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A Republican presidential candidate endangering democracy, threatening the Structure and such a menace to America he may foment a civil struggle?
Sure, that is what Hearth-Eater Southern Democrats mentioned about former Congressman Abraham Lincoln in the course of the 1860 presidential marketing campaign. And their irrational worry of him profitable the White Home made all their dire predictions come true.
Lincoln, the so-called abolitionist “Black Republican,” endured nonstop private assaults. The Charleston, South Carolina, Mercury wrote, “a horrid trying wretch he’s – sooty and scoundrelly in side – a cross between the nutmeg seller, the horse-swapper, and the nightman [who empties the privies].” He was “a creature, match evidently, for petty treason, small stratagems, and all types of spoils.”
Former President Trump is seen with blood on his face as Secret Service brokers hustle him off stage after he was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, July 13, 2024. (Rebecca Droke/AFP through Getty Photographs)
The Southerners had been additionally terrified by the 1860 Republican Social gathering platform, which they denounced in frenzied language much like up to date progressive critics of Venture 2025.
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The Tarboro, North Carolina, Southerner declared that “the Platform on which Abraham Lincoln was nominated… is tantamount to a declaration of Warfare towards Southern rights and establishments.” If Lincoln took workplace the “Structure could be a lifeless letter” and makes an attempt to withstand could be a “sign for revolution.”
Democrats saved Lincoln off the ballots within the South, simply as they’d later endeavor to disclaim former President Trump entry earlier this yr. However Lincoln received the four-way race regardless, and Republicans gained a majority in Congress. The worst fears of the Hearth-Eaters had been realized.
This in itself didn’t sign the apocalypse for the pro-slavery South. A president, even an abolitionist, couldn’t end the grim institution of slavery with the stroke of a pen. Nor may Congress, even with a Republican majority, result in slavery’s demise by regular laws. The professional-slavery Taney Supreme Courtroom had seen to that within the Dred Scott case.
Had the Southern Democrats been much less obsessive about Lincoln they might have merely bided their time and let the politics play out. The reasonable Richmond, Virginia, Whig argued that Lincoln’s victory was not an existential menace as a result of america was nonetheless a nation of legal guidelines.
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“Lincoln, inside the Structure and the legal guidelines, will and should be sustained,” the editors wrote. “Lincoln, transgressing the legal guidelines or abusing the Structure, will probably be rebuked, checked or punished.”
The identical day Abraham Lincoln delivered his plea for unity, the Confederates raised their first nationwide flag over their then-capital in Montgomery, Alabama. (Photograph by © CORBIS/Corbis through Getty Photographs)
However the Hearth-Eaters had been so apoplectic at Lincoln’s victory that they drove seven Southern states to secede from the Union even earlier than the brand new president took workplace. Their blind worry of the brand new order overwhelmed any rational response.
Some even imagined a preemptive rebellion, and Lincoln needed to be smuggled into the capital for his inauguration.
The Fayetteville, Tennessee, Observer acknowledged flatly, “the South won’t ever allow Abraham Lincoln to be inaugurated President of america… whether or not the Potomac is crimsoned human gore, and Pennsylvania Avenue is paved ten fathoms in depth with mangled our bodies.” Southerners would by no means consent to the “humiliation and degradation” of Lincoln’s ascent.
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Drawing of Abraham Lincoln’s first presidential inauguration, Mar. 4, 1861. Lincoln waves to an viewers of males carrying high hats. (Undated illustration.)
That is the context to Lincoln’s first inaugural address on March 4, 1861, through which he pleaded with the insurgent states that there was no trigger for apprehension and that he didn’t threaten even the establishment of slavery they had been intent on preserving. All could be forgiven if solely they’d return.
“We aren’t enemies, however pals,” Lincoln mentioned, invoking “the mystic chords of reminiscence” to “swell the refrain of the Union, when once more touched, as certainly they are going to be, by the higher angels of our nature.”
However the higher angels had been outgunned by the lesser demons. The identical day Lincoln delivered his plea for unity, the Confederates raised their first nationwide flag over their then-capital in Montgomery, Alabama. Congressional makes an attempt at cooperation and reconciliation, such because the well-known Crittenden Compromise, failed.
The bombardment of Fort Sumter, in Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1861. (Engraving by Perine/Photograph by Charles Phelps Cushing/ClassicStock/Getty Photographs)
Finally, the Hearth-Eaters compelled the difficulty by attacking Fort Sumter, Lincoln mobilized troops, the higher South joined the rise up, and the Civil Warfare was on.
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When reviewing the four-month interval from the 1860 election to Lincoln’s inauguration, one can’t assist however conclude that the Civil War was completely avoidable. There was no sound trigger for secession. There was no motive for outrage.
Lincoln was not a dictator, nor may he be. However the nation was pushed into the abyss by a small group of radical Democrats who stubbornly refused to simply accept Lincoln as a legitimately elected president.
Likewise, immediately, reporters hound Trump for not pledging to again the end result of the election however can’t be bothered to ask Democrats if they’d do the identical ought to Trump emerge the victor. We noticed after 2016 that the reply to this query is not any.
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Within the years that adopted, Democrats used each means at their disposal to hobble, hinder and delegitimize the Trump first term. The present never-Trumpers are motivated by the identical irrational, blind hatred that animated the anti-Lincoln Hearth-Eaters who would relatively drive the nation into violent civil battle than see the thing of their disgust as president.
However as Lincoln mentioned, reality and justice “will certainly prevail by the judgment of this nice tribunal of the American individuals.” And if President Trump wins, the higher angels should work extra time to maintain the peace.
