Saturday, February 20, 2021

Pseudo-Ulysses S. Grant? "there are three political parties in the United States: the Republican, the Democratic, and the Methodist Church."

Here's what I've found so far.  Search hits dropped off the map behind 1900, and in the low-hanging 19th- (and even early 20th-) century newspaper/magazine fruit in the University of Washington databases, too.  Significantly, perhaps, I also encountered "three political parties in the United States"/"this country"-references with "Temperance" or "Prohibition" in that third or "Methodist" slot.  (So one could see how this could have been a variation on an established trope, or vice versa.)  I would welcome any substantive additions, but the historians I've consulted do little more than cite each other, IF anything at all:

With thanks to Douglas M. Strong for the diversion.