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Comment by Bucephalus355 | Hacker News Reader

After the Civil War, all of those who were in favor of ending slavery became the most vicious opponents of labor and unions and worker rights.

Their reasoning was that this was a form of governmental control over working and the freedom of workers, just like slavery was.

Every time they defeated a minimum wage law, or broke a union, they congratulated themselves for standing up for “freedom”.

Anyway, this is one of the reasons that the Republican party drifted into conservatism slowly after the Civil War.

We are seeing something similar now, with Democrats so focused on the rights of smaller and smaller groups, it’s starting to look like “extreme individual rights” all over again. Will they drift towards conservatism while Republicans do the opposite, cross-pollinating some positions between them on the way?

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Isn't this very simplistic? In my (limited) understanding, the North was a Republican stronghold, controlled by manufacturing interests, and without a strong economic interest in maintaining slavery. This meant the abolitionist movement was not opposed by the economic elite. On the other hand, Northern industrialists always had an economic interest in fighting against unions. To say that their anti-union sentiment was an extension of the anti-slavery sentiment seems too generous.

> After the Civil War, all of those who were in favor of ending slavery became the most vicious opponents of labor and unions and worker rights.

Among other weird historical quirks, unions were at times used to keep out people who spoke the wrong language or had the wrong color skin. Unions were not always the reliable bastions of progressive politics they are seen as today.

Unions are only reliable bastions of progressive politics in the minds of progressives. Your average union member resembles Doland Trump far more than Bernie Sanders.

Absolutely. The only reason why unions typically vote Democrat is because of their support of unions. There is very little overlap across other progressive issues.

The average union member nowadays works in a publicly funded institution, in a service or white collar job, not in the private sector or in manufacturing.

> Anyway, this is one of the reasons that the Republican party drifted into conservatism slowly after the Civil War.

Well, no, it's the rationalization. The reason is that even at the time of the civil war, the Republican Party was, as well as an antislavery party, also the party of the powerful northern economic interests, which were industrial capitalists.

After slavery was abolished, they only really had one reason left.

I think you’re right, it’s not spoken of much, but the big tent Democratic Party is getting crowded... the 2016 election reflects the dissatisfaction of formerly core democratic voters.

This is incorrect. A considerable amount of opposition to slavery came from "Free Soil" farmers, laborers, and mechanics who did not want to compete with slave labor. After the war they continued to pursue their class interests and supported labor rights and, eventually, unionization.

The northern capitalists who ultimately constituted the financial engine of the Republican Party did turn against labor rights, also in accordance with their class interests (and, depending on the industry they were in pre-war, some of them had been pro-slavery or pro-southern 'Copperheads').

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