History of the Democratic Party (United States)
Both Bryan and Wilson were leaders of the progressive movement in the United States (1890s–1920s) and opposed imperialistic expansion abroad while sponsoring liberal reforms at home despite supporting racism and discrimination against blacks in government offices and elsewhere.
As a textbook coauthored by Mary Beth Norton explains: The Democrats represented a wide range of views but shared a fundamental commitment to the Jeffersonian concept of an agrarian society.
[22][23] Regarding slavery, the Convention adopted the following resolution:Resolved, That congress has no power under the Constitution, to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several states, and that such states are the sole and proper judges of every thing appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution: that all efforts of the abolitionists or others, made to induce congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences, and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people, and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend to our political institutions.
Whigs welcomed most of the changes wrought by industrialization but advocated strong government policies that would guide growth and development within the country's existing boundaries; they feared (correctly) that expansion raised a contentious issue the extension of slavery to the territories.
They supported the Independent Treasury (the Jacksonian alternative to the Second Bank of the United States) not as a scheme to quash the special privilege of the Whiggish monied elite, but as a device to spread prosperity to all Americans.
Sterling Morton of Nebraska, John M. Palmer of Illinois, Horace Boies of Iowa, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar of Mississippi and railroad builder James J. Hill of Minnesota.
[54] Just before the 1894 election, President Cleveland was warned by an advisor: Aided by the deep nationwide economic depression that lasted from 1893 to 1897, the Republicans won their biggest landslide ever, taking full control of the House.
[66] Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress, with their base among poor farmers and the working class, generally supported Progressive Era reforms, such as antitrust, regulation of railroads, direct election of Senators, the income tax, the restriction of child labor, and the Federal Reserve system.
[74][75] At the 1924 Democratic National Convention, a resolution denouncing the Ku Klux Klan was introduced by Catholic and liberal forces allied with Al Smith and Oscar W. Underwood in order to embarrass the front-runner, William Gibbs McAdoo.
[96] Though Kennedy's term in office lasted only about a thousand days, he tried to hold back communist gains after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba and the construction of the Berlin Wall and sent 16,000 soldiers to Vietnam to advise the hard-pressed South Vietnamese army.
[106] The degree to which the Southern Democrats had abandoned the party became evident in the 1968 presidential election when the electoral votes of every former Confederate state except Texas went to either Republican Richard Nixon or independent Wallace.
[108] In 1972 The Democrats moved left and nominated Senator George McGovern (SD) as the presidential candidate on a platform which advocated, among other things, immediate U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam (with his anti-war slogan "Come Home, America!")
Carter also successfully deregulated the trucking, airline, rail, finance, communications and oil industries (thus reversing the New Deal approach to regulation of the economy), bolstered the social security system and appointed record numbers of women and minorities to significant posts.
Voting patterns and poll result indicate that the substantial Republican victory was the consequence of poor economic performance under Carter and the Democrats and did not represent an ideological shift to the right by the electorate.
[120] Stan Greenberg, a Democratic pollster, analyzed white ethnic voters – largely unionized auto workers – in suburban Macomb County, Michigan, just north of Detroit.
The Democrats' lock on power was so strong the region was called the Solid South, although the Republicans controlled parts of the Appalachian Mountains and they competed for statewide office in the border states.
[123] The adoption of the strong civil rights plank by the 1948 convention and the integration of the armed forces by President Harry S. Truman's Executive Order 9981, which provided for equal treatment and opportunity for African American servicemen, drove a wedge between the Northern and Southern branches of the party.
[125] Modernization had brought factories, national businesses and larger, more cosmopolitan cities such as Atlanta, Dallas, Charlotte, and Houston to the South, as well as millions of migrants from the North and more opportunities for higher education.
When segregation was outlawed by court order and by the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, a die-hard element resisted integration, led by Democratic governors Orval Faubus of Arkansas, Lester Maddox of Georgia and especially George Wallace of Alabama.
With scandals involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff as well as Duke Cunningham, Tom DeLay, Mark Foley and Bob Taft, the Democrats used the slogan "Culture of corruption" against the Republicans during the 2006 campaign.
According to Robin Paul Malloy, negative public opinion on the Iraq War, widespread dissatisfaction over the ballooning federal deficit and the inept handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster dragged down President Bush's job approval ratings.
One of the first acts by the Obama administration after assuming control was an order signed by Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel that suspended all pending federal regulations proposed by outgoing President George W. Bush so that they could be reviewed.
He also lifted some travel and money restrictions to Cuba, ended the Mexico City Policy and signed an order requiring the Army Field Manual to be used as guide for terror interrogations, which banned tortures such as waterboarding.
On January 21, 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5–4 decision in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that the First Amendment prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by a nonprofit corporation.
Opponents to the 2011 military intervention in Libya within the Democratic Party include Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Sen. Jim Webb, Rep. Raul Grijalva, Rep. Mike Honda, Rep. Lynn Woolsey and Rep. Barbara Lee.
Support for the 2011 military intervention in Libya within the Democratic Party include President Bill Clinton, Sen. Carl Levin, Sen. Dick Durbin, Sen. Jack Reed, Sen. John Kerry, Minority Leader of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Legal Adviser of the Department of State Harold Hongju Koh and Ed Schultz.
On May 26, 2011, President Obama signed the PATRIOT Sunsets Extension Act of 2011, which was strongly criticized by some in the Democratic Party as violation of civil liberties and a continuation of the George W. Bush administration.
[177] Intense budget negotiations in the divided 112th Congress, wherein Democrats resolved to fight Republican demands for decreased spending and no tax hikes, threatened to shut down the government in April 2011[178] and later spurred fears that the United States would default on its debt.
In addition, there is growing support for a Green New Deal: A set of laws, taxes, and projects that seek to drastically reduce carbon emissions and provide Americans with a plethora of jobs in the process.
Representing the more centrist side of the party, former Vice President Biden positioned himself as an elder statesman ready to lead in moments of crisis that demanded strong executive experience.
