Tim Scott is set to become the first African-American elected from South Carolina since Reconstruction. I take issue with the idea in the NPR piece that he is the first African-American elected from the deep south since Reconstruction because Corrine Brown was elected from Florida's 3rd Congressional District in 1992. Now, we could argue about the depth of Florida's southern identity, but I will let it go.
The specter of Scott election in South Carolina is worth a brief historical note. Remember, the Civil War began in South Carolina and during Reconstruction, the federal push to insure African-American political participation championed by the Republican Party gave African-Americans a commanding presence in state legislature. The great irony is that this era's Republican party, which struggles to define itself in an era of changing demographics has been slow to embrace minority voters. The Republican Party became the party of southern white resentment in the 1960s in the aftermath of the Civil Right legislation championed by Lyndon Johnson. The pattern of catering to anti-government, anti-democrat, and pro traditional values has been the bedrock of the party since. Scott's eventually victory will give Republicans a chance to lay claim to a history of progressive policy that most people associate with Abraham Lincoln and the defense of the Union. Anyone who considers the Republican Party's Platform from 1860 must realize the party has changed. Ironically, South Carolinians' vote for secession in 1860 was triggered by the Republican Party's victory. Southerners believed the Republican Party was a hostile to southern interests. Republicans, for their part advocated for balance between national interest and state's right. At the same time, Republicans also advocated for anti-corruption and greater fiscal constraints. As the platform states, the party viewed, "the reckless extravagance which pervades every department of the Federal Government; that a return to rigid economy and accountability is indispensable to arrest the systematic plunder of the public treasury by favored partisans." Still, southerners took issue with anti-slavery elements of the platform. Scott's campaign has championed him as a conservative republican, a label that is linked, in my mind, to Republican politics in the aftermath of civil right activism in the 1960s not the Republicans of the 1860s. It could be Scott's very presence will shift the party and open a dialogue about what the Republican Party stands for in the United States. On the other hand, the anxiety and frustration the Republican Party has tapped since the 1960s may leave little room for African-American voices they have long identified with undermining southern traditions.
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