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Topic: Where did the term "Log Cabin Republican" come from?
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Ken Burch
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8346
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posted 05 September 2007 10:09 PM
The swing of the Republican Party towards the dark side can actually be traced to the disputed presidential election of 1876.In that election, the Democratic candidate, Samuel Tilden, had won 154 electoral votes(one short of victory). The Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes had 135. Three states, with 20 electoral votes between them, were in doubt, and each state had submitted TWO sets of election results, one giving the state to Hayes, the other to Tilden. Congress set up what was called the Electoral Commission, a fifteen member board made up of seven Republicans, seven Democrats and one Independent, to attempt to resolve the dispute. But the commission kept voting 7-7, with the Independent either abstaining or voting for somebody else. Finally, the Democrats(who were the truly evil party at this point, the party of Indian slaughterers and recovering slaveowners), made this proposal to the Republicans: They would agree to let the Republicans replace the Independent member of the commission with a Republican, thus electing Hayes, IF the Republicans would agree to end Reconstruction(the post-Civil War military occupation of the former Confederacy)and to suspend the constitutional amendments granting racial equality to African Americans. The Republicans agreed to this, thus abandoning their abolitionist heritage once and for all, the "Jim Crow" system of brutal racial segregation was clamped in place for a century, and both U.S. parties are forever shamed by this devil's bargain.
From: A seedy truckstop on the Information Superhighway | Registered: Feb 2005
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