The Grand Old Party is Just a Road to Trump Tower
Corner of Lake and Wacker 2016
This week my wife needed to be in Chicago for her work so we cashed in a few frequent flyer miles and I tagged along. On Monday we finally had a sunny day so I set out to walk around the downtown of one of my favorite cities. After doing some typical tourist things like getting a Chicago style hot dog I walked to the corner of Lake Street and Wacker Drive.
This was the site of the Wigwam, the birthplace of Republican Party. The contested convention which rejected front runner Senator Seward from New York for the country lawyer from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln.
At the time the Republican Party was new. They had never elected a President. Most of its members, like Lincoln we former Whigs, a party committed to a strong federal government which could and would support public work programs. But with the Republicans there was a new thread, a strong commitment to halt the spread of slavery into the territories. Some, the abolitionists, saw this as a cause inspired by concern for the slaves themselves. Others, the traditional Whigs, were inspired by a desire to protect white workers from the slavery system with which free labor could not compete. To us in the 21st Century this might seem like a distinction without a difference, but in 1860 it was enough of a difference to stop Seward and nominate Lincoln who was clearly in the latter camp.
The Wigwam, the site of this momentous gathering of 10,000 delegates and camp followers was built in a year. A perfect symbol for the Chicago building boom. It was wood framed and put up in a hurry for a city in a hurry. There is no way a modern fire inspector would allow 500 people to gather there let alone 10,000. It was a fire trap.
The people who gathered there knew the Democratic Party had split when the Southern Democrats made it clear there would be not compromise on slavery and for that reason Senator Douglas from Illinois was unacceptable to lead the national campaign. Douglas was in favor of letting the settlers in the territories decide locally the question of “free or slave.” The southerners insisted on following the dictum in Dred Scott decision which said the federal government could not keep slavery out of the territories. So the people who gathered at the Wigwam knew what happened here could change the world.
In some ways the country has come a long way since Lincoln lead the Republican Party. The country is not the same. The Democratic Party is not the same. And, alas the Republican Party is not the same.
It is common nowadays to hear a conservative Republican call another Republican a RINO, a Republican In Name Only. The idea being that the object of this ridicule is not really loyal to Republican values. So as I stood there on Chicago River, just downstream from Trump Towers, I thought it would be instructive to look at the original Republican Platform and use that as the litmus test as to who is the real Republican. Now, some of it dealt with very specific pre-civil war issues which don’t have much import today, but much of it focused on overriding principals and those are very instructive.
I have included these provisions below with the exact language in italics. Give it a look. I think you’ll agree with me, that by this standard most of the so called RINOs are closer to the original party than their critics, and that if Lincoln was alive today he would run as a Democrat even before he read what this year’s Republican standard bearer thought of people like Lincoln, his family and the people he ran to represent.
“My entire life, I've watched politicians bragging about how poor they are, how they came from nothing, how poor their parents and grandparents were. And I said to myself, if they can stay so poor for so many generations, maybe this isn't the kind of person we want to be electing to higher office. How smart can they be? They're morons.”
Donald J. Trump
Read the Republican Magna Carta and tell me the Party of Lincoln is not as dead and gone as the Wigwam itself.
Republican Platform of 1860 on which Abraham Lincoln the First Republican President was Elected.
Resolved, That we, the delegated representatives of the Republican electors of the United States in Convention assembled, in discharge of the duty we owe to our constituents and our country, unite in the following declarations:
1. Put the fundamental idea of equality stated in the Declaration of Independence at the front of their platform. That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Federal Constitution, "That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,"
2. Condemn talk of disunion and secession. That no Republican member of Congress has uttered or countenanced the threats of disunion so often made by Democratic members, without rebuke and with applause from their political associates; and we denounce those threats of disunion
3. In favor of national programs to increase wages of working people. We commend that policy of national exchanges, which secures to the workingmen liberal wages, to agriculture remunerative prices, to mechanics and manufacturers an adequate reward for their skill, labor, and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and independence.
4. In favor of free land for poor folks who want to start their own homestead. That we protest against any sale or alienation to others of the public lands held by actual settlers, and against any view of the free-homestead policy which regards the settlers as paupers or suppliants for public bounty; and we demand the passage by Congress of the complete and satisfactory homestead measure which has already passed the House
5. Committed to welcoming immigrants as full citizens. That the Republican party is opposed to any change in our naturalization laws or any state legislation by which the rights of citizens hitherto accorded to immigrants from foreign lands shall be abridged or impaired; and in favor of giving a full and efficient protection to the rights of all classes of citizens, whether native or naturalized, both at home and abroad.
6. Committed to the Federal Government playing a major role in development of the nation’s infrastructure. That appropriations by Congress for river and harbor improvements of a national character, required for the accommodation and security of an existing commerce, are authorized by the Constitution, and justified by the obligation of Government to protect the lives and property of its citizens… That a railroad to the Pacific Ocean is imperatively demanded by the interests of the whole country; that the federal government ought to render immediate and efficient aid in its construction;