The factional struggle within the Democratic Party that contributed to
electoral realignment in the 1960s was a long process in which, over a
period of about forty years, the south gradually lost power within the
party. The factional struggle within the Republican Party was as long
and severe, but its resolution in 1964 much more sudden, reversing
historic patterns of Republican politics. This chapter examines the
factional politics of the Republican Party prior to 1964.

The Republican Party has always had a simpler factional structure
than the Democratic Party, even if the ideological divisions have been
as intense. Whereas the Democratic Party is a multifactional system, the
Republican Party is fundamentally a two-faction system. This fact can
be attributed to three observations comparing the Republicans to the
Democrats.

First, until the mid- twentieth century when the Democratic solid
south began to break up, the south never represented an autonomous
faction within the Republican Party, as it did by its defense of white
supremacy within the Democratic Party. Republicans had little or no

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