The GOP Is the Party of Civil Rights

By Bruce Bartlett
Wednesday, July 16, 2008

John McCain is scheduled to address the NAACP's annual convention in Cincinnati, Ohio today. Although he is unlikely to gain many black votes this year, he should use the occasion to increase Republican efforts to reach out to African-Americans. He can start by setting the record straight on the records of the two parties on race.

Everyone knows this, but it's worth repeating: The Republican Party is the party of Abraham Lincoln and was established in 1854 to block the expansion of slavery. The Democratic Party was the party of slavery: Its two founders, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, owned large numbers of slaves, and every party platform before the Civil War defended the institution unequivocally.

After the war, it was the Republican Party that rammed through the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution over Democratic opposition. Republicans also enacted a series of civil-rights laws that culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which basically did what the Civil Rights Act of 1964 accomplished.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875, as well as a number of other civil-rights measures enacted by Republicans to protect the freed slaves. In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the court gave constitutional cover to segregation, effectively prohibiting federal efforts to tackle racial inequality until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. And any federal civil-rights laws left on the books were repealed by Democrats once they got control of Congress and the White House in 1893.

Nevertheless, Republicans continued to make strenuous efforts to aid African-Americans. In 1890, they passed a force bill in the House of Representatives to send federal troops into the South to protect the voting rights of African-Americans. These rights were being violated everywhere in that region by laws, practices and violence perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan and similar groups allied with the Democratic Party.

In 1900 (under President McKinley) and again in 1922 (under Harding), Republicans tried to enact an antilynching law. Coolidge asked for legislation again in his 1923 State of the Union message. Unfortunately, Southern Democrats in the Senate routinely filibustered every Republican effort to aid African-Americans.

Even Franklin Roosevelt wouldn't challenge the Senate's Southern caucus. Despite a landslide re-election victory in 1936, including overwhelming majorities in every Southern state, he refused to lend any support to another antilynching bill. Nor would he end the segregation of the armed forces established by Democrat Woodrow Wilson during World War I.

While Harry Truman deserves great credit for ending racial segregation in the military and the civil service, his efforts to pass civil-rights legislation also died from Southern Democratic opposition despite strong support from Republicans, who controlled Congress in 1947 and 1948. This makes Dwight Eisenhower's success in passing civil rights bills in 1957 and 1960 all the more remarkable, since Democrats then controlled both Houses of Congress.

Lyndon Johnson consistently opposed civil-rights legislation while he was in Congress, but as president worked hard to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Neither would have passed without the strong support of congressional Republicans, who provided the margin of victory.

Richard Nixon is said to have developed a "Southern strategy" of using racial code words like "law and order" to gain votes in the South. Yet he did more to desegregate southern schools than any president in history. Nixon also created affirmative action to help break the power of racist labor unions, and minority set-asides for government contracts to aid black entrepreneurs.

Historically speaking, the Republican Party has a far better record on race than the Democrats. Sen. McCain should not be shy about saying so. He should explain that African-Americans will be much better off in the long run if they are receptive to candidates of both parties instead of being virtual captives of only one, which is then free to take them for granted.