LOUISIANA STATE SENATOR ELBERT GUILLORY: WHY I AM A REPUBLICAN

- Louisiana State Senator Elbert Guillory

"The Democrat Party has created the illusion that their agenda and their policies are what's best for black people.  Somehow it's been forgotten that the Republican Party was founded in 1854 as an abolitionist movement with one simple creed: That slavery is a violation of the rights of man. Frederick Douglass called Republicans "the party of freedom and progress," and the first Republican president was Abraham Lincoln, the author of the Emancipation Proclamation.  It was Republicans in Congress who authored the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, giving former slaves citizenship, voting rights, and due process of law.  Democrats, on the other hand, were the party of Jim Crow.  It was Democrats who defended the rights of slave owners.

At the heart of liberalism is the idea that only a great and powerful big government can be the benefactor of social justice for all Americans.  But the left is only concerned with one thing: Control.  And they disguise this control as charity.  Programs such as welfare, food stamps? These programs aren't designed to lift black Americans out of poverty! They were always intended as a mechanism for politicians to control the black community.  The idea that blacks -- or anyone, for that matter -- need the government to get ahead in life, is despicable.  Our self-initiative and our self-reliance have been sacrificed in exchange for allegiance to our overseers, who control us by making us dependent on them.

To be truly free is to be reliant on no one, other than the author of our destiny.  These are the ideas at the core of the Republican Party, and it is why I am a Republican.  So, my brothers and sisters of the American community, please join with me today in abandoning the government plantation and the party of disappointment so that we may all echo the words of one Republican leader who famously said "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last."