Professor Lowndes Traces Roots of Conservatism
Conservatism and Race from Dixiecrats to Ronald Reagan
Apr 19, 2009
Oregon Professor Joseph E. Lowndes is making the rounds to promote his new book From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism. During his appearance on CSPAN he said that the origin of modern conservatism can be traced back to a dynamic period during the Fifties when the South began to build an alliance with conservatives in the North. In his book Lowndes points out that race issues were used by the Republican Party to appeal to Dixiecrat values and the concerns of White workers in post-World War II northern cities. Race issues gave these two groups something more common than their general discontent with New Deal politics. This common factor was used to forge conservatism.
Conservatism was Not at its Origin a Backlash Against the Sixties
Lowndes looks at the period before the Sixties and makes the argument that the origin of conservatism was in the decades before the era many histories associate with the rise of conservatism. Ken Phillips' The Emerging Republican Majority (1968) focused on Nixon’s first election and White populist voters resentment of liberal elites and poor blacks. Thomas and Mary Edsall’s Chain Reaction (1991) theorized that Black politics of the Sixties reached a "combustion point" that set off decades of backlash that took form in anti-New Society, anti-tax, and anti-government conservatism. Lowndes believes the core of conservatism was constructed a decade before. White voters didn’t wake up in 1968 and realize they had been pushed too far. According to Lowndes, White voters had no reason to think that greater claims of equality for Blacks would be detrimental to them unless these were already a conservative legacy in place. Much of Lowndes book traces articles from the National Review and documents from the Eisenhower, Goldwater, Wallace, and Nixon campaigns to make his point.
Dixiecrats Revolt of 1948
Lowndes points to the Dixiecrat Revolt as one of the fundamental events that nurtured the language of modern conservatism. The Dixiecrats (or States Rights Party) was a short lived group that splintered from the Democratic Party in 1948 when President Harry Truman made it clear he would support a Civil Rights plank in the party’s platform. The Dixiecrats principles were that the Constitution was the greatest charter of human liberty and that state rights preempted that of the federal government on issues of jobs, education, and any other programs the federal government tried to impose on states. The Dixiecrats were saying no to the federal government on Civil Rights and using states’ rights to make their argument. That year the Dixiecrats ran South Carolina Governor Strum Thurmond for President.
The National Review and Republicans Reach Out to the South
The National Review was founded in 1955. Soon after the magazine’s founding it began to publish articles from Southern segregationists. Lowndes also tracks how Republicans with ties to the magazine begin to formulate a strategy and language to create an active Republican Party in the South. William F. Buckley even went so far as to write that Whites in the South were "the advanced race" and that "South’s premises are correct." (August 1957). It was William Rusher in the National Review that recognized that the future of the Republican Party was in the South not the North.
Where is Conservatism Today?
Lowndes’ premise is that race was the key element to the formation conservatism and that this element remains a part of conservatism today. He points to the language employed by Ronald Reagan and ties it back to phrases constructed during the Dixecrat Revolt and the campaign of George Wallace. He’s convinced racial elements remain prominent in modern American conservatism.
Lowndes work has made a contribution by exploring a period of time related to conservatism that has largely been ignored. However his premise is sure to be controversial. The only question is whether the controversy will drown out his contributions.
