The Wrongs of the Right

Language, Race, and the Republican Party in the Age of Obama

Matthew W. Hughey, Gregory S. Parks

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780814789247
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Gouvernement américain

In The Wrongs of the Right, Matthew W. Hughey and Gregory S. Parks set postracial claims into relief against a background of pre- and post-election racial animus directed at President Obama, his administration, and African Americans. They show how the political Right deploys racial fears, coded language and implicit bias to express and build opposition to the Obama administration. Racial meanings are reservoirs rich in political currency, and the race card remains a potent resource for othering the first black president in a context rife with Nativism, xenophobia, white racial fatigue, and serious racial inequality.

1
The Grand Old Party and African Americans

A Brief Historical Overview

The history of the “Grand Old Party” (GOP) and African Americans is a rich and tumultuous one. And it is a relationship guided by factors put into play long before the formation of the Republican Party in 1854. Chief among those factors is the subject of race.¹ This chapter provides a brief account of the Republican Party’s relationship to the black/white color line, especially how the GOP shifted to being the party of white conservatism after the political realignment of the Southern Strategy of the 1940s. In turn, we present this chapter—largely for those unacquainted with the role of race in the US political two-party system—as a historical aid to understanding the contemporary currents that undergird the political Right’s relationship with Obama and its racist rhetoric.

The Political Party System of the United States

The dominant two-party system of the United States is a now-commonplace structure of modern government, but the country did not always have political parties.² After the American Revolution, the “founding fathers” held a series of conventions to develop a government that would connect the thirteen colonies that had hitherto operated independently of one another under the control of King George III. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 was crucial in charting the course for the country, particularly because the racialized Constitution it produced protected only a small number of the residents as full citizens under the newly formed nation-state. In particular, when the Naturalization Act of 1790 was passed, women, Native Americans, and blacks were left out of this social and legal contract—only white male property owners (approximately 15 percent of the nation’s population) had the legal right to vote.³ Moreover, out of a population of about five million, nearly one person in five was black and enslaved.⁴ From the outset, people of color were looked upon as less than human; certain propertied white males were seen as worthy of citizenship and the “inalienable rights” of which Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence. Those whites deemed worthy of full citizenship were thought the proper administrators of the nation—a nation conceived and built under a chattel slavery system based on racial categorization. And the early white leaders of the burgeoning United States already looked upon themselves as potential victims of a growing hoard of darker brethren due to the growing demographic size of the African American population and increasingly stringent critiques of slavery, which together threatened an end to the economic supremacy of both the industrialists of the North and the planter class of the South, as well as the social supremacy of the poor whites everywhere else.

Under this system, slavery thrived, and its importance to the American economy and social system was paramount.⁵ Plantation owners and agricultural production, the maritime trade industry, textile manufacturing, even insurance companies depended on slavery for their livelihood.⁶ Delegates at the Constitutional Convention retained the “peculiar institution” of slavery, yet not all were of one mind on the matter.⁷ The question of slavery led to many battles, both figuratively and literally. One of the major points of contention was whether slaves should be included in population censuses for taxation measurements and congressional representation. Northern delegates argued that only the free and enfranchised population—white male property owners—should be counted.⁸ If slaves were enfranchised, then southern delegates would hold sway in the House of Representatives. Hence, many southerners argued that slaves should be counted. The Three-Fifths Compromise was placed in Article 1, section 2, paragraph 3 of the US Constitution to assuage both sides.⁹ It designated that three-fifths of a state’s slave population would be counted in determining that state’s representation in the House of Representatives.¹⁰

Just two years after the Constitutional Convention of 1787, George Washington became the first president of the United States. Washington set the standard for many a president, including a four-year term limit and the ownership of slaves. However, he did not set the precedent of leading, or even being a member, of a political party. While Washington unofficially supported many of the programs sponsored by the newly formed Federalist group, he was a staunch detractor of political factionalism; Washington believed that those who occupied the presidency should avoid political party affiliation.¹¹ Washington’s “Farewell Address” of 1796 was a stern warning against partisanship, sectionalism, and involvement in foreign wars.¹² Yet, as this address was read, a group calling themselves the Democratic-Republicans recruited Thomas Jefferson to run for president.¹³ Jefferson lost to John Adams by only three electoral votes and became his vice president.

John Adams, the second president, overtly aligned himself with the Federalists. The Federalists were an influential faction that predated American political parties. Led by Alexander Hamilton, they were primarily men of considerable material means who began to operate like a political party.¹⁴ They soon reached beyond their upper-class comrades to recruit support from local chambers of commerce, the Society of Cincinnati (a group for military officers), and rich men’s societies and clubs.¹⁵

Jefferson opposed many of the issues supported by the Federalists. Jefferson’s followers were aligned with agrarian interests, and they advocated a decentralized government (akin to the contemporary promotion of local and states’ rights).¹⁶ A showdown was brewing: Adams and the Federalists had wealth, social standing, and political sophistication; Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans had raw numbers.¹⁷

Jefferson rallied substantial support against Adams’s second bid to the presidency.¹⁸ Jefferson and supporters created local political clubs to be “soldiers in a national ‘Republican’ movement.”¹⁹ Through their efforts, in 1801 Jefferson was elected the third president of the United States as a member of the Democratic-Republican Party. Although Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans’ views on the Constitution and policy were clear, their views on race and slavery were muddled.²⁰ On the one hand, Jefferson officially opposed slavery; he even attempted to write a condemnation of slavery into the Declaration of Independence, but the passage critical of the slave trade was deleted by Congress—a change that Jefferson resented.²¹ Jefferson unsuccessfully attempted to abolish slavery in Virginia, famously stating, “Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free.”²² But on the other hand, Jefferson owned slaves, most likely fathered children with his slave Sally Hemings, and wrote white-supremacist interpretations of the biological and cultural differences between the races in Notes on the State of Virginia.²³ Furthermore, the two presidents who followed Jefferson (James Madison and James Monroe) were also slave owners from Virginia as well as members of the Democratic-Republican Party.²⁴

Despite the centrality of slavery in the agrarian culture of the South and the industrial culture of the North, future presidents spoke less about the institution, at least in terms of national policy. But James Monroe did not have that option. In 1819, Missouri applied for admission into the United States as a slave state. Northern politicians were especially upset because this would alter the balance between the eleven free states and eleven slave states.²⁵ This resulted in the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which admitted Missouri as a slave state and added Maine as a free state. At this time, the Democratic-Republicans were virtually the only party in existence following the slow decline of the Federalist Party after the War of 1812.²⁶

By the end of John Quincy Adams’s term as president in 1829, the Democratic-Republican Party had split apart.²⁷ In the 1824 election, most of the party boycotted the caucus; only a small group backed William Crawford to run against Adams.²⁸ The Crawford faction included the “Radicals,” “Old Republicans,” and “National Republicans.” These groups remained committed to states’ rights and slavery and were distrustful of the nationalizing program promoted by both Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun.²⁹ Adams’s supporters—in league with Clay and Calhoun—favored modernization, banks, industrial development, and federal spending for roads and other internal improvements—and called themselves the Democratic-Republicans.³⁰ In this context of a developing political bifurcation, slavery and race became key issues they used to malign and mudsling their opponents.³¹ For example, in leading up to the 1824 election, one National Republican newspaper, the Cincinnati Gazette, published an editorial by Charles Hammond, in which he wrote, “General Andrew Jackson’s mother was a COMMON PROSTITUTE, brought to this country by the British soldiers! She afterward married a MULATTO, with whom she had several children, of which number General JACKSON IS ONE!!!”³²

This split—particularly on questions of racial difference, slavery, and nonwhite political participation—was formative of the two-party system we recognize today. The modern Democratic Party was formed in the early 1830s by factions of the Democratic-Republican Party due primarily to the efforts of Martin Van Buren and his support of Andrew Jackson, a slave owner.³³ During Jackson’s administration, in 1833, South Carolina attempted to nullify the high tariffs from the federal government.³⁴ This action drew a battle line of sectionalism on the national map. Although the fear was not directly stated by the southern politicians, the high tariffs were seen as potentially devastating to the slave-based economies.³⁵

The growing concern over slavery in the 1830s and 1840s put a strain on the newly formed Democratic Party. Abolitionists petitioned Congress to abolish slavery in 1834 and 1835.³⁶ But Democrat Martin Van Buren, then vice president, helped to establish the congressional adoption of a “gag rule” that required the immediate tabling of all such antislavery petitions.³⁷ Yet by 1840, the American Anti-Slavery Society had about two thousand branches and two hundred thousand members.³⁸ This movement assisted disgruntled members of the Democratic Party (upset at the party’s being led by wealthy slave owners), abolitionists, Conscience Whigs, and advocates of land disbursements to “settlers” to band together to form the Free S...