The Dems Avoiding Their Racist History...Again!

An article appearing in the Wall Street Journal’s opinion section featured information on the how the Dems have been misinforming people about their history – and their racist roots. The following is a summary of this article (with some additional research done by yours truly), written by Jeffrey Lord, a Reagan White House political director (as well as an author). 

            The history discusses platforms from the party’s inception in 1800 to the creation of the official DNC in 1848. The platform continues with “As the 19^th Century came to a close, the American electorate changed more rapidly…” – erasing about 52 years of Democratic Party history.

 Things left out:

• The six party platforms that supported slavery from 1840-1860.
• The 7 Democratic presidents who owned slaves (1800-1861)
• Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican Party, which became the Democratic Party), James Madison (Democratic-Republican Party), James Monroe, Andrew Jackson (Shaped Modern Democratic Party), Martin Van Buren (Democratic Party), John Tyler (Democratic-Republican), James K. Polk (Democratic Party).
• Only 1 Republican (Ulysses S. Grant) owned slaves.
• The 20 Democratic Platforms from 1868-1920 supported (or were silent on) slavery.
• The fact that Jim Crow laws (which effectively legalized racism) were largely the responsibility of democrats. (Source: Haws, Robert, ed. The Age of Segregation: Race Relations in the South, 1890– 1945 University Press of Mississippi, 1978.)
• The face that the Ku Klux Klan, a racist organization that advocated violence against blacks, “became a military force serving the interests of the Democratic Party” (Eric Foner, www.ericfoner.com/reviews/030401nytimes.html, American Historian). Historian Allen Trelease’s account of the KKK describes it as “the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party” (Allen W. Trelease, White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy & Southern Reconstruction (HarperCollins, 1971; Louisiana State University Press, 1995).
• Democrats opposed the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th amendments which respectively banned slavery, overturned the Dred Scott decision, and gave blacks the right to vote.
• “The final version of the Thirteenth Amendment--the one ending slavery--has an interesting story of its own. Passed during the Civil War years, when southern congressional representatives were not present for debate, one would think today that it must have easily passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Not true. As a matter of fact, although passed in April 1864 by the Senate, with a vote of 38 to 6, the required two-thirds majority was defeated in the House of Representatives by a vote of 93 to 65. Abolishing slavery was almost exclusively a Republican party effort--only four Democrats voted for it” (http://www.greatamericanhistory.net/amendment.htm)
• The Democrats opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which was passed by the Republican Majority over the veto of (Democratic) President Andrew Johnson
• They also opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which abolished discrimination in public places/accommodations.
• In 1904, the Democratic platform specially contained a section entitled “Sectional and Racial Agitation,” claiming the GOP’s protests against segregation and the denial of voting rights to blacks sought to “revive the dead and hateful race and sectional animosities in any part of our common country” which in turn “means confusion, distraction of business, and the reopening of wounds now happily healed.”
• Of the four Democratic platforms from 1908-1920, all are silent on blacks, segregation, voting, and lynching despite mounting concerns about racial tensions. In contrast, all of the GOP platforms during those years specifically address “The Rights of Negro” (1908), opposing lynching ( 1912, 1920, 1924, 1928).
• There is also no reference to the Democratic Convention of 1924. History refers to it as “Klanbake.” The 103-ballot convention was held in New York City’s Madison Square Gardens. Hundreds of the DNC delegates were Klan members. The Klan was so powerful that a plank that condemned Klan violence was defeated on the floor. To celebrate their victory, the Klan held a rally across the Hudson from MSG which included 10,000 hooded Klansmen. Hundreds of delegates attended. The rally featured burning crosses and called for violence against African-Americans and Catholics.
• The “history” doesn’t mention that Democrats were responsible for the segregation of the government – it was segregated at the direction of President Woodrow Wilson in 1913. Instead, the Democrats only mention that President Harry S Truman integrated the Army after World War II.
• 75% of the opposition in the House to the 1964 Civil Rights Bill came from Democrats. 80% came from Democrats in the Senate.
• The opposition included future Senate leader Robert Byrd of WV (a Klan member) and Tennessee Senator Albert Gore Sr., father of Vice President Al Gore

 There you have it. The imperfections the DNC tries to cover up by assuming we Americans don’t do our own research ; - )

 Sources:

Herman Belz, Emancipation and Equal Rights: Politics and Constitutionalism in the Civil War Era (1978)

Mitch Kachun, Festivals of Freedom: Memory and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808-1915 (2003)

C. Peter Ripley, Roy E. Finkenbine, Michael F. Hembree, Donald Yacovone, Witness for Freedom: African American Voices on Race, Slavery, and Emancipation (1993)

Michael Vorenberg, Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment (2001)

Model State Anti-trafficking Criminal Statute U.S. Dept of Justice

www.nas.com/~lopresti/ps.htm

www.powerset.com/explore/go/1924-Democratic-National-Convention

www.coloradoindependent.com/3983/1908-and-2008-democratic-party-platforms-converge-on-many-planks/