Why do people believe that Democratic Party was against slavery?

Answer 1

Probably because in modern times the Democratic Party is the US political party that has advocated for the cause of black people. This has been reflected in the fact that since 1936 black people have overwhelmingly voted Democratic, and it seems they know who their friends are. All Civil Rights legislation since before WWII has been the product of a Democratic US congress. After the Democratic Party passed the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act in the mid 1960s, many white southerners deserted the Democratic Party, abandoning their allegiance of a century which had meant the "solid south", reliably Democratic, and in retaliation for this legislation perceived as "pro BlacK" went over to the Republican Party (an act which would have horrified their Confederate ancestors) in such numbers that the south has remained Republican since.

Blacks had stayed with the "Party of Lincoln" through 1932, despite the fact that the Republican Party ignored their plight, and despite the shameful abandonment of blacks by the Republicans during and since the corrupt bargain of 1876, where the Democrats acquiesced in the blatant thievery and the stealing of the 1876 election by the Republicans, in return for which the Republicans agreed to end Reconstruction and thus abandoned the freed blacks to their fate in the Jim Crow south. This is how Rutherford B. Hayes, "Rutherfraud", "His Fraudulency" became president instead of the man people had actually elected, Samuel Tilden. So Hayes succeeded the utterly corrupt Republican Grant administration and the gravy train stayed on the tracks for the GOP.

A better question might be why do people believe the Republican Party was against slavery? All abolitionists were Republicans, it is true, but only a very tiny fraction of the Republican Party were abolitionists. Lincoln went to war to "preserve the Union" and that remained his stated and only goal through a year and a half of complete carnage and slaughter. Lincoln himself said in his first inaugural address that he had no purpose to interfere with slavery whatsoever, and did not think he had the authority to free any slaves, if he had the inclination to do so. Not long after Lincoln said "I would preserve the Union. If I could preserve the Union and free all the slaves, I would do that. If I could preserve the Union and free none of the slaves, I would do that. If I could preserve the Union and free some of the slaves, and leave the others undisturbed, I would also do that. But I would preserve the Union." After a year and a half of war Lincoln decided he DID have the authority to do something about slavery, but only as a military measure and in his capacity as commander in chief. Lincoln was a shrewd politician and understood that if he issued the Emancipation Proclamation this would make it impossible for the British and the French to intervene in the war on the side of the south, as they were on the verge of doing, which would have meant immediate victory for the south. After his Proclamation England and France would not intervene because they would not wish to be perceived as fighting for slavery. When it took effect, the Proclamation freed nobody, as it was only directed at those "areas still in rebellion" against the Lincoln government, which was of course the south, where Lincoln's authority to effect the freeing of the slaves did not exist. The Emancipation Proclamation, being an astute political move and not a glorious blast for freedom, freed none of the remaining slaves in the north nor in the border states, where Lincoln needed the political support of the slave owners, nor did it free the saves in areas of the south already overrun and under Union control. It did cause Lincoln's party to lose heavily in the mid-term election of 1862, after it was announced, and did cause a sharp increase in the number of deserters from the northern armies, of men who had been content to fight to preserve the United States but who were unwilling to die to free any slaves. Lincoln himself favored compensated emancipation - paying the slave owners for their loss - and resettling the freed slaves back in Africa. He told Frederick Douglas that he did not believe blacks and whites could live together.