Posted in Memory of Reconstruction

Historian Greg Downs on What Modern Democrats Can Learn from Reconstruction Republicans

In an interesting essay on TPM today, historian Greg Downs writes that the Republican Party’s willingness to embrace unorthodox methods during the Civil War and…

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Posted in 15th Amendment Suffrage White Supremacy White Supremacy Apologetics

Opposing the 15th Amendment: The Conservative and Democratic Argument Against Blacks Voting 1869-1870

The 15th Amendment granted equal voting rights to all male citizens regardless of race. It passed both houses of Congress in Feb. 1869 and went…

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Posted in U.S. Grant

Gideon Welles: Democrats Should Have Nominated General Hancock to Run Against Grant 1868

In 1868, Union army commander Ulysses S. Grant defeated the Democrat Horatio Seymour in the presidential race. In his Journal for Nov. 17, 1868, Sec….

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Posted in Immigrants U.S. Grant

Democratic Newspaper Wonders if Grant Still Antisemite in 1869

Grant’s order expelling the Jews from territory occupied by his army was issued in 1862, but more than six years later Democratic newspapers were still…

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Posted in Elections White Supremacy White Terror

Wade Hampton & South Carolina Democrats Call for a Halt to Assassinations Nov. 1868

Following a series of assassinations of Republicans during the weeks leading up to the Nov. 1868 elections, the South Carolina Democratic Committee issued a call…

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Posted in African Americans Emancipation & Reconstruction USCT

New York Peace Democrats: Reasons for Opposing Recruiting Black Union Troops

We don’t often get the full scope of reasons for opposing the recruitment of Black soldiers. This is the view from the Journal of Commerce…

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Posted in Elections Music

“Raise High the White Man’s Banner” Democratic Campaign Song August 1868

The great Democratic Ratification meeting in New Orleans was one of many state or city gatherings organized by local Democrats to ratify Horatio Seymour as…

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Posted in African Americans Emancipation & Reconstruction White Supremacy White Supremacy Apologetics Women and Gender

Democrat Explains Why Southern Whites Resist “Black Rule” July 16, 1868

Allen Granberry Thurman (November 13, 1813 – December 12, 1895) is hardly a household name today, but in the mid-19th Century he was a well-known…

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Posted in White Supremacy White Supremacy Apologetics

“Seymour & Blair-A White Man’s Government” & “Useless Grant” Democratic Slogans of 1868

In the 1868 Presidential Election, the Democratic Party’s Northern and Southern wings were reunited for the first time in eight years. The reunited party held…

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Posted in Women and Gender

History Behind the 1864 Law Restricting Abortion in Arizona

Before the Civil War, very few states had laws restricting abortion in the early stages of a pregnancy. For those states that criminalized abortion, most…

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