Yes, the Democrats Did Own Slaves and the Republicans Did Free Them

“It’s hilarious that the leftists say they’re not racist when it was their party who owned slaves and started the KKK!”

The news media must have said something real loud about this point, because I am hearing it OVER and OVER. It was real, real hard not to put “leftists” in quotations up there, but I wanted to keep the argument true to the way they’re making it.

The facts are true, on their face. Democrats were historically slave owners and founders of the KKK. I won’t even try to argue that, because it’s a known historical fact.

The piece that’s missing from that argument is the way the parties have evolved over time. In this post, I’m digging into the history of the two parties, examining the “party switch”, and running my mouth about how I interpret that information (as usual).

Up top, let’s start with this, which is something you’ll hear from me a lot if you stick around this blog. I reserve the word hate as a practice, because I feel I can only hate something if I understand the argument fully. I can dislike lots of things, but still find an argument that I find credible to support it; i.e. Don Lemon tagging along on the Church Protest. I don’t like that choice, but the fact is he’s a journalist and he was doin’ a journalism.

Even still, I can confidently state that I hate racism, homophobia, sexism, and Jake Lang.

I don’t care who does racism, sexism, or homophobia – I feel that same whether it’s a democrat or a republican. It’s all bad. Starting from that, let’s get into things.

Party Evolution

According to Britannica, the first two parties in the U.S. political system were the “Jeffersonian Republicans”, also called the Democratic-Republican Party, and the Federalists led by Alexander Hamilton. If you aren’t aware of how awful of a human being Jefferson was, please be assured: he was a monster. Anyway, the Democratic-Republican party favored a “decentralized government with limited powers”, whereas the Federalists favored a centralized one. By 1820, the Federalists were all but extinct, leaving James Monroe to run unopposed in the 1820 Presidential Election. Easiest win, ever. Following this, the Democrat side and the Republican side of the Democratic-Republican party split off, creating two distinct parties.

Enter the Jacksonian Democrats. Andrew Jackson, another notable monster who legend says I’m unfortunately related to, headed this movement at it’s origin. Let’s look at how slavery factored into the original Democratic party.

Southern Democrats staunchly supported slavery all the way up until the mid-1900s. Yes, this is an uncomfortable fact. In the time between the party formation, Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, freed the slaves in 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation. Also during that time, the Southern Democrats founded the Klan.

From Britannica, “The Democrats’ championing of civil rights and racial desegregation under Truman, Kennedy, and especially Lyndon B. Johnson—who secured passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965—cost the party the traditional allegiance of many of its Southern supporters. Moreover, the pursuit of civil rights legislation dramatically split the party’s legislators along regional lines in the 1950s and ’60s, with Southern senators famously conducting a protracted filibuster in an ultimately futile attempt to block passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964“. With this, the party started to move away from it’s racist roots and become the more progressive party we know today. Southern Democrats continued to support anti-Civil Rights movement candidates – which I think shows that systematic racism is kind of a Southern Thing, not necessarily a party thing.

The Great Party Switch

Now, what about that “party switch”? According to a study done by Columbia University, “Perhaps it’s the parties, not the voters, who have shifted. The
parties have indeed flipped on racial issues, corresponding to
the movement of southern whites from the Democratic to the
Republican party.” As shown at the beginning of this post, the 1896 election’s party support map is the inverse of the 2000 map. There’s been a realignment, whether it’s because of race, distribution of wealth, or otherwise.

Run My Mouth Time

In conclusion, the Democrat party certainly has problematic roots. For the last ~75 odd years, though, they’ve been strongly in favor of supporting the rights of minority voters. This doesn’t excuse or negate the roots in racism, but as someone who leans a little left, in today’s world I need to align myself to the Democratic party to support the party that is supporting progressive movements. As written by the Brennan Center for Justice, “The yawning gap between the parties is not, as is often suggested, because Republicans have become more racist and Democrats have become more woke; it is because the left has become more progressive on racial inequality while the right has fortified its pre-existing position“

To say “democrats are the racists” would be correct – 100 years ago. Today, it’s not. On top of that, it’s more accurate to say “the racists are the racists”, because not everything aligns to the magnetic poles that are our two-party political system.

Thanks for reading!