In all three eras — before the war, during the war, and after the war — the conflict was about slavery. The Democrats defended the institution of slavery, and wished to support and maintain it. The Republicans had created their political party with the goal of ending slavery. The two parties were absolutely opposed to each other.
“The slavery debate was not a North-South debate but rather a partisan debate,” writes historian Dinesh D’Souza. A leader in the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln, wrote the following to a leader in the Democratic Party:
You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us.
Commenting on this letter, written by Lincoln, historian Dinesh D’Souza notes that:
In 1860, at the time Lincoln wrote this letter, no Republican owned a slave. I don’t mean merely that no Republican leader owned a slave. No Republican in the country owned a slave. All the slaves in the United States at the time — all four million of them — were owned by Democrats.
It is clear that this opposition between the parties during the prewar years is the same conflict that continued between them in the postwar years. During the ‘Reconstruction’ era, the Republicans overcame the Democratic Party to ratify three amendments to the Constitution.
The three Reconstruction amendments formed the basis for civil rights, not only for African-Americans, but eventually for all citizens. These amendments grew organically out of the Declaration of Independence, out of the U.S. Constitution, and out of the Bill of Rights.
The magnificient scope of Republican Reconstruction can be seen in three landmark constitutional amendments: the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery; the Fourteenth Amendment extending equal rights under the law to all citizens; and the Fifteenth Amendment granting blacks the right to vote. These amendments went beyond unbinding the slave and making him a freeman; they also made him a U.S. citizen with the right to cast his ballot and to the full and equal protection of the laws.
Yet the Democrats stubbornly opposed these amendments. The Reconstruction era is the time when the Republicans worked to solidify the civil rights of African-Americans, while the Democrats were simply angry that their slaves had been taken away.
The anger and resentment which lingered in the Democrats would last for many years. The bitter feud between the two parties did not go away quickly, and did not go away even after the painful and bloody Civil War.
Before, during, and after the war, the hostile relationship between the two parts was largely the same, and based on the same disagreement about the same issue.
