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Edited on Mon Sep-08-08 09:16 PM by RoyGBiv
Books have been written ... a lot of them.
The short, short version --
This is something of a myth as it is presented in political rhetoric. The idea that the Republicans and Democrats shifted is based almost entirely on racial issues with issues of gender and sexuality running a distant but important second. That particular interest has shifted, but the core ideology that has defined the parties regarding it by and large has not. Once you remove the blatant racist attitudes of most Democrats up through the 1960's, you have the same ideas that formed the Democratic party in the first place finally beginning to be applied to blacks, women, et al.
The Republican support of blacks prior to this had largely been a support of self-interest. Republicans, the hated party of Lincoln, couldn't win in the South without freedmen, which was a primary motivator among a large coalition of early Republicans in pushing granting them the franchise ... in the South. Once Republicans surrendered on Reconstruction, blacks were no longer as important to them politically, and the entire nation effectively let the status quo antebellum take hold again, under a different name.
Somewhat longer, but still simplistic answer:
The Republican party at its forming in the 1850's was a loose coalition of sometimes complimentary, sometimes competing interests. The original core of the party were abolitionists (what that means is its own essay), but the party soon became the default place of refuge for those orphaned by the demise of the Whig party. (And, who the Whigs were is yet another book, a 1000+ page book by Michael Holt, in fact, that, while informative, is also certainly a cure for insomnia.) There were also Know-Nothings (American Party/Nativists, etc.) Free-Soilers, and numerous other interests, some of which, independent of a coalescing issue, had little in common.
What bound them together was the Civil War and the single issue of maintaining the Union. Strong factions existed that themselves functioned somewhat like minor parties within the party, and they disagreed on many things, especially domestic policy, including the issue of slavery and later the status of freed slaves.
Lincoln was an old Whig of the American System variety who also disliked slavery and eventually became an abolitionist of a sort.
After the war, the Republican party no longer had the single issue of the Civil War, although "bloody shirt" politics initiated on both sides of the late conflict did keep the issue alive in campaign rhetoric and so helped maintain the Republicans as a single party. Democrats were near fatally split at the same time and didn't offer much for a Republican who wasn't entirely happy with the Whiggish mentality of the Republican party to turn to.
As time progressed, the memories of the Civil War faded, at least to the extent of it being a coalescing force in politics. Democrats continued to squabble and find their identity, and then in 1896 a massive shift in political, financial, and international interests helped push a political realignment, which, to simplify, is a period during which different monied interests shift loyalties, resulting, at length, in the electorate shifting loyalties. The Republican party effectively exploded and reformed along lines that had been dominant but not all-powerful during the preceding decades.
The political history of the early 20th century then forms the soup out of which dramatically new lines began forming, and with the election of FDR in 1933, an even more dramatic realignment occurred. The fallout was not fully realized until after WWII, but, by that time, Democrats had switched on many superficial matters that had previously been associated with one party or the other, and the financial interests behind the parties had realigned altogether.
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