The modern Republican Party likes to make the claim during every campaign season that they are the “Party of Lincoln”. Whoever the candidate or their surrogates are will consistently remind the voting public that the party’s first true leader was Abraham Lincoln and that the Republicans were responsible not only for the emancipation of the slaves but also for laying the foundation for public education, created our banking and currency system, implemented a progressive income tax, and provided housing opportunities for the poor. Meanwhile, the Democrats care only about helping Wall Street. The GOP’s heart is with Main Street, working to create a level economic and political playing field where any citizen can achieve the “American Dream” with a little hard work and dedication just as Lincoln envisioned. 

This claim is built on distorted truths in that the Republican Party only fought for the values instilled by Lincoln and its founders for small portions of the party’s history. It is true from 1860-1865, the Republican Party led by Abraham Lincoln sought to put an end to a philosophy of government that catered to the wealthiest one percent of the population- at that time the southern plantation and slave owner. This not only meant looking to end this slave oligarchy in the South but also to keep it from spreading west into the new territories and states that were quickly being incorporated into the nation. The goal was to ensure that any man, regardless of social-economic standing, color, or creed, would have the same opportunity to rise economically as any other man (we hadn’t embraced the idea of equality for women yet…baby steps, I guess). They might have succeeded if John Wilkes Booth’s bullet didn’t put an end to Lincoln’s life and hand the presidency over to Democrat Andrew Johnson who proceeded to throw away Lincoln’s plan for Reconstruction and effectively handed control back to the slave oligarchy, albeit in a different form. 

Fortunately, the original values of the Republican Party would drive the party’s philosophy twice more in the last 160 years: from 1901 to 1912 when the leadership of Pres. Theodore Roosvelt ushered in a brief age of progressivism that looked to balance the interests of business, labor, and consumers. However, throughout the administration of Roosevelt’s successor William H. Taft and Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, the pro-business contingent of the Republican Party worked hard to undermine progressivism and succeeded in being able to enact their vision for America, that a prosperous corporate class trickling down to the working class would create eternal prosperity for all, throughout the 1920s. It failed miserably when the bottom fell out spectacularly on October 29, 1929 when the stock market crashed and ushered in the Great Depression.  It took the return of an activist government in the form of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt and the “New Deal” to turn the tide of the nation’s fortunes. 

The post World War II 1950s saw the last time the Republican Party was led by the philosophy and values of Lincoln. This was during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower believed that creating a society where the top 1% was manipulating the machinations of the government to keep the middle and working class struggling while they succeeded opened the door for radicalization of citizens by either fascist or communist demagogues. By embracing some of the popular “New Deal” era programs like Social Security, whose benefits he expanded,  and furthering a philosophy that ensuring a strong middle class was more effective for keeping peace than continuously manufacturing arms, Eisenhower oversaw an era of great prosperity in the nation. Eisenhower would be the last Republican president to have a balanced budget. His “Middle Way” showed the power a moderate, bi-partisan view had in setting the nation on the right track. Unfortunately, the post Eisenhower era would see the party reject Eisenhower’s “Middle Way” in favor of the philosophy that has led the party to the brink of its undoing. 

In short, when it comes to claiming they are the “Party of Lincoln” the Republican Party has not consistently operated under the values and philosophies that Lincoln and his contemporaries built the party on during its formative years. Under Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Eisenhower the original values of the party guided a vision that led to the success of not only the government but its citizens. In between and since the party has been led by individuals who have stoked fears regarding the redistribution of wealth to the “lazy” poor and African-American, infusion of socialism and communism into the American government, and the government working for the interests of the “wrong kind” of immigrant over the American citizen to undermine the original values of the party and align with big business to work against the interests of the American people. 

It is imperative that voters be educated in the true history of the party and realize that the “Party of Lincoln” was only remotely close to being worthy of the label back during the administration of President Eisenhower from 1953-1960. Since then, the party has been corrupted by the Movement Conservatism of William F. Buckley, Jr. and Barry Goldwater. However, that is the subject of another entry for another time.