The New Departure refers to the political platform adopted after 1865 by the US Democratic Party, and the subsequently deployed strategy, in order to distance itself from its pro-slavery and Copperhead history, in an effort to broaden its political base and to focus on issues on which it had more of an advantage, especially economic ones.
The New Departure poisition argued that the Fourteenth Amendment and the Fifteenth Amendment had already given women suffrage, but that argument was rejected in state and federal courts. [1]
The Democratic Party was the principal party in power in the Southern United States in the years leading up to the American Civil War. The Southern wing of the party defended the institution of slavery and largely came to support secession and the resultant Confederate States in the aftermath of the 1860 election. This fact became a political liability for Northern Democrats in the years of sectional crisis.
In the aftermath of the war, Republicans alleged that many Democrats had been defeatists during the war and had supported Copperhead efforts to end it with a negotiated peace and the diplomatic recognition of an independent South. Abraham Lincoln's Republican administration successfully prosecuted the war, giving it great political advantage in the Northern states. Radical Republicans hostile to the white South[ citation needed ] took control of Congress in 1866, stripped ex-Confederates of their power in local affairs, and utilized the US Army to support state Republican Parties across the South during Reconstruction. Democrats unsuccessfully opposed Radical Reconstruction. [2]
By 1870, many Democrats had stopped opposing Reconstruction and many Republican policies in an effort to improve the fortunes of their party in a strategy that was called the "New Departure" of the Democratic Party. [3] [4] Democrats began asserting that they were just as loyal to the United States as the Republicans and now supported some civil rights. [3] [4] Democrats began pushing for economic modernization and recovery and alleged that the Republican-controlled state governments were inefficient and corrupt. As falling cotton prices further increased economic depression in the South, Democrats attacked the Republicans as creating unwelcome tax burdens and being unable to revive the economy. [3] [4] A prominent example of "New Departure" success was the election as the Governor of Virginia of William E. Cameron and of ex-Confederate General William Mahone as US Senator from Virginia. Both Cameron and Mahone were leaders of the "Readjuster Party," a coalition of Democrats, Republicans and African Americans that sought the reduction of Virginia's pre-war debt. In Tennessee, "Redeemer" Democrats supported the Republican governor DeWitt Senter.
Georgia Democrats called their program the New Departure starting in 1872, when they regained full control of the state government. The party was conservative on issues of race and vigorously promoted the Henry W. Grady's New South dream of promoting economic modernization by business, railroads, banking, merchandising, and industry. The New Departure policy made Georgia's reconciliation with the business community in the North easier and facilitated northern investments in the state. The era ended in 1890, when the Farmers' Alliance captured the Democratic Party. [5]
On May 18, 1871, Democrats of Montgomery County, Ohio, met in convention in Dayton to appoint delegates to the state convention on June 1, 1871. The members of their Committee on Resolutions were Clement Vallandigham, Dr. A. Geiger, David A. Houk, Dr. John Kemp, John A. McMahon, Adam Clay, and George V. Naureth. The New Departure resolution of fifteen points was adopted. The resolution called for abandoning Civil War issues of the Democratic Party, "thus burying out of sight all that is of the dead past, namely, the right of secession, slavery, inequality before the law, and political inequality; and further, now that reconstruction is complete, and representation within the Union restored to all the States" and affirmed states' rights. It "opposed to all attempts at centralisation and consolidation of power in the hands of the General Government" and advocated "to secure universal political rights and equality among both the white and the colored people of the United States." The resolution called for "payment of the public debt at the earliest practicable moment consistent with moderate taxation" and to "make the burdens of taxation equal, uniform, and just" with "adequate reform in the civil service." For government finances, "a strictly revenue tariff" was advocated, along with "all taxation ought to be based on wealth instead of population... That specie is the basis of all sound currency, and that the policy requires as speedy a return to that basis as is practicable without distress to the debtor-class"
The resolution stated "there is no necessary or irrepressible conflict between labor and capital. The policy on land grants was: "we are totally and resolutely opposed to the grant of any more of the public lands... holding that these lands ought to be devoted as homesteads to actual settlers, or sold in small quantities to individuals at a price so low as to induce speedy occupation and settlement." It advocated "holding still to the good old Democratic doctrine of annexation or acquisition of territory, The "Bayonet Bill" and the "Ku-Klux Bill" passed by Congress were opposed on the grounds of "intermeddling with the exclusively local concerns of every State. The resolution concluded with a statement "that the Radical party of 1871 as now constituted is not the Republican party... it deserves the emphatic condemnation of the people." [6]
The New Departure policy of Ohio Democrats was endorsed by Salmon P. Chase on May 20, 1871. [7]
The resolution may or may not have been the origins of the New Departure policy of the Democratic Party.
The "New Departure" was strongly opposed by large factions of Democrats in the Deep South. They professed loyalty to the Confederate legacy. Republicans attacked the Democrats as being insincere about reform, committed to states' rights at the expense of national unity, and to white supremacy at the expense of civil rights. [3]
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 8, 1864, near the end of the American Civil War. Incumbent President Abraham Lincoln of the National Union Party easily defeated the Democratic nominee, former General George B. McClellan, by a wide margin of 212–21 in the electoral college, with 55% of the popular vote. For the election, the Republican Party and some Democrats created the National Union Party, especially to attract War Democrats.
The Reconstruction era was a period in United States history and Southern United States history that followed the American Civil War and was dominated by the legal, social, and political challenges of the abolition of slavery and the reintegration of the eleven former Confederate States of America into the United States. During this period, three amendments were added to the United States Constitution to grant citizenship and equal civil rights to the newly freed slaves. To circumvent these legal achievements, the former Confederate states imposed poll taxes and literacy tests and engaged in terrorism to intimidate and control black people and to discourage or prevent them from voting.
The States' Rights Democratic Party, also colloquially referred to as the Dixiecrat Party, was a short-lived segregationist political party in the United States, active primarily in the South. It arose due to a Southern regional split in opposition to the national Democratic Party. After President Harry S. Truman, the leader of the Democratic Party, ordered integration of the military in 1948 and other actions to address civil rights of African Americans, including the first presidential proposal for comprehensive civil and voting rights, many Southern white politicians who objected to this course organized themselves as a breakaway faction. They wished to protect the ability of states to maintain racial segregation. Its members were referred to as "Dixiecrats", a portmanteau of "Dixie", referring to the Southern United States, and "Democrat".
In the 1860s, the Copperheads, also known as Peace Democrats, were a faction of the Democratic Party in the Union who opposed the American Civil War and wanted an immediate peace settlement with the Confederates.
The Radical Republicans were a political faction within the Republican Party originating from the party's founding in 1854—some six years before the Civil War—until the Compromise of 1877, which effectively ended Reconstruction. They called themselves "Radicals" because of their goal of immediate, complete, and permanent eradication of slavery in the United States. The Radical faction also included, though, very strong currents of Nativism, anti-Catholicism, and in favor of the Prohibition of alcoholic beverages. These policy goals and the rhetoric in their favor often made it extremely difficult for the Republican Party as a whole to avoid alienating large numbers of American voters from Irish Catholic, German, and other White ethnic backgrounds. In fact, even German-American Freethinkers and Forty-Eighters who, like Hermann Raster, otherwise sympathized with the Radical Republicans' aims, fought them tooth and nail over prohibition. They later became known as "Stalwarts".
Clement Laird Vallandigham was an American lawyer and politician who served as the leader of the Copperhead faction of anti-war Democrats during the American Civil War.
In United States history, scalawag was a pejorative slur referred to white Southerners who supported Reconstruction policies and efforts after the conclusion of the American Civil War.
The origins of the American Civil War were rooted in the desire of the Southern states to preserve the institution of slavery. Historians in the 21st century overwhelmingly agree on the centrality of slavery in the conflict. They disagree on which aspects were most important, and on the North's reasons for refusing to allow the Southern states to secede. The pseudo-historical Lost Cause ideology denies that slavery was the principal cause of the secession, a view disproven by historical evidence, notably some of the seceding states' own secession documents. After leaving the Union, Mississippi issued a declaration stating, "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world."
The Solid South was the electoral voting bloc for the Democratic Party in the Southern United States between the end of the Reconstruction era in 1877 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. During this period, the Democratic Party controlled southern state legislatures and most local, state and federal officeholders in the South were Democrats. During the late 19th century and early 20th century, Southern Democrats disenfranchised nearly all blacks in all the former Confederate states. This resulted in a one-party system, in which a candidate's victory in Democratic primary elections was tantamount to election to the office itself. White primaries were another means that the Democrats used to consolidate their political power, excluding blacks from voting.
The Liberal Republican Party was an American political party that was organized in May 1872 to oppose the reelection of President Ulysses S. Grant and his Radical Republican supporters in the presidential election of 1872. The party emerged in Missouri under the leadership of Senator Carl Schurz and soon attracted other opponents of Grant; Liberal Republicans decried the scandals of the Grant administration and sought civil service reform. The party opposed Grant's Reconstruction policies, particularly the Enforcement Acts that destroyed the Ku Klux Klan. It lost in a landslide, and disappeared from the national stage after the 1872 election.
The Redeemers were a political coalition in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction Era that followed the American Civil War. Redeemers were the Southern wing of the Democratic Party. They sought to regain their political power and enforce white supremacy. Their policy of Redemption was intended to oust the Radical Republicans, a coalition of freedmen, "carpetbaggers", and "scalawags". They were typically led by White yeomen and dominated Southern politics in most areas from the 1870s to 1910.
Joel Parker was an American attorney and Democratic Party politician who served two non-consecutive terms as the 20th governor of New Jersey from 1863 to 1866 and 1872 to 1875. As a Democratic governor during the American Civil War, Parker was one of the leading critics of the Abraham Lincoln administration's domestic and military policy, though he was generally a supporter of the Union war effort. In 1868 and 1876, he was nominated for President of the United States as a favorite son by New Jersey's party delegation.
Theodore Fitz Randolph was an American attorney, businessman, and politician who served as the 22nd governor of New Jersey from 1869 to 1872 and represented the state in the United States Senate from 1875 to 1881. He was the son of U.S. Representative James F. Randolph.
The Third Party System was a period in the history of political parties in the United States from the 1850s until the 1890s, which featured profound developments in issues of American nationalism, modernization, and race. This period was marked by the American Civil War (1861–1865), the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of slavery in the United States, followed by the Reconstruction era and the Gilded Age.
The 1864 Democratic National Convention was held at The Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Popular opposition to the American Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865, was widespread. Although there had been many attempts at compromise prior to the outbreak of war, there were those who felt it could still be ended peacefully or did not believe it should have occurred in the first place. Opposition took the form of both those in the North who believed the South had the right to be independent and those in the South who wanted neither war nor a Union advance into the newly declared Confederate States of America.
The Democratic Party of the United States is a party composed of various factions. The liberal faction supports modern liberalism that began with the New Deal in the 1930s and continued with both the New Frontier and Great Society in the 1960s. The moderate faction supports Third Way politics that includes center-left social policies and centrist fiscal policies. The progressive faction supports progressivism.
The Crisis was a newspaper published during the first half of the American Civil War by Samuel Medary that was critical of the American government's decision to limit slavery, and following the beginning of the war against the Confederate States of America, to wage war against the South. It was presented as the newspaper for favor with "Peace Democrats" - those northerners who sided with the Confederate cause during the war.
War Democrats in American politics of the 1860s were members of the Democratic Party who supported the Union and rejected the policies of the Copperheads. The War Democrats demanded a more aggressive policy toward the Confederacy and supported the policies of Republican President Abraham Lincoln when the American Civil War broke out a few months after his victory in the 1860 presidential election.
The Northern Democratic Party was a leg of the Democratic Party during the 1860 presidential election, when the party split in two factions because of disagreements over slavery. They held two conventions before the election, in Charleston and Baltimore, where they established their platform. Democratic Candidate Stephen A. Douglas was the nominee and lost to Republican Candidate Abraham Lincoln, whose victory prompted the secession of 11 Southern states and the formation of the Confederate States of America.