Historically the Democratic Party was the most important of the American political parties, having been in continuous existence since the end of the 18th century. The rise of such a party, as soon as national politics began under the new Constitution, was natural. The love of individual liberty rather than strong government, was native in the minds of most Americans. Those who felt this most strongly would be likely to look with apprehension upon the Federal Government, and the possibility of its encroaching upon the States under cover of the new Federal Constitution. They were therefore likely to be advocates of strict construction of the Constitution and of States' rights. To these elements of party feeling, which had drawn the Anti-Federalists together in 1788, was added a few years later the strong sympathy of many Americans with the French Revolution, and the desire that Government should aid France in her contest with England.
Thomas Jefferson put himself at the head of the party drawn together by agreement in these sentiments, and led them in opposition to the Federalists. The party took the name of Democratic-Republican. Before Monroe's administration its members were more commonly called Republicans, since then most commonly Democrats. From the first the party was strongest in the Southern States. From its origin in 1792 to 1801, it was in opposition. In 1798 and 1799, upon the passage of the Alien and Sedition laws, it took strong ground for States' rights in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. The election of Jefferson. in 1801 brought it into power. The chief tenets of the party were, belief in freedom of religion, of politics, of speech and of the press, in popular rule, in peace, in economical government, in the utmost possible restriction of the sphere of government, in hospitality to immigrants, and in the avoidance of foreign complications.
Placed in control of the government, the majority of the party drifted away from its strict constructionist ground, and supported measures of a nationalizing character. After the War of 1812, the Federalist party went out of existence, and the Democratic party had complete possession of the field. In 1820, Monroe was re-elected without opposition. But opposing tendencies in the nation and in the party were already showing themselves, and preparing the way for a new party division, between the Whigs, advocates of protection and other nationalizing measures, and those Democrats who held to the old programme of States' rights and free trade and restricted government. With the accession of Jackson in 1829, new social strata came into power in the Democratic party, the widening of the suffrage giving it a more popular character. Managed by skilful politicians, not without the aid of the spoils system, the party won every Presidential election but two (1840, 1848) from this time to 1860, destroyed the US bank, annexed Texas, and carried the country through the war with Mexico. But meanwhile the slavery question, coming into increasing prominence, was gradually forcing a division between the Democrats of the South and the great body of those in the North, who were unwilling to go so far in the protection of slavery by national authority as was desired by their Southern allies. The final split came in the nominating convention of 1860.
Two candidates were nominated, Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans won the election, and the American Civil War broke out. Though many War Democrats aided the administration in preserving the Union, the party was discredited in the eyes of many by its previous connection with the Southern leaders and the pro-slavery cause, and won no Presidential election until that of 1884, when in the minds of many the war issues were extinct and economic questions had taken their place. Defeated in 1888, it was again successful in 1892. By the end of the 19th century the party was hardly more strict-constructionist than the Republican, nor more marked by devotion to States' rights and the party was mostly noted as the opponent of a high tariff.
By the end of the 20th century the differences between the Democratic party and Republicans had become blurred, though the Democratic party was generally perceived - not always accurately - as more left-wing or liberal than the Republicans. Research Democratic Party
The Emancipation Proclamation was a proclamation reluctantly issued by President Abraham Lincoln in the US on January 1st 1863. During the first eighteen months of the Civil War President Abraham Lincoln had listened unmoved to the clamouring of abolitionists for an emancipation proclamation. He declared he would preserve the Union without freeing the slaves, if such a thing were possible. However, on September the 22nd 1862, he issued a preliminary proclamation that, unless the inhabitants of the revolted States returned to their allegiance by January 1, the slaves should be declared free. This had no effect. January 1, 1863, the proclamation was issued declaring the freedom of slaves in all the States which had seceded except forty-eight counties of West Virginia, seven counties in Virginia, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth, and thirteen parishes of Louisiana, including New Orleans. These districts were practically under the control of the Union army. Abraham Lincoln expected the proclamation to take effect gradually. Its legal effect has been disputed, its practical effect was enormous. Research Emancipation Proclamation
The name of Republicans was, in the earlier history of the United States, taken by the party formed by Jefferson, as distinguishing them from their Federalist opponents (later known as the Democratic Party), stigmatised as monarchists. In 1854 the name was revived, to be applied to a new political party, at first characterized primarily by opposition to the extension of slavery to the territories.
The compromise of 1850 had resulted in the disruption and decay of the Whig party. There was a brief interval before parties could be re-formed upon the basis of the slavery question purely. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act by the Democrats in 1854 caused a general coalition of Northern Free-Soilers, Whigs, Democrats, Know-Nothings and Abolitionists, united in opposition to that measure and the consequent repeal of the Missouri Compromise. At first known as 'Anti-Nebraska Men', the coalitionists took in that same year the name of Republicans. They at once won a plurality of Congress, and in 1856 held their first national convention at Philadelphia, which nominated Fremont and Dayton. Defeated then, in 1859 they again controlled the House. In 1860 Democratic divisions enabled them to elect Abraham Lincoln.
For the next' fourteen years the party, reinforced for a time by 'War Democrats', was supreme. It controlled the National Government, enlarged its powers by broad construction of the Constitution, carried on the American Civil War, abolished slavery, reconstructed the governments of the seceding States and controlled them, maintained the protective system and refunded the debt. It carried the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1864 and of Grant in 1868 and 1872. The Liberal Republican schism of 1872 indicated a reaction from the radical policy followed in regard to reconstruction, and was followed by extensive defeats in the tidal wave of 1874, due partly to official corruption in high places.
Yet the party managed, though barely, to carry the election of Hayes in 1876, and elected Garfield in 1880. In 1884 the nomination of Blaine caused the bolt of the mugwumps, and the election of a Democratic President. The party then became, more distinctly than in the years just preceding, the party of high protection. In 1888 it elected Harrison. Defeated in 1892, it was again successful in State elections in 1893. Its strength traditionally lay in the North. During the later part of the 19th century the Republican Party advocated a more stirring foreign policy than that of the Democrats, and larger expenditures for pensions and other national objects.
During the 20th century the Republican Party became more right-wing, represented by presidents such as Ronald Reagan, George Bush and George W Bush. Research Republican Party
In America, after the adoption of the Constitution of 1787 the thought that the States were sovereign remained familiar to the minds of many, if not most, Americans. This led easily to the thought of secession by a State or States as a remedy for aggressive action on the part of the Federal Government.
The Federalists of New England made threats of secession in 1811 and 1814. As the slavery agitation began to be foremost among political issues, secession was extensively suggested as the constitutional right of the Southern States if the system of slavery was attacked. South Carolina was ready to secede in 1850. In 1860, upon news of the election of Abraham Lincoln, she did so, on December the 20th, by convention, which passed an ordinance purporting to repeal her adoption of the Constitution in 1788 and to revive her independence. Mississippi seceded on January the 9th, 1861, Florida on January the 10th, Alabama on January the 11th, Georgia on January the 19th, Louisiana on January the 26th, Texas on February 1st, all by conventions. These seven States formed the Confederate States of America, on February the 4th, 1861.
Buchanan's government could find no constitutional warrant for coercing a seceded State. After the firing on Fort Sumter and the decision of Abraham Lincoln and the North to suppress rebellion by armed force, four more States seceded - Arkansas on May the 6th, North Carolina on May the 20th, Virginia on May the 23rd and Tennessee on June the 8th. In most of these States there had been strong opposition to secession, but on the ground that it was inexpedient. That a State had a right to secede was the nearly universal belief. The national Government never recognized this right, nor the validity of the ordinances. Research Secession
Slavery in the American colonies began with the importation of a cargo of slaves into Virginia by a Dutch ship in 1619. In the other colonies it was gradually introduced. The slave trade was favoured by the British Government during the eighteenth century. Meantime a sentiment unfavourable to it began to develop in the colonies. The Germantown Quakers drew up a memorial against it in 1688, Boston town meeting in 1701. Woolman and other Quakers preached against it. Slaves were few in the North, but numerous in the South, where their increase and the danger felt from them caused severe laws respecting them.
The American Revolution, as a movement for liberty, with its declaration proclaiming all men free and equal, joined with the humanitarian spirit of the close of the century to increase anti-slavery sentiment. The Northern States either abolished slavery or provided for gradual emancipation. All the States but the southernmost forbade the importation of slaves from abroad. But the sentiment soon declined.
In the Constitution of 1787, States were given representation in the House of Representatives for three-fifths of their slaves, and Congress was forbidden to prohibit the slave trade until 1808. The invention of the cotton-gin made slave labour more profitable than ever before, and the South began to defend slavery as a positive good, in spite of its obvious economic disadvantages.
Abolition societies, first formed about 1793, languished after 1808. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 arranged that the area west of the Mississippi and north of 36 degrees 30 minutes should not be open to slavery, except in the Case of Missouri. The Ordinance of 1787 had forbidden slavery in the region north of the Ohio.
The American Colonization Society tried to palliate the evils of slavery by emancipation and deportation. About 1830 the agitation against slavery took on a more ardentphase, and henceforth for thirty years slavery was the most absorbing of political themes. Slave labour demanded more and more new land, and the Government was led to the annexation of Texas and the war with Mexico largely by this need. After bitter disputes, the territory so acquired was thrown open to slavery if the settlers desired it; this was done by the Compromise of 1850. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 extended the same permission to territory north of 36 degrees 30 minutes, repealing the Missouri Compromise; and the Supreme Court sustained such repeal.
The question of slavery in the territories proved the crucial question. Many in the North who had no desire for the abolition of slavery in States where it was already existent and legal were unwilling to see it extended, while slave-owners claimed Constitutional right to protection of their property in slaves, as essential if they were to have any share in the common territories. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and the unwillingness of Northern people to execute it assisted to precipitate conflict. Finally, in 1860, the election of Abraham Lincoln was taken by the South as proof that their claims were to be disregarded, and secession and the American Civil War resulted.
In 1790 there were 698,000 slaves in the United States 40,000 in the North, 293,000 in Virginia, 107,000 in South Carolina, 103,000 in Maryland, 101,000 in North Carolina; in 1800, 894,000; in 1810, 1,191,000; in 1820, 1,538,000; in 1830, 2,009,000; in 1840, 2,487,000; in 1850, 3,204,000; in 1860, 3,954,000, the last being about one-fourth of the total population of the Southern States. Research Slavery in America
The Stars and Bars was the flag of the American Confederacy. On March the 5th, 1861, the Flag Committee appointed in the Provisional Senate of the Southern States recommended that 'the flag of the Confederate States shall consist of a red field with a white space extending horizontally through the centre, and equal in width to one-third the width of the flag'. It was first displayed on March the 4th, 1861, simultaneously with the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, being unfurled over the State House at Montgomery, Alabama. In 1863 the Confederate Senate adopted a white flag with one blue star in the centre, the Stars and Bars bearing too close a resemblance to the Stars and Stripes. Johnston and Beauregard also adopted a battle flag, consisting of a red ground with a blue diagonal cross and white stars. Research Stars and Bars
The Trent Affair was an incident of the American Civil War. Towards the end of 1861 two commissioners named J M Mason and John Slidell, dispatched by the Confederacy, embarked at Havana in a British ship, the Trent, bound for England. The Trent was stopped on the high seas by a Federal man-of-war, and the two commissioners were taken prisoner. Popular sentiment in America approved of the action, but President Abraham Lincoln recognised that a breach of international law had been committed, and in response to the British Government's formal demand, restored the prisoners to liberty, thereby averting the threat of war with Britain. Research Trent Affair
The Wide-Awakes were a political division of the American Republican party, organized in 1860 to promote the election of Abraham Lincoln; one of the first organizations of uniformed torchlight-parade enthusiasts in American politics. Research Wide-Awakes
Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the USA. He was born in 1809 at Hardin County, Kentucky and died in 1865 when he was assassinated at a theatre by John Wilkes Booth. Both in Kentucky and in Indiana, to which in 1816 the family removed, as well as in Illinois, whither they went in 1830, Abraham Lincoln had the privations and also the training of a backwoodsman's life.
In his youth he earned money to educate himself by splitting rails for a neighbour, and so earned the nickname 'rail-splitter'. About this time he also made a flat-boat voyage to New Orleans.
In the Black Hawk War of 1832 he served as captain and private. He tried keeping store and failed, studied law, was postmaster of New Salem in Illinois, and deputy surveyor of the county. As a politician he had better success, and after one defeat served in the Legislature from 1834 to 1842. Meanwhile he removed to Springfield and built up a law practice. From 1847 to 1849 he was a Whig Congressman, but was not notably prominent.
His importance dates from the Kansas-Nebraska controversy. In its progress he became the Republican State leader, and in 1858 he took part with Stephen A Douglas in a series of joint debates in canvassing for the US Senatorship. Abraham Lincoln was defeated, but the discussion had aroused great interest, and his utterances, e.g.: 'a house divided against itself cannot stand', brought him into national prominence. In February, 1860, he delivered a remarkable political speech at the Cooper Institute, New York.
He was pressed for the Presidency by many Western Republicans in the Chicago Convention in May, though Seward was in the lead at the outset. Amid great excitement Abraham Lincoln was nominated on the third ballot, and elected, by 180 electoral votes, over Douglas, Breckenridge and Bell. This first victory of the Republicans decided the Secessionists, and when the new President delivered his conciliatory inaugural address the country was drifting toward civil war.
In the Cabinet Seward had the Department of State, Chase the Treasury, Cameron, and soon afterward Stanton, War, Welles the Navy, Caleb B. Smith the Interior, Edward Bates was Attorney-General, and Montgomery Blair Postmaster-General. Immediately on the fall of Port Sumter the President, on April the 15th, 1861, called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the Rebellion. He soon issued a call for additional troops, instituted a blockade, and summoned Congress to meet in extra session on July the 4th.
As the 'War President' Abraham Lincoln is identified with a great part of the history of the struggle. Foreign complications, military and naval movements, domestic politics, as well as routine administrative duties, all claimed his attention; to the people and the armies he was endeared as 'Father Abraham' innumerable anecdotes are related bearing on his humour, strong common sense and sympathy.
On September the 22nd, 1862, profiting by the partial success of Antietam, he issued a preliminary proclamation fixing the coming January the 1st as the date for freeing slaves in insurgent States. The Emancipation Proclamation to that effect accordingly appeared at the opening of 1863. On the nineteenth of November 1863, he pronounced on the battlefield of Gettysburg his short but famous eulogy.
He was renominated by the Republicans on June the 8th, 1864, and elected over McClellan, receiving 212 electoral votes. 'Malice toward none, charity for all' was the burden of his second inaugural. He had visited Richmond after its fall, and was pondering the questions of reconstruction, when on the night of April the 14th he was shot in Ford's Theatre at the capital, and died the next morning. Research Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Johnson was the seventeenth president of the USA from 1865 to 1869. He was born in 1808 at Raleigh, North Carolina and died in 1875. Apprenticed as a tailor at the age of ten, and with no formal education,
Andrew Johnson taught himself to read before moving with his mother and stepfather to Tennessee in 1826 and there opening his own tailor's shop. In 1827 he married Eliza McCardle, who being comparatively well educated taught him how to write and also arithmetic. He then turned to politics and before the age of 21 had organised a working man's party. Between 1835 and 1843 he served two terms in the Tennessee house of representatives and one in the state senate, joining the Democrats and became a popular champion of public education and the rights of mountaineers and small farmers, supporting slavery but rejecting the South's secession from the Union, and refusing to join the Confederacy leading to him being appointed military Governor of Tennessee by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862. Following Abraham Lincoln's assassination, Andrew Johnson became president. Research Andrew Johnson
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Democratic Party
