Joe
Biden's comment "They gon' put y'all back in chains" has shone a light
on a truth the Democratic Party and its adjutants in the media have
suppressed for over half a century. That is that the party's electoral
victories have been built upon the suppression of the aspirations of
many of the nation's most disadvantaged American citizens: blacks living
in the nation's inner cities. A look back at the party's history
reveals how this came to be.
The Democratic Party was founded in the early 1830s, to challenge what its members thought were concerted efforts to grant the federal government additional powers to expand commerce. Their opposition, the Whig Party, believed in a stronger central authority to develop needed infrastructure and incentives. But the issue of slavery tore the Whigs apart, and many of its former members joined others in establishing the anti-slavery Republican Party.
The South's defense of slavery and its bitterness over the North's destruction of its way of life gave rise to "the solid South" voting bloc, which endured as a potent political force for over a century. The nascent American progressive movement tied its fortunes to the Democratic Party early in the twentieth century because, like their Southern brethren, progressives were suspicious of what industrialization had wrought, including the formation of well-capitalized corporations so critical to growing economies.
As it happened, the nation's first progressive president, Woodrow Wilson, was a Southerner. He was born and raised in Virginia and spent his formative years in the South. In an era when social Darwinism fed into segregation's guiding principle, that all men are not created equal, Wilson fit right in. He was an ardent segregationist, and his administration reinforced separation of the races in the public realm.
The Democratic Party was founded in the early 1830s, to challenge what its members thought were concerted efforts to grant the federal government additional powers to expand commerce. Their opposition, the Whig Party, believed in a stronger central authority to develop needed infrastructure and incentives. But the issue of slavery tore the Whigs apart, and many of its former members joined others in establishing the anti-slavery Republican Party.
The South's defense of slavery and its bitterness over the North's destruction of its way of life gave rise to "the solid South" voting bloc, which endured as a potent political force for over a century. The nascent American progressive movement tied its fortunes to the Democratic Party early in the twentieth century because, like their Southern brethren, progressives were suspicious of what industrialization had wrought, including the formation of well-capitalized corporations so critical to growing economies.
As it happened, the nation's first progressive president, Woodrow Wilson, was a Southerner. He was born and raised in Virginia and spent his formative years in the South. In an era when social Darwinism fed into segregation's guiding principle, that all men are not created equal, Wilson fit right in. He was an ardent segregationist, and his administration reinforced separation of the races in the public realm.
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