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The phrase on the wrong side of history means: at variance with the (likely) thought, practice or judgement of the future; at odds with how commentators view (or are likely to view) an issue or action retrospectively.
Conversely, the phrase on the right side of history means: in line with the (likely) thought, practice or judgement of the future; coincident with how commentators view (or are likely to view) an issue or action retrospectively.
These phrases are of American-English origin.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences that I have found of the phrases on the wrong side of history and on the right side of history:
—Note: I have included variants such as on the wrong side of the history of this country and on the right side in history:
1-: From The Daily Inter Ocean (Chicago, Illinois, USA) of Friday 23rd November 1888 [page 7, column 2]:
A reporter for The Inter Ocean called on the Rev. John J. O’Brien, of Burlington, now stopping at McCoy’s European Hotel, who speaks at the Irish-American meeting to-night at Battery D, and asked him what he thought of the British-American Association […].
“Well, I can not quite understand how a British-American citizen can exist in this country. English-Americans, Scotch-Americans, or Irish-Americans might have a place in the political nomenclature, but a British-American citizen is a kind of paradox I do not quite understand. However, since the British citizens seemingly are aiming to knock out the Irish-American, I do not hesitate to say the British can not do it. In the first place, Ireland’s record is too much on the right side and the British on the wrong side of the history of this country to find any honest citizen condemn the Irish-Americans at the beck of these modern British-Americans.”
2-: From The Great Bend Register (Great Bend, Kansas, USA) of Thursday 1st September 1892 [page 2, column 1]:
F. M. Lutschg covered himself with glory in his speech before the [Republican] convention Saturday […]. He was reared a democrat, but after he had begun his education he became a student and a reader and he saw that the Republican party had always been on the right side in the history of the country.
3-: From an interview of the U.S. politician Allen Daniel Candler (1834-1910), published in The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia, USA) of Thursday 10th March 1898 [page 4, column 6]:
“The fashion of printing evil things about me seems to have overspread the bounds of Georgia and reached into Louisiana. […] Since I have been a candidate for governor I have begun to believe that any man can get a conspicuous place on the wrong side in history if he will only have the courage to run for office.”
4-: From The News and Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina, USA) of Thursday 20th October 1898 [page 4, column 2]:
THE ISSUE IS CLEAR CUT THIS YEAR.
[…]
In 1898 […] every man who casts a vote casts it for or against negro rule. Every man votes with a full knowledge of the circumstances, unless he has wilfully closed his eyes and ears. Negro rule exists. The Democrats propose to wipe it out. The Fusionists propose to continue it. That is the plain proposition that every voter must face.
[…]
It is worse than idle to suppose that a knot of scheming peanut politicians can stay for long the advance of Anglo-Saxon civilization or subject a race that has known no master to the domination of the lowest race but one in the world. No man can afford to be on the wrong side of history. And we are making history in North Carolina in this good year 1898, history of the same sort that was made a quarter of a century ago when the carpet-bagger, the scallawag and the negro were cast out of the temple they had polluted and the sturdy Anglo-Saxons of this State took up the work of creating a new civilization and a brighter page of history.
5-: From the Wilkes-Barre Leader (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, USA) of Tuesday 13th May 1902 [page 4, column 2]:
THE RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY.
It is well at all times to keep on the right side of history, but more especially so just now when there is such a disposition to pervert it and to make it serve ends which it does not serve and cannot serve unless perverted. It is therefore well that the Boston Herald comes to the relief of history when it is being traduced and attempts to set the world right concerning it. It is true that history often repeats itself, but it is likewise true that not all that is done is a repetition of history.
6-: From a transcript of the speech that Sheriff Guthrie delivered during the ceremony of re-opening the Town Hall at Tain, Scotland, held on Thursday 20th August 1903—transcript published in The Inverness Courier, and General Advertiser (Inverness, Inverness-shire, Scotland) of Friday 21st August 1903 [page 5, column 2]:
He did not say that Tain had always been on the right side in history, but, Scotch-like, Tain had always been on the winning side.
7-: From The Washington Post (Washington, District of Columbia, USA) of Monday 26th November 1917 [page 9, column 5]:
SOLDIERS URGED TO GUARD HEALTH
A comparison of Napoleon with the kaiser was drawn by the Rev. James L. Gordon in his sermon, “Napoleon and Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo,” at the First Congregational Church last night. “The greatest general of history failed because he was on the wrong side of history. The Germans have imitated him. They, too, are on the wrong side of history and in the end they cannot but fail.”
8-: From the Boston Evening Globe (Boston, Massachusetts, USA) of Tuesday 10th June 1919 [page 12, column 2]:
SILLY SECRECY
The cat is out of the bag and it looks very much like the kitten shown us as a sample.
Now that 75,000 words of the peace treaty are available for perusal, most people are content with the 12,000-word summary. […]
Secrecy was defensible during the time the treaty was in the committee stage. […]
Both the United States Constitution and the American diplomatic tradition support secrecy. The President has the right to negotiate treaties. He has been technically within his province in withholding the text of the treaty until the whole is laid before the Senate for approval or rejection. The Senators, who have intimated that they should have been asked to sit in through the negotiations, are on the wrong side of American history.
9-: From Americanism of Minneapolis Is Proven in Names, published in The Sunday Journal (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA) of Sunday 26th October 1919 [City Life Section, page 1, column 2]:
Practically every street and avenue in Minneapolis is named either for an American or someone who appeared on the right side of American history. French names we have, like Hennepin, Marquette, Nicollet, but these men were the first of the white race to come here and leave their mark and weave the site of Minneapolis into world history.
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