Abraham Lincoln was the first president elected from the newly-formed, fiercely-liberal, abolitionist Republican party in 1860. Although candidate-Lincoln downplayed abolition of slavery while campaigning, coming out against the spread of slavery to ‘free states’, he was at heart, an ardent abolitionist. “The GOP, pro-economic reform-party, was founded in 1854 by opponents of the KS-NE Act, which allowed the expansion of chattel-slavery into the Western-territories”. Lincoln, reelected in 1864, banned slavery in America, and was assassinated in 1865. “During the 1860s & 70s, Republicans dominated the Northern states, expanded federal power, helped fund the transcontinental- railroad, the state university system, settlement of the West by homesteaders, established a national currency, and a protective tariff. Those events had turned out very favorably to big business based in the Northeast, such as banks, railroads & manufacturers, while small-time farmers, who had gone West, felt they had received very little.” Democrats, who dominated the South, opposed those measures, as well as social justice laws & protections passed after the Civil War.
In 1896, William Jennings Bryan, Democrat & former Representative of Kansas, ran a presidential-campaign, seeking to win the West, by proposing an expansion of federal powers to ensure social justice to indebted farmers, and by opposing the gold-standard. Bryan lost the election to William McKinley, Republican, former U.S. Representative & Governor of Ohio, who ran on a platform of promoting American prosperity. “McKinley entered into a brief & decisive war with Spain over the Cuban-independence issue in 1898; the U.S. gained possession of Puerto Rico, Philippines & Guam.”
McKinley’s VP, Garret Hobart, died in 1899; McKinley agreed to accept Theodore Roosevelt as his running-mate in 1900, and was reelected. McKinley was assassinated in 1901, and Teddy Roosevelt unexpectedly became our 26th president, winning a second term in 1904. “He was confronted with a bitter struggle between management & labor, and became known as the great ‘trust-buster’; he advocated a ‘Square-Deal’ between capital & labor. A conservationist, he also set aside some 200-million acres for national forests, reserves & wildlife refuges; he spearheaded the beginning construction of the Panama Canal, and won a Nobel Peace Prize for his negotiations to end the Russo-Japanese War. He kept his promise not to run a 3rd term, but in 1912 tried to return to politics, heading a new Progressive Bull-Moose Party”, losing that presidential race; being one among four impressive candidates. ‘T-R’, a social-reformer, was one of our most important, significant presidents.
Hopefully Part 2 of: “A Tale of Two Parties” will follow next week. (Quotes from Wikipedia.org & www.history.com)
Trish Forsyth Voss
Jul 25 2021
Tale of 2 Parties, Part 1
Abraham Lincoln was the first president elected from the newly-formed, fiercely-liberal, abolitionist Republican party in 1860. Although candidate-Lincoln downplayed abolition of slavery while campaigning, coming out against the spread of slavery to ‘free states’, he was at heart, an ardent abolitionist. “The GOP, pro-economic reform-party, was founded in 1854 by opponents of the KS-NE Act, which allowed the expansion of chattel-slavery into the Western-territories”. Lincoln, reelected in 1864, banned slavery in America, and was assassinated in 1865. “During the 1860s & 70s, Republicans dominated the Northern states, expanded federal power, helped fund the transcontinental- railroad, the state university system, settlement of the West by homesteaders, established a national currency, and a protective tariff. Those events had turned out very favorably to big business based in the Northeast, such as banks, railroads & manufacturers, while small-time farmers, who had gone West, felt they had received very little.” Democrats, who dominated the South, opposed those measures, as well as social justice laws & protections passed after the Civil War.
In 1896, William Jennings Bryan, Democrat & former Representative of Kansas, ran a presidential-campaign, seeking to win the West, by proposing an expansion of federal powers to ensure social justice to indebted farmers, and by opposing the gold-standard. Bryan lost the election to William McKinley, Republican, former U.S. Representative & Governor of Ohio, who ran on a platform of promoting American prosperity. “McKinley entered into a brief & decisive war with Spain over the Cuban-independence issue in 1898; the U.S. gained possession of Puerto Rico, Philippines & Guam.”
McKinley’s VP, Garret Hobart, died in 1899; McKinley agreed to accept Theodore Roosevelt as his running-mate in 1900, and was reelected. McKinley was assassinated in 1901, and Teddy Roosevelt unexpectedly became our 26th president, winning a second term in 1904. “He was confronted with a bitter struggle between management & labor, and became known as the great ‘trust-buster’; he advocated a ‘Square-Deal’ between capital & labor. A conservationist, he also set aside some 200-million acres for national forests, reserves & wildlife refuges; he spearheaded the beginning construction of the Panama Canal, and won a Nobel Peace Prize for his negotiations to end the Russo-Japanese War. He kept his promise not to run a 3rd term, but in 1912 tried to return to politics, heading a new Progressive Bull-Moose Party”, losing that presidential race; being one among four impressive candidates. ‘T-R’, a social-reformer, was one of our most important, significant presidents.
Hopefully Part 2 of: “A Tale of Two Parties” will follow next week. (Quotes from Wikipedia.org & www.history.com)
Trish Forsyth Voss
By spiritspeak • Uncategorized 0