The Republicans and Race

The use of the race issue as a potent political weapon by the Democrats led many Republicans to reply in kind. Especially in the West, Republican spokesmen insisted that they, not the Democrats, were the real "white man's party," and they often vehemently denied any intention of giving legal or social equality to free Negroes. The astute politician David Davis, Lincoln's friend and adviser, insisted during the 1858 campaign that Republican orators "distinctly and emphatically disavow negro suffrage, negroes holding office, serving on juries and the like." When Democrats charged that anti-slavery spokesmen subordinated the rights of whites to those of Negroes, Republicans responded that they hoped to keep the territories open to free white settlers by barring slavery. More...

See also Chapter Six of America's Caesar.

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