The revisionist history goes on and on and on!

[Norquist Nemesis]

This crap is straight out of Orwell's 1984. Remember the checkers who revised history? Well, the White House is working on the History section on the website.

How? Well, note that the Republican Party wasn't even around before 1854:
http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/ah_074900_republicanpa.htm

REPUBLICAN PARTY
The Republican party has been a major political force in the United States since it first appeared on the presidential ballot in 1856. Following the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Whig party disintegrated, and mass meetings in the upper midwestern states led to the formation of a new party opposed to the spread of slavery into the western territories. One such meeting, at Ripon, Wisconsin, on March 20, 1854, is usually credited as marking the birth of the Republican party.

The Republicans rapidly became established as the dominant political force in the North. In 1856 their presidential candidate, John C. Frémont, carried eleven of the sixteen northern states. By 1860 the Republicans had also absorbed the support of the nativist Know-Nothing party, and their candidate, Abraham Lincoln, was elected president, an outcome that precipitated the outbreak of the Civil War. The war firmly identified the Republican party as the party of the victorious North. As such, the Republicans became anathema to the white South for almost a century, with the exception of several antislavery redoubts in the mountain areas. That loss was more than counterbalanced in other parts of the country, however, by the Republicans' reputation as the party that had freed the slaves and saved the Union.
<snip>

But WAIT!!! Here's the bio for Thomas Jefferson: (1801-1809)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/tj3.html
Sharp political conflict developed, and two separate parties, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, began to form. Jefferson gradually assumed leadership of the Republicans, who sympathized with the revolutionary cause in France. Attacking Federalist policies, he opposed a strong centralized Government and championed the rights of states.

As a reluctant candidate for President in 1796, Jefferson came within three votes of election. Through a flaw in the Constitution, he became Vice President, although an opponent of President Adams. In 1800 the defect caused a more serious problem. Republican electors, attempting to name both a President and a Vice President from their own party, cast a tie vote between Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The House of Representatives settled the tie. Hamilton, disliking both Jefferson and Burr, nevertheless urged Jefferson's election.

And then there's James Madison: (1809-1817)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/jm4.html
In Congress, he helped frame the Bill of Rights and enact the first revenue legislation. Out of his leadership in opposition to Hamilton's financial proposals, which he felt would unduly bestow wealth and power upon northern financiers, came the development of the Republican, or Jeffersonian, Party.

Or James Monroe: (1817-1825)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/jm5.html
His ambition and energy, together with the backing of President Madison, made him the Republican choice for the Presidency in 1816. With little Federalist opposition, he easily won re-election in 1820.

How about JQ Adams: (1825-1829)

Within the one and only party--the Republican--sectionalism and factionalism were developing, and each section put up its own candidate for the Presidency. Adams, the candidate of the North, fell behind Gen. Andrew Jackson in both popular and electoral votes, but received more than William H. Crawford and Henry Clay. Since no candidate had a majority of electoral votes, the election was decided among the top three by the House of Representatives. Clay, who favored a program similar to that of Adams, threw his crucial support in the House to the New Englander.


So...did someone decide to just delete any and all reference to "Democratic" and "Democrat" where ever possible?? :grr:

edit a bit for clarity. Also, the history of the Democratic Party...it's been around since the late 1790-1800's.

[sniffa]

1. um,

i'LL have to research it, but i think it's just a matter of switching party names.

[Norquist Nemesis]

2. Thanks, here's another one.

Andrew Jackson:
As national politics polarized around Jackson and his opposition, two parties grew out of the old Republican Party--the Democratic Republicans, or Democrats, adhering to Jackson; and the National Republicans, or Whigs, opposing him.


And on the Democratic Party:
http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/ah_024300_democraticpa.htm
DEMOCRATIC PARTY
The Democratic party began to assume its modern form during the intense political conflict that divided Americans after the War of 1812. Over the next decade, as the party's organization developed, Democrats argued that they were combating Federalist efforts to impose an aristocratic, centralized government on the American people. The conflict between centralizers and egalitarians, Democrats declared, went back to the Hamiltonian efforts in the 1790s to erect a powerful national authority, threatening to individual liberties.

These Democrats, unlike their Jeffersonian predecessors, accepted the inevitability and legitimacy of popular political conflict and believed that political parties were the best means to handle that conflict. Although the Democrats did not originate conventions, platforms, and highly institutionalized campaigning, they brought these features of the party system to a new level. The leaders of this organizational revolution were Martin Van Buren, James K. Polk, Franklin Pierce, and a few others.

<snip>

[denverbill]

3. Nice catch.

At first I thought it might be a mistake, but I've never heard anyone call any President prior to 1860 a 'Republican'. Yes, the Democratic Party was originally called the Democratic-Republican Party, but anyone with even a passing knowledge of American history knows that this party eventually became the Democratic Party.

Pretty typical Republican tactic though. Trying to take credit for anything good that happened and pass the blame for everything bad.