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The following image promotes the Republican party over the Democratic party by looking at the support for some historical decisions.

Are the figures presented correct?

Gop voted to end slavery

If you don't know please keep quiet:

13th Amendment ABOLISHED SLAVERY
100% Republican Support 23% Democrat Support

15th Amendment RIGHT TO VOTE FOR ALL
100% Republican Support 0% Democrat Support

14th Amendment GAVE CITIZENSHIP TO FREED SLAVES
94% Republican Support 0% Democrat Support

OBAMACARE
0% Republican Support 86% Democrat support

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  • 1
    What makes you doubt these numbers?
    – Henry
    Commented Nov 1, 2016 at 8:44
  • 26
    This is not surprising. The fallacy is assuming that the Republican Party pre 1960 were ideologically resemblant to the Republican Party post 2008.
    – BorderlineBaguette
    Commented Nov 2, 2016 at 10:51
  • 11
    There is an obvious fallacy in the image. The 15th amendment did not give "the right to vote for all", it excluded the vote from women, native Americans, poor people (black and white) and people who had moved in the last year.
    – DJClayworth
    Commented Nov 2, 2016 at 14:58
  • 2
    This site seems like it's probably helpful in tracking down the relevant numbers: govtrack.us/congress/votes
    – DuckTapeAl
    Commented Nov 2, 2016 at 16:22
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    @DuckTapeAl I deleted my answer that was based on that site because user=ff524 showed that it gives wrong data for the 15th amendment.
    – DavePhD
    Commented Nov 3, 2016 at 21:47

2 Answers 2

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Some of the text on this infographic is correct but some is false. A mixed bag.

I didn't verify every claim on the infographic, just the claims I found interesting or were not going to be time prohibitive for me to verify. Party affiliation was checked using Wikipedia and then I checked the Library of Congress' record for the Senator or Representative when their verification was absolutely needed.

Voting results for all of Congress:

13th Amendment

The claim seems to be true for Republican support. No Republicans voted against passing the 13th Amendment in all of Congress.

14th Amendment

The percentage for Republican support is true at least for support in the Senate, I spot check the House and found at least one Republican that voted against the motion in addition.

15th Amendment

The claim is not true for Republicans support in the Senate. There were at least five Republicans that voted against the motion. One such Republican is James Dixon of Connecticut.

In the Senate, Saulsbury(D) of Delaware was marked as absent, not sure if this mean physically missing or abstained from voting. 0% support is possible.

Affordable Healthcare Act (Obamacare)

This bill had total support at introduction in the House. Got mucked with in the Senate and had full backing by Democrats in the Senate revision. The exact number is the House approval of revisions by the Senate not necessarily the total support by all of Congress. However, in any light, Republicans after introduction into the Senate were set against in entirety.

As many have pointed out the Democrats and Republicans of any given time period are going to be of their time and culture. Culture changes and politics is very much a beast of culture, it is not surprising that party platforms change over time.

There is a reason why terms like Southern Democrat and Dixiecrat existed. (If any knows any Republican analogs please comment, I cannot think of any offhand.)

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  • New England Republicans. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island just ran for president as a Democrat. Olympia Snowe almost voted for Obamacare. Jim Jeffords switched parties in 2001. Judd Gregg was almost in the Obama administration (Secretary of Commerce). Etc.
    – Brythan
    Commented Nov 3, 2016 at 13:00
  • The link for "This bill had total support at introduction in the House" says "BILL TITLE: Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act". Isn't that a different issue entirely?
    – DavePhD
    Commented Nov 5, 2016 at 17:31
  • I believe that this is how the bill was introduced. So it may have had a different purpose at the time or at least title, and morphed into the current law.
    – RomaH
    Commented Nov 5, 2016 at 19:20
  • Absent usually means not present in the session. If the member is present, but abstains from voting, this is somehow counted, usually with the vote of, literally, 'present'. That all assumed that there was a vote count in the first place, which it sounds like there was. Mileage varies with parliamentary rules.
    – user26184
    Commented Nov 5, 2016 at 23:16
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The data are not quantitatively correct.

It is not true that there was 100% Republican support for the 15th amendment.

According to the names as listed in the 1869 Congressional Globe, Republicans who voted against the 15th amendment in the Senate were:

John Pool, NC

James Dixon, CT

Joseph S. Fowler, TN

James Rood Doolittle, WI (Wikipedia adds, citing to an 1891 reference, that "He strongly opposed the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on the ground that each state should determine questions of suffrage for itself" and later became a Democrat)

According to the names as listed in the 1869 Congressional Globe, Republicans who voted against the 15th amendment in the House of Representatives were:

William Loughridge, IA

Rufus Mallory, OR

Isaac Roberts Hawkins, TN

Also Samuel Fenton Cary, OH was "Independent Republican" (which usually designates self-identifying as Republican, but not being the party's nominee and running against the actual nominee) and voted "nay".

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