The late 1890s represented a time of great strife for African-Americans with the prominence of lynching in the South and the passage of the Jim Crow laws which legalised segregation. ‘In the 1890s an average of 187 lynchings occurred every year, mostly in the South’. By 1900, it seemed that the GOP had ‘sacrificed a portion of its original purpose’ given its lack of support for these African-Americans and Republican President McKinley (1897-1901) in particular did little to resist the oppression of blacks, with his policies looking ‘more toward reconciliation with the white South’. Therefore, in terms of their policy towards African-Americans it would appear that the Republican Party of 1900 bore little resemblance to the ‘Party of Lincoln’.
Concerning the issue of immigration, the Republican Party of 1860 stated in its Chicago platform that it was;
‘Opposed to any change in our naturalization laws, or any state legislation by which the rights of citizenship hitherto accorded by emigrants from foreign lands shall be abridged or impaired; and in favour of giving a full and efficient protection to the rights of all classes of citizens’.
The Republicans believed that this ‘protection of rights’ was guaranteed in the constitution and throughout the 1850s they used this to justify their opposition to the actions of the anti-immigrant, Know-Nothing party. Lincoln in particular had ‘nothing but disdain for the discriminatory beliefs of the Know-Nothings’. He questioned the constitutionality of the party, stating that if the Know-Nothings gained control, the Declaration of Independence would essentially read ‘all men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics’.
The passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 was ‘the first ever law passed by the United States barring any group of people from American shores purely because of race or nationality’. The act was renewed in 1892 and 1902 with bi-partisan support from the Democrats and Republicans in Congress as well as the signature of two Republican presidents (Harrison and Roosevelt). For example, in 1902 out of fifty-five Republican senators only one voted against the extension of the law, with forty-nine voting in favour. So not only had the Republican Party become less interested in African-American rights between 1860 and 1900, they had actually been instrumental in implementing a blatantly racist policy, which violated the ‘protection of rights’ advocated by the Republican Party of 1860.
In 1860, the Republican orator Carl Schurz declared that, ‘the Republicans, stand before the country, not only as the anti-slavery party, but emphatically as the party of free-labor’. Republicans at the time believed that ‘free labor’ was essential because it allowed for social mobility, which they argued was necessary in order to create a more equal society. For example, the New York Times wrote in 1857 that, ‘our paupers today, thanks to free labor, are our yeoman and merchants of tomorrow’. Another newspaper, the Springfield Republican, stressed the ‘“perfect and equal mutual dependence” which existed between capital and labor’. The nomination of Lincoln in 1860 is testament to the Republican idea of ‘free labor’, given that Lincoln himself was considered as ‘“the child of labor” who had proved how “honest industry and toil” were rewarded in the North’
Historian Lewis Gould argues that by 1900, the ‘emphasis on the unity of capital and labor was giving way to a sympathy with business at the expense of other segments of society’ and as a result, ‘the impression that the Republicans were the party of big business was solidifying’. This perception arose primarily from the growth in the number of large businesses known as ‘trusts’ during the 1890s. For example, in 1899 ‘some twelve hundred companies were bought out or taken over’. In 1890, the Sherman Antitrust Act was developed by Republican Senator John Sherman to prevent these ‘trusts’ from becoming too powerful, yet President McKinley refrained from using it. This refusal to act indicates that McKinley and the Republicans were in fact sympathetic to big business as Gould suggests. Therefore, it is clear that McKinley’s party of ‘Big Business’ in 1900 bore little resemblance to Lincoln’s party of ‘The People’ in 1860.
Although there was a drastic transformation of the financial sector between 1860 and 1900, due to factors such as industrialization and the growth of big business, the GOP’s economic policies changed very little. The party’s emphasis on a ‘protective tariff’ remained particularly strong during this period, as they believed that protectionism was the best way to grow the American economy. This emphasis came from the Whig influence within the party and, more significantly, from the Whig Party’s founder and leader, Henry Clay. In 1860, this was evident in the views of the Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln who, in a letter to a friend, wrote that he was ‘an old Henry Clay-Tariff-Whig’ and favoured a ‘moderate carefully adjusted protective tariff’. Lincoln’s views were reflected in the twelfth plank of the Republican’s 1860 platform in which ‘a protective tariff is cautiously advocated’.
The GOP’s views on protective tariffs were very similar in 1900 to 1860 with President McKinley being a staunch advocate, arguing that they were ‘bulwarks of both profits and wages’. As President he signed into law the Dingley Act of 1897 which increased duties on wool. In 1900, the Republicans used their party platform to highlight the success of this tariff, claiming that it had reduced the debt of the Spanish-American War by $40,000,000. This pro-tariff stance is consistent with the ideas put forward in the Republican platform of 1860. Therefore, in terms of their philosophy towards economic growth, it appears that the Republican Party of 1900 did resemble the Republican Party of 1860.
Analysis of voting patterns indicates that there was little change within the Republican Party between 1860 and 1900. For example, out of the thirty-three states that voted in both the presidential elections of 1860 and 1900, the only variation in the outcome was that McKinley won the states of Maryland and Delaware, whereas Lincoln didn’t. Both Lincoln and McKinley received the majority of their electoral votes from the North and both failed to win a single electoral vote in the South. According to Franklin Burdette, at the core of Lincoln’s victory in 1860 were ‘farmers and labourers joined by intellectuals’. In 1900, it was much the same for the Republicans as McKinley received the majority of his support from ‘urban dwellers in the North, prosperous farmers, and large elements of industrial workers’. These findings suggest that in terms of the party’s ‘base’ there was a clear resemblance between the Republican Party of 1900 and the Republican Party of 1860.
In conclusion, despite the similarities found between economic philosophies and voting patterns, it is clear that the resemblance between the Republican Party of 1900 and the Republican Party of 1860 was insignificant. In 1860, the Republican Party represented a party of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ with its opposition to slavery and its promise of economic prosperity and equality. The Party understood the true meaning of ‘all men are created equal’, taking into account the rights of African-Americans and immigrants, unlike their Democrat and Know-Nothing counterparts. However, by 1900 the Party appeared to have betrayed its founding principles, favouring big business over the average worker, turning a blind eye to lynching and segregation in the South and endorsing discriminate labour laws in order to satisfy American workers. This transformation demonstrates how politics and the lure of governance can turn a force for good into ‘a mere electoral apparatus’.
Bibliography
Books
Burdette, F. (1968) The Republican Party: A Short History. Princeton, N.J: Van Nostrand
Foner, E. (1970) Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press
Goodwin, D. (2009) Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. London: Penguin Books
Gould, L. (2003) Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans. New York: Random House
Gyory, A. (1998) Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act. Chapel Hill: North Carolina University Press
Morgan, W. (1963) William McKinley and His America. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press
Articles
Luthin, R. (1944) ‘Abraham Lincoln and the Tariff’, The American Historical Review, Vol 49, No.4
Taussig, F. (1897) ‘The Tariff Act of 1897’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 12, No. 1,
Conference Papers
Seo, J. (2007) ‘From the Party of Lincoln to the Party of "Chinese-must-go": Position Taking and Policy Change in the post-Reconstruction Congress’, Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago (12th April)
Internet Sites
Keenan, M. (2009) ‘A Loser for GOP: 'We the People' vs. 'Big Business' (07/11/2009), http://www.kansasfreepress.com Date accessed (05/12/2009)
O’Malley, M. (1999) ‘A Blood Red Record: the 1890s and American Apartheid’, http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/links/misclink/1890s Date accessed (06/12/2009)
U.S Congress. (2009) ‘Biographical Directory of the United States Congress 1774 – present’, http://bioguide.congress.gov Date accessed (02/12/2009)
Woolley, J. and Peters, G. (2009) ‘The American Presidency Project’, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu Date accessed (02/12/2009)
Goodwin, D. (2009) Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. London: Penguin Books, p.239
Woolley, J. and Peters, G. (2009) ‘Elections - 1860 Election’, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu
U.S Congress (2009) ‘Biographical Directory of the United States Congress - 36th Congress’, http://bioguide.congress.gov
Woolley, J. and Peters, G. Op Cit – 1900 Election
U.S Congress, Op Cit – 56th Congress
Morgan, W. (1963) William McKinley and His America. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, p.476
Goodwin, Op Cit pp. 204-205
O’Malley, M. (1999) ‘A Blood Red Record: the 1890s and American Apartheid’, http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/links/misclink/1890s
Gould, L. (2003) Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans. New York: Random House, p.131
Burdette, F. (1968) The Republican Party: A Short History. Princeton, N.J: Van Nostrand, p.141
Gyory, A. (1998) Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act. Chapel Hill: North Carolina University Press, p.254
Seo, J. (2007) ‘From the Party of Lincoln to the Party of "Chinese-must-go": Position Taking and Policy Change in the post-Reconstruction Congress’, Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago (12th April), pp.18-19
Foner, E. (1970) Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, p.11
Gould, L. (2003) Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans. New York: Random House, p.132
Keenan, M (2009) ‘A Loser for GOP: 'We the People' vs. 'Big Business' (07/11/2009), http://www.kansasfreepress.com
Luthin, R (1944) ‘Abraham Lincoln and the Tariff’, The American Historical Review, Vol 49, No.4, p.613
Taussig, F (1897) ‘The Tariff Act of 1897’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 12, No. 1, p.46 - 48
Woolley, J. and Peters, G. Op Cit, ‘Party Platforms – Republican Party Platform of 1900’,
Ibid, 1860 Election and 1900 Election