Reply #20: Well you are right about one thing...

[SaveElmer]

All of these issues are a matter of interpretation...otherwise we wouldn't be having these discussions...it would be cut and dried, and everyone would agree...

I have to say I still disagree on the founding of the Republican Party. The Party was actually formed in 1856, and ran a Presidential candidate that year, John C. Fremont. The forming of the party was made to propund more moderate positions on slavery than many radical Whigs wanted to take. Read the earlier statements of prominent Whigs like William Seward before the forming of the party, and they can rightly be taken as nearly abolitionist in nature...and then read his statements after the forming of the party where he offers compromise to the south, including support for a constitutional amendment insuring slavery's existence where is was already established, in exchange for restricting its spread west.

As to your last point even if I concede your point about certain Democrats, I still think this is not the path to follow, because even by voting for such people, you are putting others with a more sympathetic view into leadership positions...and that too is progress