The two major parties at that time were the Whigs and the Democrats. The Democrats at that time were a major party but largely a one-issue party locked into preserving the status quo of slave ownership in the nation and extending slave ownership into new states to preserve their political power. The Whigs, when first created, were a bit like today’s Republican Party emphasizing conservativism in fiscal matters and they counted among their membership, Daniel Webster, Zachary Taylor, Henry Clay, Winfield Scott, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler and Abraham Lincoln. Of these, Abraham Lincoln was the only one still both alive and prominent after the Republican Party was born.

The Republican Party was the first party of INCLUSION, while the Democrats and Whigs were worried about the huge influx of Irish Catholics during the potato famine years and a splinter group the “American Party,” sometimes called the “Know-Nothing” party . . . because they were actually first a secret society and then a political party . . . while all three of these groups were debating over an anti-Catholic voting plank for their national organizations, the Republican Party was welcoming the new immigrants with open arms. The Republican Party is the party that freed the slaves. The Republican Party was the first major party to embrace women’s suffrage. Republicans dominating politics in western states were the first to allow women to vote. In 1920, a year when the Republican majorities made it possible, it was a Tennessee Republican named Harry Burn who cast the 36^th “Yes” vote that made women’s suffrage the 19^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In 2008, at this low ebb in our party’s history however, a totally inept ex-community organizer was able to soundly spank the Republican Party and gain 95% of the Black vote; 56% of the Women’s vote; 66% of the Hispanic vote and 54% of the Catholic vote. It is time for revitalization.

The present party make-ups have their roots in history. In a sentence, Harry Truman stood strong; Richard Nixon went after votes at all costs and sold his soul.  Most people never noticed what he'd done, but a lot of principled people left the Republican Party shortly thereafter.

It happened like this:  after World War II, Democratic president Harry Truman was filling out the last years of  Franklin Roosevelt’s term.   A Missouri-born segregationist, Truman, a man of great principle despite his upbringing, dispatched FBI and other government officials to the South because of a huge flare-up of lynchings of Black ex-soldiers. Truman also was the driving force behind federal anti-lynching legislation. When Truman went further and fully integrated America's armed forces and then supported a civil rights plank for the Democratic convention in 1948, delegations from Mississippi and Alabama walked out of the convention. Eventually a large group of southern delegates united together to create the Democratic States’ Rights Party which nominated Strom Thurmond to run against Truman and the Republican Dewey.  Historically they are remembered as the "Dixiecrats" and by "states' rights" they meant the right to segregate.  These Dixiecrats' aimed to defeat Truman in the election and thus prove their value to the Democrats. When Truman defeated Dewey in 1948, their plan ricocheted on them. They became a “cause without a party.”  

Richard Nixon’s embrace of what he called “the Silent Majority,” in 1968, brought the former Dixiecrats into the Republican fold. This new coalition was known positively for fiscal conservatism and the desire for a smaller, less controlling federal government. However, even moreso, since Nixon the tri-fold issues of Anti-abortionism, separation of church and state (having creationism taught in public schools and celebration of Christian holidays in public schools in particular) and anti-INCLUSIONISM (first segregation and now anti-homosexuality) have been the defining face of the G.O.P.  Throw in “gun-rights and you have 90% of how most non-Republican Americans have identified Republicans in survey after survey over the last twenty years.     

            Since Richard Nixon courted the segregationist Dixiecrats, the Republican Party has not slept soundly in its bed. We have spent forty years kowtowing to the wishes of his so-called “Silent Majority” which was never silent and certainly is not anywhere close to the majority of this great party. Instead of catering to the least common denominator, it is time for the former Dixiecrats to grow up: integration is the law of the land and has been for 45 years. If you can’t see that now, I don’t want you in my Republican Party, or any party that I’d ever be a part of . . . The Republican Party needs to re-establish itself as the party of “principled INCLUSIONISM” that means, as Martin Luther King said, people are judged by the content of their character and their accomplishments not by the color of their skin or other extraneous details.

            Nixon’s welcoming of the Dixiecrats, brought upon the Republican Party a whole era of hypocrisy. When the fundamentalists among us preached one thing and were discovered over and over and over again with their pants down sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively, sometimes both . . . it brought disgrace to the party of Lincoln.

Although I personally disagree strongly and have lived my life squarely against it: abortion is the law of the land.   The law of the land also forbids teaching religion in public schools, therefore, “Creationism” whether it is Hindu or Buddhist Creationism or Christian Creationism or Zoroastrianism Creationism, or what have you, belongs in churches and religious schools . . . it does not belong in public school science classes; by the same token, school vouchers for non-public schools need to be honored so that the large numbers of Americans who believe that the “Theory of Evolution is just a theory and not scientific fact . . . not equivalent to the LAW of gravity, for example . . . those people can have an outlet for teaching their children which does not include what they see as having the “religion of evolution” shoved down their throats; by the same token, public funds should never be used for abortions, we’re not talking about medical emergencies here, we’re talking about a calculated decision not to have a child . . . a decision that the mother or family or sympathetic non-profit agencies must be responsible for. On the other hand, the debate about one aspect of abortion needs to end now and forever: any time a woman is the victim of rape, incest, or her life is endangered by pregnancy or she is mentally retarded . . . she has the right to an abortion, and damned be he that would throw the first stone against her.

Let me go further, as both a woman and a voter . . .          Of all the groups Republicans have angered, women have the most reason to disrespect us. Instead of honoring the “women’s movement” we have thrown a lot of thinking women into the arms of radical, outrageous feminism . . . read the words of de Beavouir, of Friedan and Steinhem . . . words like "We don't believe that any woman should have this choice. No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children ... precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one." Words like “home is a ‘cozy concentration camp’ we need to “raise consciousness” so that all women will disparage the role of fulltime homemaker and mother.” Words like, “EVERY act of heterosexual intercourse, even on the marriage bed is RAPE! 

We have chased sensible women into the arms of these maniacs because we would not consider abortion in the case of rape, or incest, or in the case of twelve year olds too young to be mothers, or even when the life of the woman herself is threatened by childbirth. Not even in those instances would Republicans admit a woman the right to control her own body . . . is it any wonder that so many women’s hearts and minds are hardened against us? Sarah Palin says, he or she who is without sin cast the first stone or just retreat into your cave and shut up!

Everyone knows that full and complete separation of church and state is a founding principle of the United States Constitution. Any arguments to the contrary are anti-American. The Pilgrims did not escape their religious persecution in order to come to this country and make Christianity the new persecutor of minority religions. Republicans must be the guardians of the Constitution and not act as the Devils who would quote constitutional scripture for their own evil purposes. The party of inclusion that freed the slaves, ensured the 19^th Amendment to give women the vote and first welcomed Catholics to our shores in large numbers needs to regain its roots and welcome back all principled people regardless of the color or shape of their skin; or the nature of the God they worship, or other extraneous details.

            We cannot afford to wait one day longer, we must decide to act on strong and honest principle: NOW! We cannot afford to allow a non-native born personality with no respect for the American Constitution to dismantle everything good about this country. Now is the time to revitalize the Republican Party, or failing that, now is the time to create a new Republican Party true to the principles of Abraham Lincoln.  The vast majority of Americans do not know what a Republic is nor do they know that the "Declaration of Independence," Bill of Rights and most other amendments to the United Constitution are all Republican documents;  nor do most Americans understand and appreciate the Electoral College another Republican Document; nor do they understand and appreciate how these Republican documents ensure the rights of both the individuals and of the individual states making up these United States.  "America" is a beautiful name but properly we are "The United States of America" and we need to respect the individual states.

            We need a revitalization.  Certainly Republicans as a whole need to stand up and protest the president of the United States conducting a bankruptcy all by himself, bystepping experienced bankruptcy judges and officials; violating 223 years of bankruptcy laws and legal precedence; stealing pensions from more than 100,000 Indiana citizens who were "secured creditors" and after giving them pennies on the dollar giving a union that supported his candidacy 16% ownership in a Chrysler entity that included their money.

            Democracy is very important and it's so very easy to understand:  the most popular wins, period. 

            But it is Republican ideals that have played the most important role in our nation's history to date.  If I have my druthers, Republican ideals will be the ones that revitalize this nation throughout the 21st Century.  The Republican Party under Ronald Reagan was the party that encouraged the fall of Communism, the end of the Warsaw Pact, and which ended and finally won the Cold war and sent the sledge hammers into action tearing down of the Berlin Wall.  Ronald Reagan was the most principled of recent Republicans in the national spotlight and democracy rewarded him with two landslide victories.  We need to revitalize and stand on principles not of hate but of love; not of clamorous dissent but of productive discourse.

            I look forward to playing a part in the debate that will surely follow. Unlike Jeremiah Wright and his apostle Barak, I will never apologize for America and I will always say “God BLESS America! 
            And may government of the people, by the people and for the people never perish from the earth!  Thank you.”

That speech is Rajjpuut’s fervent hope for America . . .
 

Ya'all live long, strong and ornery,