Today In GOP History, Ending Slavery

Ending slavery has an anniversary. Thanks to Michael Zak for the following. On New Year’s Day in 1863, the Republican Party’s Emancipation Proclamation came into effect. Emancipation Proclamation While Republicans rejoiced, Democrat politicians and newspapers denounced President Abraham Lincoln (R-IL) for freeing slaves. Demonstrating their depravity, New York’s Gov. Horatio Seymour, who would be the 1868 Democrat presidential nominee, denounced the Emancipation Proclamation as “a proposal for the butchery of women and children.” The Louisville Daily Democrat called it “an outrage of all constitutional law, all human justice, all Christian feeling.”Acting on authority granted by the Republican-majority 37th Congress to seize rebel “property,” President Lincoln had issued the proclamation two months before, to the dismay of the Democrats. Effective at yearend, all slaves in Confederate-controlled territory would be “forever free.”

Ill-informed critics of President Lincoln fault him for not freeing slaves in areas under U.S. control, but the federal government lacked the necessary authority. Within three years, the Republican-majority 38th Congress followed up the Emancipation Proclamation with the 13th Amendment, banning slavery throughout the nation.

related link: Grand Old Partisan

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9 thoughts on “Today In GOP History, Ending Slavery”

  1. Forget the Lunch Counter Forum, the old version I mentioned above.

    Just finished installing bbPress, an updated forum software platform that includes RSS capabilities built in. You can RSS subscribe to a message thread, or topic. And you can also RSS subscribe to an entire forum. Too Cool!!

    The new place to ‘take it to’ and to start a topic of discussion of your choosing has arrived. Today is the grand opening (brass & drums) of the Lunch Counter Discussion.

  2. Don’t know why I didn’t think of this for my previous post. I should have. I missed a perfect opportunity to refer you, or anyone, to the forum. It is better suited for discussions than this blog format is.

    The Lunch Counter forum was here before the blog, which is where I spend my spare time nowadays. The forum never got a lot of traffic so, unfortunately, there was little discussion, I mean compared to some php forums out there. It was really my first blog since it was darn near a monologue anyway.

    I wonder if ‘cat’ is lurking around? If he is, HI Cat! Happy New Year! Cat was cool. We had some good discussions and aren’t mortal enemies. I consider him a proud liberal friend.

    At any rate The Lunch Counter Forum is for your use.

  3. Here’s your post, that never was published. It was sitting in my spam box and it is now released. It’s been a few days since I looked in it.

    Jeff, I don’t believe I said that you were not being civil. What I did was remind you, and everyone, what my posting policies are. I figured it was needed because when terms like racist and bigoted morons get tossed around in the manner you did, you’re stepping right up to the line of the rules of what I call civil debate.

    And if you DON’T consider the people who wanted to keep slavery around and went over to the Republican party evil, hateful, bigoted morons, then that tells us all a lot about how you think.

    Let me clarify how I think about usage of words like that and “in the manner you did” above. I believe that racists do exist, as do “morons,” which I believe to be a derogatory remark for the mentally retarded. I do not believe that you can apply either of those terms to half the country, in terms of the civil war, or half the country, in terms of political parties, or of ‘neocons.’ (whatever they are) In a more general sense, to label a segment of the population as large as those with those labels is misleading and irresponsible. In other words, posters better be able to justify the accusation in the same post. That way one does not sound like what I would otherwise call, a jerk. Here’s a prime example of that by people who should know better. Air America: Homophobic Huckabee?

    Just a couple things to say about your post. Louisiana politics includes the whole state and not just the city and its current mayor.

    My ‘precious report’ isn’t my precious report. It is a report done by the Treasury Department. A department not known to be in bed with the Bush administration, or any other administration for that matter.

    And the subject of this thread IS about republicans ending slavery. The entire post except for the first sentence was written by Michael Zak, the author of the book “Back to basics for the republican party.” Only the first sentence was mine. My pointing that out was not intended to be a snide comment. For the most part, this thread has morphed to off topic. I’m not blaming you for that.

    Your post remains intact. And thanks for your participation.

  4. Jeff, I don’t know what you’re talking about. As far as I see, you have one, now two posts in this thread. Try posting again. And after you do that, make a screensave of the post so you can back up what you are accusing me of. Trust me, if I’m going to delete a post, you and everyone else will know about it and the reason for it. So far, that hasn’t happened. My rules here are simple. No name calling and don’t be a jerk. Keep it civil, keep it on ideas and issues.

  5. Hmm, interesting. My last comment I posted that completely dispelled your last one has disappeared. Shocking to think that someone who’s so interested in the greatness of our country would stoop to censorship and hiding the facts…

  6. Well Ross, first I’d like to know how I was not civil. Is telling the truth un-civil? The civil war losers were in fact, mostly religious, mostly racist, and mostly conservative. There are plenty of studies and a recent book that discusses those people switching from the Democratic Party to the Republican party. The current Republican party is mostly filled with neocons, their policies help greedy corporations much more than they help the common man, and considering the vitriol that comes from Coulter, O’Reilly, Malkin, and others, telling us that liberals are satan worshipers or if you’re against the Iraq war (which is completely illegal) you’re un-American, etc. they are definitely a party of hatred. And if you DON’T consider the people who wanted to keep slavery around and went over to the Republican party evil, hateful, bigoted morons, then that tells us all a lot about how you think. If you can somehow disprove any of those accurate descriptions, then I will be more than happy to apologize and retract them.
    Now to the meat of your posts. Katrina is not the fault of Democrats, it is the fault of corruption and the general attitude that most New Orleaners exhibit. NO has always been a hotbed of corruption, no matter who was in charge. It’s a part of the culture there. And whether you try to ignore that or not, the failure of a Democrat in one city does not necessarily indicate a failure of Democratic policies nationwide. And please don’t forget it was Bush, his administration, and his cronyism that failed to pick up the slack and has allowed NO to still be a mess to this day. And while you may see that R’s focus on solutions and D’s focus on intentions, I would say that R’s focus on the wrong solutions but will pig-headidly defend them even when proven they are wrong and D’s focus on solutions that make sense, but are constantly blocked by the R’s attempts at sabotage. As for the economy, I think you’ve been drinking way too much Kool-Aid. Your precious report has been debunked at http://searchwarp.com/swa271650.htm and other places and I hate to tell you this, but the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer and it’s pretty darn obvious. The economy was at an all time high under Clinton and has nearly died under Bush and his policies. When nearly every world renowned economist has criticized the current economic policies, you know there is a big problem. And as far as the “War on Terror” goes, well, all thinking individuals know the “War on Terror” is just BS. As far as that all goes, we should have invaded Afghanistan because we needed to retaliate against al Queda. Although Saddam was a scumbag that needed to be removed from power, we invaded under completely falsified reasons and now our reputation in the world has been extremely tarnished. If we had gone in there for the real reasons and deposed Saddam, then we would have had a right to be there now and I doubt you’d find too many Democrats that disagree with that. But your President and his administration lied to the people and failed to provide the proper tools to do the job which we shouldn’t have been doing in the first place. Now the Democrats are semi-trying (and spinelessly failing) to get us out of this mess and hopefully recover some of America’s reputation as a global leader in the process. The real answer to stopping Terrorism is to A) stop funding them with oil money and B) stop kissing Israel’s butt and ignoring the very real Palestinian grievances. Both sides have valid points and need to stop behaving like children, but America has traditionally ignored that and only focused on Jewish interests.
    And finally to address your snippy comment about the history of the Republican party ending slavery being the subject of the post, I was completely on subject. I merely pointed out that you were attempting to honor the current Republican party by connecting it to the good deeds of the Republican party of the past, and in doing so was completely ignoring the actual history and facts of the situation, which I then presented so that you could not continue trying to snow over people. I know, I know, that’s the standard Republican tactic, to ignore facts and hope no one reading does any real research to discover them, but you can do better than that. There are a few (albeit very few) aspects of the current Republican party that you don’t have to lie about to promote them, and there are actual valid negatives of the Democrats, so why don’t you actually focus on the truth instead of having to make up stories, distort facts, and contribute to the overall propaganda that has turned our government and the election process into the laughing stock of the world.

  7. Just as I can see some consistencies in the Republican party, there have been some changes in both. That much I think we agree on.

    The Democrat party has moved further to the left. So far left that JFK would probably be viewed as a conservative republican by today’s standards. As far as the Republican party goes, they have lost their rudder in every respect except defense. While they had the majority status, they didn’t fix Social Security, they created the largest entitlement program in the history of the country, they expanded government, they failed to make the ‘Bush tax cuts’ permanent, they attempted to pass an immigration bill that spelled amnesty and open borders. They haven’t been ideal by my expectations, but the Dems have been even worse. Their posture in the war on terror is a losing one. And without staying on the offensive in that one, everything else doesn’t matter.

    So much for the history of the Republican party in ending slavery, which is the subject of this post.

  8. Whereas you see the parties shifting in position, I see some consistencies. The founding fathers, Lincoln (R) included, saw the value and worth in people and freedom. In 1964, the voting rights act passed only because it was carried by republicans. Again, recognizing the value and worth in people, of any color. Al Gore Sr.(D), Al Gore’s father, and Robert Byrd (D) and a majority of (D) voted against it. Like in the 19th century, that party seemed to prefer the ‘status quo.’

    In a similar vein, and it can be argued whether it was intended or unintended consequences, Lyndon Johnson’s ‘war on poverty’ did nothing but keep the ones who needed help dependent on the government, a different kind of slavery, rather than free them. For an example of that, I’ll direct your attention to the state of Louisiana, under (D) ‘leadership’ well before 1964. Hurricane Katrina exposed for all the world to see just how successful the ‘war on poverty’ and good intentions of Democrat politicians actually are to the success and freedom of the ones they champion, the ‘less fortunate.’ The consistency here is, they, in a manner of speaking, were slaves then, and they still are. Slaves of the system that was intended to free them.

    What works seems to me to be solutions rather than intentions. Seems to me that R’s focus more on solutions and results and D’s focus on intentions, regardless of the lack of results.

    I can point to welfare reform of the 90’s, that R’s got Slick Willie to sign, after vetoing it twice. It actually produced results. I can point to results when it comes to R’s ideas where it comes to the economy. Due to these policies, the poor are getting richer, despite what John Edwards is saying today.

    Notice too, Jeff, that I managed to make a point, at least I hope I did, without calling anyone or any party or group of people names. Please keep it civil.

  9. Too bad the GOP of today is not even related to the GOP of the civil war. If you look at history, you’ll quickly realize that those extremely religious conservative racists that comprised the Democratic party eventually started voting and changing the Republican party into the greedy, neoconservative, hate filled group it is today. Meanwhile, the Democrats, having lost all the evil, hateful, bigoted morons to the Republican party, would eventually become the liberal, compassionate party. Then they lost their spine and refused to save our country from the crimes of the current Republican administration. Neither party is like their former self and both are corrupt and worthless. It’s just that the GOP is slightly more corrupt and evil than the Democratic party. I’d say no one should vote for either party this election and find a 3rd party candidate that matches your preferences the best and vote for them. Fire every single Republican and Democrat at the next election.

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