re: #284 Sir John Barron

Right, the lie part is to continue to insist as he and others do that the parties have not transformed since the 1860’s.

Yeah it’s a lie and incredibly stupid too. And I get tired of the Democrats as a whole from the 1860’s made out to be pro-secession. That wasn’t the case. That was the Southern Dems. Lots of Northern Dems who were not only pro-Union but some of them even became some of Lincoln’s top generals, Winfield Scott Hancock comes to mind. I will grant that the Republicans were the only party not to have secessionist and pro slavery elements but the remnants of the Whigs certainly did. Like Civil Rights itself a 100 years later, I’d say a lot of the divide on secession was based on region. I believe it’s been shown that Northern Democrats voted for the Civil Rights legislation at a same or even greater rate than their Republican colleagues and as I said yesterday, the Republicans showed how serious they were about the entire issue when they decided to nominate Goldwater in ‘64 rather than a proven Civil Rights champion like Rockefeller.