Dixiecrat

The term Dixiecrat formerly indicated with the the United States “States' Rights Democratic Party” (Democratic party for the right of the States) but continuous with being employed to designate the preserving democratic elected officials of the South.

Another term, that historical of “ Southern Democrat ” which continues to also indicate the whole of the elected officials of the Democratic party in the old confederated States.

Today, “States' Rights Democratic Party” disappeared and the elected officials Southern Democrats play their survival on the level of the local policy of the States because at the national level, they almost rejoined all the Republican party.

Politically, if the Southern Democrats are populist preserving, Dixiecrats are on the right still, even with the Extreme-right-hand side.

Origin

The term of Dixie indicates the States of the South which practiced the Esclavage. It more directly refers in the name of the anthem confederated during the American Civil War.

The elected officials of the Democratic party in this area were made call Southern Democrats to express their origin and their independence with respect to the Democratic party at the national level.

Populist, former partisans of slavery, Southern Democrats called also Dixiescrats thus ensured during a hundred year the domination of the democrats in old the States confederated of America. They constituted a kind of State in the State within the Democratic party.

Ideology

Defender of a segregationist policy (Jim Crow laws) through the cultural exception of the South, Dixiecrats are ultraconservateurs from the point of view of morals, are opposed to racial integration but are also partisans of a policy very progressist as regards law the labor, for the benefit of the “white poor” ( poor whites ). Their currency is “Forever Segregation! ”

They are also more the protestors of the imperialism Yankees compared to people of North, especially when they are republican but also democratic. It are very nostalgic South of before the American Civil War.

Certains Southern Democrats rejects this term of Dixiecrat however because their conservatism and their populism do not go until unconditionally defending the racial segregation and the nostalgia of the old South.

Presidential election of 1948

In 1948, thirty five deputy democrats of the Alabama and the Mississippi leave democratic national convention ulcerated by the decision of the president Harry Truman to carry out racial integration in the armed forces and by the speech of the senator Hubert Humphrey of the Minnesota calling the party with urgently adopting a program anti-segregationist.

These delegates then created the “democratic party for the right of the States”, first party officially Dixiecrat. With their convention in Birmingham, Alabama, they indicated Strom Thurmond, governor of South Carolina, like Dixiecrat candidate with the presidential election of 1948 to defend the rights of the States against the encroachments of the Federal state. Its candidature expressed the fear of Dixiecrats in front of the requests for increasingly strong desegregation in the remainder of the country. Fielding Wright, governor of the Mississippi, was the candidate with the vice-presidency.

They succeeded in being made declare official candidates of the Democratic party in four States, Alabama, Louisiana, the Mississippi, and South Carolina whereas in the other States, they contributed as a 3rd party.

The Thurmond-Wright ticket carried the day of the election the four most democratic States of the south which were the Mississippi (87%), Alabama (80%), Louisiana (49%) and South Carolina (72%) accounting for 2,41% of the American voters for 1.169.021 votes and adding up 39 votes of Great Electors.

The turning of the Fifties and Sixties

The Fifties and Sixties constituted a turning with the declaration of unconstitutionality of the racial segregation by the Supreme court of the United States then with the law on the civic rights initiated by the democratic president texan Lyndon Johnson.

The presidential elections of 1964 and 1968 were the first signs of the desertion from the Democratic party by the white voters, ulcerated by the end of their privileges, granting for the first time their votes to preserving republicans.

The presidential election of 1968 and Independent American Party

In 1968, it is George Wallace, governor of Alabama which takes again the Dixiecrat label to present itself to the presidential election. Candidate of Independent American Party, opposed the civic rights, to Wallace arrives at the head in front of the republican candidates and democrats in Arkansas (38%), Louisiana (48%), Alabama (65%), the Mississippi (63%) and Georgia (43%), adding up 13,53% of the votes representing 9.901.118 voters and 46 Great Electors.

The swing towards the republicans

During the Seventies, many Dixiecrats elected officials give up the democratic party and join the Republican party which they redesign locally. Others more populist as Wallace make them aggiornamento and become partisans of racial integration, often taking note owing to the fact that the voters of their electoral ciconscription black and were mainly rejoined with the democrats.

Between 1970 and 2003, all the States of the South will be equipped republican governors whereas the term southern democrat supplants that of Dixiecrat again.

Since the Eighties, Southerns Democrats often represent one of the components of the preserving wing of the democratic party when they simply did not rejoin the Republican party.

In 2000 and 2004, not only one State of the South did not vote for a democratic candidate with the presidential election. Quite to the contrary, they have all be the base of the victory of the preserving republican candidate George W. Bush, which had transformed a few years before the state of the Texas of a democratic exclusive domain into impregnable republican bastion.

Lastly, in 2005, 22 of the 26 senators to the Congress representing the old States of the Confederation are members of the Republican party. In the Fifties, they all were democratic of which they constituted the base of their domination to the Congress.

Personalities “southern democrats”

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