Capitalism was never Progressive or Revolutionary and Liberalism is not inherently Pro Capitalist.

The problem with the common depiction of the history of the transition from Feudalism to Capitalism in England being focused the Enclosures of the Commons is that the existence of the Commons was actually a problem for either Feudalism or Capitalism, they both require all the land monologized by a ruling class.  And indeed most Enclosures that happened during the Middle Ages and even into the 17th Century were for the Feudal Aristocracy not the proto Bourgeois.

Liberalism in the modern English Speaking world began during the English Revolution with The Levellers led by John Liburne and Richard Overton, just like how Communism was revived with the Diggers led by Gerrard Winstanley.  Overton called for the unenclosing of previously Common Land, the Levellers didn’t want to abolish Private Property entirely like the Diggers, but there being Common Land was a vital piece of their vision.

Under Capitalism Private Property is not actually a Right, it’s a Privilege, but people with Privilege love to treat an attack on their privilege as if it violates their rights.  The early Liberals from the Levellers to John Locke to Rousseau saw Property as a Right that all are entitled to.  I am still a Communist who sees ending Private Property entirely as the correct answer.  But I refuse to see these true Liberals as inherently more aligned to Capitalism than Communism simply because of one thing Karl Marx said.

Robert Filmer in Patriarcha created a Private Property ideology much more like what modern Capitalism Apologists believe, and he did so as a Jacobite Royalist supporting Feudalism not as a Liberal, he was a Reactionary not a Revolutionary.  He is who John Locke wrote his discussion of Property to refute as James Tully documents in A Discourse on Property: John Locke and his Adversaries. Also The Inclosure Act of 1773 was passed by the Tory Government of Lord North.

However, in time some wealthy landowners became influenced by Liberal ideology and slowly started corrupting it with Laisseze-Fair and Meritocratic ideas, principally David Hume in England and the Physiocrats in France.  Real Liberalism is not an ideology that Justifies Capitalism at all, that’s it’s corrupt Prodigal offspring.

The first half of The Communist Manifesto has been described as the most Pro-Capitalist text ever written.  The idea that Capitalism was good when it started, that it “resolved the class contradictions of Feudalism”, that it was necessary for Capitalism to happen before we can do Socialism or Communism is still dogmatically held to by too many modern Marxists especially MLs.

The Liberation that actually happened during this period was accomplished by Liberalism, but even then not everything they were fighting for was achieved.  Then Capitalists Co-Opted Liberalism as they destroyed the only upsides of Feudalism.  Then Marxists start giving Capitalism credit for what Liberalism accomplished while calling Liberalism the Justifying Ideology of Capitalism so they can label any Leftist with actual Democratic Values a “Bourgeois Liberal” while they slowly turn into Fascists with a USSR Fetish.

We also have MLs now rejecting the concept of being Left Wing anymore because of how that terminology originated with the French Revolution and so they say to call yourself Left Wing is merely “the Left Wing of Capitalism”.  The problem is NO the French Revolution didn’t truly create a modern Capitalist state out of France until its Right Wing prevailed on the 18 Brumaire.  The Left during the Revolution included the Enrages and the Conspiracy of the Equals who Marx acknowledged as true Communist precursors, but it also included Anti-Capitalist Liberals like Claude Fouchet and Nicolas Bonneville.

And the problem with Marxism being too Pro-Capitalism was becoming apparent already in the 19th Century when Russia was still under Feudalism.  Early Russian Marxists like Georgi Plekhanov argued that Russia needed to become Capitalist first, and this was vehemently opposed by the Narodniks who went on to form the Socialist Revolutionary Party.  This issue in Russian Marxism led directly to Leninism. 

The belief that we needed Capitalism for the benefits of the industrial Revolution is ridiculous, I frankly find it incredibly unsettling that so many people who claim to believe in the Collectivist values of Communism think Industrialization required the Profit Motive.

The Youtube channel veritas et caritas has a video on how Co2 emission was known to inevitably be a problem even in the early 1800s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSRzAYqbKxc&pp=ygUhdmVyaXRhcyBldCBjYXJpdGFzIGNsaW1hdGUgY2hhbmdl

If Society was never Capitalist the issue could have bene solved way sooner.  Now we're on the verge of it being too late and those in power still refuse to put their short term profit motive aside and do anything about it.  Even though we already found out how to make Electric Cars in the 19th Century.

The Lords Day is The Sabbath not Sunday

First I want to make clear I'm not a Seventh Day Adventist or a member of any any other dogmatically Sabbath based sect (I am considering being Baptized as a Seventh Day Baptist but they are a denomination not interested in being Judgmental towards those who disagree with them).  

I do not support Legalism, Christians are not bound to observe any weekly service, at all. I'm writing this to refute the notion that The New Testament "Lords Day" is Sunday.

Not everyone who believes weekly Sunday worship is Biblical defines it as Sunday supplanting the Sabbath.  Some like Chris White  just define it as the New Testament ordaining weekly Sunday worship as a separate thing from The Sabbath.  

In The New Testament the term "The Lord's Day" occurs only once. Revelation 1:10 "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet".

We're not told what day of the week this is, or if it's a weekly day at all. Sunday supporters just assume this phrase means something distinct from the Sabbath and therefore it backs up their other reasons for saying The New Testament calls for worship on the First Day of The Week.

But in Matthew 12:8 Jesus said He was the Lord of the Sabbath, and Isaiah 58:13-14 calls the Sabbath, "The LORD's Holy Day". So using Scripture to Interpret Scripture this can only mean the Sabbath.

As far as extra Biblical references go (which don't actually matter to me). The Didache (supposedly the oldest Extra-Biblical Christian writing) also does not say when "The Lord's Day" is, just refers to it. The one quote of Ignatius of Antioch often used in this debate says in the only surviving Greek text (which is the language he wrote in) "If, then, those who had walked in ancient practices attained unto newness of hope, no longer observing Sabbath, but living according to the Lord's life ...". Clearly not about when or if we should do a weekly observance at all, simply referring to us not being bound by The Law. Some later Latin texts add "The Lord's Day" to this, and some even make clear it's Sunday, but these are clearly latter corruptions.

It's not till the second half of the Second Century AD. that indisputable references to The Lord's Day being Sunday occur, in texts like the Apocryphal Gospel of Peter, or Acts of Peter, or Acts of Paul, or Acts of John, or Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth in 170 AD. You might think that sounds sufficiently early, but they're after the Bar Kochba revolt which occurred around about a third of the way into the Second Century. That is when the Church started taking on Anti-Semitic tendencies in response to the persecution of Christians carried out under Bar Kochba. I feel this separation of Christian observance from the Sabbath was based solely on that agenda.

Now, for Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 16:2.

The Corinthians reference is to me certainly not about weekly observance. "Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come." One could argue that Paul expected his Epistle to be read to the Congregation on a Sabbath meeting, and that they should then begin saving up this money the very next day.

Acts 20:7 I don't really see as calling for anything. It just says they broke bread together, and then Paul preached.

I personally find the debating that goes own between Protestant and Evangelical denominations on when to observe the "Lord's Supper", should it be Weekly, Monthly or Yearly, and so on to be silly. Jesus told us when in the actual account of the Supper itself "when ye eat". It's not supposed to be an appointed ceremony, it's simply a matter of whenever we eat we remember that Jesus's Body was Broken and his Blood was Shed for us.

And I don't think Paul needed a special day to Preach on either, Preaching is simply what he did.

This being during the counting of the Omer means it involved Biblical Significance for the First Day of The Week already in The Torah in Leviticus 23.  The Resurrection and Pentecost were on Sundays because Leviticus 23 ordained them to be, those Sundays being important did not introduce anything new.

I keep hearing that ALL of Jesus post Resurrection appearances were on Sundays from the Evangelical Sunday supporting people.  However only the Doubting Thomas incident could be interpreted that way.  Besides that it's well known The Ascension was a Thursday being day 40 of the Omer (Acts 1:3). 

When you read through Acts, you'll see Sabbath observances are definitely still kept by Early Christians, even Paul. Even if the word Sabbath isn't used, if Paul is disputing with Jews in a Synagogue, you can infer that it is a Sabbath or a New Moon or a Holy Day. And for this reason it's clear that even the Mars' Hill Sermon was preached on a Sabbath not a Sunday, in Acts 17:16-19.

Ezekiel 45 clearly has the Sabbath still being observed in the Messianic Temple.  And I believe that is the New Heaven and New Earth not The Millennium.

So what day we do a weekly observance is not something to be Dogmatic on. Or even if we do a weekly observance at all.  I'm ultimately against the entire modern definition of what a "church" is, archaeology shows no church buildings were built till the Third Century. But the evidence both Biblical and Extra-Biblical shows that the first 2 or 3 generations of The Church met on the Jewish Sabbath, not Sunday.  And then the Nazarenes kept the Sabbath at least into the late Fourth Century.

The history even of the how Sunday replaced Saturday is more complicated then most people realize.  Even in the Nicene Era a lot of Christians were kind of just doing both.

The Eucharist has more Hebrew Bible precedent then just the Passover Seder, it is also connected to Melchizedek's Supper in Genesis 14 and the Shewbread.  The Shewbread was kept in the Holy Place on the Table of Shewbread all Week and then eaten by the Priests on The Sabbath.  Under the New Testament all Believers are the Priesthood, so that is Biblical Support for the Eucharist being part of what we do on the Weekly Sabbath.

https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-showbread-and-eucharist.html

Feminine perspectives on Universal Salvation.

 I recently obtained Sarah Apetrei’s book The Reformation of The Heart: Gender and Radical Theology in The English Revolution.  It’s about the often overlooked significance of many Women during the Religious chaos of that period including how on some subjects they were more radical than their male counterparts.   

And the Chapter titled Salvation is about Universal Salvation.  Mentioning women like Lady Eleanor Davies, Elizabeth Attaway, Anne Yeman, and Anna Tarpnel (and also mentioned Elizabeth Bathurst, Lady Anne Conway and Jane Lead a generation later).

I think a similar tendency may have existed in other eras too.  Yes the vast majority of known documented Universalists are Men since Men have usually been more allowed to publish and publicly teach their ideas to begin with. 

However it’s important not to forget the arguably greatest Universalist Theologian Gregory of Nyssa,  depicts his OneeSan Macrina The Younger as his chief spiritual mentor especially on this subject.

Julian of Norwich was a medieval English Mystic who might be the best precedent for it in the English speaking world prior to the Revolution.  Some women have also had a role to play in the modern revival of consideration for the topic.

I hold the controversial view that Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene were the same person and was the Beloved Disciple, making her the Author of the Fourth Gospel and perhaps also the Epistles commonly attributed to John, at least the First of them which I think was originally an appendix to the Fourth Gospel which I prefer to title The Dissertation on the Word of Life.  

I can build my argument for Universal Salvation independent of those books, but some of the most Emotionally Powerful verses come from them.  Emphasizing how God Loves the Whole World, that none can pluck us out of Jesus hand in 10:28-29, that He will Draw all men unto him in 12:32, that we are Saved because God first loves us, in 1 John 4:19.

There may already be a lot more known then I’m already aware of. 

Baptists should believe in Universal Salvation.

The first reason is that many Baptists love to stress that Baptists have long been advocates of Religious Freedom aka Liberty of Conscience.  

Baptists have been at the forefront of it right from the beginning of the Baptists as we today understand them with Thomas Helwys and John Smyth.  Before them some notion of Religious Toleration has been proposed in the English speaking world by some 16th Century Puritans like Robert Browne, but for them it was just about disagreements within Christianity (or even just within Protestantism), it was these first Baptists who were the first to argue for Religious Liberty for even Jews, Muslims and Atheists.

And this tradition continued with Leonard Busher followed by Richard Overton, the real ideological brain of the Levellers, and then Roger Williams and John Clarke who founded Rhode Island.  Then Isaac Backus and John Leland during the era of the American Revolution.

My reason for arguing Universal Salvation should naturally go with belief in Liberty of Conscience is not quite what you’d probably first assume.  The relationship between Religious Freedom and Evangelism should be the argument that conversions made under force or coercion simply will not be sincere.  

I believe Jesus Christ should be viewed as the model for Human morality, not as a Sovereign who doesn’t hold Himself to the same rules as His subjects.  So if it’s morally wrong for us to persecute, torture or kill people for holding the wrong beliefs, it’s an absurd contradiction to then say that is ultimately exactly what Jesus will do when He returns.

For the Scriptural Reasons Universal Salvation is true, start by checking out my Six Points of Universal Salvation page, then read others posts with the Universal Salvation tag where I go more in depth.

Now my fellow Universal Salvation believers in Pedobaptist denominations may argue that since Salvation isn't only for a select few; why not just Baptize the babies automatically?  Well as an Evangelical Universalist I still see a meaningful distinction between those who are in The Kingdom already and those who aren’t yet.  Water Baptism is a ritual performed to symbolize choosing to become a full Citizen of The Kingdom.  

But returning to why specifically Baptists should rethink any knee jerk rejection of Universal Salvation is the fact that Baptists who came to that conclusion appeared very early on.  And were even important players in getting the ball rolling on modern Universalism in the first place.

They start at least with the 17th Century Bell Alley General Baptist Church of Thomas Lambe, Henry Denne and Samuel Oats.  And in her book The Reformation of The Heart: Gender and Radical Theology in The English Revolution starting on page 69 Sarah Apetrei highlights the women of that Congregation who were important voices of Universal Salvation like Elizabeth Attaway.  They were an influence on Gerrard Winstanley and The Quakers.

The Everlasting Gospel by Georg Klein-Nicolai is a German book on Universal Salvation that seems to have its origin among the Schwarzenau Brethren also called the Dunkers and German Baptists.

The rise of Universal Salvation in the American Colonies in the late 18th Century that led to the foundation of the Universalist Church of America involved several Baptists and people of a Baptist Background.  Elhanan Winchester would probably be the most orthodox to modern Baptists, but there’s also Adams Streeter and Hosea Ballou who also each had been Baptist Pastors, Caleb Rich who was born into a Baptist family, and Giles Chapman who married a German Baptist.  

James Murray and his mentor James Relly never had actual ties to any Baptist Church, but they came to a view on the Sacraments basically the same as the Quakers and like Gerrard Winstanley and the early Quakers a Baptist perspective on the Pedobaptism vs Credobaptism debate plays a role in how they argue that.

The Universalist Church of America as a denomination never had a uniform policy on Baptism, but they were always consistently Congregationalist.

George Macdonald had been a Congregationalist, so not a Baptist but someone who's agree with us on Church Polity.

The main contemporary Baptists who believe in Universal Salvation are the Primitive Baptist Universalists in Appalachia, who are more theologically liberal then other Primitive Baptists on a number of things.  I’m hoping writing this can help change that.

The Seventh Day Baptists are partly known for being one of the most allowing of divergent doctrinal views within its denomination.  And I do agree that the Sabbath was never changed to Sunday, that’s a misunderstanding of two verses.  So it does disappoint me that when I read the Statement of Faith on their official website the only belief of mine that is in potential conflict with any part of it is Universal Salvation.  

I also see a logical relationship between Sabbatarianism and Universal Salvation.  Believing that Sunday supplanted the Sabbath goes hand in hand with the mainstream Christian view that God permanently divorced Israel to take a new wife.  I’m not a Dispensationalist or strictly speaking a Two House Theology advocate.  Rather for me God’s determination to restore Israel no matter how far they fall is a specially emphasized part of His refusal to allow any to perish.  

And going back to Sarah Apetrei's book, there is documentation of the wife of John Belcher an early Seventh Day Baptist as Pastor of a Church at Belle Lane in the 1660s believing in Universal Salvation.

I know a lot of Baptists are among the most strict KJV Onlists so I should also link to this old post of mine.

https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2017/05/kjv-only-universalism.html

And for the Landmarkists who think the Novatians were ancient Baptists, there is evidence they believed in Universal Salvation.  It was their critic Cyprian who popularized the idea that there is no Salvation outside The Church.

Novatus, or as he is often called, Novatian, an eminent presbyter of Rome, who contested the bishopric of the church there with Cornelius, advanced something like Universalism. He extolled in the highest, though in general terms, the unbounded goodness of God (De Regula Fidei, cap. ii., prope finem, edit. Jackson, Lond., 1728, pp. 23-25); and maintained that the wrath, indignation, and hatred of the Lord, so called, are not such passions in him as bear the same name in man; but that they are operations in the divine mind which are directed solely to our purification (De Regula Fidei, cap. iv.). In short, he asserted the peculiar principles of Universalism; but whether he pursued them out to their necessary result does not appear.

https://universalistchristian.org/books/ancient-history/

Age of Consent and Adulthood

If I identify with any specific branch of Christianity more then the others it's The Baptists (but with some Quaker characteristics), especially The General Baptists.  But one annoyance I have with a lot of modern Credo-Baptist sects is a refusal to state a clear absolute minimum age one can choose to be Baptized, with some even thinking Elementary School kids can be old enough.

Baptism should be viewed as in part a Commitment.  So anyone you consider to young to get Married is also to young to be Baptized because I view Baptism as in-part becoming Betrothed to Christ.  But I think most Churches are permitting Marriage at too young an age as well.

Exodus 30:14, Leviticus 27:3 and Numbers 26:2-4 tell us that about 20 is when The Torah considered someone legally an Adult Citizen of the Congregation.  Numbers 1:3 and 2 Chronicles 25:5 also say 20 is the minimum age you could serve in the Military.

However since I view New Testament water Baptism as evolving out of the Water Immersion ritual that was part of consecrating the Aaronic Priesthood (Exodus 29:4, 40:12 and Leviticus 8:6) applied to the Priesthood of All believers Doctrine that only Congregational Polity practicing Christians even pretend to take seriously.  Age milestones related to the Levites specifically may be worth looking at.

In Numbers 8:24 the age of 25 is when Levites start waiting upon the service of the Congregation, but in Numbers 4:3-47 the age of 30 is when they started to do the work of the Congregation.

One of the arguments against Infant Baptism being the original norm of the Church is the clear evidence that early Christian Tradition going back to at least the 2nd Century said 5 years of Catechism was necessary before Baptism  This tradition remains formally in-place after Infant Baptism was standardized but is applied only to adult converts.  But that combination makes no sense, why can Infants be Baptized right away but adults need to be prepared to know what they are committing to?

Now a lot of people in Acts seem to be Baptized right after they convert, but in Acts 2 and 8 we are dealing with people coming from an Israelite background, the Ethiopian Eunuch was reading Isaiah already, the stuff the 5 year Catechism was necessary for may be stuff they already knew.

I'm a true Paulian Christian, I don't believe we are under The Law in any rigid or legalistic sense.  But I am Hebrew Roots enough to still believe The Torah is useful, for things like this especially.  And I think a lot of early Christian traditions that don't seem directly mandated by The New Testament have their roots in applying Torah ideas though a New Testament filter.

So I think either 25 was originally the Minimum age to begin Catechism and then 30 when 5 years have passed for Baptism, or Catechism could begin at 20 with 25 for Baptism and another five years before you can be considered an "Elder". I don't think NT use of Presbyter meant Elder or Senior in the old age sense but more closer in application to the Japanese honorific Sempai, I think Congregational polity denominations often cede to much ground to Presbyterians and Episcopalians on how to define those words.

It is of course possible the Catechism was only required for Adult Converts and those raised in the faith were expected to know when they reached the minimum age.  But I do think it'd a mistake for parents to pressure their kids to hard to get Baptized as soon as they turn 20 or even 25, let them think about it for awhile if they want to.

Thirty as an ideal age for Baptism is a natural conclusion one could draw from Luke 3:21-23 seeming to say Thirty was when Jesus was Baptized.

So 20 as the minimum age for even beginning to prepare for Baptism in my view should also be the minimum age of Consent for Sex and Marriage.  But I can even sympathize with raising that to 25 based on the science about how the Brian isn't fully developed till 25.

Rabbinic Judaism at some point developed the Bar Mitsvah tradition of considering adulthood to in some sense begin at 12 or 13.  I don't know where this came from, there is nothing supporting it in The Torah or anywhere else in The Hebrew Bible.  Manasseh became king at 12, but he didn't turn out to be a very good King, maybe that had something to do with it.

However a lot of Christians think 12 as some sort of milestone age is vindicated in The New Testament by Luke 2:40-42.  Nothing here says Jesus being 12 is the reason for anything.  The Torah required only adult males to attend the Pilgrimage Festivals but those Men did often bring their families including Wives and Children.  Nothing in Luke 2 says Jesus wasn't there for prior observances of Passover, this is just a time when something notable happened.  And it's notable precisely because it's unusual for someone this young to be this intellectually skilled.  This is a story about how Jesus as the Son of God was not like other 12 year olds, it's not a model for anything.

[I've also been considering a theory on New Testament chronology that have the Passover when Jesus was Twelve be the first one after the removal of Archelaus which makes sense as the first time Joseph would have brought his family given what the end of Matthew 2 says.  But that's a secondary theory and not necessary to explain it.]

Contrary to popular assumption NO it was not in Ancient or Medieval times common for people to get married with at least the woman being as young as 16 or even 12 in some claims.  While on the books marriages that young might have been technically allowed all the evidence shows that in practice the norm was usually at least 20.  The notable exceptions were usually among the Aristocratic or Royal Families making important marriage alliances and even they often weren't consummated right away.  But those exceptions are often what people write historical fiction about helping spread the confusion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6Ey6tAbUfg&pp=ygUUcHJpbWEgbm9jdGEgZGVidW5rZWQ%3D

There are no Biblical verses stating a clear ideal or minimum marriage age, but at least 3 notable people didn't get married till 40, Isaac, Esau and Moses (Jacob was Esau's twin and he got married even later). 

And no nothing in Scripture supports the "if she can bleed she can breed" meme people assume about pre-modern cultures.  

The one Bible verse some will cite for that is 1 Corinthians 7:36 but it does not explain what "flower of her age" means, the natural assumption to me is Puberty being over not when it starts, that "flowering' is a process not a singe event.   "Flower" isn't even a good translation of the Greek, the Greek text here is communicating the idea of being physically fully grown, which happens at about 20.  So I would consider 20 the age of consent for sex but still hold off on marriage till 25.  

Also regardless of age some people abuse "let him do what he will" from this chapter to defend martial rape. The context of this chapter is addressing believers questioning whether Sex and Marriage is right for them at all, Paul is giving people permission to enter consensual marriage, not disregarding the woman's consent.

Thing is I do want to lower the Voting Age, and some people may find that bizarre in the above context.  But to me the whole point of Democracy is to empower the most vulnerable.  The youngest people are the ones thinking about the future most which is why they need a greater voice.  You aren't consenting to anything when you Vote, you are telling the State or Society what you prefer and they consent only if enough people agree.

But I do think 25 or 30 should be the minimum age to actually old office. I disagree with 35 being required for the Senate and Presidency, that should be lowered to 30 the age David was crowned at.  

In both Numbers 4:3-47 and Numbers 8:25 the age of Fifty is when Levites retire.  And looking at a lot of contemporary issues not letting people over Fifty stay in Congress sounds like a good idea.  Letting people between 50-60 remain in advisory positions with no direct powers could also work.  Sixty as a milestone age comes from Leviticus 27:3-7.

Thing about the Voting Age is you can't have it both ways, if you want to have a minimum voting age there should also be a maximum one because the elderly do at a certain point become functionally children again.  Except that Old people vote the most Conservatively because they're most motivated by Nostalgia, so political bias clearly influences what Conservatives and Centrists think about the voting age since it suits their interests to stifle calls for radical change.  So in my opinion either both the youngest and oldest can vote, or neither.

The Continuity between Pre-Civil War Parties and their Modern forms

There's a lot about both parties that have changed during their long histories, but also a lot about both parties that has stayed the same.

The Party Switch narrative is correct in that specifically Southern White Supremacists switched from being Democrats to being Republicans in the mid 20th Century.  How and why it happened is a longer and more complicated story than the common simplified narrative that makes it about 1 or 2 presidential elections in the 1960s, but the gist of that narrative is true. 

In fact I’ll even say there’s another type of voter who switched from being more likely to be Democrats to more likely to be Republicans slightly sooner and that’s Classical Liberals or Pro-Capitalism Libertarians like Grover Cleveland.

However, the problem I have is when people act like this means in every way they completely switched, that there was nothing Liberal about any of the Antebellum Democrats and nothing Conservative about the Antebellum Republicans.  The fact is that what political positions seem to innately go together today did not always innately go together, many of them seemed innately at odds in the past.  At their philosophical core the continuity between what these parties were when they were founded and what they are today is greater than the divergence.

Typical attempts to in any way deconstruct the Party Switch narrative are done with an agenda of supporting the modern Republican Party.  But that’s not what I’m doing, I don’t like either party in its current state and think both had more redeeming qualities in the past then they do now but would not fully endorse either at any time period.  Which one I would nominally consider the lesser Evil depends on the circumstances. But the basic fact that the Republican Party is today the party of the Racists is not a fact that can be denied no matter how you look at its history.

I shall start with the origins of the Democratic Party.

Andrew Jackson was a Slave Plantation Owner and a Racist against both Blacks and Native Americans.  But he very much demonstrated that he did not prioritize his positions on those issues over the Unity of the Union.  He opposed “States Rights” during the Nullification Crisis creating tension with other Southern Democrats like John C. Calhoun, and even predicted the next Crisis to provoke Secession would be the Slavery question.  Regardless Jackson was also the first U.S. President who was an active vocal defender of Slavery.

The reasons Jackson is a villain to modern Leftists were unforntatly not divisive issues at the time, I'm sure people on the right sides of them did exist but they were not what principally animated any Presidential Elections of the 1820s and 30s.  The organized vocal anti Jackson sentiment of the time came from the right, from New England and New York aristocrats and also the Anti-Masons, modern Conspiracy Theorists lionizing Jackson have it backwards, at the time people who believed in the Illuminati saw Jackson as an Illuminati puppet.

The Democrats were named what they were because they wanted to make the country more Democratic, there is a reason why in both the 19th and 21st Centuries every Presidential Election with a discrepancy between the Popular Vote and Electoral Vote it was the Democrats who lost even though they got more votes.  And both then and now the Party was partly driven by Anti-Wall Street Populism.

The Republican Party when it was founded is often mischaracterized as a Single Issue Party with that issue being opposition to Slavery.  The thing is the nation had already had Anti-Slavery single issue parties and they were no more successful than any other single issue party.  The Republican Party was simply the first major Political Party that was not internally divided on the Slavery issue.

And that includes the Democrats, Anti-Slavery Democrats always existed, particularly in the northern States.  Martin Van Buren was a co-founder of the Party who came down against Slavery when that became a divisive issue.  In New York the Pro-Slavery Faction were called the Hunkers and the Anti-Slavery faction the Barnburners.  Remember when I said above the Classical Liberals were mostly Democrats in the 1800s? Well they were usually with the Anti-Slavery Democrats like Samuel Tilden, which is not surprising since Classical Liberals followed the Economic Ideology of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill who both made their opposition to Chattel Slavery well known.  Local and State level Politicians in the North often didn’t concern themselves with Slavery one way or the other which is why I have trouble even finding the Anti-Slavery Democrats outside New York, but one example is Nelson Dewey the first Governor of my home state of Wisconsin.

The most vocal and uncompromising Pro-Slavery Southern Democrats were not Liberals, Classical or Otherwise, nor were they “Conservative” by any modern understanding of Conservatism, they were Agrarian Neo-Feaudalists who self identified as Anti-Capitalist and loved Thomas Carlyle.  But those two types were not the only types the Democrats had, they also had the ideological ancestors of the future Progressive Democrats.

Slavery was not the only issue early American Parties were internally divided on, for the most part they were not even truly Ideologically defined parties to begin with.  America’s first party system was during Washington’s first term primarily about the fight over Hamilton's Bank but after that issue was settled it became principally Political Anglophiles (Federalists) vs Political Francophiles (Democratic-Republicans).  However the French Revolution context of that made it so Anglophiles tended to lean Tory (or at least Burkean) and Francophiles tended to lean Jacobin (or at least Girondin).

However one interesting expectation would be how after the Hattian Revolution many former Saint-Domingue Slave owner emigres migrated to the Southern United States, especially the Carolinas.  Some of them were Royalist but some supported The French Revolution in-spite of how popular Abolitionist Sentiment was across all the factions of the Revolution in Paris.  And then there's how Napoleon complicated things.

The story of how the Democratic Party is related to prior American political parties is usually oversimplified as just being a daughter of the Democratic-Republicans.  And there is some truth to that especially in New York where Tammany Hall is the continuity between them.  The problem is after the Federalist Party was basically dead and the U.S. became functionally a Single Party State for awhile, many Federalists just joined the Democratic-Republicans without really changing their positions on anything, this is especially true of John Quincey Adams.

Jacksonian Democracy is basically the partial fulfillment of the vision of Northern Federalist James Wilson.  While the Ethos of the Southern Democrats arguably began with Charles Cotesworth Pinckney who was Hamilton’s handpicked successor as leader of the Federalists.  Oliver Wolcott Jr was an important Federalist who became a Jacksonian at the end of his life.  And James Buchanan was a Federalist till 1824.  Meanwhile Thomas Jefferson who was still alive in 1824 was vocal in his distaste for Andrew Jackson.

Another interesting detail of the Jackson era Nullification Crisis was that James Madison came out in clear opposition to allowing states to Secede from the Union.

Early American Labor Unions were already more inclined to support the Democrats over Republicans even before the Civil War.. William H. Sylvis supported Stephen Douglas during the 1960 Election but was Loyal to the Union during the Civil War. Before that just look at the history of the Locofocos and the Working Men's Party.

Also pre Civil War it was already the Democrats who were more supportive of Immigrants while the Nativist WASP Xenophobes like the Know Nothings and Bowery Boys were more inclined towards first the Whigs then the Republicans.  George F. Edmunds was of the founding generation of the Republican Party being elected to office as a Republican in 1954, and went on in 1894 to be a founding member of the Immigration Restriction league which throughout its history was lead by Republicans like Henry Cabot Lodge though most Democrats also wound up voting for the Legislation it backed in 1917.  The principal sponsors of the 1924 Immigration Act were also Republicans, Albert Johnson and David A. Reed.

The reason so many people want to believe the “party switch” represented a more complete switch then it actually was is because the simplistic shorthand definition of what a “Conservative” is makes one assume a Conservative could only ever claim to oppose Slavery in Hindsight.  However Edmund Burke is popularly referred to as the father of Modern Conservatism, and he was very vocal in his opposition to Slavery.  John Wesley was an Abolitionist to the right of even Burke actually calling himself a Tory and opposing the American Patriots.  The Federalists in the United States were very much the Edmund Burkes of America, especially Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris and John Adams, all three opposed Slavery with Morris being the one person at the Constitutional Convention trying to get Slavery outright Abolished at the country's inception.  And they equally shared Burke’s hatred of the French Revolution.

The Whigs were born out of the ashes of the Federalist Party, especially Northern Federalists, and then the early Republican Party was entirely led by Former Whigs.  During it's brief existence the Confederacy never developed much of a Party system, but in North Carolina an opposition party made of former Whigs did exist for a bit and called itself the Conservative Party.

Alven R. Bovay was a former Whig co-founder of the Republican Party who in 1874 denounced the Party considering its Anti-Slavery Mission statement complete at a time when Reconstruction was already on the verge of failing and went on to join the Temperance movement.  So he sounds exactly like a modern “Racism is already solved” type Conservative.

Following the various “Compromises” of 1850 and 1854 the most recent changes to the Status Quo were in favor of the Slave States.  So in that context fighting those changes became definitionally Conservative or even full on Reactionary.

The appearance of the Republican Party being a single issue party was marketing, they got the Votes of even Marxists because Marx himself rightly deemed opposing Slavery the most vital issue in the U.S. at that time, and also many Anti-Slavery Democrats left to join the Republicans.  But the leadership of the Party was almost entirely former Whigs who were a Burkean Conservative Party.  At the 1856 Convention their platform already treated another issue as of near equal importance, opposing Polygamy on the same false Biblical Logic that their 2004 opposition to Gay Marriage was based on.  At the 1860 Convention’s Platform they downplayed the Slavery question refusing to call for outright Abolition.  This platform condemned Disunion but also affirmed the sovereignty of the States, so no the Republicans didn’t start caring about States Rights only when former Southern Democrats joined them a century later. 

Opposing Slavery was always objectively good, but not everyone who opposed Slavery did so for the right reasons.  Some were Racists who didn’t want Black people in the country at all.  But more influential than that were the Northern Capitalists who viewed the Southern Plantation owners as Economic Rivals they wanted to crush, and the South as a whole as a Pre-Capitalist Society ripe for Imperialist exploitation.  And that’s why most of the Republicans never really wanted Reconstruction to go all the way, actually making the Freed Slaves truly fully enfranchised citizens would make them more difficult to exploit.  Giving them ownership of the Land they spent Generations working would get in the way of Proletarianizing them.

Meanwhile a lot of the founding Republicans were mainly just opposed to Slavery expanding westward and/or the Fugitive Slave Act and not actively calling for Abolition in the states where it was already entrenched.

With the Democrats the unifying factor that enabled Neo-Feudalists and Classical Liberals and proto-Social Democrats to be able to coexist in the same party was their shared hatred of Wall Street and Bankers.  Benjamin Tilman was one of the most vile and despicable openly racist Southern Democrats, but he also has his name on one of the most important pieces of Progressive Era Antitrust legislation, the Tilman Act of 1907.  There were even pro New Deal Segregationists like Tom Connolly.

Republican President Calvin Coolidge was Fiscally Conservative and also Anti-Racist.

No one actually denies the Republican Party had Conservatives before 1960, but they desperately want to pretend that in the Roosevelt era Republican Party there was no overlap between the Conservative Republicans and those who were still fighting Racism.  However Robert Taft and Hamilton Fish were absolutely leading the fight to get Anti-Lynching legislation passed while self identifying as Conservative at the same time, and Taft at least is who later Conservative Republicans sought to claim they were carrying the mantle of even while squabbling with each other.  

That said the Republicans party also already had Racists at that time, James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr. opposed Anti-Lynching legislation on States Rights grounds, as did William Sterling Cole, Harold Knutson and Clare Hoffman. And the Republicans even already had a full blown Nazi in Jacob Thorkelson.  

Even the Progressives the Republican Party had during the era of Teddy Roosevelt Progressivism did in fact take Conservative positions on some things like Prohibition.  And their Conservationism was much more Eco-Fascist then actually Environmentalist.