Thread by @HC_Richardson

@DineshDSouza Seriously? You're going to try this again, after what @KevinMKruse did to you?

OK then. Let's take a look at the history of the Republican Party, shall we?

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse The Republican Party formed in 1854, after rich slaveowners got Congress to pass the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which let them spread slavery across the nation. Northerners recognized that free workers-- the little guy-- would be shut out of the West + rich slaveowners would take over.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse "We were thunderstruck and stunned," Lincoln recalled. But opponents of this power grab splintered into different factions, at first. "We rose each fighting, grasping whatever he could first reach- a scythe- a pitchfork- a chopping axe, or a butcher's cleaver."

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse And then, in 1858, South Carolina Senator James Henry Hammond, famous for raping his nieces as well as his slaves, explained his view of the world. Known as the "Cotton is King" speech, his explanation was really a vision of society.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse Hammond explained that every society needed "a class to do the menial duties," the "mudsill" that was strong, dumb, and unable to rise. On it rested "that other class which leads progress, civilization and refinement. Most folks were mudsills; slaveowners were "that other class."

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse That the slaveowners were so rich proved that their system was the best, and any attempt to alter this plutocracy was simply to fly in the face of God's will.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse Let's pause here for a minute to remember what Alexander Stephens, vice-president of the Confederacy said about his new nation:

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse But back to Hammond: he also said that people should have no say in the policies of their government; they could only vote for leaders, who would do what was best for them because they understood the world better than regular folks.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse And, even if everyone wanted something (like roads) the government could do nothing unless it was enumerated in the Constitution, which only protected property (including slaves, of course). This would move money to the very top, but that was clearly the best system for everyone.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse Ah, but Lincoln. Hammond's speech gave Lincoln the chance to articulate what Republicans stood for. In 1859, in Milwaukee, at an agricultural fair, he laid out the worldview of the Republican Party:

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse A former day laborer himself, Lincoln attacked Hammond's mudsill theory, denying that workingmen were dumb drudges who could never rise. Instead, he outlined the "free labor" theory that declared the men at the bottom, not those at the top, to be the nation's important class.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse The idea was that poor folks created wealth for all while rich folks lived off others. Republicans rallied to the idea that the government should not work for rich slaveholders, but rather should make it easier for hardworking folks at the bottom to prosper.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse Just for fun, let's look at this plank in the Republicans' 1860 party platform. See? They really did believe that helping poor people-- including immigrants-- was good for everyone.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse So what did they do when they got control of the government in 1861? Well, they turned the government over to regular folks. They began by taking control of the finances of the nation away from rich bankers, by inventing the American income tax. Yep.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse In 1861, the GOP invented the income tax. They graduated it, and raised it in 1862 and 1864. The government had a right to "demand" a man's income, they said. When necessary, "the property of the people... belongs to the government." [Justin Smith Morrill, 1862]

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse They also created a tariff wall around the country to raise money and to develop industries. But that put a squeeze on regular folks, so to make it easier for poor people to prosper, they gave them land, money, education... and eventually, freedom.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse In 1862, the Homestead Act gave every settler (or immigrant) 160 acres of land (most of which belonged to Cheyenne and Lakota). "Every smoke rising from a new opening in the wilderness marks the foundation of a new feeder to Commerce and the Revenue"-- GOP editor Horace Greeley.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse When bankers tried to threaten the government, Congress created new money, backed by the people. These were the greenbacks- printed on the back with green ink. GOP also issued bonds that regular people snapped up, financing the war themselves, rather than through banks.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse GOP Congress also created the Land-Grant Colleges, aka our state universities, so that kids from poor families had access to education, and so could rise more easily. Previously, only rich kids got college degrees.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse They also established the Department of Agriculture to help farmers get accurate information and good seeds. This "seed money" was worth it, they said, for the country would be "richly paid over and over again in absolute increase of wealth. There is no doubt of that."

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse Ah, but wait. So far this is all about white men. What about enslaved men? What did the GOP do for them? Make no mistake, most Republicans were racists, and wanted the West (and America) for themselves. In 1861, they didn't want slaves... or free blacks, either. That changed.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse By 1862, it was clear that black workers were key to southern victories, and northerners began to see them as good workers. Then, black soldiers fought brilliantly and died in disproportionate numbers for the US government. They started to look way better than Rebels.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse To weaken the southern war effort, Lincoln emancipated southern slaves under the War Powers, and justified it by pointing to the loyalty of black soldiers at Olustee, where they covered the retreat of white comrades and got clubbed to death for their pains, and at Fort Wagner.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse So concerned was he that his wartime proclamation might not stick that Lincoln made a constitutional amendment the key to his 1864 election, even though he thought he might well lose that election. He didn't, and we got the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse Lincoln and the GOP had given the nation "a new birth of freedom," rededicating it "to the proposition that all men are created equal" and that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse He recognized that once we start deciding that some folks are better than others, we are all at risk, according to which of us can be useful to the people in charge of the government.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse "When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic]," Lincoln wrote to his friend Joshua Speed in 1855.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse From 1854-1865, Lincoln and the GOP took a stand against rich oligarchs who had taken over the country. The GOP pioneered an active government that helped regular Americans, believing that a democratic government should give equal access to resources so everyone could rise.

@DineshDSouza @KevinMKruse No extraordinary stretch of any fevered mind can see those as the principles of today's GOP. //END