REALIGNMENT, REGION, AND RACE Presidential Leadership and Social Identity This page intentionally left blank REALIGNMENT, REGION, AND RACE Presidential Leadership and Social Identity BY GEORGE R. GOETHALS Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond, USA United Kingdom À North America À Japan India À Malaysia À China Emerald Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2018 Copyright r 2018 Emerald Publishing Limited Reprints and permissions service Contact: [email protected] No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-78743-792-0 (Print) ISBN: 978-1-78743-791-3 (Online) ISBN: 978-1-78743-980-1 (Epub) ISOQAR certified Management System, awarded to Emerald for adherence to Environmental standard ISO 14001:2004. Certificate Number 1985 ISO 14001 CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii About the Author ix 1. The Realignment of American Politics 1 2. Leadership, Motivation, and Social Identity 25 3. The American Revolution to the Mexican War 47 4. Republicans for Racial Justice: Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant 77 5. The Republican Retreat from Founding Principles: 1877À1920 103 6. Migration and Realignment: African-Americans Move North, the GOP Moves South 131 7. Popular Vote Tectonics: Republican Domination Gives Way to Democrats 151 References 175 Index 183 v This page intentionally left blank ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to many people who have supported and sus- tained my interest in political history and presidential leader- ship. At the University of Richmond, I especially appreciate the discussions I’ve had with Scott Allison, Julian Hayter, and Daniel Palazzolo. Two wonderful students, Abby Huth and Matt Logan, were especially helpful. My confidants Stephen Hayes and Steve Young have consistently offered encouragement, and most important they have listened. Jim Shaw’s occasional interruptions have always been refreshing. Family and friends at Raquette Lake provide the buoyancy needed to carry on. Thank you. Elizabeth DeBusk-Maslanka has unfailingly provided cheerful editorial advice, research, and organization. I am deeply indebted to her. Other sustaining support has been offered by my colleagues Michele Bedsaul, Shannon Best, Jessica Flanigan, Javier Hidalgo, Crystal Hoyt, Don Forsyth, Peter Kaufman, Pam Khoury, Gary McDowell, Sandra Peart, Terry Price, Susan Taylor, Stephanie Trent, and Thad Williamson. At Emerald, I want to thank Charlotte Maiorana for her initial interest in this project, and her support throughout. Also, Nick Wolterman has effectively guided the book through the production process, and I am grateful. vii viii Acknowledgments Members of my family help tremendously by who they are, and by their wise understanding, especially Jefferson, Meagan, Andrew, and Vanessa. Most of all, I thank BB for her interest and support every single day. And truly, Tennyson Rose lights up my life. I am grateful for her timely arrival. ABOUT THE AUTHOR George R. Goethals holds the E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Professorship in Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond, Virginia. Previously at Williams College, he served as Chair of the Department of Psychology, Founding Chair of the Program in Leadership Studies, and Provost. With Georgia Sorenson and James MacGregor Burns, he edited the Encyclopedia of Leadership (2004). His recent scholarship explores rooting for the underdog, image-making in presidential debates, and the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. ix This page intentionally left blank CHAPTER 1 THE REALIGNMENT OF AMERICAN POLITICS In 1860, the six-year-old Republican Party won its first presidential election. Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, in many ways a compromise candidate, easily prevailed over a divided opposition — a split Democratic Party and a third “Constitutional Union” party. Lincoln, the Republican, deci- sively won all of the 18 “free states” but equally dramatically lost all of the 15 slave states. One hundred and forty years later, in 2000, the pattern was very different. In a close election, Republican George W. Bush lost all but three of the 1860 free states to Democrat Al Gore, yet won all but two of the 15 former slave states. Many Northern states that had been Republican since the party’s founding had switched to the Democrats. The region that had been the Democrat’s Solid South for a century after the Civil War had become overwhelmingly red, or Republican. In a similar pattern eight years later, Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, won all of the 1860 free states, but lost 10 of the former slave states to the Republican candidate, John McCain. What hap- pened? Had the political proclivities of North and South 1 2 Realignment, Region, and Race reversed themselves, or had the parties changed positions on issues that divided the regions?1 This book tells the story of how and why the North and South switched political parties. It also outlines how the alignments of the Farm, Mountain, and Southwest states that came into the Union after the start of the Civil War have evolved. Initially, however, our focus is on the 33 states that cast ballots in 1860, the election that precipitated secession and civil war. How do we understand the remarkable trans- formation of party alignment in these two large sections of the American political landscape? The short answer, I con- tend, is racial dynamics. Furthermore, these racial dynamics are perpetuated largely by social identity concerns; that is, people’s need to have their political leaders validate them- selves and the groups by which they define themselves. For many years, white social identity in the South, but not the North, was based on beliefs in white privilege, superiority, and supremacy. Challenges or alternatives to a Southern social identity based on white superiority were fiercely resisted. Regional differences on race and other issues are tied to enduring human motives, which rise and fall in importance according to a range of economic, international, and social conditions. Chief among these motives are needs for safety, prosperity, and self-validation. As suggested above, the need for a positive sense of self-esteem based in large part on a positive social or group identity has had an overriding influ- ence in many presidential elections since our nation’s found- ing. Parties and politicians that have offered people a positive sense of identity by defining them as a distinct group among others in the population and endorsing the validity of their customs, needs, anxieties, and aspirations have won their votes. In many instances, parties or politicians have offered either white supremacy or white privilege tied to white The Realignment of American Politics 3 aspirations as an element of a positive social identity. We will discuss several traditions within social psychology that have explored the importance of social identity and the way leaders shape and validate it in order to influence followers and poten- tial followers. For the moment, highly relevant is Howard Gardner’s proposition that leaders best influence their fellow human beings by the stories they relate, and that the most powerful such stories are about a group’s identity: where it has come from, where it is going, what “is to be feared, struggled against, and dreamed about” (Gardner, 1995). 1.1. ORIENTING FRAMEWORK This history of the alignment and realignment of America’s regions with the two major political parties, Democrats and Republicans, rests on several generalized beliefs or assump- tions about the country’s geography, political system, and the psychology of leadership. Making these beliefs explicit will help frame the discussion of regions, identity, race, and alignment that follows, and will clarify the changing pattern of party support that has defined the US political history. • People in different sections of the country have differed in their political interests and beliefs from the founding of the 13 British colonies in North America to the present. There have been significant divergences in regional values and priorities that at times have meant that there has been conflict between regions. Those differences are related to both geography and the culture of the people who founded each section, and to each section’s resulting economy. The most consistent differences have been between the Northeast and the South. Other regions, such as the 4 Realignment, Region, and Race Midwest, the West Coast, or Farm or Mountain states, have at times been aligned with the Northeast and at other times with the South. Linked to the cultures of the various regions are enduring social identities, often containing self-serving comparisons to people from other regions. • For all of US history, race has been perhaps the most significant cause of sectional tension and conflict. Though disagreements pertaining to racial justice have varied in prominence relative to other issues, they have been a constant element in American politics. Northern and Southern differences regarding slavery challenged American unity during the Revolutionary War from 1775 to 1783, and the framing of the Constitution in 1787. Regional conflict over rights for African-Americans persisted until it finally brought about the Civil War, followed by continuing divergences during Reconstruction, the Jim Crow era, and through mid-twentieth-century battles over civil rights and voting rights.