#whigs vs. tories

[bethanydelleman]

Hello! How are you?

I am reading about political parties during the Regency era and I have a question. Which of Austen's characters do you think are Whigs and which are Tories?

You really going to force me to relearn what Whigs and Tories were? Cruel, cruel nonnie. I'm going to cheat, this is from my favourite thesis on Jane Austen, Above the Vulgar Economy:

As Josephine Ross in Jane Austen: A Companion maintains,

The clear-cut distinctions of modern parliamentary politics had yet to emerge; and while the Whigs in the House of Commons tended to represent the interests of the aristocracy and upper classes, as well as expressing liberal ideals, the Tories – with their broad adherence to the more traditionally middle-class principles of upholding the Crown and keeping disaffection in check – were more identified with the landed gentry, and educated, but modestly situated, families such as the Austens.

At the time, the two party system was still evolving, and there was a great deal of dissention in the ranks. There were reactionaries, reformers and radical members in both parties. There were conservative, moderate and liberal Tories, and the Whig party was factionalized into Portland Whigs, Rockingham Whigs, Benthamites and Foxites to name a few.

Also, I have gotten the impression from reading other novels (eg. Wives & Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell) from the time that often people knew which party their family voted for, but knew almost nothing else. Something that totally still happens today!

Here is another great passage:

In fact, when Pride & Prejudice was originally written as First Impressions in 1796 and 1797, Austen‟s novel appears to have been taking a stand in favor of two controversial economic proposals being debated in the House of Commons and in the press, a national minimum wage and Poor Law reform, thus Pride & Prejudice was much more than a satire of manners but was also a political critique of Jane Austen's society. Both proposals were championed at the time by Tory Prime Minister William Pitt, the Younger and supported by liberal Tories and moderate Whigs. Both proposals were vehemently opposed by reactionary Tories and radical Whigs. The eligible bachelors in Pride & Prejudice are all associated with the Whig party, as is Lady Catherine de Bourgh, but the characters, like the Whigs in the House of Commons, have very different attitudes towards money and the working class.

Additionally, Austen's contemporaries would have known that Elizabeth Bennet's agricultural county, Hertfordshire, was, at least for the working class, the poorest county in England, just as Fitzwilliam Darcy's Derbyshire, financially stimulated by the Industrial Revolution, was the richest county, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh‟s Kent was a mixed county that varied enormously, from parish to parish, in prevailing wages and in treatment of the poor. The admirable Whig characters, like Fitzwilliam Darcy and Charles Bingley, are kindly and generous, while the radical Whig, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, is selfish and stingy, and George Wickham is simply an opportunist and a scoundrel. By its presentation of the different Whig characters, the text appears to be appealing to Whigs to be generous to the working class and encouraging Tories to look approvingly on those Whigs who are willing to financially support the poor.

Pride and Prejudice also includes a large number of characters who are servants, many identified by name. As most of them have no dialogue and do nothing to forward the plot, their presence in the novel at all may seem curious, but the depiction of the working class in Pride and Prejudice is more subtle to the modern reader than it would have been to Austen‟s original readers. The servants in Pride and Prejudice refute the assumptions of prominent Whig economists and politicians, Edmund Burke, Frederic Eden and Patrick Colquhoun, who depicted the lower class as ignorant, wasteful and immoral. Lady Catherine‟s financial neglect of the poor in Kent conforms to the economists‟ advice based on their assumptions that the working class was already adequately compensated for its labor and that poverty was the result of the irresponsible behavior of the poor. In stark contrast, Fitzwilliam Darcy‟s generosity to the poor in Derbyshire serves as a model response to poverty, and the general prosperity of Darcy‟s home county suggests that the solution to poverty is a combination of higher wages and liberal charity, exactly what the Prime Minister was proposing in 1797.

The general impression that I have gotten is that both Whigs and Tories were relatively ineffective. Anyway, a pretty clear answer for one character:

Pride and Prejudice‟s hero is almost certainly a Whig as well since the choice of the name, Fitzwilliam Darcy, is highly suggestive. Lord Fitzwilliam, later Earl Fitzwilliam, was from the north of England and, as historian William Hague describes him, one of the “Three great Earls of the Whig aristocracy”

Anywho, I'm not going to go through and sort them all since it seems fairly ambiguous who would be affiliated with which party. Also, almost everyone on earth holds some views that are extremely contradictory, so it's impossible to tell.

[lacnunga]

Debating if I'm deep enough in the brainrot to write a jsamn version of The Political House That Jack Built

[cervidame]

Hi, I have a question about genesis! If Theo is accepted as the barons heir, does that mean he will eventually get a vote? I know he needs to have land in his name but this seems like the only opportunity he would have to get any.

OMG this is the best question to get on my lunch break ok ok here we go. Yes. If Theo is named the Baron's heir, he would be primed for a seat in the House of Lords upon the Baron's passing. Being in society would also give him a better shot at running to be an MP (Member of Parliament) for the House of Commons and, if he was elected, he could push for bills and reform. And it will be explored more (we've already had the men in the queue discussing rising tensions of the whigs vs tories) but rn Theo is kinda... Look Eloise is very pretty and our boy knows his priorities. And he's a little overwhelmed by everything that's happening and shutting his emotions down like me trying to shove all my luggage into my suitcase when I'm taking 50 books on holiday. But we'll get there. And just so everyone is on the same page here voting rights in the Regency period in England were fucking abysmal. It wasn't until 1832 when parliament made it so land owners (and those who paid very specific taxes) could vote. Electing an MP was also messy - there were these things called counties and boroughs (six types of them!!) and corruption was utterly rampant. So in short you're right. This is literally the only chance at this point in his life that Theo has a chance at not just voting but having a major say in politics. Basically: The Baron: ok you're my son now or whatever that's nice. let's sign the paperwork and then go back to the garden i need to water the flowers. Let's live in peace away from society!! 😊🌼 Theo:...ah yes but... have you considered... POLITICAL REFORM?! The Baron:...noooo... helen why did you raise him like this 😭

[theworstfoundingfathers]

Who is the worst founding father? Round 4: Benedict Arnold vs Henry Clay?

Benedict Arnold (14 January 1741 [O.S. 3 January 1740] – June 14, 1801) was an American-born military officer who served during the Revolutionary War. He fought with distinction for the American Continental Army and rose to the rank of major general before defecting to the British side of the conflict in 1780. General George Washington had given him his fullest trust and had placed him in command of West Point in New York. Arnold was planning to surrender the fort there to British forces, but the plot was discovered in September 1780, whereupon he fled to the British lines. In the later part of the conflict, Arnold was commissioned as a brigadier general in the British Army, and placed in command of the American Legion. He led the British army in battle against the soldiers whom he had once commanded, after which his name became, and has remained, synonymous with treason and betrayal in the United States.

Historians have identified many possible factors contributing to Arnold’s treason, while some debate their relative importance. According to W. D. Wetherell, he was:

[A]mong the hardest human beings to understand in American history. Did he become a traitor because of all the injustice he suffered, real and imagined, at the hands of the Continental Congress and his jealous fellow generals? Because of the constant agony of two battlefield wounds in an already gout-ridden leg? From psychological wounds received in his Connecticut childhood when his alcoholic father squandered the family’s fortunes? Or was it a kind of extreme midlife crisis, swerving from radical political beliefs to reactionary ones, a change accelerated by his marriage to the very young, very pretty, very Tory Peggy Shippen?

---

Henry Clay Sr. (April 12, 1777 – June 29, 1852) was an American attorney and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He was the seventh House speaker as well as the ninth secretary of state. He unsuccessfully ran for president in the 1824, 1832, and 1844 elections. He helped found both the National Republican Party and the Whig Party. For his role in defusing sectional crises, he earned the appellation of the “Great Compromiser” and was part of the “Great Triumvirate” of Congressmen, alongside fellow Whig Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun.

[Clay and his family] initially lived in Lexington, but in 1804 they began building a plantation outside of Lexington known as Ashland. The Ashland estate eventually encompassed over 500 acres (200 ha), with numerous outbuildings such as a smokehouse, a greenhouse, and several barns. Enslaved there were 122 during Clay’s lifetime with about 50 needed for farming and the household. 

In early 1819, a dispute erupted over the proposed statehood of Missouri after New York Congressman James Tallmadge introduced a legislative amendment that would provide for the gradual emancipation of Missouri’s slaves. Though Clay had previously called for gradual emancipation in Kentucky, he sided with the Southerners in voting down Tallmadge’s amendment. Clay instead supported Senator Jesse B. Thomas’s compromise proposal in which Missouri would be admitted as a slave state, Maine would be admitted as a free state, and slavery would be forbidden in the territories north of 36° 30’ parallel. Clay helped assemble a coalition that passed the Missouri Compromise, as Thomas’s proposal became known. Further controversy ensued when Missouri’s constitution banned free blacks from entering the state, but Clay was able to engineer another compromise that allowed Missouri to join as a state in August 1821.

[georgeeliotworld]

Felix Holt, 1866. I thoroughly enjoyed this big, rich, “baggy monster “ of a novel. It takes some time to get the story set up, and the pace in the first half is admittedly slow, but I enjoyed the opportunity to track down Eliot’s historical, literary, religious, and legal references in my annotated Penguin edition and do some reading about historical events of the time. In contrast, the second half is eventful and dramatic on a more personal level and very fast paced. The pervading storyline is the electoral contest between progressives advocating to make voting and representation more equitable and the resistant conservative forces on the eve of the Reform Act of 1832. Another involves the complex history of Transome family whose heir, Harold Transome, breaks with Tory family tradition and runs for office as a Radical. The inheritance of the Transome estate is a labyrinthine and dramatic legal subplot. There is also a love triangle: affluent and genteel Harold Transome and poor, idealistically progressive Felix Holt, vie for the love of Esther Lyon, daughter of a poor Dissenting minister. Finally there is Esther Lyon’s thought provoking coming of age story. I loved Eliot’s ever beautiful prose, the views of the different strata of society, and how she interweaves individual and historical events. I recommend it!

Spoilers Alert:

I finished volume 1. It lays out the cast: The Transomes, a Tory family whose heir, Harold has returned home from many years abroad and much to his mother’s disappointment has declared himself a Radical candidate for office. The Debarrys, another Tory family whose heir, Philip is a Tory candidate. There’s also the Dissenter Rev. Rufus Lyon and his daughter Esther and finally their acquaintance Felix Holt, a supporter of the Radical cause. Class division between the conservative Torys vs the liberal Whigs and Radicals is obviously a major theme, see opposing views expressed by the conservative and liberal newspapers, pp 108-109. The divisions can also be seen in church affiliation: conservatives with C of E and liberals with the dissenting church generally. Even the hotels had their political allegiances, p204 !

In book two there is a burgeoning closeness between Esther Lyons and Felix Holt along with her maturation. She grows from self centeredness and superficial interests to an increasing appreciation for her father and aspiration to the idealism of Felix Holt. We also learn the true history of Esther Lyon which sets off an inheritance legal drama. This drama is initiated by Mr. Jermyns, a conniving lawyer, for his personal gain and complicated by the competing interests of Mr. Johnson, his underling and Mr. Christian, the servant of Mr. Philip Debarry. Finally, there is an alcohol fueled riot on Election Day in which Felix Holt is wrongly imprisoned for serious crimes.

In volume 3, the Transome inheritance drama comes to a head. Esther is torn between the sensibility of accepting Harold Transome and her more passionate feelings towards Felix. Felix Holt’s trial plays out, and Harold Transome’s unexpected history comes to light.

Memorable excerpts:

There is much pain that is quite noiseless; and vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence. There are glances of hatred that stab and raise no cry of murder; robberies that leave man or woman for ever beggared of peace and joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer – committed to no sound except that of low moans in the night, seen in no writing except that made on the face by the slow months of suppressed anguish and early morning tears. Many an inherited sorrow that has marred a life has been breathed in no human ear.

Why do they build churches and endow them that their sons may get paid well for preaching a Saviour, and making themselves as little like Him as can be? If I want to believe in Jesus Christ, I must shut my eyes for fear I should see a parson. And what’s a bishop? A bishop is a parson dressed up, who sits in the house of lords to help and throw out reform bills. And because it’s hard to get anything in the shape of a man to dress himself up like that, and to do such work, they give him a palace for it, and plenty of thousands a year. And then they cry out - “The church is in danger,” - “the poor man’s church.” and why is it the poor man’s church? Because he can have a seat for nothing. I think it is for nothing; for it would be hard to tell what he gets by it. If the poor man had a vote in the matter, I think he’d choose a different sort of a church to what that is. But do you think the aristocrats will ever alter it, if the belly doesn’t pinch them? Not they. It’s part of their monopoly. They’ll supply us with our religion like everything else, and get a profit on it. They’ll give us plenty of heaven. We may have land there. That’s the sort of religion they like – a religion that gives us working men heaven, and nothing else. But we’ll offer to change with ‘em. Will give them back some of their heaven, and take it out in something for us and our children in this world. p290

To be right in great memorable moments, is perhaps the thing we need most desire for ourselves. p309

Examples of Victorian parlance: “Enlarge not your grief by more than warrantable grounds.”In modern parlance: Don’t worry too much at this point.😁

“let’s go to my study and consider this writing further.“ In modern parlance: let’s go to my study and read it again.😁

Under the stimulus of small many-mixed motives like these (men like Jermyn, Christian, & Johnson), a great deal of business has been done in the world by well-clad and in 1833, clean-shaven men, whose names are on charity-lists, and who do not know that they are base.“ p359

And ‘tis a strange truth that only in the agony of parting we look into the depths of love. p428

If there’s anything our people want convincing of, it is, that there’s some dignity and happiness for a man other than changing his station. p435

To be continued…

[patriotsnet]

Did Democrats Or Republicans Founded The Kkk

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/did-democrats-or-republicans-founded-the-kkk/

Did Democrats Or Republicans Founded The Kkk

The Kkk Was Founded By Democrats But Not The Party

Democrats Founded the KKK.mp4

The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1866 by ex-Confederate soldiers Frank McCord, Richard Reed, John Lester, John Kennedy, J. Calvin Jones and James Crowe in Pulaski, Tennessee. The group was originally a social club but quickly became a violent white supremacist group.

Its first grand wizard was Nathan Bedford Forrest, an ex-Confederate general and prominent slave trader.

Fact check:

Experts agree the KKK attracted many ex-Confederate soldiers and Southerners who opposed Reconstruction, most of whom were Democrats. Forrest even spoke at the 1868 Democratic National Convention.

The KKK is almost a paramilitary organization thats trying to benefit one party. It syncs up with the Democratic Party, which really was a;racist party openly at the time, Grinspan said. But the KKK isnt the Democratic Party, and the Democratic Party isnt the KKK.

Although the KKK did serve the Democratic Partys interests, Grinspan stressed that not all Democrats supported the KKK.

The Anti-Defamation Leagues Center on Extremism senior fellow Mark Pitcavage told the Associated Press that many KKK members were Democrats because the Whig Party had died off and Southerners disliked Republicans after the Civil War. Despite KKK members’ primary political affiliation, Pitcavage said it is wrong to say the Democratic Party started the KKK.

Fact check:Yes, historians do teach that first Black members of Congress were Republicans

The Conservative Coalition Vs The New Deal Coalition

Now that we know the basics, the changes in both parties in the 1900s are perhaps best understood by examining;the Conservative Coalition;and the New Deal Coalition.

The Conservative Coalition was a coalition between the anti-Communist Republicans like Nixon and Reagan and conservative Southern Democrats. It arose to oppose FDRs New Deal progressivism, and it blocked a lot of the progressive legislation the New Deal Coalition tried to pass from the 1930s to the 1960s. The socially conservative solid south;was still its own entity. It sometimes voted;with other Democrats, and sometimes broke off into its own factions. See the 1960 election Kennedy v. Nixon v. Harry F. Byrd. The Coalition tellingly dwindled post 64 Civil Rights and ended in the Clinton era as conservative southerners became Republicans and formed;the modern construct of the Red States and the Blue States.

Meanwhile,;the New Deal coalition explains the progressive coalition of Democrats and Republicans the Conservative coalition opposed. Today the two parties largely resemble these coalitions.

A Summary Of The Solid South Switch

To summarize the above claims before we get to the details:

In 1860 the Democratic Party Platforms were about Small Government and States Rights, and the more aristocratic Republican Platform about Federal Power and Collective;Rights, but by;2016, the opposite is;true .

This is because the conservative south and old Republican Progressives can be said to have switched parties in reaction;to events that occurred from the Gilded Age to the Bush and Clinton years. These changes that are well symbolized by the 1968 election, but not explained by that alone.

To understand what changed, we must become familiar with;people like W. J. Bryan, Teddy, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, Henry A. Wallace, Strom Thurmond, FDR, MLK, and Hoover. We must look at the Red Scare, the Dixiecrat States Rights Parties, Civil Rights, Voting Rights, Nixons Southern Strategies, the New Deal Coalition and Conservative Coalition, etc. See;Democrats and Republicans Switched Platforms.

The full story aside, in the early days:

Populist social liberals used to ally with the populist socially conservative solid south .

The social liberal elite like Gouverneur Morris and Alexander Hamilton were in the Federalist party with classical conservative Tory-like figures and factions.

That pairing;of factions is either hopeful or a blight on history, depending on your perspective.

How the South Went Republican: Can Democrats Ever Win There Again? .

Also Check: Is Red The Color Of Republicans

In The Wake Of Trump’s David Duke Controversy Many Republicans Have Tried To Tie The Kkk To Progressivism

Its not news that Donald Trump appeals to white supremacists and his slowness in rebuking former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Dukes support hardly qualifies as surprising at this point. Whats instructive is how right-wing figures react. Earlier this week, political troglodyte Jeffrey Lord attempted to deflect criticism by calling the Klan a leftist terrorist organization perpetuating violence to further the progressive agenda.

That, of course, is entirely wrong. A short lesson in the basics of 20th;century American political history explains why.

White supremacist Southern Democrats were a key part of President Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal Coalition. They used their large numbers, unity and seniority to exclude as many black people from as much of the New Deal benefits and protections as possible and to stop the federal government from doing anything about lynching. Then the black freedom movement and white allies insisted on civil rights. In reactionary response, those white southern Democrats left the Democratic Party en masse, as evidenced by Strom Thurmonds Dixiecrat presidential campaign in 1948 and Richard Nixons opposition to school busing and play for segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallaces constituency.

White southern Democrats were explicit about their racism, and its no mystery that they left the party when it yielded to civil rights movement pressure, and as blacks began to make up a larger part of its constituency.

Did The American Political Parties Switch Clarifying The Semantics

People often ask,;did the American political parties switch?, but this question is semantically wrong, and thus we should address it before moving on.

Parties can switch general platforms and ideologies .

Voters can switch parties .

However,;the parties themselves only switch when they hang-up their hat to become a new party;.

Recommended Reading: Why Do Republicans Want To Impeach Obama

You May Like: When Did Political Parties Switch Platforms

Southernization Urbanization And Big Government Vs Small Government

Today the Republican party doesnt have a notable progressive left-wing and the Democratic Party doesnt have a notable socially conservative right-wing.

Instead both parties have establishment and populist wings and the parties are divided by stances on social issues.

In other words, regional interests and the basic political identities of liberal and conservative didnt change as much as factions changed parties as party platforms changed along with America.

The modern split is expressed well by;the left-right paradigm Big Government Progressivism vs. Small Government Social Conservatism, where;socially conservative and pro-business conservative factions banded together against socially liberal and pro business liberal factions, to push back against an increasingly progressive Democratic Party and America .

This tension largely created the modern parties of our two-party system, resulting in two Big Tents;who disagree on the purposes of government;and social issues. This tension is then magnified by the;current influence of media and lobbyists, and can be understood by examining;what I call;the Sixth Party Strategy and by a tactic called Dog Whistle Politics).

The result is that today the Democratic Party is dominated by liberal Democrats and Progressives.

Meanwhile, most of those who would have been the old;socially conservative Democrats now have a R next to their name.

Read Also: Is The Media Biased Against Republicans

Great Depression Shrinks Klan

The Great Depression in the 1930s depleted the Klans membership ranks, and the organization temporarily disbanded in 1944. The civil rights movement of the 1960s saw a surge of local Klan activity across the South, including the bombings, beatings and shootings of Black and white activists. These actions, carried out in secret but apparently the work of local Klansmen, outraged the nation and helped win support for the civil rights cause.;

READ MORE: How Billie Holiday’s ‘Strange Fruit’ Confronted an Ugly Era of Lynchings

In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson delivered a speech publicly condemning the Klan and announcing the arrest of four Klansmen in connection with the murder of a white female civil rights worker in Alabama. The cases of Klan-related violence became more isolated in the decades to come, though fragmented groups became aligned with neo-Nazi or other right-wing extremist organizations from the 1970s onward.;

As of 2016, the Anti-Defamation League estimated Klan membership to be around 3,000, while the Southern Poverty Law Center said there were 6,000 members total.

You May Like: Why Are Republicans Wearing Blue Ties

Limited Government States Rights And Anti

Had the populist liberals, who agreed with;limited government but did not agree fully on social issues, not aligned, there would have been a Federalist dominance in early America. The;dominant factions would have been northern know-nothing-like nativists, social progressive Roosevelt-like or Hamilton-like elites, and quasi-loyalist Aristocrats like Adams.

The founders were not pro-slavery. However, slavery;was part of the culture and economy of many nations; the South was one such region.

Abolishing slavery meant crippling the Souths votes and industry. This was the;main argument for slavery by the Solid South historically. It;didnt stop the abolitionists like Hamilton from pushing for the abolition of slavery;as;he pushed for a central bank or federal control . However, it did result in many key compromises from the 1770s to mid-1800s.

A Reconstituted Early 20th Century Kkk Attracts Members From Both Sides

The Inconvenient Truth About the Democratic Party

After Reconstruction, and as the Jim Crow period set in during the 1870s, the Klan became obsolete.;Through violence, intimidation and systematic oppression, the KKK had served its purpose to help whites retake Southern governments.

In 1915, Cornell William J. Simmons restarted the KKK. This second KKK was made up of Republicans and Democrats, although Democrats were more widely involved.

The idea that these things overlap in a Venn diagram, the way they did with the first Klan, just isnt as tight with the second Klan, Grinspan said.

Recommended Reading: Did Donald Trump Say Republicans Are Stupid

Why It Doesnt Make Sense To Equate Modern Democrats With The Old Southern Democrats

The Democrats, formally the;anti-Federalists,;had an;aversion to aristocracy from the late 1700s to the progressive era.

That truism;led to the southern conservatives of the solid south like;John C. Calhoun and small government liberals like Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren allying;in the same party;for most of U.S. history.

However,;that changed;after Civil Rights under LBJ and the rise of Goldwater States Rights Republicans .

Today the solid south, and figures like Jeff Sessions, are in an alliance in the big tent of the Republican Party . This was as much a response to the growing progressiveness of the Democratic Party as anything.

One simple way to confirm this is to look at the factions of;Lincolns time. There were four. They;were:

The Northern liberal Whig/Republicans,

The;Nativist Know-Nothing; allies of the Whig/Republicans,

The Southern Democrats and their Northern allies , and

The;Free Soil;;allies of the Democrats who;took a libertarian like position.

Todays Democrats are more like socially liberal Whig/Republicans , libertarians are like Free Soilers , Trumpians are like Nativist Know-Nothings , and Southern Democrats are like the modern Southern conservative Republicans.

The current parties are thus:

Social Liberals and Neoliberals vs. Social Conservatives and Neoliberal Conservatives AKA Neocons .

Clearly, the country has never been fully polarized, even at its most polarized.

Military Reconstruction And The Birth Of The Kkk

After the Civil War, during Reconstruction, the northern elite Radical Republican Progressives used the military to force the south to reform. At the time the Deep South used things like apprenticeship laws to extend slavery past the end of the War. The KKK took a;stand in defense of the old Southern way of life in a society divided by murder, military occupation, and;mayhem.

To be clear, Military Reconstruction is a term that;describes;the occupation of the South, and the KKK;formed as a response to it.

From that point on the South becomes Redeemed by Southern BourbonsAKA Northern Oligarchs who help the South;replace slave labor with wage labor.

The above might;be viewed less critically;if it wasnt for a notable speed bump:

Before Reconstruction could end naturally, in 1877, the Republican establishment traded the reformation of a few southern states for the Presidency when Tilden beat the Republican Hayes.

At that point, the Gilded Age began.;Gilded Age Republicans Redeemed the South and liked to be seen as putting aside the issue of race to focus on modernization and becoming a superpower.

The Gilded age gave way to the Progressive era. And in those eras, most of the country again minimized;issues of;race to focus on;other minority rights such as womens rights. Then, after that came the World Wars.

Radical Republicans From PBSs Reconstruction: The 2nd Civil War.

Don’t Miss: Who Gives More Democrats Or Republicans

The Rise Of Modern Social Liberalism And Social Conservatism

Later we get a third way with Bill Clintons New Democrats. This third way is an extension;of the;progressive bourbon liberal wing, but mashed-up with the progressive social liberal wing, and Reagan-era;conservatism. These three social liberal ideologies which Clinton embodied can collectively be referred to as an;American liberalism. These factions, which we can today denote as;progressive, neoliberal, and social liberal, can be used to differentiate types of liberals on the political left from the New Deal Coalition and the modern Democratic party of today.

TIP: As noted above in the introduction, there is no one way to understand Americas political ideologies, but each angle we look at things from helps us to better understand;bits of the historic puzzle.

Outside The United States

Aside from the Ku Klux Klan in Canada, there have been various attempts to organize KKK chapters outside the United States.

In Australia in the late 1990s, former One Nation member Peter Coleman established branches throughout the country, and circa 2012 the KKK has attempted to infiltrate other political parties such as Australia First.

Recruitment activity has also been reported in the United Kingdom.

In Germany, a KKK-related group, Ritter des Feurigen Kreuzes , was established in the 1920s. After the Nazis took over Germany, the group disbanded and its members joined the Nazis. Another German KKK-related group, the European White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, has organized and it gained notoriety in 2012 when the German media reported that two police officers who held membership in the organization would be allowed to keep their jobs.

A Ku Klux Klan group was established in Fiji in the early 1870s by white American settlers, although its operations were quickly put to an end by the British who, although not officially yet established as the major authority of Fiji, had played a leading role in establishing a new constitutional monarchy that was being threatened by the activities of the Fijian Klan.

In São Paulo, Brazil, the website of a group called Imperial Klans of Brazil was shut down in 2003, and the group’s leader was arrested.

You May Like: When Did The Republicans And Democrats Switch Platforms

The Rise Of America First Nativism: Anti

During the 1830s to 1850s, as tension builds, third parties spring up like the northern nativist Know-Nothings;. This faction;pushed back against immigration in places like NYC and was more likely to be allied with the Whigs than the Democrats.

The conflict between Catholic immigrants and Know-Nothings is;the subject of the movie Gangs of New York.

These Know-Nothings were like a Northern version of the KKK but were notably;more concerned with immigration than slavery.;The soon-to-be KKK and the earlier;Know-Nothings shared an aversion to Catholics, Jews, non-whites, and non-Protestants in general, but much else was different.

The Know-Nothings were accused of being in bed with;Northern abolitionists,;and;their American party really never;caught on in the south due to them being perceived as more elitist and northern.

Thus, although each region breaks into;different groups, one should note that the slavery south is not;the only faction with socially conservative position, and certainly, they arent the only authoritative group. Remember, they are opposing northern elitists who are perpetuating their brand;of economic and political inequality.

Looking To The Classics And Factions For Proof

One good and not-so-divisive way to explain history is to look at the classics, especially those who focus on state-based political factions over political parties.

Classic works of this sort of political history, like V.O. Keys Southern Politics in State and Nation , make it very clear that the Solid South had historically always voted lock-step for the Democratic Party . Of course, the voting map over time, actual recorded history, and so much else tell this story too, but a well respected book like this is a great secondary source!

Today the Solid South is with the Republican Party and today old Socially Progressive Republicans like Teddy arent in the party .

This isnt to say that some of the more progressive Dixies, Bryan followers, and even economically minded Southern;Bourbons arent in the Democratic Party, they obviously are, just look at Carter, Clinton, Gore, and Bernie .

Likewise, the GOP have their constants. The;conservative Federalist pro-business faction, the neocons be they switched Bourbons, Gilded Age post-Reconstruction Republicans, or traditional Federalists, and the Federalist War Hawks are still in the Republican Party, as are the nativists;of the north Know-Nothings.

However, despite what didnt change, a ton did, including the party platforms, key factions, and a large swath of the voter base.

Modern Democrats know this well, they lost the 2016;election and didnt get one state in the Southern Bloc for Hillary .

Read Also: Democrats Have Tried To Impeach Every Republican President Since Eisenhower

A Century Of Jim Crow But Otherwise Lots Of Progress

From 1877 to at least the 1960s, the Solid South KKK-like;Progressively Socially Conservative Democrats remained a formidable faction of the Democratic Party.

This is true even though the party was increasingly dominated by Progressives like William Jennings Bryan. We can see in Wilson that both factions held sway in the party, Wilson was both a progressive liberal and a son of the Confederates.

The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow | PBS | ep 1 of 4 Promises Betrayed.

TIP: During the late 1800s and early 1900s Eugenics was a popular theory. In this era, we might find;Margaret Sanger, liberal economists and social scientists, Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Ford, a young Hitler, and the KKK all agreeing on aspects of eugenics. There are many sides;of the eugenics argument, and one must study its history in earnest before making a judgment call. Very;radical right-wing propaganda equated birth control with;genocide, but there was a wide range of beliefs. An espousal of;negative eugenics is part of the dark history of the Democratic party.

[bantarleton]

May I please ask which partizan divide you consider the more unbridgeable - Revolutionary Whigs/Tories or Rangers/Celtic?

I mean the former saw thousands of deaths, torture, destruction and devastation and the latter results in a few fights every year and a death or two every decade. But you could argue that the roots of Rangers vs celtic is even more violent than the Whigs/Tories rivalry of the Revolution. 

[londonseasonrp]

can you explain what a tory is vs. what a whig is?

Hi there! We have a link on our navigation to an informatory sheet that I wrote up covering the Tory and Whig party here. I’d be happy to clarify or expand, but I think it wraps up the two parties fairly well so let me know if there’s anything else I can do!

[ironpour]

whig

[diarrheaworldstarhiphop]

How big is the average Canadian into the Royal Family? Is having Royal or Crown in government named things embraced?

Edit: jesus christ i accidentally stream of thought effortposted againyounger than 50, they dont give a shit. It’s been semi-systematically programmed out of the younger generations, as well as like, just the closer relationship to the USA now and the adoption of the post-national globalist state model that Canada can’t shut the fuck up about in bragging of in absence of any ties to our past. Unless, of course, you are Quebecois or a maritimer. The former, cus duh and the latter because significantly economically depressed regions have an uncanny habit of preserving regional identity.

The conservatives in this country used to be queen and country traditional styled anglophiles but since the 80s, the neoliberal platform (see: alberta) has completely subsumed that faction into becoming generic low taxes capitalist whigs in the style of the American Democrat party. They embrace the immigration and trade policies as we have it because, like the liberals of this country, they are the Fortress Calgary to the Fortress Toronto of the Grits in wanting to become a “super power” in that one sole tradition that Canada still maintains itself, which is the inferiority complex it has with the United States. Canada wants a significantly larger population so it can, in theory, accrue global power and prestige. It’s literally that shallow.

The long time nationalist forces that wanted to break from Britain in search of independence have won. They have the power, the money and the media. Their slow detachment from empire won out, but due to the timing with modernity and frenzied capitalism, we have no distinct culture to speak up aside from icons of consumerism. Tim Hortons, Ketchup Chips, and little red maple leafs on american corporation logos is the new cultural identity. Eat up, citizen.

I am currently living in the era where ive witnessed british arms, british servicemen bars/legions and british goods stores serving an extremely elderly demographic be replaced by japanese stationary stores, modern bars & grills and pho noodle places. My anglophile grandma (see: not the oma) was so distinctly british in her mannerisms and character that she used to have me shop with her in rural Ottawa and flip around the containers to show the english side out because she couldnt contain her disdain for the french, lol. She was the only family member i know who had portraits of the young queen, old queen and other commonwealth/empire memorabilia. That is another uniquely canadian feature of this dominion that is quickly being lost, which is the anglophone vs. francophone dichotomy in this country. The anglophone side has simply ceased to exist, or rather, just become Generic Globalist Consumers with a generically racist right wing that votes Tory. And it wasn’t necessarily something mourned. it just happened as a result of geopolitics, mainly.

Canada is in the process of pivoting toward the west, formerly Europe’s east

This is inevitable because of the collapse in British prestige, the relatively young age of the country and the normalization of Canada’s relationship with the USA culminating with NAFTA, so it can’t be helped. There is literally no political faction in Canada that wants to preserve this sense of identity. As has been the case for a few decades now because people feel its not “our” identity, let alone see it at all. What’s more, they would prefer not to. it feels like reaching into something full of moth balls.

Even Maxime Bernier’s kinda reactionary new Peoples Party is just a generic anti-immigration clone of the Tories.

And describing this cultural identity is not like, going “lmao british people” because it was bigger than that. It is rife with the simulacra that comes from being at the extreme end of a globe spanning maritime empire regarded to be at the time of time. It’s not a British culture, it’s british? It’s the culture that arises from great affinity for a distant mother you miss and try to emulate out of pride for her.

Contemporary conservativism is fundamentally modernist (late 19th century, onward), so it can’t grasp this gilded traditionalism that carries generations and is rooted in Enlightnment. It’s sense of identity is firmly restricted to the want for preserving how it was in the contemporary generation’s youth, which is itself fleeting from the acceleration of technocapital. This sense of identity is intrinsically degenerative because western society ran obsolete, the old aristocracy, it’s values of enlightenment and aristocracy itself almost a century ago. So we are left with a wildly expanded merchant (trade/business) class, the middle class, which has little intrinsic interest other than that of material concern. Conservatism, as opposed to this gilded traditionalism, is lowbrow nostalgia and liberal capitalist. lol

This limit for scope of cultural inheritance is why the conservatives of today were the liberals of two decades ago. In a few decades, the Conservatives will be defending/preserving their nostalgia of shit they tried to prevent today. Whig history, etc etc

Describing this cultural loss is like.. you can’t really look at it in an literally skin deep ethnic lens like in the way the modernist fascists fret, because it was a form of identity that precedes the modern, capital-corroded sense of the cultural. Even superceding that. Britain was a global empire that reached it’s zenith in the twilight of an older sense of identity (nationalism was a new, radical phenomenon then).

The loss of this Britishness in Canada is like the fading warmth from the last touch of a benevolent caretaker who has since passed. You weren’t around to know her when she was a cold, calculating, powerful, feared bitch in in her youth, but what you do remember in fragmented childhood memories is how she was in her elder years, glowing one last time after beating the cancer (nazi reich) afflicting her. But it took the strength out of her and so she quickly expired after that, leaving her children to divvy up, sell and throw away all of her belongings. After all that, all that’s left to you, this generation in the commonwealth, should we actually take care to notice, is that fading warm touch that is deeply of the visceral, the simulacra at this point. Hard to really distinguish what that touch felt like. You try to focus on the warm spot, to conjure her voice in your head and remember at least those stories from beating the cancer or other stories.

But then the contemporary alt-righter thinks he feels it too, so he quickly slaps his hand onto the warm spot and just replaces it with his own warmth. The touch is now completely lost. He doesn’t even realize it.

[janeaustentextposts]

Could you tell me a bit about the political scene during Austen's lifetime? I read that Austen was a Tory (the more conservative party, correct?), but I'm having a hard time assimilating my ideas about Austen with the kinds of actions the Tory Party supported. (Although I'm sure I'm unjustly and irrationally pushing my own modern attitudes onto her!)

Well the good news is that the two major political factions of Austen’s lifetime–the Whigs and the Tories–existed in a starkly different context to our modern politics, in many ways.

Whigs and Tories got their start in how they differed in beliefs as to how a monarchy ought to govern. (As present-day Britain is a constitutional monarchy which rules primarily via a parliamentary system, I’d say it’s definitely a Whig nation, now, on that technicality.)

Tories tended more to support absolute monarchy, wherein the king or queen exercised the sole political power in the nation, ruling by divine right, though they might be advised or pressured by courtiers and other officials on matters of state. Whigs advocated for Parliamentary powers and got their big start in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 because they were freaking out to think Catholicism might re-gain a serious foothold in England and got their Protestant Dutch buddies to roll up on the papist-loving Stuarts like IF YOU THINK WE ARE GETTING A DO-OVER OF ALL THE TUDOR TOMFOOLERY YOU HAVE GOT ANOTHER THING COMING.

Anyway, by Austen’s time both parties had evolved somewhat, and my take on it is less that the Whigs were liberal and the Tories were conservative (as we understand those terms today, particularly in regards to social issues,) and more divided along the lines of secularism vs. the established organized religion of the state. (The Church of England, in this case.)The Whig party supported the Protestant Hanoverian dynasty, great aristocratic houses, and advocated more for religious tolerance (at least of divisions within Protestant faiths. AS LONG AS IT’S NOT ROMAN CATHOLICISM, THEY’RE COOL, APPARENTLY?) Whigs largely concerned themselves with trade and extensive land ownership in later years–they were the party of money and commerce. The Tories aligned more with the gentry, and the Church of England, and for decades many supported the Stuart claim to the throne with varying levels of visibility.

Around the midpoint of the 18th-century, shifts began to occur, and the definitions of both parties became a great deal more nebulous as concerns around Jacobite sympathies and the restoration of a Stuart monarch with the help of foreign allies to that cause made it a fraught time, politically, and many Jacobite Tories hid their allegiances or destroyed much of their records and correspondence for fear of political reprisals.

By the 1780s, the term ‘Tory’ was often used derogatorily, and then in a sense reclaimed, by anybody who merely opposed the Whig party; but then for many years nobody really used the word Tory, at all, as a label. Parties shifted and broke apart and re-formed as the politics of the nation adjusted to meet the newer threat from both within and without: revolution, as was seen in America and France. Anti-Whig politicians resisted sympathy with such radical progressiveness. Eventually the Whig party position almost completely reversed itself from its origins, becoming an advocate for Catholic emancipation in England.

Austen, being of the gentry, and her father a clergyman in the church of England, would have most likely been raised in some of the more entrenched Tory-style views. She did not have the opportunity to vote, herself, but her novels are most firmly in the realm of the untitled and genteel families, which were typically a ‘Tory’ stronghold. While money is important and interesting to her, she does not much concern herself with the vagaries of trade or industry, and certainly does not seem to advocate for revolution. (Her cousin Eliza having escaped the Terror, I cannot imagine that Austen would have much reason to think well of extreme Whigs.)

Anyway, both parties went more or less tits-up around 1830, and the Industrial Revolution and rise of the middle classes in England as well as the general progress of social consciousness have made our present-day Tory/conservative vs. liberal political spectrum a vastly different thing to what Austen would have recognized in her time.

[nightingveilxo]

The romance angle aside, the Society of Gentlemen series is great literature about politics, literature, and poetry in the 19th century. The extensive narrative about sedition, riots, the plight of the poor, Tory vs Whigs, Frankenstein, Blake, just all of it.

[amarguerite]

Someone has probably already asked this... but how do your laws regarding soul marks interact with the Royal Marriage Act, the legality of George IV's secret bigamy, and the infamous Bill of Pains and Penalties shitshow (especially after the high profile divorce you've given Wellington)? PS - I have tried to leave a comment on the lastest DwaD twice. Both eaten. Still trying to nerve myself up for a third go. :(

Actually you’re the first! :D  

So the status or royal marriages in England is something I’ve thought about and couldn’t find a way to stick into any fic because it felt a bit like, “Look at my worldbuilding LOOK AT IT” and did not actually advance the story proper. 

Ok, so some context first, on royal marriages in England (cut because this got really long!):

Henry VIII basically messed everything up. The practice in continental Europe until that point had been “hope that you have a name that’s part of another royal house that you want to ally with” and for people with inconvenient or socially injurious marks to be quietly edged out of the line of succession. Henry VIII married Catherine of Aragon, after his brother died (Catherine probably had ‘Tudor’ on her wrist, poor, unlucky woman she was), but when denied a divorce, Henry VIII decided to take a hard-line Protestant stance, split with the Catholic Church, and created the Church of England, on the grounds that your soulmark referred to one person, ever, in all the world and in all history.

(This was good news for James I! His relationship with his soulmate, the Duke of Buckingham, helped established the first form of same sex civil partnerships in England.)

From probably the 17th century on, it became more and more the “done thing” (probably especially after Charles I is beheaded) for kings to perform kingship with a symbolic sacrifice– their soulmates for the good of their countries. So kings and queens married according to dynastic necessity, trade agreements, treaties after war, etc. However, kings have a tendency towards a “let’s have it all” mentality and often established their soulmates (or people they thought as their soulmates) as royal mistresses. So, for example, Louis XV married  Marie Leszczyńska, for complicated political reasons, but his soulmate was Madame de Pompadour, who became his maitresse-en-titre.  

The House of Hanover probably brought over this mindset of royals-do-not-marry-their-soulmates in the 18th century, which caused a lot of friction with the British people. By the time George III is thinking of marriage, this has become a huge social issue: does the King of England, as head of state, uphold the customs of all other European monarchs? Or does the King of England, as head of the church, follow Anglican thinking, which insists that the name on your wrist is your Perfectly Godly Match whom you are supposed to marry? George III’s soulmate in this universe was Lady Sarah Lennox. But he fell on the side of Head of State vs. Head of Church. So his historical, “I am born for the happiness or misery of a great nation, and consequently must often act contrary to my passions” still stands! George III marries Queen Charlotte and was, however, very happy and they have a great marriage until the terrible understanding of 18th century mental illness interferes. 

His sons do not agree with this definition of kingly responsibility, so the Royal Marriage Act passes, on the grounds that royalty is completely separate from the masses of their fellow men and must act according to different standards. Being appointed by God to reign, God calls upon them to make the greatest sacrifice of all, and that is why monarchs are owed love, etc. (Most people think it’s fairly asinine reasoning, but don’t want the royal dukes marrying actresses and Catholic widows.) I think there is a lot of backlash to this, and later rumors of George IV marrying Mrs. Fitzherbert, who is his soulmate, nearly cause a succession crisis. George III recovered in time to insist he’s still king and the Prince Regent is going to act as head of state, in accordance with the law, and married Prinny off to Caroline of Brunswick. 

I think George IV’s clandestine marriage actually really wins him the respect of the Tories, who are more on the side of ‘perfect Godly Match (provided it aligns with conservative principles).’ Not so much the Whigs, who are more diverse in their interpretations of soulmarks, or who adhere more to the continental idea that kings, by virtue of their position, cannot marry their soulmates.

So, who you recognize as George IV’s legal wife is a political question that no doubt caused some society ladies to come to blows and definitely causes a lot of fights in men’s clubs. 

(I think the closest I ever got to mentioning all this was Wellington’s mentioning, in DwaD, that the Prince Regent rather envied Wellington his high-profile divorce, as the 1806 Delicate investigation did not result in Parliament doing anything more than throwing their hands up and saying, “well this is a shitshow of a marriage, Prinny, but one you’re going to have to live with! Because you married Caroline in a ceremony specifically designed for royalty, you can’t get a divorce on the grounds of incompatible soulmarks!” I do think that Wellington’s divorce and his not-as-of-yet-but-will-be-coming very happy second marriage inspires the Prince Regent in this universe into the even worse shitshow than the Delicate Investigation that is the Bill of Pains and Penalities in 1820. But, as the public really does not want the Prince Regent to show his soulmark to the world, or have to accept a Catholic Queen, the bill is never brought to the Commons. 

Wellington’s own unhappiness with his first marriage inspires Wellington, in turn, as Executor for George IV’s will, to (as he did historically) hide or give back all documents pertaining to the marriage to Mrs. Fitzherbert. Duchess Lizzy finds the whole thing an hilarious shit show, and mostly thinks that Prinny was a dick to both his wives and doesn’t deserve the loyalty of her second husband. She’s reluctant to acknowledge either woman just because she dislikes them personally, and would have liked to not have to acknowledge Prinny as king… if she could have gotten away with it.)

[lebontonhq-blog]

i am having some trouble understanding whig/tory. Can you explain which one is more conservative, old money vs like more liberal? or a brief outline? thanks so much.

So the Whigs and the Tories were the two political factions at the time. I wouldn’t exactly say that one side was more old money than the other, and the divide was not always super clear. The Tories were the more conservative of the two, and the Whigs were the more liberal and progressive party. One of they key differences between the two parties is that the Tories believed that the power lie more with the monarch, and the Whigs believed that it was more with the people. You can find some more information about them here, here, and here.

[oneminutetoeleven]

Already posted this on Twitter but...

Sometimes I think about the state of the modern Conservative Party and think of how much Edmund Burke would hate them for all the shit they do for ideological rather than pragmatic reasons.

I mean Brexit is hardly change to conserve: it'll be incredibly damaging to the social organism as we know it - think about the ideological fervour the single-issue brexit party stirs up? Hardly pragmatic response to the changes in the needs of society.

I think this, miserably, wondering what he thinks of demagogues like Farage irresponsibly advocating the delegate model of representation for MPs.

I think this as I see people scoff at the idea of an expert telling people that they've made a bad decision and wonder how everything went so deeply, deeply wrong

Of course, thats before I remember Burke was a Whig, so probably thought Tories were shits anyway.