The Republican Party has Morphed into the "Know-Nothing" Party of Old

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   My Esotericposted 5 years ago

   The real name if the Know-Nothing Party is the American Party, aka, the Native American Party (1844 - 1860) - it is the quintessential anti-immigrant party of xenophobes.  When the Whig party dissolved, its liberal wing became the Republican Party (of Lincoln).   Its conservative elements either moved over to the Democratic Party or the new American Party.  This is what Abraham Lincoln had to say about the American Party then - and most probably Trump's Republican Party today.
   
   "Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy." - LINCOLN
   
   Today, the members of the Know-Nothing Party would be called white supremacists and would be led by Donald Trump.
   
   Should the Republican Party be renamed to the Know-Nothing Party?

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      My Esotericposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      For anybody that cares, this is a MUST READ!!! - https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/16/opinions … index.html

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         MizBejabbersposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         I read the commentary and this is my take on it. Back then "all MEN are created equal" was taken quite literally. When I was working on my MA, I did a paper on how hard certain people, mainly in the midwest and other rural states had worked to give women the vote. This included many men whose wives had worked alongside them to build up their farms and small businesses. However, when the war was over, just when women thought they were about to get the right to vote, the thought shifted instead to giving the vote to black MEN, not to everyone. Many a woman heard her husband say, "I'm sorry, honey, but you will have to wait a little longer. It is more important that we give black men the right to vote." So women of any color took a back seat to the men who were created equal. And that "little longer" turned into nearly 40 years.
         
         I realize that this is not the point your were trying to make here. I wonder what President Equality-for-All-Men Lincoln thought about the idea of women voting.
         
         Twenty years ago, a friend of mine married a woman who was a naturalized citizen from Mexico. The wife told me that if a U.S. citizen wanted to establish residence in Mexico, that person was required to have a minimum of $20,000 in the bank. So other countries have no desire to take in and support the "wretched" from other countries.
         
         I'm not a Republican. I'm just pointing out the inequality of this whole thing. But we Libras do prefer a balance to life. (Before the very liberals crucify me, I am a volunteer at the quarterly naturalization ceremonies in my city. I attend the ceremonies four times a year and shake their hands and congratulate them, so I'm certainly not against immigrants. I'm just questioning what is real equality? I don't think even Lincoln knew.) Know-Nothing then, Know no more today.

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            My Esotericposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            I suppose you mean by "the war" you meant the Revolutionary war and that is time you are speaking of.  Let me add to your story with some things I found doing research on voting rights.
            
            There were several of the New England states which had passed rather liberal laws, for that time, regarding women and blacks.  Some gave both rights to vote and own property, others gave that to blacks only, still others to women only, yet others gave women the right to vote but not own property, and then there were those who allowed women to own property but not to vote. (I think I have run out of New England states, lol)  I have to remember where I was creating this list.  In any case, by the very early 1800s, all of these state laws had been wiped off the books as conservatism took hold in America
            
            I think I remembered that Lincoln supported woman's suffrage, but felt it should left to the states.  But in any case, I also remember reading that the suffrage movement, who did support Lincoln, were sorely disappointed for what you just said, putting freeing the slaves ahead of women voting; he didn't feel he could get both through even the liberal Congress he had and therefore went with abolition.
            
            I suspect that

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               MizBejabbersposted 5 years agoin reply to this

               I'm sorry, I left off a word. It was the Civil War. I don't recall whether or not Lincoln supported women's suffrage. I wasn't referring to women being disappointed that Lincoln put freeing slaves ahead of women voting. In fact, I'm sure that most of these women were for freeing slaves. It was dropping women's suffrage for black men's suffrage that angered women. At the time I was doing the research, I don't remember coming across anything that said he could have promoted both instead of dropping women. Apparently it was a cut and dried "either or".
               
               But you are correct about women's rights around the Revolutionary War period. Some states were more liberal toward women's rights of any type than others. I'm not sure what changed those viewpoints as time went on. I do recall that the states of the midwest and rural areas were the states in which the women helped the men to build their farms and estates. Therefore, the men looked more liberally on their women as partners with rights, not shrinking violets to be taken care of and themselves as he-men to take care of them.

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