In other words, many things "switched" between the two major parties in American history, including party planks and therefore portions of party platforms (which is what we mean by our abridged title: "the parties switched platforms").

The two major U.S. parties (now called Democrats and Republicans) went through many changes in American history as support from geographic locations, party leaders, political factions, stances on key voter issues, and platform planks switched between the two major parties and third parties throughout the different "party systems."

Did the Democrats and Republicans “Switch Parties”?

The US political parties, now called Democrats and Republicans, switched platform planks, ideologies, and members many times in American history. These switches were typically spurred on by major legislative changes and events, such as the Civil War in the 1860s, and Civil Rights in the 1960s. The changes then unfolded over the course of decades to create what historians call the “Party Systems.”[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]

Bottomline and clarity on the semantics of the term “switch”: The parties changed over time as platform planks, party leaders, factions, and voter bases essentially switched between parties. Third parties aside, the Democratic Party used to be favored in the rural south and had a “small government” platform (which southern social conservatives embraced), and the Republican party used to be favored in the citied north and had a “big government” platform (which northern progressive liberals embraced). Today it is the opposite in many respects. Although what happened is complex, in many cases there was no clean sudden shift, and some voter bases and factions never switched, you can see evidence of the “big switches” by looking at the electoral map over time (where voter bases essentially flipped between 1896 and 2000). Or, you can see it by comparing which congressional seats were controlled by which parties over time (try comparing the 115th United States Congress under Trump to the 71st United States Congress under Hoover for example). Or, you can see the “solid conservative south switch” specifically by looking at the electoral map of the solid south over time. Or, you can dig through the historic party platforms. Any of those links will give you a look at the basics of what did and didn’t change, but the details are as complex as U.S. party history and to some degree the term “switch” can be underwhelming when it comes to really explaining the nuance of what changed in terms of parties over the course of US history. Below we cover the details of what changes occurred and what they mean in context… and explain the history of the Democratic and Republican party in the process. To do that, we’ll start with an overview of the party systems. This overview will help to confirm the truth of the matter, which is, semantics aside, things indeed did change.

An Overview of the Party Systems

The “party systems,” AKA eras of the United States political parties, can be described as follows (where the main things that “switch” in each party system are key factions, party leaders, geographical voter bases, and specific planks of party platforms):[13]

In other words, as the Democratic Party became more progressive in the progressive era, it attracted progressives from the Republican party and alienated the Democrats of the small government socially conservative south. Meanwhile, as the Republican party “conserved” toward Gilded Age politics in the 20th century, and embraced socially conservative single-issue voter groups and individualism, it attracted the “solid south” (their leadership and voter base) and alienated progressives. These two factors, and many more explained in detail below, substantially changed the party platforms, seats held in Congress, and the voting maps over the course of the 20th century (AKA the 20th century reversal, or the 20th century political realignment, or “the switch”).

To sum up and connect all of the above, the switches we see that change the parties and define different eras (party systems) include things like Teddy Roosevelt or Strom Thurmond switching parties (party leaders switching), the Democratic Party platform becoming more progressive in the progressive area (party planks and platforms switching), the southern Democrat “southern bloc” tending toward the Republican party after the Civil Rights era (political factions switching), all this impacting which regions of the country tend to support each party (geographic voter bases switching), and all of this affecting which party has a stronghold in which region as new elections occur (which we can see on Congressional voter maps for example).

All those changes together fundamentally change the parties over time and result in parties that look drastically different between party systems. Further, and oddly, it in some respects results in what at times almost seems like a full switch as the modern parties sometimes take the exact opposite stances they did in previous eras!

Further, since all these things happened to change the parties slowly over time, and each change gradually affected the other, there isn’t one simple event or moment in time to point to, but instead a range of evolutions over time that slowly changed the parties.

TIP: Especially given that the U.S. has a two-party system in practice, it forces all of America’s political factions to group together under two tents. A party is really compromised of the sum of the forces under its banner, it isn’t a static thing, it is a container that changes based on what is put in it. When looking at a past party system it can be helpful to look at what factions drove the platform rather than assigning those actions to the party itself. This can also help one understand the tensions within the party, as often factions in the same tent will disagree wildly over the direction of the party.

TIP: If you want to see some quick visual proof of party switching, see the images on our “Summary of How the Major Parties Switched” page. This page leads with explanations (which require reading), that page leads with images and videos (which don’t). Below is an essay that explains American history in depth, so bookmark it for further study.

An Introduction to the History of the Major Parties and the Big Switches

It is not a myth that “the parties switched,” just look at the voting map over time or at the historic party platforms (or check out Lincoln’s 1860 election, Democrat-Populist Bryan’s 1896 election, LBJ’s 1964 election, Nixon’s 1968 election, and the corresponding platforms of all parties in those races and compare them to the 2016 election).

The problem isn’t proving specific changes (for example showing that the southern bloc used to vote Democratic Party and now they vote Republican), the problem is that so much changed that it is difficult to summarize (especially from a centered standpoint that tries to do justice to all of America’s diverse factions; here I’ll apologize for any bias below, feel free to comment with questions or challenge anything).

This Isn’t Just About the Solid South

The truth is the Solid South switch (the Southern realignment) is one of the easiest to spot (as one can see it on the map), and debunking its related myths detracts from the equally important stories of Progressive Dixies like LBJ and Gore Sr. and their refusal to sign the Strom led Southern Manifesto, Teddy and his Progressives, Bryan and how he changed the Democratic Party, the tension between Federalists like Hamilton and Anti-Federalists like Jefferson, the one-party Democratic-Republicans in the era of Good Feelings (and the tension between Jackson, Clay, Calhoun, Van Buren, Adams that ended the era), and the countless other stories of Expansion and Compromise in the mid-1800’s, Third Parties like the People’s Party, Free Soilers, and Libertarians, the Difference between Southern Democrats and Know-Nothings (and their relation to the modern Tea Party), Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, the World Wars, the Great Migrations, the evolution of the Monroe Doctrine, the strategy that helped create Fox News, and the rise of Progressivism.

This is to say, I want to jump right in and explain that in Lincoln’s day there were four parties (not two), and that Lincoln was no Know-Nothing AND no Southern Democrat…

…Still, I get that this is about first and foremost debunking the “Big Switch,” so lets split the difference.

First, we’ll offer a quick summary in the form of an introduction (in order to quickly go over key points as a service to the reader who doesn’t want to read the whole thing; that will be about different factions and their relation to the groups at the heart of the “Big Switch”).

Then we’ll explain the general story, which shows that the main theme here is one of factions switching parties in a “two-party” system as America progresses and modernizes (with voter bases and key members typically switching first, usually over “single voter issues” or specific legislation, and then everything else changing slowly over time as new members are elected).

Then we move on to the details of “the Big Switch” (where the “Southern bloc” “Southern Democrat” “Dixiecrats” switched from favoring the increasingly progressive Democratic party to the increasingly conservative Republican party following 1964, slowly, over time, from 1964 to the 1990ss and beyond, thus causing “the big switch” (flipping the map) as one can see in the congressional voting records of the contemporary era; see the Southern strategy).

Then we’ll tell the full history of both major parties, noting each switch, each President, and major events.

First, a bit more on the Solid South (which is explained by the following image in many ways).

LOOKING FOR PROOF IN 2017: Keeping in mind we today are new generation. If one is still confused, today we can see some recent and major proof, that is Charlottesville 2017. In Charlottesville, we saw the Dixie battle flag of the Southern Democrats being waved by Republican Trump voters who were standing up to protect the statue of the Southern Democrat (Confederate) rebel army leader General Lee. Meanwhile, the progressive American liberal-ish antifascists marched against these groups with the progressive social justice movement Black Lives Matter in abolitionist spirit. In ye old terms, the socially conservative right-wing populist “America First” Know-Nothing nativists and Solid South radicals marched against the populist Reformers, Progressives, and left-wing anarchists. In the old days all those factions were in the Democratic party except the old Progressives of Republican party who would have marched with MLK, voted for Teddy, or stood with Hamilton or Lincoln, and the Know-Nothings who have always been Republican, Whig, Federalist, or Third Party. Today the socially conservative factions generally vote Republican and the progressive factions generally vote for the Democratic party. That is the main switch spurred on by shifts toward big government welfare state social justice and free-enterprise states’ rights small government. Here we can’t act like decedents of the Confederates are Confederates any more than a descendent of a progressive is progressive, but spiritually some of these factions switched parties and the alliances of the other factions subsequently changed (and regional voter bases and platform planks changed with them as the parties evolved). So yes, Thurmond and Goldwater are fine places to look, but 2017 is as fine as any other place. History is complex enough without twisting the story of the South and the progressive factions into a modern pretzel. Some factions have always been for small government, some for big government, the parties and times changed and the factions changed along with them, all of this is interconnected. Also, party loyalty is a factor.

An Introduction to the Different Types of Democrats and Republicans: This is a Story of Factions Switching and Parties Changing

I can’t stress this enough, a major thing that changes in history is the Southern Social Conservative one-party voting bloc (because in an electoral system, 11 states who often vote lock-step always matter and often paint the map clear as day, for example when they vote for Breckenridge in 1860, Goldwater in 1964, or George C. Wallace in 1968).

This is the easy thing to explain given the conservative South’s historically documented support of figures like Calhoun, John Breckenridge and his Socially Conservative Confederates of the Southern Democratic Party, Byrd (the who didn’t switch), the other Byrd who ran for President, Thurmond, C. Wallace, Goldwater (the “Libertarian” “States’ Rights” “Republican”), and later conservative figures like Reagan, Bush, and Trump (rather than progressive southerners like Carter and Bill Clinton).

The problem isn’t showing the changes related to this, or showing the progressive southerners like LBJ, the Gores, and Bill Clinton aren’t of “the same exact” breed as the socially conservative south, the problem is that the party loyalty of the conservative south is hardly the only thing that changes, nor is it the only thing going on in American history (to say the least).

Not only that, but here we have to note that the north and south have its own factions, Democrats and Republicans have their own factions, and each region and state has its own factions… and that gives us many different “types” of Democrats and Republicans.

Consider, Lindsey Graham essentially inherited Strom Thurmond’s seat, becoming the next generation of solid south South Carolina conservative, now solidly in the Republican party.

When we note that Graham’s stance on key issues tends to be rather liberal for a right-wing conservative Republican[14] (and is generally different than his northern Republican counterparts like Trump; who is also rather liberal for a Republican) we can see some real evidence of what I am saying. Both Trump and Graham are liberal Republicans, but they are from two different parts of the country and don’t exactly share all the same interests.

A southern conservative from South Carolina used to vote Democrat, supporting figures like Bryan and Wilson, now they generally vote Republican, supporting figures like Trump. However, that doesn’t make them “exactly the same” as their counterparts in other parts of the country, that just makes them part of the same coalition in this era (they support the same platform and oppose the other party together).

In other words, it isn’t just party interests that define a politician, there are state interests, regional interests, monied interests, single voter issue interests, and more to grapple with here. Add to that the fact that some of those interests change, and we have a rather complex situation.

Consider also, Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK). Although MLK was not directly affiliated with a party, he supported Southern Democrats [among other factions], just like Thurmond would have been before he switched… However, he didn’t just support any Southern Democrats, he supported the progressive ones like the Mississippi Freedom Democrats who stood against Goldwater and for Civil Rights. We are talking about different factions duking it out district-by-district, not cartoon characters.

Birmingham was [speaking loosely] all about a Democrat spraying a firehose at a Democrats, while the Democrats sent in the national guard to stop the protestors, while a Democrat told the guard to stand down.

Civil Rights 1964 and Voting Rights 1965 had strong Republican support (remember the change happens over time; this being the point of our story here), but in respect to MLK, Civil Rights wasn’t a story of Republicans (like it had been in Lincoln’s day or prior to 1877). It was a story of different factions of Democrats from anti-war Hippies, to Northern liberals like Kennedy, to Progressive Southern Freedom Democrats, to Socially Conservative ones (who are no longer with the Party today, which again you can see on any voter map and see reflected in the party platforms and “States’ Rights” third party splits).

In other words, the Republican party was still supporting Civil Rights under Eisenhower and Nixon, that is very clear.

However, the struggle in the Democratic Party that happened under Kennedy and then would flip the map under LBJ and Goldwater in 1964 and Humphrey, C. Wallace, and Nixon in 1968 was a main theme of the 1960s.

As the Democrats shifted to the progressive left, with figures like MLK supporting Kennedy and LBJ (to some extent), the Republicans shifted to the socially conservative right supporting figures like Goldwater, and this had a profound effect on the parties over the years from Reagan to Clinton, to Bush, to the Obama era.

A socially liberal progressive Democrat certainly voted for FDR and Kennedy, and they might support LBJ, but they weren’t going for Goldwater or George C. Wallace, they were going for liberals like Humphrey from this point forward.

Still, I don’t want to demonize Northern or Southern conservatives in any party system (it isn’t my stance at all if you read carefully), or discount important figures like Eisenhower, Reagan, Nixon, or Bush, or downplay the role of left-wing or socially progressive Republicans, or the impact of “America First” “Know-Nothings“ in the North, or the role of third parties (States’ Rights, Free Soil, or Progressive), or the role of other Democratic party figures and factions (like Bourbons and Carpetbaggers and Tammany Hall), or those Republican factions like Civil Service Republicans and Stalwarts, or the countless single-issue voter factions I haven’t noted yet (like “the Religious Right“)… and what about the original single-issue party, the nativist Anti-Masons, or the original crony Spoils system?! How about the Alien and Sedition Acts that show the different types of Federalists? There is truly a lot to cover here!

Thus, not only will we debunk the myths of the Solid South below, we’ll also explore other specifics changes in each Party System from 1789 to 2017 (like the start and end of the one-party era of Good Feelings, the split over States’ Rights in the 1850’s, the changes of Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, Bryan’s effect on the Democrats, Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt’s exit from the Republican Party in 1912, the changes under Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover that turned the GOP to a “small government” party in the 1920s, landslide wins by FDR, LBJ, Nixon, and Reagan which changed the nation, and finally the polarizing effects of the eras of mass media and Bush and Clinton) to show the many changes that define the Party Systems.

With all the above points in mind, we can say: the Democrats used to be the party of the Rural South, but that changed from FDR in 1932, to LBJ in 1964, to Clinton and Obama with their “second rights” “safety net” legislation.

The effect has been a Southernization of the Republican Party and an Urbanization of the Democratic Party.

TIP: With all of that said, for the reader who doesn’t want to read a long essay (that explains things like the difference between a progressive Dixiecrat liberal ally like LBJ who didn’t switch and a staunch southern Conservative Democrat like Strom who did), consider watching the following videos.

The Election of 1860 Explained. That time the Northern Liberals, Free Soil Classical Liberals, Know-Nothing Nativists, and Southern Democrats went to war. Lincoln was not a Know-Nothing or Southern Democrats… obviously.

What was the Southern Strategy? This part of the story is only one part, but it is vital to get. This is from Keith Hughes who explains much of our American history accurately. All videos on this page are secondary resources not created by us.

TIP: Today only one party displays the Confederate Battle Flag. The flag of the Southern Democrats is now flown by the southern Republican. That is a big hint when all else fails to sway someone. From there one only needs to understand that the old conservative Southern Democrat and the old “Know-Nothing” “America First” Northern Tea-Party-like Republican are not the same thing. Both are right-wing populists, but one is a southern populist and used to be Democrat, the other is a northern anti-immigrant populist who allies with elitist pro-business conservatives and was always of the Republican line. One is more like a “Bill the Butcher” nativist, and the other is more like a Deep South agrarian. They are very different types of Americans, only united on some social issues, and they actually used to be on different teams, even though today we may think of both as Republican Tea Party voters. The progressive direction of America really changed things.

Southernization, Urbanization, and Big Government vs. Small Government

Today the Republican party doesn’t have a notable progressive left-wing and the Democratic Party doesn’t 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 didn’t 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 (and programs like the New Deal).

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” (Dixiecrats) now have a “R” next to their name.

Just look at the 115th United States Congress under Trump (without naming names, look at Trump’s administration and the current House and Senate, pick out modern conservatives from the south, then compare those seats to say, the 71st United States Congress under Hoover).

Don’t try to oversimplify this to “what Strom did,” most of the changes happened over time, and the proof is in the platforms and voting records.

Today things are still changing, Berniecrats are new, and so are Trumpians, even the Tea Party has been changing. The two parties are constantly changing “Big Tents” of factions, they aren’t static things.

The Tension Between Rural Regions and City Regions is as Old as the Federalists and Anti-Federalists

With the above covered, there is a reason the Northern Coasts and Cities are in one party and the Rural South and Mid-West are in the other party in almost any era (taking into account “winner-take-all” at least), with this being true even when the parties switch.

This is because a major divide is between the political, economic, and social interests of rural regions and citied regions (and between their related inequalities and cultural differences, and between the interests of the Bosses, Cronies, and Corporations who sway the vote in given regions).

Learn more about How the Tension Between City Interests and Rural Interests Affects Politics, not just on a national level, but on a state and regional level too (and make sure to read up on VO Key).

The better you understand this tension, the better you’ll understand that age-old Federalists / Anti-Federalist, Republican / Democrat, or North / South split in any era (which is really a North and Coast vs. South and Mid-west split where notably the North and Coasts have more cities).

We are all Democrats, we are all Republicans, we are all Federalists, and we all love liberty.

We are all Americans.

We simply disagree on specifics (sometimes only split regionally by a slim gerrymandered margin or a single debate over a single voter issue), and thus we form factions and voting blocs around those differences (in Democratic spirit).

The changing factions responding to newly arising voter issues is the main thing that “changed” the parties.

Still, not everything changed (for example the Republican stance on trade and the Democratic Party stance on immigration). That is explained in excessive detail below.

Now that you know about the rural vs. city split, and the big changes like those of Lincoln’s time, those of Teddy’s time, and the shifting Solid South (and how that is different from a Bryan or FDR or Kennedy), take a look at the time-lapse video below which shows the U.S. Presidential election results map, both by state and by county, from 1789 to 2016.

Here you can see the solid voting blocs that switch, oddities like the Black Belt, and proof that the country is more diverse and complicated than party politics or the electoral map elude.

TIP: See a Summary of How the Major Parties Switched, the New Deal Coalition and Conservative Coalition (the two factions that help tell the story of the big switch), and our other works on the subject of “party switching” (which include the story of Lincoln, the history the Democratic party and slavery, a Fact-Check of Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party, the anti-Federalists and Federalists, and the Republicans of Reconstruction) for additional perspectives.

NOTE: This page is more like a long essay and less like a blog post, you can get away with just reading the first part, but consider skipping around to different parts or book-marking it and coming back. Each section tells a different part of the story. We will answer any and all questions posted below. Feel free to comment (even if you didn’t read the whole thing).

FACT: If the above didn’t make it clear, the tension between the “States’ Rights” Conservatives of the Southern Bloc and the Rest of the Democratic party essentially starts 1789 with tension in the anti-Federalist party, continues to Jackson, splits the party in Civil War, doesn’t exactly help Bryan, results in Wilson, and is part of the story of FDR, but it really picked up steam after WWII over Brown v. the Board. From there we start getting the “States’ Rights” third parties. Then Civil Rights 1964 and Voting Rights 1965 is the tipping point. Yes, many Republicans voted for Civil Rights and Voting Rights. Indeed. The parties really did change from 1964 to the 1990’s to today, that is kind of the point of this whole thing. Explaining that slow transition and what it means is one of many reasons this page is long and not short. Still, if you get that we are talking about “factions” first, and “Big Tents” second, you get the gist of what the specific details below will explain.

A Response to the Claim Welfare is Equatable to Slavery

In the 1850’s, inequality in the Northern “big government” cities, northern immigration in the big cities (and the related racism and classism), and African slavery in the “small government” south (and the related racism and classism) all existed side-by-side…. and in ways, so it is today (minus the slavery). Northern cities still favor bigger government, and they still have problems of racism and inequality, Rural South still favors small government (and they still have issues of racism and inequality). This does not make the North of today equatable to the slave economy of the South of yesterday however.

There is this idea that welfare is equatable to slavery in this respect, as in both cases a societal structure is providing basic essentials for a class of people (who some would claim are oppressed by the situation to the benefit of some elite). This argument, often presented in tandem with the claim “the parties didn’t switch/change” is essentially a red herring that misses the nuances we describe on this page (I hear it enough that I want to address it here before moving on).

The southern conservatives who held slaves and fought for the Confederacy essentially switched out of the Democratic party starting in the 1960s, and even continuing to the modern day (although the changes had most occurred by 2000), in response to LBJ’s welfare programs (after forming a coalition with Republicans in response to Wilson and FDR’s welfare programs prior). In other words, if the southern conservative had wanted to oppress a class of people with welfare, one would logically assume they wouldn’t have switched out of the Democratic party over time in response to welfare programs.

What we see in the cities of the north is instead more like what we have seen since before the Civil War, it is the inequality capitalism breeds, and the related state-based solutions generally favored by cities (like welfare). When African Americans migrated to northern cities in the Great migrations, they (much like the European and other immigrants) were subject not only to the inequalities of a capitalist melting pot, but to the general racism and classism that exists outside of party lines. Thus, it should be little surprise that the modern Democratic party is a coalition of those who immigrated in those times, urbanites, and party leaders who remained after the switch.

It is important to understand that bourbon liberals (pro-business factions who came to the South after the Civil War to become Democrats), neoliberals, neocons, progressives, conservative pro-business Republicans, liberal Democrats (like Kennedy), classical liberals (like the Free-Soilers or Jeffersonians), social conservative Know-Nothings, social conservative southerners (like the old Confederates), etc are all different ideological factions that have existed in history and have been in one of the two major parties or a third party at different times. The social conservative south were the ones who dragged slavery with them up to the Civil War and then combated Civil Rights from the Democratic party up until they were pushed out of the party by the progressive movement which had gained traction since the Gilded Age.

Thus, although it is complex to explain (and vastly under-explained right here), equating chattel slavery and wage slavery, and then tying it back to the 1850s-1860s, really misses the nuances of history (again it is red herring as it sounds like it applies to the argument, but doesn’t). Think of all the nations on earth with welfare states, in all cases are they not generally spurred on by the progressive factions to strive for social equality? Are the small government and conservative factions not the ones who oppose this?

Today it is a Southern Republican who flies to Confederate flag, today it is a Republican who champions small government in America. Yesterday, it was a Southern Democrat.

TIP: Remember, this does not speak to the many other factions and why they did or didn’t ally with this faction in any era. Nor does this truism or the claim we are addressing speak directly to people alive today (as we are tracing parties and ideologies over time, no person alive today was alive in 1850, and very few were adults in 1950… plus, people like parties “change”).

TIP: There is more on this subject below, I don’t want to offer too much space to any one aspect of this long discussion at any point, so keep reading for more proofs.

Understanding the Basics: How the Parties Changed, General U.S. Party History, and Why the “Big Switch” isn’t a Myth

Above we did an introduction, this next section takes a very general look at how the major parties changed and how factions changed parties.

To sum things up before we get started discussing specific switches, both major U.S. parties used to have notable progressive socially liberal left-wing and socially conservative right-wing factions, and now they don’t.

Originally, like today, one party was for “big government” (originally the Federalists, Whigs, and Republicans) and one party was for “small government” (Anti-Federalists, Democratic-Republicans, and then Democrats).

However, unlike today, party lines were originally [very roughly speaking] drawn over elitism and populism (by class / by rural vs. citied interests) and preferred government type more than by the left-right social issues that define the parties today, as the namesake of the parties themselves imply (where Democrats favored a more liberal democracy, and the Republicans favored a more aristocratic liberal republic).

In those days both parties had progressive and conservative wings, but the Southern Anti-Federalist, Democratic-Republican, and then Democratic Party was populist and favored “small government”, and the Northern Federalist, Whig, and then Republican Party was elite and favored bigger central government.

However, from the lines drawn during the Civil War, to Bryan in the Gilded Age, to Teddy Roosevelt leaving the Republican Party to form the Progressive Party in 1912, to FDR’s New Deal, to LBJ’s Civil Rights, to the Clinton and Bush era, the above became less and less true.

Today, the Republican Party doesn’t have a notable Progressive Socially Liberal “Federalist” Elitist Hamilton, Lincoln, Roosevelt wing, and the Democratic Party doesn’t have a notable Socially Conservative “Anti-Federalist” Populist Jackson, Calhoun, George C. Wallace wing. TIP: Each party still has a “left” and “right”, and certainly both have classically liberal and classically conservative values, but the Democrats lack a prominent socially conservative wing and the Republicans lack a prominent socially liberal wing (and this is a thing that has notably changed).

Instead, today the parties are polarized by left-right social issues, and each party (each “Big tent” Coalition of single voter issue factions) has a notable populist and elitist wing.

Modern Republicans are a “Big Tent” of conservative right-wing populist and elitist “single voter issue” factions . They have their Socially Conservative Tea Party right-wing Nativist Populists (both States’ Rights Right-Wing Dixie Populism like Sessions, and Know-Nothing America First Nationalism like Bannon, plus other right-wing populist factions like the Religious Right) and their Classically Conservative Neocons (their “establishment” liberal-conservative business faction like McCain or Romney), all of whom favor “Small Government” (rhetorically at least).

. They have their Socially Conservative Tea Party right-wing Nativist Populists (both States’ Rights Right-Wing Dixie Populism like Sessions, and Know-Nothing America First Nationalism like Bannon, plus other right-wing populist factions like the Religious Right) and their Classically Conservative Neocons (their “establishment” liberal-conservative business faction like McCain or Romney), all of whom favor “Small Government” (rhetorically at least). Likewise, the modern Democratic party is a [mostly] equal and opposite “Big Tent” of populist and elitist socially left factions. They have their Progressive Left Populists (like Bernie) and their Neoliberals (which is a mash-up of the southern and northern “establishment” conservative-liberals with their “big city machines”, both of which can be seen in the Clintons; or Al Gore and Obama if you like), both of whom favor “Big Government” (especially for social issues).

TIP: There are more factors to consider, such as the fact that party members and factions generally come in conservative, moderate, liberal, progressive, and radical forms and stances can change per issue. For example, a “progressive left-wing social liberal populist” will generally be “to the left” of even a “moderately liberal right-wing pro-business conservative” on most social issues, and thus they will likely be in the Big Tent Democrat.

Although nothing that happened is simple or singular, generally, what happened is the aforementioned “elite northern socially liberal progressive” and “southern socially conservative populist” factions effectively “switched parties” (along with their voter base and fellow politicians) over party stances on “key voter issues” (like Civil Rights and Globalization; the history of switches is all about single-voter-issue factions), as can be seen in the New Deal Coalition and Conservative Coalition, and that was enough to flip the party platforms and the voter map geographically (as can be seen by comparing 1896 to 2000, and generally here).

Essentially, one can explain this by saying “the progressivism and modernization of the 20th century under figures like FDR, LBJ, Clinton, and Obama resulted in conservative factions in both parties banding together and pushing back under Hoover, Nixon, Regan, Bush, and Trump.”

Today, with the effects symbolized by the New Deal and Conservative Coalition having already taken place, we can say the Republican Party is generally a coalition of socially conservative and pro-business right-wing movements previously found in both parties, and the Democratic party is generally a coalition of socially liberal and pro-business left-wing movements previously found in both parties. In reality, their stance on the state changes voter issue to voter issue, but generally it is this left-right split over social issues that results in the parties being “Big Government” and “Small Government” respectively.

What didn’t change is the left-wing Democratic Party Anti-Federalist populists (like Jefferson, Bryan, or Bernie) and conservative right-wing Republican Federalists (both know-nothing and pro-business) never changed parties (they just got new allies and new platforms). Likewise Bourbon liberals have essentially been with the Democrats since Reconstruction (although one can argue some went to the Republicans over time). Also, the “big city” Democratic Party machines have long been a part of the Democratic Party’s story. Also, the parties have been in their current big-government / small-government (rhetorically at least) forms since the 1920’s with Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. Furthermore, Republicans have always been strict on immigration and protectionist, and the Democrats always pro-immigrant (and had historically been for free-trade before becoming “neoliberal“; which adds complexity). FACT: Lincoln disliked Free-Trade, implemented the first income tax, created the first free colleges in the U.S., and used the Federal Power of the State to restore the Southern rebels to the Union; Lincoln is a good place to look for what did and didn’t change (as is Hamilton who inspired both Lincoln and Clay and Theodore Roosevelt). On the other side Jackson, Van Buren, Jefferson, and Calhoun are good Democrats to look at for similar reasons (each representing a different type of Democrat).

Thus, although many things change over time, in modern times one of the main things that switches is the socially conservative Democrats (notably including many Dixiecrats) switched from the 1960s to the Bush era (very slowly; Thurmond aside, not in a clear all-at-once switch; partly due to the Sixth Party Strategy, partly due to changing times and self interest).

One last note before moving on, it is important to understand that we are discussing intergenerational switches, so there is a complexity to consider which is: general ideological factions switch over the course of generations more than all-at-once (in most cases, not in the 1850s and 1860s as much, that happened quickly). When we pair this with the fact that the times and parties have generally themselves changed, we can understand how oversimplifying this to “all the racists became Republicans” is an underwhelming simplification given the fact that so many different things changed (we have barely scratched the surface here yet).

Thus, to summarize the basics: some [not all] things change, but regardless, entire party platforms and much else changed as the key voter issues the factions were rallied around ebbed and flowed in importance in state and national politics (consider not only does the nation as a whole have political factions which form the basis of the national two-party system and third parties, but each state has its own internal political factions that form around key voter issues, identity, and general ideology).

If you got this far, do yourself a favor and watch the two next videos from VOX. VOX explains large parts of the story, including the connection between “progressivism”, “conservatism”, “the minority vote”, and the historic major parties and their policies.

NOTE: While I have your attention third parties like Know-Nothings, States’ Rights, Populist, Progressive, American Independent, Southern Democrat, and Constitutional Union tell the story of “switching platforms” well. Each denotes a major faction who is emblematic of “a single voter issue” (or two) and otherwise major changes. You can see major third party platforms here. It is no mistake that we see third parties in years like 1856, 1860, 1892, 1912, 1948, and 1968, they are symbolic of major changes.

How the Republican Party went from Lincoln to Trump. In a sentence: The Republican party used to be the party of Lincoln, but Teddy’s exit, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, and the conservative coalition and Sixth Party Republican strategy changed that. The pre-Teddy republican Party and post-Teddy party are very different things.

Now that we have the basics down, let’s restate this all before moving on to notable specific switches.

Originally, the Populist Anti-Federalists, Democratic-Republicans, and then Democratic Party Platforms were about “Small Government” (as their names imply), Free Trade, and States’ Rights and were favored in the rural-South, and the more elite aristocratic Federalists, Whigs, and then Republican Party Platforms were about “Big Government” (as their names imply), protectionism, taxes, and Collective Rights and were favored in the citied-North. However, today this has mostly “switched” (NOTE: some key stances on some key issues haven’t changed, for example the Republican party has almost always been stricter on immigration and have generally favored trade protectionism; we cover nuances like this below).

In simple terms, what happened was both parties became pro-business in the Gilded Age after Reconstruction following the divisive Civil War which forced all factions to take sides, and then both parties became progressive in the Progressive era, and this and a series of events led to the Republican party becoming the party of small government over time (despite the party’s aristocratic roots) and the Democrats becoming the party of big government (despite their populist roots).

Today business-minded NeoConservatives (establishment conservatives) ally with Tea Party Social Conservatives (populist conservatives) in the “Right-Wing” Republican Party, both agreeing that less Government is best, and business-minded NeoLiberals (establishment liberals) and Progressive Social Liberals (populist liberals) ally in the “Left-Wing” Democratic Party, both agreeing on the use of the State.

Each party essentially still has the Gilded Age business factions they have had since Reconstruction, but since the States’ rights faction joined the Republican party, and since the modern Right political machine pushed conservative Populism, they have gained a more prominent populist wing.

The basic types of people still exist, they just exist with modern stances on key voter issues and in different coalitions.

The real story here, to distill it to one line, is that of a tug of war between big-state social justice liberals progressing toward a modern future and conservatives pushing to returning to a past age when things were “great” (that age is 1900 for modern conservatives, roughly 1775 for the Confederate era, and the 1820’s for the old Young America movement).

The underlying basic ideology of people didn’t change, it is just that the factions, tactics, and party stances have changed, and which party and factions wanted the above have changed.

This is to say, some things are consistent in our history, but the platforms (collections of official and unofficial stances on key voter issues AKA planks) and the party’s socially minded factions have essentially “switched” to create the modern populist and neo-business wings of the parties (the major, but not only national wings… we haven’t even got to the importance of state factions, other factions, and third parties yet).

Of course, reality is more complex than “the Conservative south and old Republican Progressive factions switched parties due to the events that occurred from the Gilded Age to the Bush and Clinton years which caused a southernization of the Republican Party” or “the party of small government became the party of big government as social issue took on new importance and this caused factions who favored small government or big government to switch parties” or “the States’ Rights Socially Conservative Populists reshaped one party with their exit and one with their entrance while the Elite and Populist Progressives took hold of the other party”.

That is the gist, but describing specific causes and effects is more difficult, as these changes didn’t happen in isolation (does the faction follow the platform, or the platform the faction, or the faction a single key voter issue? The answer is, “all this, and more!”). History is too complex to just say everything in one consumable bite, and America is to diverse for this all to be just about one faction or one ideology.

This is to say, although a figure like Strom Thurmond, Lester Maddox, Bo Callaway, Robert Byrd, Henry A. Wallace, or Teddy can symbolize what did and didn’t change, in the same way Civil Rights 1964 and Voting Rights 1965 can symbolize a motive, or the Progressive Bull Moose Party, the States’ Rights “Dixiecrat” Party, Freedom Democrats, Southern Bourbons, the American “Independent” Party, and Goldwater Republicans can symbolize factions, or the “Southern Strategy” (both Hoover’s and Nixon’s) and what Hillary Clinton lovingly calls “the Vast Right-wing Conspiracy” (the other part of the Republican’s “Sixth Party Strategy” AKA the semi-coordinated pushback against progressivism in the 20th century which spurred on the 20th century reversal) can symbolize a telling tactic, those looking for a clear all-at-once switch, a complete switch, or smoking gun won’t find it.

With all of the above said, without further ado, there is notably one switch that is clearer than the others, and that is “the Solid South Switch” (the one most people think of as “the big switch”; and the one I imagine draws the average reader here… so let’s discuss it directly).

The Solid South Switch and Southern Strategy

Although it is hardly the only switch that happens in American political history, “the Solid South Switch” (which has thus far only been eluded to), is both one of the easiest to spot, easiest to prove, and one of the most impactful switches.

The Deep South, unlike most of the country, has often had a one-party system at the state level (comprised of competing factions in the same party, not competing parties, banded together in a single party over key issues of “race politics and a legacy of war” more than national issues in any era; although government size and rural vs. urban policy were always key secondary issues[15]), and that makes them an easy place to look for changes (as when they change, they change lock-step en masse and re-color the map).

To prove the switch, we can first confirm southern political history up to the 1950’s via works like V.O. Key’s Southern Politics in State and Nation (see an overview).

In his classic work of political realism, Key documents the history of the South to explain that what we might describe as Progressive Reformist Populists, Southern Socially Conservative Populists, “Small Government Libertarians”, agrarian Southern Conservative business people, and [since Reconstruction] Bourbon Liberal Pro-Business Redeemers were all Solidly in the Democratic Party in the South from the Gilded Age to the start of the 1950’s.[16][17]

This isn’t to say there weren’t progressive Republican factions, Gilded Age small business pro-Gold Libertarian-like Republicans, or America-First Know-Nothing Republicans in the North and South, this is to say, we are talking about the dominate solid south factions who vote in lock-step here (we’ll discuss these other factions below).

From the start of the 1950’s (where Key leaves us) on, we can then confirm the consequent changes via the Republican southern strategies (both Hoover’s starting in the 1930s which affects the later years, and Nixon’s in the 1960’s following Civil Rights and Voting Rights which had consequences that we still feel today; here we must also note both the Conservative Coalition and New Deal Coalition, Both Bushs’ Southern appeal, Byrd, Carter, Gore, the Reagan Democrat Clinton’s New Democrats, and things like that in general).

Then we can show how, even though not everything changes, this led to “a switch” over party stances on key voter issues.

Thus, we can point to the well documented history of the factions of the Solid South to show they were all historically solidly Democrat, then look at a voter map to see enough are Republican today to flip the map, and thus say “the parties switched”, but the full-story of all the changes is even more complex, fascinating, telling, and humanizing than a talking point size factoid about Byrd factions, Bryan factions, Wilson factions, Henry A. Wallace factions, Thurmond factions that arise from differing factions within the one-party solid south states.

Still, if we do want our smoking gun, we can say the “1968 Presidential Election where the liberal Democrat Humphrey, one of the last of the old gaurd Liberal-Conservatives Nixon, and the Solid South Conservative George C. Wallace go head-to-head following the progressive Dixiecrat LBJ’s Civil Rights legislation and his 1964 Presidential election” is a good place to look.

How the South Went Republican: Can Democrats Ever Win There Again? (1992). If you have an hour and an earnest interest in our history, this video will confirm and explain all our points about the “Solid South Switch” (one of many switches, but certainly one of the most impactful and notable). By the way, Nixon was a liberal-conservative, he knew how to reach across the aisle and talk to a liberal like Humphrey… and how to reach out and woo a conservative Dixiecrat with his “Southern Strategy“. Since “the Switch” there has been less “reaching across the aisle”.

The Republican Sixth Party Strategy – Where the Tea Party and Alt-Right Come From

Everything noted so far leads up to one other thing that needs to be discussed on its own (you’ll see it below in the story, but it is important to note).

After Voting Rights 1965 it wasn’t just a matter of switching the South, it was a matter of taking that 1930’s conservative coalition to the next level and the Republicans switching themselves (again, in response to the increasing social liberalism of America and the Democratic party).

No social conservative faction was strong enough on its own to win an election, not after Voting Rights, but together, under a strategically planned big tent, the social conservatives and establishment conservatives could create a siren-like Frankenstein’s monster to push for free-enterprise (classically liberal and Gilded Age business interest) and socially conservative values against the progressive state an increasingly progressive Democratic Party (the reference to Frankenstein is a political metaphor made, not an insult).

This story involves:

The Powell memo, the southern strategy, the John Birch Society, the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan, Norquist, Roger Aisle, Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, Fox News, Reagan, Right-Wing Radio, Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, and “a vast right-wing conspiracy” aimed at getting the many different social conservative and establishment conservative factions to adopt each other’s ideology (each not popular enough to win elections on their own, but in a “Big Tent” a force).

Essentially, the Conservative Coalition (both its business factions and socially conservative factions) in their fight against Communism and liberal democrats since WWI, but especially when their hand was forced post 1965, have created the modern right-wing populist political machine to counter the left’s own political machine (“machine” is a term that describes both literal coordination and the uncoordinated or loosely coordinated self interest of groups; AKA the “conspiracy” isn’t fully “a conspiracy” as much as it is a coordinated and uncoordinated natural response to changing politics; Powell acknowledges this in his memo, let us not lose sight of that).

With the above said, this Sixth Party Strategy didn’t just go after Southern Socially Conservative Democrats, but working class Democrats and moderate Republicans (as we can see in-action in the working class voter tug-of-war between Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump).

In other words, the strategy “switched” some to the Republican Party, but also further switched the party from Federalist-leaning to Anti-Federalist (so to speak).

This part of the story doesn’t speak of neoliberalism and its rise directly, or progressivism or its rise directly, it speaks to the movement that responded to it all and resulted in Fox News, Right Wing Radio, the Tea Party, entities like Freedom works, and modern “Big Tent” Conservatism.

TIP: You can read the full story of the Republican Sixth Party Strategy and the Big Switch here. The full story includes comments on the rise of New Deal progressivism to which the Conservative Coalition responds.

The Brainwashing of My Dad Trailer. If you can stomach the liberal bias (sort of built into the title on this one), and can keep in your mind that social conservatism is real and natural just like social liberalism, I strongly suggest watching this documentary as it explains the non-southern part of the strategy that caused the switch and resulted in our modern situation.

TIP: In any era we can find our anti-Federalists and Federalists, obviously the faction that wants to abolish government and the IRS is “anti-Federalist” in their wanting to conserve back to 1900 before the income tax. Learn more about the different forms of conservatism.

With That Said, It is More Complex than We Can Just Say.

With everything thus far said, we have only skimmed the surface.

The truth is, be we talking about the South or not, not every faction changes, and we have to account for more history than can fit in any essay. We have to account for changing platforms, changing voter bases, congressional changes over decades, battles between factions within states and parties, the changing [and unchanging] ideologies of factions and parties, technological changes of automation and modernization, business interested elites in both parties who tend to organize better and dominate, populists in both parties who can’t always agree on divisive social issues, the general rift between key voter issues and social issues vs. economic issues, arguments over the size of state within parties, voter issues taking on new importances, single issue third parties, global politics, and so much else to fully tell this story.

This is to say, the history of the major U.S. political parties if of course more complex than can just be said… which is why we use terms like “parties switched” and “party systems” to preface this long in depth essay.

A Summary of Party Systems, Realigning Elections, and Switching Factions in the Major U.S. Political Parties

Now that we have the essential basics down, let’s do an overview of all the changes (not just the general points or the Solid South Switch).

Historians refer to the eras the changes resulted in as “party systems“.

Each party system is defined by realigning elections or otherwise important elections like the elections of 1800, 1828, 1860, 1876, 1892, 1896, 1912, 1928, 1932, 1948, 1964, 1968, 1980, 1992, and 2000, key voter issues of the day like states’ rights, workers’ rights, social welfare, equal rights, central banking, and currency debates, and which factions were in which parties at the time like the New Deal Coalition and Conservative Coalition (the major parties are best thought of as coalitions of political factions who agree on key voter issues in any era; In the same way Bernie and Hillary are different types of Democrats, or Bush and Trump are different types of Republicans, so it is true for any era).

To make things simple (putting pre-Civil war factions like the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, Whigs and Second Party Democrats, and third parties like the Know-Nothings and Free Soilers aside for a second), we can say the “red and blue states” “flipped” between the Third and Sixth Party Systems (between Lincoln in 1860 and LBJ in 1964 to today) as the battle between the Union and Confederacy during the Civil War gave way to Reconstruction, Redeemers (elite pro-business Democrats), and the Gilded Age, which gave way to the Democratic Party progressive populist William Jennings Bryan and the Fourth Party Progressive Era, which led to Theodore Roosevelt’s split from the Conservative Taft and exit from the Republicans along with his progressives, which led to the Republicans becoming increasingly classically liberal and conservative starting in the 1920’s under figures like Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, which led to the the Democrats becoming increasingly socially progressive under FDR in the 1930’s at the start of the Fifth Party System, which led to the solid south conservative states’ rights faction of the Democratic party favoring the Republicans in the post-’64 Sixth Party system by the 2000 election (despite those members who didn’t “switch”, enough did to flip the map).

Or, in a very general sentence, Solid South States’ Rights and Tea party-esque Populist Conservatives in the Democratic Party and elite Social Liberal Progressives in the Republican Party essentially switched parties from roughly 1900 to 2000, which resulted in red and blue states flipping from north to south (as can be seen in the voting map video below).

Or, to frame this another way, this time speaking to both the changing factions and changing ideology of the major parties, and noting that generally speaking the Anti-Federalists became the Democrats and Federalists became the Whigs and then Republicans, we can say, in the late 1700 and 1800’s Solid South Democrats like Calhoun (who himself switched from Federalist to Anti-Federalist early on), progressive Democrats like Jefferson, and inbetweeners like Jackson, and their populist factions formed the bulk of the Democratic party (they were anti-tax, anti-bank, small government, populist liberals favored in the south). Meanwhile elites, be they socially liberal or just business minded (like Hamilton, Adams, and Clay), dominated the Republican party and its predecessors (they were pro-tax, pro-central-bank, pro-federal power, elite liberals favored in the north).

That said, to complicate things, the Federalist line was historically anti-immigrant and nationalist and gave birth to (anti-Federalists and states’ rights Democrats aside) the first Tea Party-like entities the Know-Nothings in the North and Anti-Masons in the North.

Despite this truism however, the Civil War forced factions to choose sides over slavery and expansion. Consequently, the Whig-allied nativist populist factions disbanded, the New Republican Party formed, and ultimately the first Republican President Lincoln was “no Know-Nothing“.

Here we can note that 1. the Tea party and Progressive spirit was born in both parties, not one (this is also true for other factions like “Libertarian”). 2. the fact that the anti-Federalist / Democrat line is pro-immigrant in the North, despite its states’ rights stance in the South, is part of what results in a progressive party over time. 3. both parties’ stance on immigration, and by extension that aristocratic federalist-like nationalism, is one thing that never really changes. 4. and that ultimately, even up to the Civil War, one must concede complexities over states’ rights and slavery aside, the Democrats are to the left of the Republican line on most issues of liberty and authority (as in they wanted less government, they were ANTI FEDERALIST be they Jeffersonian Progressively Classically Liberal or Solid South Progressively Socially Conservative).

Then, adding complexity from here on, after the Civil War, elite business-minded Redeemers like Cleveland joined the Democrats, making both parties business-minded and elite in the Gilded Age (so pre-Gilded Age, Republicans were the “big business” “elite” party, but after Reconstruction and the Gilded age, both have elite factions; each just as likely to be found in NYC).

Then, adding even more complexity, the pushback against the Gilded Age led to both parties becoming very progressive by the early 1900’s (the Democrats still more populist under figures like Bryan and Wilson, the Republicans still more elitist under figures like McKinley, Teddy, and Taft).

Then, as the big-government social liberal nationalist Theodore Roosevelt left the Republican party in 1912, and figures like the small-government anti-Communists Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover took over in the 1920’s, and as figures like FDR, Kennedy, Johnson, and Clinton took over the Democratic party from 1932 -1996, things changed. Many progressives left the Republicans for the Democratic party, and the Solid South faction left the increasingly socially liberal Democrats to join the increasingly socially conservative Republicans (slowly, over time, as we can see by looking at Congressional Seats over time and the voter base over time).

This Teddy to Hoover switch, oddly [historically speaking], led to the Democrats becoming a more elite party and the Republicans becoming the party of small government and states’ rights (despite the elitism of the neocons, their message of deregulation is on paper one of classically liberal “states’ rights” small government and nativist “Tea Party” populism; it is clearly a mashup of the states’ rights south, nativist north, religious right, and neocons, where even though only the States’ Rights Solid South is really out of place historically speaking, it on paper flips the map, flips some platform planks, and over time re-colors some ideology).

This general tension described above can be seen in the states’ rights and progressive parties in American history, or seen in figures like Henry A. Wallace and Strom Thurmond, and is, as noted above, [for me] best illustrated by the New Deal Coalition and Conservative Coalition.

To frame this yet another way, the nearly unified Democratic-Republicans of the First Party System aside, it used to be that part of what today call the Tea Party, Populist Progressives (like Bernie Sanders), and the States’ Rights Solid South were in one party (anti-Federalists and then Democrats) and the elite pro-business, northern-like populist nativists (later the Know-Nothing third party), and elitist progressives were in the other (Federalists, Whigs, Republicans), but as just eluded to, this is complicated by the third parties that formed around key voter issues and policy stances.

These third parties which took unique stances and add complexity to America’s political story include, as noted above: Know Nothings (pre-Civil war northern nativists who were like a precursor to the Tea Party and were sometimes allied with the Whigs; like Bryan like Progressives, these are a faction who “didn’t switch”), Free Soilers (a pre-Civil War party, who once nominated former Democratic President Martin Van Buren for president, who wanted to end slavery at its own pace by looking to a states’ rights solution), War Democrats and Southern Unionists (Democrats allied with the North during the Civil War), and the People’s Party (a progressive populist party of the northern and southern worker, popular in the mid-west, which had its roots to the reform movement, these type of Progressives were always Democrats). These Third Parties represent the key voter issues of nativist nationalism, states’ rights, and progressivism and reformism which impact all the major parties.

Voter issues and Third Parties before the 1850’s aside, the events leading up to the Civil War forced everyone into parties based on positions on slavery and expansion. Then, as noted, confusingly we have the Gilded Age where both parties become elite and pro big business (we can here-forth call these elite factions neoliberal/bourbon liberals and neocons… which at times can be impossible to tell apart). Then, again, there is the progressive era where both parties return to being progressive, again showing us the different types of progressives (just compare Wilson, Teddy, Taft… and you know, the Socialist Debs too while you are at it).

Then, it is after this that the major switching happens, which just so happens to leave us with Populist Progressives, elitist Progressives, and Bourbon Neoliberals on one side, and Tea Party populists, the States’ Rights South, and Neocons on the other side (a side that is today more statist than its Libertarian cousin and, eventually, in the modern cycle, long after Bryan’s Scopes Monkey Trial and the rise of the Reformists, includes the faction “religious right”).

In words, social progressives like William Jennings Bryan and states’ rights supporters like Strom Thurmond might both share a populist anti-elite liberal ideology and a long party history (with both having more in common with a Jefferson than an Adams), but this is not the era of Jefferson or even Jackson, and today those factions are not in the same party (in modern terms, the Tea Party of the South and liberal Progressives of the South aren’t in the same party, nor do they agree on the use of the state).

Likewise, Hamilton, Lincoln, Cleveland, the Roosevelts, Hoover, and Reagan may all share history and aspects of elitist classically conservative ideology, but just like the parties were different in the Gilded Age and Progressive era, they are again different today (in any era the elite factions are as diverse as the populist factions, Reagan is elite in favoring deregulation and business like Hoover or Cleveland, but Lincoln and the Rooselvets were elite in their use of the state to ensure social justice at home and abroad; remember it’s more about factions and voter issues than just being elite or progressive alone… sometimes).

To add one more note before we move on, figures like Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton can all be described as conservative-liberals. Some are more like Wilson and Cleveland, some are more like Taft and Hoover, but in all cases the differences are less pronounced than the differences between the Tea Party, States’ Rights, and the Progressive Left factions on a given social issue. This is to say, when looking for clear signs of changes in the parties, it always helps to look at a President, Party, Faction, or Voter’s views on divisive social issues first, and then to move on to positions on trade, banking, taxation, subsidization, etc.

Moving On, and Notes for Skeptics

With the above said, any shorthand way to describe how “changing factions” led to what we can call “changing parties” it is bound to leave out key details, as the full story is as complex as American history.

Below we tell the long and complicated history of the American parties and party systems in order to illustrate the changing platforms, parties, members, and factions and to find out what did or didn’t change. The idea is to prove a point (like the Democrats are now “the good guys”), it is to accurately portray our history.

I would say to the skeptics: we can have a real conversation here about what did or didn’t change in each party, but the history presented here, the changing Congressional seats over time, the changing voter base of the parties over time, and more show that there are many very real and important changes to discuss.

Let us not rewrite the history of the South (or any other faction) for modern political expediency (the way Ted Cruz tried to with the KKK), American history is already well-documented (V. O. Key’s classic Southern Politics in State and Nation comes to mind; as does Calhoun’s 40 years in Government; as do the well-documented justifications for the Civil War.)

Sure today we all want to identify with Lincoln the First Republican President, but does this not do a disservice to the half of the nation that succeeded in the name of States’ Rights and small government in response to that Republican won election?

We might be tempted to look at the Union and Confederates as “bad guys” and “good guys”, but that view is overly simple. This isn’t about “good” vs. “bad”, this about different American factions, with different opinions on liberty and equality (with different “states” of mind), dealing with the reality of a liberal and Democratic Republic, ideally trying to find Unity and “Good Feelings” despite their differences… who sometimes “change parties”, including changing to third parties, often over single key voter issues, like Civil Rights and States’ Rights.

Of course, if there is one bonus in everyone trying to appropriate Lincoln, it is that perhaps we will all heed his advice that “a house divided against itself cannot stand” (or in modern terms, we live in a Democratically minded Republic in which the nature of our government requires compromise between the powers, the two major parties, and their many factions in any era).

So, in the interest of not dividing the house due to a forgotten history, let’s examine our 240 years of American history carefully. In doing so we will better be able to spot the populist and elite, left and right, city and rural interests that differ by regions of north-east, south-east, mid-Atlantic, mid-west, south-west, north-west, and west which we in any era call “the North” and “the South”, or after the 1860’s, Democrats and Republicans (see 2012 election maps by county for a true feel of where the actual blue/red divides are).

To fully understand our complex history we will need to consider how each party’s stance on the issues (including their official and unofficial “platforms” and the “planks” of those platforms; see Historic Political Party Platforms for examples) evolve though the “Party Systems” as the parties change (for example how positions on trade, banking, religion, currency, military policy, and social welfare and general ideologies change from the Gilded Age to Modern Age), how specific changes in Congress and the voter-base denotes changes, and how third parties like the “states’ rights” and “progressive” parties change things as well.

To see a visual of how this all results in the “red and blue states” switching, simply watch the video below. For an alternative viewpoint, check out the story of William Jennings Bryan, the father of modern American left-wing and right-wing populism (as his story explains Jackson, the Redeemers, and the populists and elites of the Gilded Age and Progressive era; this thus makes him one of the most telling figures in history next to Jackson, Lincoln, and the Roosevelts).

U.S. Presidential Elections 1789-2012. This video shows each U.S. election result from 1789-2012 with party names and voting maps. Given it shows each election, it illustrates some of the major switches clearly.

NOTE: The colors that have represented the parties have also changed over time. Despite this fact, the video above (like most modern sources) represents Democrats as Blue and Republicans as Red, as has been a tradition since the 2000 election.

TIP: Speaking of learning about our history in video form, see Keith Hughes’ series on American Elections, CrashCourse American History, and Tom Richey’s American history videos…. and don’t hate me but see also: Growth, Cities, and Immigration: Crash Course US History #25 (slavery is an issue in the south, but in the North it is more about immigration of Irish, Germans, Italians, Catholics, etc), Nativism History (in the North it is nativism as a response to immigration, from this comes groups like the Know-Nothings), John C. Calhoun (an old Southern Conservative Democrat, he begins the states’ rights argument), Calhoun’s Prophecy, The Compromise of 1877 Explained: US History Review (Reconstruction ends before the Deep south is “redeemed”), The Gilded Age (Redeemers, Party Bosses, Carnegie, and Setting Civil Rights back 100 years), APUSH Review: Tammany Hall and “Boss” Tweed (Party Bosses speak to these gang-like entities who run the DNC, constantly giving the progressive wing a hard time from Bryan, to FDR, and Sanders, and help explain why the major cities have inequality issues, some southern party bosses were Solid South Confederates; the rest were northerners allied with the North in the War), MOOC | The Redeemers | The Civil War and Reconstruction, 1865-1890 | 3.9.2 (the Neoliberal Bourbon liberals “Redeem” the south AKA show them how to replace slavery with “northern business practices”; they aren’t the Solid South, they are more like Carpetbaggers and Scalawags), The Election of 1896 Explained (enter Bryan and the Populists), Woodrow Wilson Distinguishes Between His Democrats and the Progressive Party of 1912 (Wilson the Southern Conservative Progressive is different than the Nationalist Teddy), The 1920 Election Explained (Harding begins the Republican small government party as the progressive wing leaves), Untold History: The Rise and Fall of a Progressive Vice-President of the USA (Henry A. Wallace, what a real progressive looks like), America First Explained: US History Review (Red Scare, Anti-Communism, and America first; of course the Nationalist Nativist South is going to ally with the growingly right-wing Republicans… after the States’ rights parties fail from the 40’s to 70’s), The 1968 Election Explained (if we have to name one cycle that ends the union between the South and Bryan-like or Kennedy-like Progressives, it is 1968), Lester Maddox -George Wallace – Ross Barnett- part 1, Exclusive: Lee Atwater’s Infamous 1981 Interview on the Southern Strategy. Really, really, history backs up our point of view, the Walrus wasn’t Paul and the idea that the parties didn’t switch is an alternative fact… comments welcome below, happy to debate what history means or help clarify a question that hasn’t been answered.

CONSIDER: Andrew Jackson (the first Democratic Party President – 1829) was a southern states’ rights populist and “Jacksonian” Democrat, which (in terms of individual rights, small government, and economic ideology) is similar to today’s socially conservative libertarian. Said plainly, Jackson had a little bit of Bernie Sanders in him, but essentially he was a Tea Party guy that can be contrasted his contemporaries Clay and Calhoun. Lincoln (the first Republican President – 1861) was an anti-slavery Republican in his day. In terms of pushing for social justice, using federal power, and taxation his position was similar to today’s progressive social liberal. In modern terms, Lincoln was a bit of an “income tax supporting” “elitist” “social justice warrior” who can be contrasted with his contemporary War Democrats and Southern Unionists like Andrew Johnson and more Conservative or more Radical Republicans (Lincoln was a moderate). Add in figures like Bryan, Calhoun, Cleveland, and Coolidge, or Byrd, Gore, and Thurmond, look at the Great Triumvirate, and consider Teddy Roosevelt is a Republican and FDR and Democrat, and we know that something changed. This page and our related ancillary pages are about “what exactly changed” and “what the changes mean” from a modern perspective in a way that respects all of America’s diverse factions.

TIP: Both the Tea Party and modern left-wing progressivism have roots in both parties, they don’t share ideology on how the state should be used any more than Andrew Johnson or Lincoln did, but they both generally favor liberty. Differences between key figures like Jefferson, Hamilton, Lincoln, Bryan, and the Roosevelts add complexity to conversations of individual and collective liberty, equality, and rights… but such can be expected in a country founded on the principles of liberalism in which the founders still managed to disagree then as much as we do today. See an essay on the types of American populism, an essay on the types of American Progressivism, and an essay on the American left and right for a better understanding on the different types of American ideologies which form the factions that comprise the political parties. For more reading, see also: How the 19th-Century Know Nothing Party Reshaped American Politics From xenophobia to conspiracy theories, the Know Nothing party launched a nativist movement whose effects are still felt today.

NOTE: From Hoover to Bush, the “southernization” of the Republican party speaks to a melding of solid south states’ rights conservatives and Tea-party-like northern conservatives, both of who are allied with “elite neocons” (why it is pro-Dixie, anti-immigrant, and pro-big business… it is states’ rights south, nativist north, and gilded age conservative mixed with the old Federalist roots). The charge used to be that it was easier to divide the nation by prejudice than it was by class. Perhaps this explains why neoliberals and progressives find themselves on the same side despite the class divide, and of course the same is perhaps true for their conservative counterparts. Or, maybe some voter issues simply divide us at our core more than class, and no visible hand is needed to stoke the fire? Perhaps this relates to Plato’s ideal city-state where the division is by “type of citizen”, and not by “economic class”? Maybe the South is still just waiting for the North to show them respect? I don’t fully get the implications, but history seems clear enough.

TIP: Hitler was a despotic right-wing fascist, despite being in the National Socialist party on paper. On the other hand, Teddy Roosevelt was (in many ways) actually a Nationalist Socialist despite being of the more aristocratic Federalist, Whig, and Republican party line. He had the nationalism so often found in that line in any era down to a “T”, but was literally (not rhetorically like Hitler) also a progressive socialist, pushing hard for positive social policies at home, while using the Monroe doctrine abroad. Here we should note he wasn’t purely nativist, as he was fiercely pro-immigrant, but he had that Federalist spirit, demanding immigrants embrace Americanism completely (see his “assimilation” quote). In all cases, he held a “mixed” progressive-conservative ideology that really speaks to the changing parties and different kinds of progressivism (especially that old Federalist-line Progressivism found in figures like Morris and Hamilton). Specifically, Teddy’s “mixed” ideology speaks to a mash-up of left and right that is not as common in these days (and really it hasn’t been too common in America since Teddy left to form the Progressive party back in the 1910s followed by figures like Henry A. Wallace, although Eisenhower perhaps speaks to this as well and perhaps Bush and McCain are spiritual ancestors of it too). FDR continued Teddy’s ideology in spirit, but at that point it was in the Democratic party and part-Wilson Neoliberal (which is notably different than Teddy’s “New Nationalism Progressivism”).

CONSIDER: The KKK are and were a confederate faction, and they still sport the confederate “battle” flag as one emblem of their ideology. That was a flag of the old Democrats when they were called the Confederacy in the Civil War. The KKK became prominent in the Deep South during reconstruction as they pushed back against the forced “military ” reconstruction policies of the northern Republicans. We know parties change, that is what the page is about. However, we also know that factions change parties, and this is the case for the KKK and some other states’ rights factions once found in the Democratic party (as it is the case for other past factions described on this page). See: The Democrats were the Party of the Ku Klux Klan and Slavery.

CONSIDER: Today it may seem like “the American Religious Right” has a monopoly on religion, and that their form is the American value, but that isn’t correct (especially not globally). The Religious Right is, at the best of times, an alliance of Religions that forms over key voter issues like abortion. However, it just as often seems more evangelical and political than simply “religious”. Its evangelical Protestant first tone, especially when paired with American nativist nationalism, can even at times seem to alienate other Christians like Catholics and Christian Democrats as much as it does liberal atheists. This is like how the old anti-Masons publicly shunned the Masons or how others shunned the religious groups of the Great Awakenings like the Mormons. From this lens, the Religious Right is a bit like the Know-Nothing Version of religious politics. Here one should note that the movement doesn’t really arise until the 1970’s and 1980’s, and its rise goes hand-in-hand with the rise of the New Conservative Coalition. Sure, the old anti-Masons were Whig-like and so the term “right” isn’t misplaced, but it doesn’t do the 1st Amendment much justice to equate the right alone with religious correctness. Religion is historically tied to politics, so these points, and others about the Holy Roman Empire, Reformers, Masons and the Revolutions, Catholic immigrants, witch trials, the Spanish inquisition myth, anti-semitism, socialists and atheism, and more are vital to grasp to place this conversation in historical context (although we tread lightly on the subject here).

TIP: If you want to see a shorter alternative version of this article, see: A Summary of How the Major Parties Switched (that page also deals with the whole “ideology” question that some of Dinesh D’souza’s followers have). In simple terms, I’ll say this: don’t confuse Confederate ideology with the ills of social welfare or Northern inequality. Just because a northern ghetto is troublesome, doesn’t mean social liberalism is equatable with slavery. Firstly, one of Calhoun’s arguments for slavery was [paraphrasing]: “The slave system of the South is superior to the ‘wage slavery’ of the North. By slavery intertwining the economic interests of master and slave it eliminates the unavoidable conflict that existed between labor and capital under the wage system. The amount of money a master invested in his slaves made it economically unfeasible to mistreat them or ignore their working and living conditions.”[18] So here we see “Northern inequality” is not a new problem, and it is not a Confederate-caused problem. To be very clear, there were northern Ghettoes in the 1800’s. It is what the movie Gangs of New York is about. Which is, as noted above, the story of the Know-Nothings in NYC, a precursor to the Tea Party. A faction who would have allied with the Whigs before the Civil War. These being just two examples on what did and didn’t change. (This issue is discussed more below, i’m happy to address it in a comment, and we discuss it elsewhere on the site, but unlike D’souza, I don’t want to conflate it with this story… as the answer is “both parties have issues of economic and social inequality in any era”, not “Bernie Sanders Progressives are Confederate Rebel flag waving Nativist nationalist populists”)…. To be clear, in that Gangs of New York era (and we do mean Gangs), Party Bosses in the Democratic Party would have been on one side and Know-Nothings on the other. Why does NYC have ghettoes? Lots of reasons, one is the longstanding inequality of the north, one is the great migrations, another is opposition to desegregation and busing, but few of them are “because of the Solid Socially Conservative South is voting the Democratic ticket in a secret plan to enslave everyone with welfare”. One can argue that some conservatives or Bourbons in the Democratic party have mixed-intentions in terms of welfare, but it is hard to argue that the dominate faction of Bernie or Obama Progressives do given their record on social justice. Pair this with the fact that the Solid South votes lock-step Republican for the most part today (as we can see on a map), and we can work out the rest of the logic from there. See Wage Slavery and Chattel Slavery are Different for more.

TIP: If you love uncomfortable stories, you’ll love hearing about the argument over “slave power and black suffrage“. You see there has always been a thought (as a conspiracy theory) that whomever controlled “the black vote” had a political advantage. Now consider this for immigrants. At first the Federalists / Whigs were annoyed with the South for their embracing of immigrants and controlling the voting of slaves. Then the South thought the northern Radical “Progressive” Republican elites were trying to enslave them by ending slavery and winning over the votes of freedmen. Then, the mass of immigration and migration of non-Protestant and/or non-Whites to the Democratic Party was more about factions within the Democrats (the Solid South faction not wanting to get voted out of its own party by progressives in eras like the FDR era). Then, it was about Republicans struggling against the Irish Catholic Kennedy, then LBJ’s Civil Rights. Then Carter and Clinton try to win back some of the South (’94 Crime Bill, law and order)… but now, in the W. Bush and Obama era and into the Trump era, with the South in the Republican party, it is about accusations from the right-wing of “illegals voting” and “voter ID” and that welfare is akin to “enslavement”. So from the three-fifths to today, this is still a major political issue (for the politically expedient, progressives, and social conservatives). This is largely what the Ciivl War was really about, and Civil Rights (although obviously the progressives reject the argument that their moral cause is about politics). Very uncomfortable issue, but vitally important and at the core of the States’ Rights argument. See the History of the Black Vote.

TIP: Republican is a reference to a Republican form of government, Democrat is a reference to individual focused Democracy. Both are liberal ideologies. Forget about slavery and segregation for a second, and think about “the people, not the state, choosing who gets to do what”. Here you’ll see that the original Democrats were more for individual and states’ rights, and the original republicans more for elite state control and order. Add slavery back into the equation, now it makes the Republicans look like the social liberals… and… they were. They were, in many ways, “Teddy Roosevelt like social liberals” (social liberals who want to use the state to ensure social welfare and justice)… until Teddy left the party to run in the 1912 election and then Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover reshaped the party into a individual focused small government prior to FDR’s era. Remember though, there was a moment where there was only one major party, the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans. We are all Democrats, Republicans, Federalists, and liberty loving liberals… we just don’t agree on specifics, you know like “federation vs. confederation”. The United States is a Constitutional Federal Republic (a federation of states with a Representative Democracy). The Constitution ensures the liberal values of Republicanism, Democracy, and Federalism. Hence the names of the American political parties.

TIP: Just so libertarians understand where they fit in. What we today call “libertarian” can be found in both historic parties, it is found in Jefferson’s Democrats in the early years (although both parties were “classically liberal” and thus somewhat libertarian). However, in the Gilded Age, one could find small government and classical liberal sentiment in both parties. Then starting in the 1920’s it was Harding, Coolidge, Hoover who really begin to define modern small government conservatism with their return to classical liberal economics after Teddy’s split. Then, the spirit begins in earnest with Goldwater States’ Rights Party (which is an alliance of Solid South and Libertarians; they ally on the small government part, not over social issues as much to be fair). This is to say, at one point what we today call progressives, libertarians, and states’ rights confederates were all in the Democratic party “because liberty”. Today states’ rights and libertarians tend toward the neocons “because not social liberal Progressivism and Neoliberalism”. In all cases, libertarians are pro-Gilded Age, anti-State, classical liberals who are different enough to form their own party (as they tend to be socially to the left of their States’ Rights South and Nativist North “small government” allies).

“Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires.” – James Madison

The Founding Federalists and Anti-Federalists of the First Party System

To see how the parties have evolved properly from the founders to 2016, we can start by comparing pre-Civil War factions such as the founding Federalists and Anti-Federalists in the First Party System.

Here we can compare figures like the North Eastern Federalists Alexander Hamilton and John Adams to the Virginian Anti-Federalists Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry to get a sense of the two general types of ideologies that color America’s future parties and factions (as illustrated by the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers).

Here we can see the roots of progressivism and states’ rights populism in the Democratic party and the roots of traditional pro-business conservatism in the Federalists. Here we can also note that, despite none of the founders supporting slavery, it is the small government mentality to Democrats that allows for slavery, while the Whig-like conservatism of the Federalists is more geared toward global trade and banking and less tolerant of the nefarious institution.

Although we can put the founders in two big tents and understand American history that way, looking at the nuanced views of the founders allows us to better understand the roots of the different types of liberal and conservative / elite and populist positions that we find in each party system.

Notable anti-Federalists and Federalists include: the southern Thomas Jefferson who was a radical liberal progressive who championed democracy, federalism, and republicanism, the northern Alexander Hamilton who was a conservative-liberal who helped establish the first national bank and favored global trade, the northern Gouverneur Morris who was a socially minded elitist progressive who hated slavery but came from a family of loyalists, the southern Patrick Henry who quoted Cato, a Tragedy saying “Give me liberty, or give me death!”, the northern Benjamin Franklin who was a centered polymath and Freemason who favored a tax-based commonwealth model for states, the northern John Adams who was a rather elite conservative Federalist from Massachusetts who was respected by everyone (much like the southern George Washington was), the southern James Madison who was a Federalist and Anti-Federalist who wrote both the Federalist favored Constitution (which replaced the anti-Federalist favored Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union between the States) and the anti-Federalist favored Bill of Rights (which he based on the Anti-Federalist George Mason’s Virginia Bill of Rights), the southern Samuel Adams who was a radical Anti-Federalist from the North who served as Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts under the anti-Federalist John Hancock (showing us that in any era ideology in any era can be found in both the north and the south), and more.

All the founders were classical liberals, as they were certainly not loyal conservatives of the Crown, but they were all very different types of liberals (having little more in common than an Elephant and a Donkey as it were). It was these differences that divided them by North/South, City/Rural, and Federalist/Anti-Federalist, and that divided them over related key issues like slavery, banking, military size, and trade. However, in as many ways in which they disagreed, they were United against King George III and for liberty, federalism, democracy, republicanism, and the principles of the enlightenment, finding compromise over the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and other important matters… until the propaganda war between Adams and Clay vs. Jackson and Van Buren in the 1820’s when mounting tension split the country.

“Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties.” – Thomas Jefferson “National debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.” – Alexander Hamilton

TIP: All the founders shared a love of reason. Their debates weren’t based on emotion driven talking points, but on empirically backed evidence and critical thinking. They didn’t just rebel against a King based on an aversion to Monarchy, they provided a mutually agreed on philosophical justification for their actions today known as the Declaration of Independence. It was the tools handed down by past rationalists and empiricists of the Age of Enlightenment (AKA Age of Reason), including by their predecessors like Hobbes, Locke, and Montesquieu, and by their contemporaries like Smith, Hume, and Kant, that allowed for such wildly different patriots to join together to form a great nation. With that said, although the anti-Federalists generally favored a more democratic society than the Federalists (hence their future name as Democrats, their support of the Confederacy, their support of the bicameral Virginia plan, and their support of the Bill of Rights) the founders ultimately agreed that they did not expect the common man to apply the same level of reason they did, and this is a large part of why they created a Republic with an electoral college, rather than a direct democracy.

“Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?” A woman asked Franklin upon leaving the Constitutional Convention. “A Republic, if you can keep it,” Franklin said (half joking).

The Democratic-Republicans and the Second Party System

Now that we have the founders covered, we can examine the next generation of Americans starting with the tension between two types of Democratic-Republicans in the 1824 and 1828 elections, the “establishment” North Easterner John Quincy Adams (John Adams’ son) and the “populist” Southerner Andrew Jackson. In these divisive races, we can see the start of modern party politics, the end of the Era of Good Feelings, and the start of the Second Party System. In the Second Party System, Adam’s supporters become National Republicans before becoming Whigs, and Jackson’s supporters become the “Second Party Democrats”.

Finally, in terms of pre-Civil War factions pertaining to the two major parties, we can examine key figures like the southern pro-slavery intellectual John C. Calhoun and the centered Democrat Martin Van Buren and compare them to the spiritual father of the Republicans and leader of the Whigs the Kentuckian Henry Clay. We can also look at key policies like the Missouri Compromise and Kansas-Nebraska Act and other events leading to the Civil War, and examine the general mounting tension over issues of states’ rights, popular sovereignty, and manifest destiny, to see the role of each in the splitting of the Whig and Democratic parties from the 1820s to late 1850s.

Here we can see clearly, a Jacksonian Democrat is not the same thing as a Calhoun states’ rights Democrat (and neither are fully Jeffersonian). Where Jackson is a more right-leaning populist version of Jefferson, the sort of states’ rights Calhoun and his pre-Confederates are calling for is a step beyond even this.

Finally, we can relate all this to the Civil War era factions, the Union and Confederacy, at the start of the Third Party System when the Whigs become the Republicans… In fact, here we can’t compare two parties (as the Democrats didn’t exist from 1861 -1865), but can instead compare two Americas: 1. the southern Confederate States of America (and their copperhead allies in the North) and 2. the official United States of America (and their War Democrat allies in the North like Andrew Johnson and their Southern Unionist allies in the South) who went to war with the former southern Democrats over their attempts at secession.

We can classify all these the pre-Civil War factions by saying that the Federalists, National Republicans, Whigs, and Union were pro-north, pro-trade, pro-banking traditionally-conservative classical liberals focused on the collective and modernization (AKA “City Interests“) and the Anti-Federalists, Second Party “Jacksonian” Democrats, and Confederates were pro-south, anti-central power, pro-state-power, anti-bank, socially conservative radical classical liberals focused on individual liberty and rural America (AKA “Rural Interests“).

Meanwhile, we can note that “third parties” like the Free Soilers, who attracted pre-Civil War moderates from the north and south, and the People’s Party, who attracted post-Civil War progressives from the north and south, tell an important part of the story of changing politics.

“Foreign powers do not seem to appreciate the true character of our Government. Our Union is a confederation of independent States whose policy is peace with each other and all the world… The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government.” – Polk describing Monroe Doctrine politics. “The bank, Mr. Van Buren, is trying to kill me. But I will kill it.” – Andrew Jackson. When asked if the two term President had any last regrets, Jackson responded, “[That] I didn’t shoot Henry Clay and I didn’t hang John C. Calhoun.” (I.e. the nativist populist regretted not killing the southern and northern party leaders of the time, including his VP Calhoun). Likewise he said, “John Calhoun, if you secede from my nation, I will secede your head from the rest of your body.”

Understanding the Changes in Pre-Civil War America

To recap before moving on: In the late 1700s the American factions won their independence from Britain and formed a new country by compromising and coming together as Federalists and Anti-Federalists, in the early 1800’s they found some unity under Jefferson as Democratic-Republicans, but from Jackson to the Civil War their differences pulled them apart with greater force than their commonalities united them together. The divisive new platforms of the parties create two polarized groups splitting America into Democrats/Confederates of the South and Republicans/the Union of the North by the start of the Civil War in 1861 under the Republican Lincoln who ran on a platform which opposed the expansion of slavery.

To understand how things “went south” so quickly, one has to understand how classical liberal positions can become socially conservative over time. The classical liberalism of Jefferson did not allow individual freedom for everyone, as it allowed for “the freedom to own slaves” and “the freedom for states to be slave states”. Thus, what was once prog