How long has the GOP been the "states' rights" party?

Great Debates
1

From the St. Petersburg Times, 4/18/05, by staff writer Wes Allen – http://www.sptimes.com/2005/04/18/Worldandnation/GOP_sheds_federalism_.shtml:

Read the article if you want specific examples; this debate is not whether the author is right or wrong about the GOP’s new centralizing trend, it’s about whether the author was right in assuming that states’ rights is “a bedrock principle of Republican conservatism.” After all, this is the party of Abraham Lincoln – not a figure most people would think of in connection with “states’ rights.” Dwight Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard to enforce integration of Little Rock High School. So far as I can recall, the first nationally prominent Republican to put decentralized government at the core of the party’s agenda was Ronald Reagan. Am I wrong?

2

No. As you mentioned, Lincoln is the obvious example. I remember in the PBS Civil War documentary series a comment that the Civil War turn the US from “are” to “is”. Where before it was commonly said “The United States are…”, after the war it became “The United States is…”

3

The GOP hasn’t been “the party of Lincoln” since, well, his death, really. He was a staunch unionist and conciliator, but the “Radical Republican” faction took charge of Reconstruction in a punitive way that fueled Southern resentment of the federal government, a feeling that persists today. That resentment created the “Solid South” that supported the Democrats instead, and the states’ rights sentiment provided an ideological cover for the continuation of Jim Crow.

Until the Voting Rights Act of 1963 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, pushed through by northern Democrats and a few Southerners, notably Lyndon Johnson, overrode the southern conservatives and gave them a fresh resentment. As LBJ had predicted, in 1968 the Republicans initiated their “Southern Strategy”, wooing that faction with hints and veiled promises that they wouldn’t push the completion of the end of Jim Crow, but would leave them alone to press social conservatism, again under the blanket of “states’ rights”. That conversion is nearly complete today, the conservative “Solid South” is in the GOP camp, still professing “states’ rights” (occasionally called “federalism”), now in support of the God, Guns, and Gaybashing agenda.

So the answer to the OP is: 1968.

4

Barry Goldwater was the first Republican presidential candidate to embrace states’ rights in its modern perspective. Basically both parties had respect for the idea up until the New Deal, and then both embraced a more expansive view of the federal government. Goldwater, however, didn’t do so, and he lost big time in 1964. You might want to read his Conscience of a Conservative where he discusses his philosophy.

Nixon also campaigned on this theme and did a few things to implement it when he got to the White House, but he also greatly expanded federal powers during his terms.

5

Nitpick: Since the Tilden/Hayes election. The Republicans agreed to turn their back on Reconstruction as part of the closed-door deal that put Rutherford B. Hayes into the Oval Office. They were true to their word and never looked back.

I’d date the Republican fondness for States’ Rights to 1964, Goldwater v. Johnson. Prior to that, it was “Dixiecrats” like Strom Thurmond singing that song, not Republicans.

6

No, I insist, for the reasons stated. The “Radical Republicans” who got to run Reconstruction, without restraint from the new President they’d done their best to weaken, were strongly opposed to Lincoln’s “with malice toward none” approach. The GOP wasn’t entirely “the party of Lincoln” even under Lincoln. You’re right about the shameful resolution of the 1876 election destroying the moral authority of both parties, of course.

In 1964, the GOP was still at least strongly influenced by Northern liberals of the Rockefeller mold - hell, let’s call them Unionists, it still applied. Goldwater got the nomination, but his pitiful performance against a southern Democrat showed that his faction was still weak nationally. There were still plenty of unreconstructed Confederates on the Democratic side then too, and Zell Miller is an example still. I would still date the GOP claim to exclusivity to 1968.

7

“Republican conservatism” is IMO a somewhat misleading term; the firm identification of GOP=conservative/Dem=liberal is really only a generation or so old; so going back to Lincoln’s time is a mistake.

If we’re talking only about the last 30-40 years, it seems to me pretty obvious: the GOP started becoming the champion of a powerful central government when they realized they had firm control of that government (basically in the last five years or so).

Sure, it’s a betrayal of principle for the sake of power. But they’re politicians, for og’s sake. That’s what they do. If the pubs lose both elected branches at the national level, they’ll again be the state’s rights party.

8

I’d say the Republican Party became the “states’ rights” party in 1980. I agree with those who say 1964 was too early to call it. Goldwater certainly did run while espousing “states’ rights,” but he lost in a landslide, unable to sell the message to his party. Nixon picked up on a lot of Goldwater’s ideas, but I wouldn’t say his party had really started to move toward a “states’ rights” platform until Ronald Reagan came along.

It was Watergate that did it; it was Watergate that made the election of Ronald Reagan president possible. After the scandal, the Republican Party lost big. The 1974 elections cleaned out a lot of Republicans from Congress, and only let a handful get in. The Rockefeller Republicans were on the demise, though, and they needed to get themselves back on the map somehow. Through the 1970s the Democrats weren’t the “states’ rights” party, either; Lyndon Johnson gave up the mantle when he signed the Civil Rights Act.

Clearly this was an opportunity. When Ronald Reagan kicked off his 1980 campaign in Mississippi, he promised to respect “states’ rights.” This laid the groundwork for the rise of the Republicans in the South, though they didn’t wholly turn congressional Republicans into “states’ righters” until the famous election of 1994. Meanwhile, what ElvisL1ves aptly referred to as “Unionists” were increasingly marginalized in the Republican Party, becoming less relevant as their numbers dwindled, following the retirements of statesmen like Nelson Rockefeller, Chuck Percy, John Chafee and George Romney. Liberal Republicans who stuck around found themselves increasingly on the outside looking in—consider Arlen Specter and Jim Jeffords, the likes of which the Republican Party probably won’t see again. Hell, even someone like George Voinovich would have trouble getting elected in today’s Republican Party (though his legacy as a very popular governor and then senator ensures that his job is secure.) Now that the Republican Party has successfully incorporated the conservative cast-offs who were alienated by Johnson and his Civil Rights Act (who were largely Southern,) that “states’ rights” rhetoric sounds good again.

At least, it sounded good. The Republicans seem to be victims of their own success. “States’ rights” is a tried and true rallying cry of a minority that feels threatened on a particular issue. John C. Calhoun used “states’ rights” with great success to try to buy time for (or indefinitely preserve) the slaveocracy states’ “peculiar institution.” The Dixicrats found it useful to defend Jim Crow, and the neo-Goldwaterists used it to draw the religious conservatives back into the political world. Now that they control the White House and Congress, it’s not too appealing for Republicans to stick up for the interests of the poor minority, is it?

“States’ rights,” as we know, is no longer code for “I’m too polite to say ‘slavery,’” or “Some find ‘Jim Crow laws’ distasteful,” but it’s still good for political leverage. Really, both parties support states’ rights as the Constitution defines, and it’s base, unfair, inflammatory rhetoric to say otherwise. The Republicans have managed to take the mantle of the “states’ rights party,” but that’s just a holdover from the strategy they used to shed minority party status. One could make all sorts of arguments about their being or not being supportive of states’ rights, but then, you could say that about either party. (I’d like to add something like “it just depends on what side of the political fence you’re on,” but such equivocation always sounds disingenuous to me when someone else says it, so I find it distasteful to use it. When it comes to politics I don’t care for waffling, but rather I prefer to draw lines in the sand, so the ending to this I’d choose is more likely to piss people off. Regardless, I’ll end it that way, because it’s more fun to draw blood than it is to draw up non-aggression treaties.) It’s the height of hypocrisy for the Republican Party to have their cake and eat it, too, moaning about “states’ rights” when their party’s platform seeks to end abortion rights by constitutional amendment, as well as a constitutional amendment denying states the ability to allow gays to marry. But I suppose I shouldn’t have opened those cans of worms, should I? Oh, well… I’ve hit Reply, so it’s too late now!

9

Yes, and we can be sure the more the Pubs trend towards expanded federal power, the more they will alienate their paleoconservatives (who also tend to be anti-neocon, anti-foreign-wars, anti-Israel, anti-immigration, and anti-Wall Street). I wonder if that will be enough to tip the balance of power back to the Dems? Or to breathe a little more life into Pat Buchanan’s America First Party?

10

I have a hard time picturing the paleoconservatives being so fed up with the modern-day GOP that they’d vote Democrat (or even refrain from voting) out of spite.

11

:dubious: Do you? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Party_(2002); http://www.americafirstparty.org/; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Party; http://www.constitutionparty.org/. And most especially http://www.amconmag.com/.

12

Is there any evidence that they constitute a significant portion of the conservative voting bloc?

13

In terms of the Pew Political Typology 3.0 (http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=82), I think potential paleocon voters would be found in the groups designated “Populist Republicans” (9% of the general population, 10% of registered voters; 72% Republican, 25% Independent, lean Republican) and “The Disaffecteds” (9% of the general population, 10% of registered voters; 73% Independent, 8% Democrat, 6% Republican). But how many of those would actually turn against the Pubs is hard to tell from these figures. This typology dates from 1999; it needs another update, for the post-9/11 environment.