7.5The parties after the war

The war remade the parties. The Republicans were now the party of the Union, emancipation, and a strong, activist federal government, drawing overwhelming support in the North and, briefly, among newly enfranchised Black Southerners. They also championed business, tariffs, and national economic development.

The Democrats survived as the party of white Southerners and many Northern working-class and immigrant voters, defending states' rights and, in the South, white supremacy. This alignment—"the party of Lincoln" versus a Democratic "Solid South"—would define American politics for generations. Its eventual reversal, a century later, is one of the great stories of the nation's political history.