When did Republicans become the conservative party and the Democrats liberal?

Question

I believe that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican and Jefferson Davis was a Democrat. I've reading a bit on the civil war (for school, so it's not much), and I'm under the impression that during that era, the Democrats were the White Supremacists and the Republicans wanted equality for all. Nowadays, people seem to view the Republicans as racists from the South (not that I do, I'm a Republican and I'm from Davis, CA, one of the most liberal towns I know...), and Democrats as looking forward to reform and change. I was just curious, does anyone know when this started happening?

Answer 1

Actually, while I normally do not recommend people going to wikipedia, I have found their article on the Republican party to be mostly accurate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_Republican_Party

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

When Did Republicans Become Conservative

Answer 3

The substitute got here with the passage of the balloting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 1965. The words 'Liberal and Conservative" weren't used to describe a man or woman political ideals plenty in the past 1976 whilst Ronald Reagan ran and started employing the (ahem) 'L" observe. Southerners have been predominantly Democrats from the time of Andrew Jackson (1820) until 1976. The Republican Abe Lincoln grow to be president whilst the south seceded and whilst the Civil conflict led to 1865, confederates got here back to the U. S. as Democrats. for the duration of one election, a repatriated accomplice grow to be asked who he could vote for and uttered the in demand line " I faster vote for a yellow dogs than vote for a Republican" . From the time of reconstruction until the 1960's the previous Democratic celebration grow to be coalition of mid-west farmers, northern hard work, and segregationist 'conservative' southerners. whilst the the balloting Rights Acts and Civil Rights grew to become in regulation interior the mid 1960's, southern racist Democrats left the celebration and joined the Republicans who welcomed a block of electorate who could desire to restoration the political capability the GOP lost in 1932 whilst FDR defeated Hoover. Union workers interior the north fell into the GOP column in 1980 whilst Reagan defeated Carter. on account that then the GOP has been a coalition of bigotted paranoid union retiree's and racist rednecks whilst the Democratic celebration has grew to become the idealistic celebration interior the form of Lincoln, Jefferson, Kennedy and FDR. 12 minutes in the past - Edit - Delete

Answer 4

Lincoln was a Liberal from the free State of Indiana. Lincoln didn't have anything in common with the Southern Republican party as it is today because it was the Whig party at that time. Your listening to nonsense from these Conservatives that couldn't tell the truth if it was in front of them, mostly because they are under educated to the facts. When Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation the Southern Confederate Whigs receded from the Union to start the Civil war. The Democrat party has always been formed out of the people and for free labor rights, remember Lincoln wrote in his address " For the people, By the People" this certainly doesn't sound like any Republican IE: Patriot Act.

Answer 5

To explain the Dixiecrats (1948) Truman (D) intregrated the armed forces and some of those southern democrats objected. They formed their own party and put Strom Thurmond on the ticket to run for President. They lost and Truman won. It was obvious that most of them could not go back to the democratic party after that so they blended with the GOP. This was not a matter of racism from the GOP but a matter of people who wanted to stay in power and needed one of the parties to do it. This is proven in 1964 when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had a higher percentage of the minority republican party voting for the Act than the democrats. Democrats who voted against the Act were Senators Fulbright and Gore. LBJ gave public credit to Senator Everett Dirkenson (R) for passing the Act. Most of what you hear is crap. Modern dems want to give minorities money and the republicans want to get minorities to stand on their own feet. Note how unable to cope with reality the people of New Orleans were with a long history of democratic rule.

Beware of fools like lennie bruce; Lincoln was born in Kentucky and moved to Illinois. He never lived in Indiana! The Emanicaption Proclamation was brought forth in 1863, two years AFTER South Carolina suceeded!
This is a decent place to find answer but beware the nimrods.

Answer 6

That's a complex story, but I would defintely read, 'The Growth of American Government.' This book would explain a lot.

1910 is officially when the democrats gave up the idea of small government. Previous to that, they primarily existed in the south, and were Jeffersonian-like. Republicans on the other hand were very different... unique, in that while social policy were alway ahead in the north they tended to mirror the suggested corporate favoring of modern republicans (or atleast that's a comparison).

Durning the progressive era there was an incredible amount of social regulation, especially concerning drugs. This was primarily due to the overt fear of black men on drugs. Along with the ushering of the 16th amendment, a large increase in enforcing drug laws and federal adminstrations arised. Both sides of the aisle grew on to the liking of this concept ie build more commisions.

Industrialism and the new complex society did bring about much of this. After the great depression, America was misled into believing it had a need for more government. Now while personally I like FDR in some senses (e.g his foreign policy), I think he had incredibly bad effect on government. Reagan actually voted for FDR, and was a believer in many FDR's policies (mostly concering foreign policies). FDR garnered support from the north and south, and his long tenure created changes in Constitutional interpetation...primarily from court appointments.

These court appointments gave FDR the capibility to heighten spending and create programs that were formally unconstitutional e.g SS. Further grants were rationalized through the courts. This again grew government.

At the end of the war, there was a slight shift to right, but government still grew. Social and political changes started when Truman (democrat) integrated the military and Eisenhower (republican) finished that off. Ike then appointed the judge whom would integrated schools (in Brown).

Along with a growing number of extreme leftists 'black newspapers' that called for equality, the civil right movement started to grow. And I guess if I was a black man I would probably side with that perspective at the time, since black men weren't even looked at as remotely equal in many southern states.

At this point in time, majory upheavels occurred within many groups. The media was much more available, music was out there in full force, political infillstration of communism (was a real threat), and the left in America was going more to the left.

Obviously LBJ's era and the inherent racism still in the south did have an effect in altering the souths allegiance to the democratic party; but fundamentally the idea of limited liberalism or enligtened liberalism was dissapearing in the wind. The programs of old were to be considered temporary, but they were increasing and growing. The extreme pressure it put on the constituency ushered in a new and more libertarian movement with conservative social values. Which began with people like Barry Goldwater, and finally created people like Ronald Reagan (whom switched parties in 62).

Government saturation and growth had finally hit it's limits. Dropping fertility rates ensured the end of big government, and the conservative movement was a sign of the swinging pendulum government would take back to small government...or atleast that's the desire.
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Put I'll correct one thing for you. Democrats were split in the election Lincoln won. This was due to evangelicals whom thought slavery was wrong. The party split. Lincoln himself offered the south a Constitutional amendment to ensure slavery permanently in the SOUTH. The south wanted to maintain their power structure and broke off. Lincoln didn't really care much about black people,...it was a war for many reasons, but not their freedom.

Answer 7

"History repeats itself" and these two parties have evolved and switched issues over the decades, but the modern day derisiveness belongs to Ronald Reagan and Company. He and his cronies were the "great labelers" and degraders of those with different opinions and solutions to Americas needs. They successfully painted conservatives and do-gooders and liberals as the milk-toast wannabees. A shame that his election opponets such as Walter Mondale didn't show courage and intelligence to neutralize the issue.

Answer 8

I am probably in the minority, but I believe liberal and conservative to be principle more than partisan. An individual who stands to benefit from things remaining as they are tends to argue in favor of conservatism, and an individual who stands to benefit from things changing tends to argue in favor of liberalism.

Though there are some who are actually benevolent enough to evaluate this based on whats best for everyone, it seems the majority evaluates it based on self interest.

Answer 9

Politics have evolved since the time of Lincoln and there was a changing of issues being carried by the parties.

Answer 10

It really happened when the KKK decided to run as Republicans because people got tired of the Dixiecrats real quick...

I'm sure I'll get thumbs down for that but it's true...
If you really research the KKK, they had a large part in the shift of racists (who now oppose gay rights and immigration) over to the Republican party.

Ask yourself this - if America is so free, why did we just get our first Black and Female Presidential candidates in history? And which party do THEY represent?

I also want to clarify johngalt0's statement that "Gore" voted against the civil rights act... this is not AL GORE of 2000... it was however, his father from Tennessee that voted against the act. The vote was even out of character for him but he was being threatened and watched by you know who...