Talk Elections

People often say that the Republican Party got away from being "The Party of Lincoln" when it was taken over by Conservatism. My question is: "How was Lincoln Liberal?" I have virtually no knowledge of his policies outside of slavery and tarrifs, so I would appreciate input.

Lincoln was most certainly a Liberal within the context of nineteenth century politics, much like every American politician of his day that didn't own slaves/sympathise with those that did.

Hamilton didn't own slaves, and I think today he is consistently considered a conservative.

But i'd consider Lincoln a Liberal because he pushed for nationalization of the railroads, created the first income tax, was against free trade (but I suppose back than conservatism was against that in general.) and generally meddled in the affairs of the economy, ex. the Homestead Act. Not to mention his suspension of Habeas Corpus, and invading the south.

Well I don't know about everything else, but you can't insult the man for invading the South. They attempted to secede, and I think Lincoln made the right decision there.

I went to his wikipedia page, and to my surprise I saw the only political experience he had before President was one term in the US House of Representatives. I had always assumed he was a Senator.

Lincoln and the Republicans of the 1800s advocated a positive role for government in promoting economic development, civil rights, labor, education, agriculture, ect.  

Lincoln created the Department of Agriculture to support farmers; the Comptroller of the Currency to regulate bankers; and signed the Morrill Land Grant College Act, which donated federal land to states for the building of colleges.  

He ran for the Senate but lost.  He also served in the Illinois legislature for several years. 

Well, I don't really count campaigns or terms in a state legislature as experience.

Also, how were the Democrats different? Were they the more Conservative party?

I think so. 

Consider that the 1856 Democratic platform declared that the federal government should not fund any infrastructure improvement projects, that no federal land or money should be allocated to the states for any purpose, that rigid economy must be used in government, taxes/tariffs lowered, no banking regulation, and no federal interference with slavery.

Yes. At one point, in order to stop a bill from passing, he and several other Whig members jumped out a window to deprive the Democrats of a quorum.


That is because he did so well debating Douglas. He actually won the popular vote, which post 17th amendment, would have made him Senator. The State legislative districts were gerrymandered enough to preserve a Dem majority in the state legislature and thus reelect Douglas.


Compared to other countries, almost every American politician was liberal. Of course the term liberal had a slightly different meaning back then as well.


This is where ideological labels become difficult. Lincoln's economic policies were essentially the same ones put forth by Hamilton and then repackaged by Clay as "The American System".


Oh my, "The Cause". ;) :P


At different points, yes. Especially in preserving Slavery and instituting segregation. Though it should be noted that the Populist movement arised from within that very same Democratic coalition, and so did sometimes Progressive Woodrow Wilson, a southerner and racist.

Well, from what I could gather...

For awhile Lincoln was part of the Illinois delegation to Congress. He opposed Polk and the war with Mexico, and the latter cost him his support for renomination by the Whigs. The Whigs were in decline at the time that favored modernity, tariffs, and national integration - whereas the Democrats favored laissez-faire economics, free trade, small government, and states' rights. Lincoln left politics for awhile and as a lawyer developed a deep-seated loathing of injustices and oppression. It is also noteworthy that he refused to demand more pay from his clients than he felt his services were worth or they could reasonably afford. At the time Lincoln felt slavery should be left to the individual states and that abolitionists were doing more harm than good, but with time a fellow by the name of William H. Herdon talked him into a more rigorous position on the matter.

When the Republican Party formed Lincoln liked its abolitionist-friendly platform, helped organize it in Illinois, and despite his relative obscurity got floated as a possible pick for VP by the party's first national convention. Debates in Illinois between Lincoln and Douglas about the slavery issue during a race for the U.S. Senate got a lot of attention; others running for office used their support of one man or the other as a campaign pitch. Later, on his way to Washington after winning the Presidency, he assured people that war was unnecessary and that the North-South crisis was mostly an artificial one. Given the constituencies parties had back then it was not always obvious who was "liberal" or "conservative" all-around but it seems the GOP was progressive in that era.

The Lincoln administration offered federal land-grants to colleges and land to homesteaders. It established a national banking system, paper currency, National Academy of Sciences, excise taxes, income taxes, and a Freedmen's Bureau to provide freed Southern slaves with food, clothing, land, and health care. A Constitutional amendment was passed to abolish slavery, Lincoln declared amnesty for most rebels willing to take an oath of loyalty to the Union, and leaned toward reconciliation in his plan for Reconstruction but never lived to see through its implementation.

Another thing to consider.    When the European revolutions of 1848 failed, radicals immigrated to the US to escape persecution in Europe.  These radicals became part of the Republican party in the 1850s.

For examples:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Willich
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Weydemeyer

As was well said earlier ...
Is Populism liberal?

I do beleive its Herndon not Herdon. :P


I didn't see it in this thread.


Is Populism liberal?

[/quote]

Its not exactly conservative in nature either especially when you look at the policies proposed to deal with railroads etc. Hence why I said ideological labels are "difficult".




The Republican Party included such diverse characters at the time. Whigs, Democrats, Free-soilers, Know-Nothings. So the inclusion of a few radicals and Communists wouldn't surprise me. 

From Lincoln's first annual message to Congress:



Lincoln would be a very conservative Republican today.  It doesn't really make sense to talk about "conservatives" and "liberals" back in his time - people voted along ethnic and regional lines, not ideological, and, if anything, people would describe Lincoln as a "conservative" and Breckinridge as a "liberal."

That, while it can sound Conservative in one light, could sound Populist in another. It depends on who he's referring to. If he's referring to the welfare state, then yes it is Conservative. However, if he's referring to the bankers, the bosses, and the employers, it is Populist (or at least by my definition).

Yes, I think you are right.

Those quotes that don't sound conservative to me at all.    The first one sounds like a statement of someone trying to win the support of the AFL-CIO.   The second one reminds me of  the Clinton-Gore National Performance Review.

He was writing about the conflict between capital and labor.  When he wrote "others, without labor, have enjoyed a larger proportion of the fruits" he is referring to employers, bankers, etc.

That sounds like Young Marx.

That was just my thoughts. He seems to be espousing some form of the labor theory of value (joining ranks with Smith and Ricardo among others) rather than going on some nonsense tirade against then non-existent income taxation (the first progressive income tax in the United States was, in fact, enacted by the Lincoln administration during his first two years in office) or the even more fantastic notion of the 19th century welfare state.

That's pretty much it.  He was complaining about people who make money without actually having to work. i.e. slavers and aristocrats, not the willfully unemployed.  Though it does make you wonder what happened to people back then who would be considered "welfare charges" today.

Is it an upgrade from "The Lost Cause"? :D

It's important to remember that in the context of "Labor" in the south wasn't like in the North. So advertising something akin to socialism in the South was different, because they were horribly treated. So a revolt of the "Labor class" in the south was seen as better than in the North. At least to the damnyankees.

Its actually a shameless steal of a line from the movie Gettysburg. Which takes place just around the time it became "The Lost Cause". Though really in hindsight, it was a lost cause from the moment Fort Sumter was fired upon.



Indeed, in fact Lincoln depended on maintaining support of the laboring class and not just in America. In Britain, after the initial impact of the lost availability of cotton drove working classes to be sympathetic of the south, the Lincoln administration and its representatives came to rely on the them push Palmerston more towards real neutrality and away from the South.

Not only that but it is quite obvious that the people he was referring to as exploiters weren´t exactly ´welfare queens´.

Of course 19th century liberalism has nothing to do with the current American definition of liberalism.

At their hearts, the Republican party has remained the party of economic individualism and the Democratic party has remained the party of political individualism.  They have done so while essentially wriggling around on almost every other issue, especially on the scope and role of government intervention in economic affairs.

How can you be the Party of economic individualism, while changing on the role of government in the economy?

Well, yeah. 'Liberalism' in an American context doesn't mean much more than 'the policies of the Democratic Party'.

The Republican Party has consistently championed having government act in ways to increase the ability of people with talent to make use of such talents for their own benefit.  What has changed over the decades is what is sees as the biggest impediment to such ability and the ways in which government can best promote it.

When it was founded, the primary threat to economic individualism was seen as slavery.  Government could promote economic opportunity for individuals by doling out the public lands to homesteaders, providing for education (at the federal level via land grants for endowing colleges), and seeing to it that essential infrastructure such as railroads were accessible to all.  Also in a purely pro-American vein, they favored having tariffs sufficient to block the competition from the cheap labor of Europe.

Today, the primary threat to economic individualism is seen as the burden imposed by government regulation and taxation.  Government could promote economic opportunity for individuals by eliminating programs that encourage dependency on the government and generally reducing the costly role of government in favor of the more efficient private provision of services. They are also generally opposed to tariffs as harmful to the economy as a whole.

I don't think it was primarily a question of gerrymandering, rather that not all the legislative seats were up for re-election, and the ones not being contested were heavily Democrratic. Iirc the Republicans made gains but not enough.

Not so much gerrymandering as that population grew faster in the 1850's in northern Illinois where the Republicans were strong than in southern Illinois where the Democrats were strong.