Republican Party Ideology in the United States
Republican Party: The Party’S Changing Ideology
Introduction to Republican Party Ideology
In the late 19th century new issues raised by the impact of the Industrial Revolution began to influence the Republicans. From its beginnings the party represented a certain kind of America: nationalistic, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon, and committed to a strong federal government. In the post-Civil War period the party came to represent many of the new industrial forces in society as well. Despite resistance from some Republican leaders, the party’s policy stances increasingly emphasized the promotion of industrial values, and Republican actions in office aided the emerging, highly centralized industrial economy. At the same time, Republicans were often openly hostile to the new waves of eastern European and Irish groups that were transforming the nation’s cities. Republican state platforms frequently advocated government intervention to prohibit or limit liquor consumption and to shape school curricula in order to promote certain Protestant and American values against the threats posed by the newcomers, who became closely allied with the Democratic Party.
Factionalism continued to divide the party. Prohibitionists and those who wished to exclude foreigners, for example, demanded heavy emphasis on their particular concerns and were not always enthusiastic about the party’s other commitments. At the same time, another group, the Liberal Republicans, disgusted by corruption in the Republican administration of President Ulysses S. Grant, fought against the party’s unwillingness to do anything about it. The party bosses, needing money to run expensive election campaigns and not particularly scrupulous about its source, resisted the reformers.
These factions bedeviled the party because national elections remained close until the mid-1890s. The Republicans won five of seven presidential elections between 1868 and 1892, but had popular majorities in only three of them. The Republican ability to draw on rural, small-town, and Western voters, who still remembered the Civil War, was effectively counterbalanced by the Democrats’ solid core vote in the South and among urban immigrants. As a result, a small prohibitionist vote or defections to economic reform parties could cost the Republicans dearly in a key state or two. The defection of the mugwumps, a reform faction that refused to back James G. Blaine, the party’s presidential candidate in 1884, helped the Democrats win the presidency for the first time in many years.” (1)
Resources
Notes and References
- Information about Republican Party Ideology in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia
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