Right On, Michael Zak

Posted on | April 16, 2012 | 16 Comments

by Smitty

Yesterday, I attended a 150th anniversary ceremony in honor of the DC Emancipation Act. The event was held at Abraham Lincoln’s summer cottage.

The quartet Just Righteous inspired with A Change Is Gonna Come and other classic songs. Frank Williams discussed President Lincoln’s views on the DC Emancipation Act. Harold Holzer spoke about media reaction. Edna Greene Medford recounted the city’s response to the law.

While the speakers were informative, all three over-emphasized Lincoln’s role and managed to avoid mentioning an important political context. So, in the Q&A, I informed the audience of these crucial facts:

The DC Emancipation Act was written by a Republican Senator, Henry Wilson.

Republicans voted unanimously for the DC Emancipation Act

Democrats voted unanimously against the DC Emancipation Act

One of the 3,100 slaves liberated by the GOP made the statue “Freedom” which stands atop the U.S. Capitol dome

In his closing remarks, Mayor Vincent Gray said that just as slaves back then were held in bondage, city residents today are also “held in bondage” because DC is not a state. Yes, that’s what he said — trivializing the horrors of slavery in order to make a political point.

I’m more of a fan of History than I am of the Republican Party as such; parties are a necessary evil, and sometimes, perhaps, more evil than necessary.

But, if we can somehow recover the GOP from Progressivism, it could return to its former level of utility for the United States.

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Category: GOP, Republicans

Comments

16 Responses to “Right On, Michael Zak”

Adobe_Walls
April 16th, 2012 @ 9:22 pm

Name a point in history when a party or a country for that matter was able to get back to it’s original ideals and principles.
Too many people in the party have a vested interest in the status quo. To have a successful revolution or counter-revolution in a party or a country requires that a majority have no vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Said majority need not be hostile to the status quo merely dis-interested enough to not support it.
Michael Zak
April 16th, 2012 @ 9:23 pm

These facts are drawn from my pro-GOP history of the GOP, Back to Basics for the Republican Party. First published twelve years ago, the book started the GOP’s ongoing efforts to celebrate our party’s heritage. See http://www.grandoldpartisan.com for more information.
Michael Zak
April 16th, 2012 @ 9:25 pm

You and Stacy could be the first pundits to write articles informing the public about Back to Basics for the Republican Party.
Peter Ingemi
April 16th, 2012 @ 9:39 pm

I disagree the Democrats were on the wrong side of the great evils

Slavery: Wrong Side

Jim Crow: Wrong Side

Abortion: Wrong Side

Communism: (after 1968) Wrong Side

It’s a pathetic and disgraceful record.
ThePaganTemple
April 16th, 2012 @ 11:01 pm

I don’t think the Democrats were ever anti-communist so much as they were anti-Soviet expansionism. Their policies were always geared more towards containment.
ThePaganTemple
April 16th, 2012 @ 11:04 pm

Disinterest isn’t enough, that implies people don’t really care one way or another, which is one reason so many people typically don’t even bother to vote. To really affect change requires not only being strongly against something, but greatly in favor of something better.
Charles
April 16th, 2012 @ 11:15 pm

Socialism (after 1920): Wrong Side.

Welfare dependency: Wrong side

Inner city education: Wrong side

Public housing projects: Wrong side

Criminal law enforcement: Wrong Side:
Charles
April 16th, 2012 @ 11:26 pm

North Korea, Cuba under the Castros, Maoist China during the cultural revolution, Vietnam after 1975, Czechoslovakia after 1968, Hungary after 1956, Libya under Qadaffi, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Iran under the mullahs. Oh, you were looking for good examples.
Adobe_Walls
April 16th, 2012 @ 11:42 pm

Incorrect, in every successful revolution including ours the majority did not support either side. The “change” was effected by a minority of the people. That’s the problem now, in general the majority have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo as they perceive it. Medicare, medicaid,social security, food stamps, title eight housing, government grants for all varieties of nefarious purposes the list goes on and on. Most Americans believe that if it weren’t for the EPA our environment would be more toxic than Mordor. When I mentioned to my brother that we needed to abolish the EPA and replace it with something else his response was that if not for the EPA industries would dump raw sewage in our rivers. It never occurred to him that while industries dumped chemical wastes in rivers in the past it was governments that dumped raw sewage. Most Americans have a vested interest in at least part of the status quo, until that changes and it will one way or another there will be no restoration and it certainly will not come from the GOP.
Adobe_Walls
April 16th, 2012 @ 11:43 pm

Celebrating that heritage is not the same as restoring it.
No Sale!
Copious Gasser
April 16th, 2012 @ 11:47 pm

Good post. I also wrote a bit about it here:
http://cldun.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/holiday-for-some/
Adobe_Walls
April 16th, 2012 @ 11:56 pm

They thought they were anti-communists their view of what communists and communism is was extremely limited and parochial. That’s one of our great national failings after the fall of the Soviets and the eastern bloc. Most Americans never understood the threat that communism as an ideology poses as soon as the communists in Europe no longer controlled nuclear weapons communists became tolerable. They mistook Russian imperialism with a twist of Marxist dogma for the sole and only threat to humanity. Live and learn tho many won’t do either.
Adobe_Walls
April 17th, 2012 @ 1:27 am

Some people get it.
http://www.washingtonreb.com/2012/04/15/wheels-within-wheels/#comment-8330

And from where it’s always sunny.
http://www.washingtonreb.com/2012/04/15/sunny-on-taxes/
Quartermaster
April 17th, 2012 @ 7:47 am

Alas, the GOP is both stupid and evil all by themselves. The Demoncrats do it with malice aforethought.
Bob Belvedere
April 17th, 2012 @ 8:38 am

Well put.

One quibble: Though even people like John Adams referred to the War For Independence as a ‘revolution’, it clearly was not.

Revolutions seek to destroy the Old Order, reduce it to rubble, with the idea that a brand new society can be built, not on the ruins, but in the area after it is cleared of all the rubble. This is why Revolutionaries love to declare the Gregorian Calendar void and the first year of the Revolution as either the Year One or Year Zero.

What happened in the North American British Colonies was a Restoration. The Founders were seeking to restore those rights that had been secured in 1689 Bill of Rights, Magna Carta, and the Act Of Settlement of 1701. While they wanted to change the form of government [and a few didn’t, who wanted to create an American Constitutional Monarchy], The Founders had no desire to destroy the Old Order of Society. They just wanted their rights as Englishmen restored. When the government of Great Britain refused to do so, the Colonists effected a separation.
You Say You Want A Revolution… « The Camp Of The Saints
April 17th, 2012 @ 9:57 am

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