Reply #11: Lincoln? You mean that 'radical' liberal who didn't respect property rights?!? [View All]

It's the ultimate irony that the Republican party was founded as a regional proNorth, and especially Pro-New England party, considering how the GOP couldn't be deader in the New England states today, and has embraced the south today as everything they stand for. When the GOP was founded they were everything the south wasn't, and everything the south loathed.

It's even more ironic that a lot of the south's arguments and issues they were for back then have been adopted by the republican party today (though some have been slightly modified to be up with the times), I mean look at the similarities of the GOP's agenda to the south's agenda before the civil war.

-Both are strongly pro-property rights (then the South wanted their right to own slaves protected, now the south wants their rights to own guns protected)
-Both are strongly anti-tax (a lot of the taxes back then were tariffs that protected northern manufacturers from foreign competition but were loathed by the south)
-Both are strongly anti-government spending (more government spending on stuff like building roads met more taxes to pay for it)
-Both are the pro-discrimination parties

Lincoln ironically was a moderate liberal in his time, and after the civil war ended the radical republicans (who were radical liberals for their time) basically ran the show from congress for a while as Andrew Johnson powerlessly watched almost all his vetoes get overridden by them.