Republican Party (United States)

"Under existing conditions the negro votes the Republican ticket because he knows his friends are of that party. Many a good citizen votes the opposite, not because he agrees with the great principles of state which separate parties, but because, generally, he is opposed to negro rule. This is a most delusive cry. Treat the negro as a citizen and a voter, as he is and must remain, and soon parties will be divided, not on the color line, but on principle. Then we shall have no complaint of sectional interference."

"I am a Republican, as the two great political parties as now divided, because the Republican party is a National party, seeking the greatest good for the greatest number of citizens. There is not a precinct in this vast Nation where a Democrat cannot cast his ballot and have it counted as cast. No matter what the prominence of the opposite party, he can proclaim his political opinions, even if he is only one among a thousand, without fear and without proscription on account of his opinions."

"I am a Republican for many other reasons. The Republican party assures protection to life and property, the public credit and the payment of the debts of the Government, State, county, or municipality so far as it can control. The Democratic party does not promise this; if it does, it has broken its promises to the extent of hundreds of millions, as many Northern Democrats can testify to their sorrow."

"The Republican party is a party of progress and of liberality toward its opponents. It encourages the poor to strive to better their children, to enable them to compete successfully with their more fortunate associates, and, in fine, it secures an entire equality before the law of every citizen, no matter what his race, nationality, or previous condition. It tolerates no privileged class. Every one has the opportunity to make himself all he is capable of."

"Now, the Democrats have a different plan. The Democrats say that, 'If you have health insurance, we're going to make it better. If you don't have health insurance, we going to provide it to you. If you can’t afford health insurance, then we'll help you afford health insurance'. So America gets to decide. Do you want the Democratic plan, or do you want the Republican plan? Remember, the Republican plan. 'Don't get sick. And if you do get sick, die quickly'."

"America understands that there is one party in this country that is favor of health care reform and one party that is against it, and they know why. They understand that if Barack Obama were somehow able to cure hunger in the world the Republicans would blame him for overpopulation. They understand that if Barack Obama could somehow bring about world peace they would blame him for destroying the defense industry. In fact, they understand that if Barack Obama has a BLT sandwich tommorrow for lunch, they will try to ban bacon. But that's not what America wants, America wants solutions to its problems and that begins with health care, and that's what I'm speaking for tonight."

"Fox News and their Republican collaborators are the enemy of America. The enemy of anybody who wants anything good for this country."

"I think Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we've had in a while."

"The GOP today is a tale of two parties. One of them, the gubernatorial wing, is growing and successful. The other, the federal wing, is increasingly marginalizing itself, and unless changes are made, it will be increasingly difficult for Republicans to win another presidential election in the near future. Republicans have lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. States in which our presidential candidates used to win, such as New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Florida, are increasingly voting Democratic. We are losing in too many places... Republican governors are America’s reformers in chief. They continue to deliver on conservative promises of reducing the size of government while making people’s lives better. They routinely win a much larger share of the minority vote than GOP presidential candidates, demonstrating an appeal that goes beyond the base of the Party."

"Our Party knows how to appeal to older voters, but we have lost our way with younger ones. We sound increasingly out of touch... The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself. We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue. Instead of driving around in circles on an ideological cul-de-sac, we need a Party whose brand of conservatism invites and inspires new people to visit us. We need to remain America’s conservative alternative to big-government, redistribution-to-extremes liberalism, while building a route into our Party that a non-traditional Republican will want to travel. Our standard should not be universal purity; it should be a more welcoming conservatism... The perception, revealed in polling, that the GOP does not care about people is doing great harm to the Party and its candidates on the federal level, especially in presidential years. It is a major deficiency that must be addressed... Democrats tend to talk about people, Republicans tend to talk about policy."

"If we are going to grow as a Party, our policies and actions must take into account that the middle class has struggled mightily and that far too many of our citizens live in poverty. To people who are flat on their back, unemployed or disabled and in need of help, they do not care if the help comes from the private sector or the government — they just want help. Our job as Republicans is to champion private growth so people will not turn to the government in the first place. But we must make sure that the government works for those truly in need, helping them so they can quickly get back on their feet. We should be driven by reform, eliminating, and fixing what is broken, while making sure the government’s safety net is a trampoline, not a trap... Our policies must lead people to a better life through a thriving, growing private sector that works for the middle class, and those in need."

"It is time for Republicans on the federal level to learn from successful Republicans on the state level. It is time to smartly change course, modernize the Party, and learn once again how to appeal to more people, including those who share some but not all of our conservative principles. If our Party is not welcoming and inclusive, young people and increasingly other voters will continue to tune us out. The Party should be proud of its conservative principles, but just because someone disagrees with us on 20 percent of the issues, that does not mean we cannot come together on the rest of the issues where we do agree... The African American community has a lot in common with the Republican Party, and it is important to share this rich history. More importantly, the Republican Party must be committed to building a lasting relationship within the African American community year-round, based on mutual respect and with a spirit of caring... We must be a party that is welcoming and inclusive for all voters."

"[B]y what inattention these scurrilously racist Republicans installed the first African-American secretary of state and national security advisor, appointed a black Supreme Court justice, elected the first black U.S. senator since Reconstruction, and sent the troops into Little Rock."

"Republicans understand moral psychology. Democrats don't."

"We need to acknowledge he [Trump] let us down. He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again."

"The first act of the black republican party will be to exclude slavery from all the territories, from the District of Columbia, the arsenals and the forts, by the action of the general government. That would be a recognition that slavery is a sin, and confine the institution to its present limits. The moment that slavery is pronounced a moral evil, a sin, by the general government, that moment the safety of the rights of the south will be entirely gone."

"I do not want Americans of foreign birth making their party alignments on what we mean to do for some nation in the old world. We want them to be Republican because of what we mean to do for the United States of America. Our call is for unison, not rivaling sympathies. Our need is concord, not the antipathies of long inheritance."

"However strange it seems, the Republican Party really is spinning off into a bizarro-cult who believe Barack Obama is a baby-killer plotting to build death panels for the grannies of America."

"The power brokers in the radical Christian Right have already moved from the fringes of society to the executive branch, the House of Representatives, the Senate and the courts. The movement has seized control of the Republican Party."

"The Republican primary battles in California in 1962 foreshadowed the Goldwater presidential nomination of 1964, just as Goldwater's campaign led to Reagan's rise to power, first in California and then in national politics. Three Republican congressional nominees in 1962 publicly identified themselves as members of the Birch Society. All three went down to defeat in the fall election, as did Richard Nixon in his race for the governor's seat against the incumbent Democrat Pat Brown (which prompted Nixon's famous promise to the press, later reneged on, that "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more"). On the surface, liberals had much to cheer about in those results, but in fact they marked an ominous new development. From here on, in order to win a Republican primary in California, a candidate would have to satisfy the ideological demands of the far Right."

"Why would the Republican Party insult its members with such a disingenuous offering of the Republican Party’s ideals? If the Republican Party really believes that individual rights are the foundation of a free society and that the Republican Party considers discrimination based on sex, race, age, religion, creed, disability, or national origin to be immoral, why does the Republican Party make it a point in their platform to call for a constitutional amendment prohibiting same sex marriage? If the Republican Party believes in the devotion to the inherent dignity and rights of every person, why is it that the Republican Party wants to take away the right for a woman under any circumstances from having an abortion? If the Republican Party believes in freedom of speech and freedom of the press and opposes all attempts to violate or weaken those rights, why is it that the Republican Party wants to take away those same freedoms by passing legislation making it a crime to desecrate the American flag?"

"I am a Republican. However, the Republican Party has lost its way. Those who either believe in or are afraid to take a stance against exorbitant government spending as a way to solve our nations problems have hijacked the Republican Party. The Republican Party is now controlled by the religious right who refuse to support a Republican candidate who believes that it is not the place of the government to interfere with its citizen’s personal choices... For the Republican Party to rise to power again, it must remember its fiscally conservative roots while embracing a more socially liberal platform. Why? Because I believe that the majority of the people in this country are close enough to the center to embrace this new platform. It is clearly evident that the Republican Party has not only disenfranchised many members of its own party, but has also lost touch with independents and moderate liberals as well. In my opinion, the reality is that most people in the United States are fiscally conservative. They want a fair tax policy. They believe in limited government. They want a balanced budget. They believe in deregulation. However, in my opinion, the other reality is that most people in the United States consider themselves to be more socially liberal. While many people feel that having an abortion or same sex marriage is immoral, those same people believe that the government should not pass 'moral legislation' and take away those choices for each individual to make. How does restricting an individual’s rights unify our country? Therefore, the purpose of this blog is to have an open discussion about how the Republican Party can win back voters at a national level. Demographics have helped win back Congress, but more is needed to win in 2016. Republicans cannot be afraid to take on the establishment. Big money cannot control who can and cannot successful run for office. Republicans cannot be beholden the far right."

"Guttural rejection of reason, evidence and science trickles into just about every aspect of Republican ideology."

"From 1854, when the Republican Party was founded, Democrats labeled it adherents 'black' Republicans to identify them as proponents of black equality. During the 1860 elections Southern Democrats used the term derisively to press their belief that Abraham Lincoln's victory would incite slave rebellions."

"There are some issues that transcend politics. While my position is certainly political, I am an American first. There should never be a day in the United States of America when people are excluded based solely on their race or religion. It is un-Republican. It is unconstitutional. And it is un-American."

"Traditional Republican themes, including marketplace incentives, private initiatives, decentralized power, streamlined government and broadly-based international engagement. Over time, most of Ripon's early agenda, revenue sharing, welfare reform, a volunteer army, minority business enterprise, school desegregation, government reorganization, affirmative action, a new opening to China and other initiatives, was reflected in the policies... Civil rights was a matter on which the party of Lincoln should exercise particularly strong leadership. It was a part of the party's DNA."

"Former racists of both parties renounced their old views, as Kevin D. Williamson points out, Lyndon Johnson himself voted against anti-lynching laws and poll-tax repeals, and neither party has a perfect record on racial matters by any stretch. But it is a libel to suggest that the Republican party, the anti-slavery party, the party of Lincoln, and the party that traditionally supported civil rights, anti-lynching laws, and integration, became the racist party after 1964. The 'solid south' Democratic voting pattern began to break down not in the 1960s in response to civil rights but in the 1950s in response to economic development and the Cold War. Black voters in the north, who had been reliable Republicans, began to abandon the GOP in response to the New Deal, encouraged by activists like Robert Vann to 'turn Lincoln's picture to the wall. That debt has been paid in full'. In the 1940s, the GOP garnered only about 25 percent of southern votes. The big break came with Eisenhower's victories. Significant percentages of white southerners voted for Ike even though the Democratic party remained firmly segregationist and even though Eisenhower backed two civil-rights bills and enforced the Brown decision by federalizing the National Guard. They also began to send GOP representatives to the House. These Republican gains came not from the most rural and 'deep south' regions, but rather from the newer cities and suburbs. If the new southern Republican voters were white racists, one would have expected Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia to be the first to turn."

"To blacks, the GOP was the party of emancipation and opportunity."

"It is common for our enemies, and the more superficial members of our own household, to regard the Republican Party as an organization that has little more to do except keep itself in office. The cry that 'the mission of the Republican Party is ended' and that therefore small misfortune, except that it will place the Democrats in power, will result if it shall be dethroned, contains as little truth as the declaration of the church is ended because the Bible is printed."

"The Republican Party has been the most powerful champion of freedom and equal rights in the world. The feeble and scattered elements that fifty years ago began to combine, here and there, were all lovers of human equality. Under various names, led by a purer patriotism far in advance of the different political organizations to which they had belonged, they continued to grow in numbers and influence, until, composing a majority of their respective communities in this republic, they were, in response to an inexorable law, drawn into one great spirited army, with a common purpose, equal and perpetual freedom for all, and a common name, Republican."

"The Republican presidential candidate in 1964 also opposed the Civil Rights Act. Barry Goldwater had been an enthusiastic backer of the 1957 and 1960 civil rights acts, both overwhelmingly opposed by Democrats. He was a founding member of the Arizona chapter of the NAACP. He hired many blacks in his family business and pushed to desegregate the Arizona National Guard. He had a good-faith objection to some features of the 1964 act, which he regarded as unconstitutional. Goldwater was no racist. The same cannot be said of Fulbright, on whom Bill Clinton bestowed the Medal of Freedom. Fulbright was one of the 19 senators who signed the “Southern manifesto” defending segregation. Okay, but didn’t all the old segregationist senators leave the Democratic party and become Republicans after 1964? No, just one did: Strom Thurmond. The rest remained in the Democratic party — including former Klansman Robert Byrd, who became president pro tempore of the Senate."

"The Republican Party is, as it was designed to be, partisan. But, devotion to Republicanism does not imply apostasy from truth."

"Significantly, Floridians could not vote for Republican Abraham Lincoln, who was not on the ballot in any of the Deep South slave states. The hated 'Black Republican' Party was believed by most southerners to advocate abolition and black equality, although Lincoln and his party were primarily interested in restricting the expansion of slavery in the territories."

"The party is the party of emancipation, but it has lost its soul. A new constitution and a new state flag offers them an opportunity to regain it."

"The Republican Party is experiencing an existential crisis, born of its own misguided incongruity with modern American culture and its insistence on choosing intransigence in a dynamic age of fundamental change."

"The right doesn’t dislike @AOC because she's ineffective. They despise her precisely because she communicates boldly, passionately and in a Twitter-native manner. When AOC talks, Republicans know they are losing."

"What a pleasant lot of fellows they are. What a pity they have so little sense about politics. If they lived north the last one of them would be Republicans."

"Conservatives made history this year. For the first time, an avowed atheist addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, the big annual gathering of conservative activists. And atheists occupied an exhibitor’s booth, another first. Jamila Bey, an African American journalist and board member of the group American Atheists, didn’t exactly wow the crowd, for whom professions of religious faith and a belief in God are standard fare. But she wasn’t booed either. For the atheists, long held at arm’s length by Republicans, that’s progress."

"The Republican Party was born in the hothouse of sectional politics in the 1850s. It sprang from several sources that became bound together to fight a common cause, even as they disagreed among themselves on other issues. That cause was checking slavery's advance. That time was a period when many northerners were growing frustrated."

"We, Negro Americans, sing with all loyal Americans. My country 'tis of thee. Sweet land of liberty. Of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died. Land of the Pilgrims' pride. From every mountainside. Let freedom ring. That's exactly what we mean. From every mountain side, let freedom ring. Not only from the Green Mountains and White Mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire; not only from the Catskills of New York; but from the Ozarks in Arkansas, from the Stone Mountain in Georgia, from the great Smoky of Tennessee, and from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia; not only let it ring for the minorities of the United States, but for the persecuted of Europe, for the rejected of Asia, for the disfranchised of South Africa and for the disinherited of all the earth; may the Republican Party, under God, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

"In Massachusetts, which is a type of them all, and may justly be considered the model Republican State of the Union, negroes are ... clothed with the privileges and immunities of the white man."

"The announcement that the Amendment had been passed by a vote of 119 to 56 was received by the members on the floor and the visitors in the galleries with an outburst of enthusiasm rarely witnessed in the Capitol. Republicans sprang from their seats, and, regardless of parliamentary rules or the Speaker’s efforts to enforce silence, cheered and applauded. The men in the galleries joined in the uproar, while ladies clapped their hands, waved their handkerchiefs, and uttered exclamations of delight and enthusiasm."

"Bob Smith] was almost certainly the last person in Washington to discover that the Republican platform is irrelevant to actual politics. Smith was outraged when he found out. “The Republican platform,” he declared in his party-switching speech to the Senate, “is a meaningless document that has been put out there so that suckers like me and maybe suckers like you out there can read it.” Smith’s speech went on like this for close to an hour. Through all of it, he howled like a man deceived, the lone member of the Senate Sucker Caucus. He even read portions of the platform aloud. It was a mean thing to do—as close to a dirty trick as Smith is probably capable of—but instructive nonetheless. “As a first step in reforming government,” Smith thundered, reciting the painfully hopeful words of some unnamed party scribe, “we support elimination of the Departments of Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, Education, and Energy.” Whatever happened to that promise? he demanded. Or to the promise to defund Legal Services? Not to mention public broadcasting, the UN, and the National Endowment for the Arts. And where’s the legislation that would “make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children”? After five and a half years of Republican control of Congress, Smith wanted to know, where is any of it?"

"We got a real clear picture of what they all value. Every Republican's voted for it. Look at what they value and look at their budget and what they're proposing. Romney wants to let the — he said in the first hundred days he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, 'unchain Wall Street'. They're going to put y'all back in chains."

"The Republican principle, the unalterable principle, never to be lost sight of, is that slavery is wrong."

"…the Republican Party is becoming an American clone of the CPSU. Several party dissidents still sit in Congress, but they probably will be purged in the next round of primaries and will not be allowed to take part in elections again. The rest praise Comrade Trump, “the organizer and inspirer of all our victories.” Slaves, miserable slaves."

"There is another thing to which I wish to ask attention for a little while on this occasion. What has always been the evidence brought forward to prove that the Republican party is a sectional party? The main one was that in the Southern portion of the Union the people did not let the Republicans proclaim their doctrines amongst them. That has been the main evidence brought forward-that they had no supporters, or substantially none, in the slave States. The South have not taken hold of our principles as we announce them... I am altogether unaware that the Republicans are in favor of making any odious distinctions between the Free and Slave States."

"The Republicans inculcate, with whatever of ability they can, that the negro is a man; that his bondage is cruelly wrong, and that the field of his oppression ought not to be enlarged. The Democrats deny his manhood; deny, or dwarf to insignificance, the wrong of his bondage; so far as possible, crush all sympathy for him, and cultivate and excite hatred and disgust against him; compliment themselves as Union-savers for doing so; and call the indefinite outspreading of his bondage "a sacred right of self-government"."

"I liked the way you said it, and I’m proud of the fact that yes, we have a chance, we haven’t done it yet, but we should, and people like Donald Trump and ourselves, we need to take over the Republican Party."

"Any suggestion that a segregated past was acceptable or positive is offensive and it is wrong. Recent comments by Senator Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country. He has apologized and rightly so. Every day our nation was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful to our founding ideals, and the founding ideals of our nation, and in fact the founding ideals of the political party I represent, was and remains today the equal dignity and equal rights of every American."