Dinesh D'souza's "Startling", "Arresting" Claim about Democratic Slaveholders

Dinesh tells Steven Crowder, on his show Louder with Crowder:

"In Hillary's America I make this claim (it's pretty startling) I say, 'In 1860, the year of the Civil War, no Republicans owned a slave.'  I say, 'All the slaves in the United States, in the whole country, were owned by Democrats.'  Now, this a very arresting factual claim.  There's a very easy way to refute it: 'Hey Dinesh, here is a list of 10 Republicans who owned slaves'.  Right?  I would have to retract the statement.  But no one has been able to do that."



This is what is meant by academic honesty.  Instead of attempting to refute facts with opinions, or indignation (because the facts offend you), refute them with other facts.  This is the how truth is found, and intelligent debate is had.

Futhermore, there are a few other facts that one should know about the history of slavery in relation to the two parties.

Here's a breakdown of the percentages of Republicans vs Democrats voted in favor of the following pieces of legislation within Congress: 

13th Amendment (abolishing slavery)
100% Republican
23% Democrat

14th Amendment (gave citizenship to freed slaves)
94% Republican
0% Democrat

15th Amendment (right to vote given to all races)
100% Republican
0% Democrat*

"Why [are these] indisputable fact so rarely mentioned? PBS documentaries about slavery and the Civil War barely mention it, for example. One can certainly argue that the parties have changed in 150 years (more about that below), but that does not change the historical fact that it was the Democrats who supported slavery and the Republicans who opposed it. And that indisputable fact should not be airbrushed out for fear that it will tarnish the modern Democratic Party.

Had the positions of the parties been the opposite, and the Democrats had fought the Republicans to end slavery, the historical party roles would no doubt be repeated incessantly in these documentaries. Funny how that works.” (Russ Paielli)

Now the argument is made "the parties are vastly different".  Whether or not that is true is another debate entirely; but even so, as Russ exhorts, this "indisputable fact should not be airbrushed out of fear that it will tarnish the modern Democratic Party".  People deserve to know the factual, historic truth.  Let them do with it what they will.  If the Democratic Party truly has changed since 1860, they have nothing to fear from this.



*Might I note that these statistics are easily verified by legislative records kept by the Library of Congress, and on the Congressional Vote Database.

Sources:

The Congressional Vote Database. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes

Russ Paielii. http://russp.us/racism.htm

Steven Crowder with Dinesh D'souza on Louder with Crowder. http://louderwithcrowder.com/dinesh-dsouza-exposes-hillarys-corruption-in-hillarys-america/