“Whereas, it is essential to just government we recognize the equality of all men before the law, and hold that it is the duty of government . . . to mete out equal and exact justice to all, of whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion. . ..”
This passage, penned by our Congress long ago, should conjure images of triumphant civil rights activists throwing off the shackles of oppression. Having laid the foundation, we are now on the precipice of seeing an African-American seated in the head-office at Pennsylvania Avenue. These words held the key to it all.
No. These are not the words of Lyndon B. Johnson and the Democratic Party of the civil-rights era. These were penned over 100 years earlier, when the Republican Party, the true party of racial equality, originally granted equal rights to men who had once served as slaves.
Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican, signed the Emancipation Proclamation, abolishing slavery. In 1866, despite a veto attempt by Democratic President Andrew Johnson, the Republican-controlled Congress guaranteed equal protection under the law and the right to vote to every American-born citizen, regardless of race. Southern Democrats countered by forming the Ku Klux Klan to maintain white superiority. In 1871 Republican President Ulysses S. Grant passed the Ku Klux Klan Act, which closed the loopholes necessary to allow him to destroy the Klan until its resurgence at the turn of the century. At long last, in 1875, Grant and the Republicans extinguished the injustice of segregation. That is, until the Democrats enacted Jim Crow laws, blocking desegregation for another century.
Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” was not a victory over bigoted conservatives, but of racist southern Democrats. It required a coalition of Republicans and northern Democrats to pass the Civil Rights Bills of 1964 and 1968. Desegregation met infamous resistance from Governor George Wallace and Commissioner Bull Connor of Alabama, both Democrats.
Senator Barack Obama, while campaigning against African-American Republican Michael Steele, said, “Listen, I think it’s great that the Republican Party has discovered black people.” The Senator may have aced public speaking, but his grasp of civil rights history leaves much to be desired.
In fact the Republicans “discovered” black people long before his “progressive” comrades. Think of the racial progress our country has made in the last 50 years, from Brown v. Board of Education to Obama’s post-racial revolution. Now imagine if that progress started 100 years sooner. That’s where we’d be if not for the Democratic Party.
You will not find any of this information on the Democrats’ website. Their history section has been white-washed, so to speak, to reflect only their most aesthetically-pleasing achievements. They are counting on young voters not to check their story. If they do, they will find that LBJ’s party, which shattered the roadblocks to freedom, is the very same party, which constructed them in the first place.
Unfortunately, Senator Obama, there is a political party that has only recently discovered black people, and it happens to be yours.