posted on Oct, 17 2013 @ 03:37 AM
I think Ironically, yes, and it is ironic because for a time Republicans became a progressive party of wealthy elitists.
But, Lincoln spoke and wrote for decades about his economic and moral arguments, he really was a party founder not just a spokesman or a "right man
at right time" figure in history. He made an argument since the 1840s, articulated it ceaselessly, and won his case for the Presidency upon it.
What was it in a nutshell?
That the labor market, not just the economic market, should be free. This means that at his very core Lincoln was anti-Union, even tho he never had
to really confront the issue of unions. Lincoln believed in that the self-interest pursued by each man, led to the overall greatness of all of
man.
He saw slavery and didn't just see a moral travesty, he saw a system that degraded labor, that distorted the labor market and depressed wages for all
even free workers.
He knew that whenever the labor market was distorted, it would inevitably distort prices and wages and reduce prosperity, for he saw it happening in
the slave states. But he had faith that freedom, from everything, freedom from servitude as well as freedom from unions, a free labor market, where
workers competed for work, would lead to increased wages and increased prosperity.
And he was right. The greatest economic growth of the United States occurred before unionization.
Lincoln believed in and cherished private ownership.
Lincoln believed that unproductive work was just as idle as not working or being lazy. That is to say he would have been against Welfare and a
"social security" net that promoted laziness and idleness.
Lincoln was a tireless worker, he would often write his speeches and rewrite them, well into the late hours of the night, only to wake up early to
start all over again.
Lincoln believed in the individual, and believed that individual could do more with himself than be a government teat sucker.
And Lincoln was moral, Bible centered he fought against rampant unchecked consumerism. He believed that material wealth had to have some higher
Christian purpose. He was no deist, he was not shy in his faith in Christ, and advocated it ceaselessly.
Lincoln said when the South accused him of being a "Sectional Party", Someday, the Republicans will be winning in your section.
The Northern Republicans became progressives, and abandoned Lincoln, but by a twist of fate, or perhaps by divine providence which works often in
foreshadowing irony, the South has truly picked up the mantle of Lincoln and as a party of moralist individualists find themselves fighting closely
for the goals of Lincoln's ill-begotten attempt as President.
And so fulfilling an unintended but perhaps divinely inspired statement that the Republicans would win in the south.