Didn't Republicans used to be AGAINST secession?

[Ken Burch]

I could've sworn they elected some tall bearded guy to keep it from happening once.

Gee, what was I thinking?

[rufus dog]

1. WHAT!

Do you really think todays Pukes would support Lincoln?

[Ken Burch]

3. Well, they'd have trouble...especially since he came out.

[tanyev]

15. No, but they sure love to brag about being the "party of Lincoln".

[ngant17]

2. they were all for states' rights

up until Gore vrs. Bush, in which case the wind blew the opposite direction and the Repugs decided that the State of Florida and its Supreme Court doesn't matter as far as the right to decide which votes will be counted in a federal election. So now the US Supreme Court has the final say when an election is to be decided, and states' rights are largely irrelevant. Twisted logic it seems.

[Old Hank]

4. That was before Republicans turned conservative and Democrats turned liberal

During the civil war era, the Republican Party was the progressive party and the Democratic Party was the conservative party. Some time during the 20th century the coin flipped and the opposite became true.

[valerief]

5. They were against it before they were for it. nt

[yellowcanine]

7. Dang, you just beat me to it. Feh.

[valerief]

9. Ha! I was wondering why anyone hadn't posted it first. nt

[yellowcanine]

6. They were against secession before they were for it. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

[Ken Burch]

8. Wow, Bizarro John Kerry and Seinfeld in the SAME post....brilliant!

[Clio the Leo]

10. Sometimes it's like that scene at 12 Oakes....

... where all of Scarlett's neighbors stand up to declare how they will destroy the Union army in two weeks tops and Rhett Butler points out that they have no weapons and nothing needed to WIN a war then shakes his head and walks out of the room.

[ShadowLiberal]

11. Lincoln? You mean that 'radical' liberal who didn't respect property rights?!?

It's the ultimate irony that the Republican party was founded as a regional proNorth, and especially Pro-New England party, considering how the GOP couldn't be deader in the New England states today, and has embraced the south today as everything they stand for. When the GOP was founded they were everything the south wasn't, and everything the south loathed.

It's even more ironic that a lot of the south's arguments and issues they were for back then have been adopted by the republican party today (though some have been slightly modified to be up with the times), I mean look at the similarities of the GOP's agenda to the south's agenda before the civil war.

-Both are strongly pro-property rights (then the South wanted their right to own slaves protected, now the south wants their rights to own guns protected)
-Both are strongly anti-tax (a lot of the taxes back then were tariffs that protected northern manufacturers from foreign competition but were loathed by the south)
-Both are strongly anti-government spending (more government spending on stuff like building roads met more taxes to pay for it)
-Both are the pro-discrimination parties

Lincoln ironically was a moderate liberal in his time, and after the civil war ended the radical republicans (who were radical liberals for their time) basically ran the show from congress for a while as Andrew Johnson powerlessly watched almost all his vetoes get overridden by them.

[Vidar]

12. The "Party of Lincoln" was extinguished by Booth's bullet. They

oozed into the carpetbaggers. Their only other moment of greatness was Teddy Roosevelt--the liberal, imperialist, conservationist trustbuster who accidentally became president partially as consequence of a plot to banish him from New York politics.

[Ken Burch]

13. Teddy was great-well, if you weren't Cuban or Pinoy(Filipino)

He had a big mustache and bigger contradictions.

[Vidar]

14. No argument here. He was a progressive Victorian imperialist. Go figure.

[TexasObserver]

16. Today's GOP is closer to Ted Kaczynski than Abe Lincoln.

[baldguy]

17. That was before the Confederate coup.

[Raine]

18. They're only against it when they're in control

when they're on the losing end of things then they're afore it. :yoiks: If they don't like the way things are here then they can do what they would tell us to do ... LEAVE!

[Thothmes]

19. Yes, and Democrats supported Jim Crow and Slavery