition of the expansion of federal power, anti-regulation, and more.

This isn’t anti-’give people room to grow and evolve’, because that’s true in a sense. More a clarification, while the Democratic Party has grown and evolved, the issue that you’re focused on is an actual split. Meaning that the Democrat Party of 1860 that you speak of, technically no longer exists. A new Democratic party emerged by 1936, and potentially before that, but with utmost clarity around the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The demise of the old-Democratic Party had massive effects on both the new Democrats and the new Republicans of the early 1900s.

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