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A Republican presidential candidate endangering democracy, threatening the Constitution and such a menace to America he could foment a civil war?
Yes, this is what Fire-Eater Southern Democrats said about former Congressman Abraham Lincoln during the 1860 presidential campaign. And their irrational fear of him winning the White House made all their dire predictions come true.
Lincoln, the so-called abolitionist ‘Black Republican,’ endured nonstop personal attacks. The Charleston, South Carolina, Mercury wrote, ‘a horrid looking wretch he is – sooty and scoundrelly in aspect – a cross between the nutmeg dealer, the horse-swapper, and the nightman [who empties the privies].’ He was ‘a creature, fit evidently, for petty treason, small stratagems, and all sorts of spoils.’
The Southerners were also terrified by the 1860 Republican Party platform, which they denounced in frenzied language similar to contemporary progressive critics of Project 2025.
The Tarboro, North Carolina, Southerner declared that ‘the Platform on which Abraham Lincoln was nominated… is tantamount to a declaration of War against Southern rights and institutions.’ If Lincoln took office the ‘Constitution would be a dead letter’ and attempts to resist would be a ‘signal for revolution.’
Democrats kept Lincoln off the ballots in the South, just as they’d later endeavor to deny former President Trump access earlier this year. But Lincoln won the four-way race regardless, and Republicans gained a majority in Congress. The worst fears of the Fire-Eaters were realized.
This in itself did not signal the apocalypse for the pro-slavery South. A president, even an abolitionist, could not end the grim institution of slavery with the stroke of a pen. Nor could Congress, even with a Republican majority, bring about slavery’s demise through normal legislation. The pro-slavery Taney Supreme Court had seen to that in the Dred Scott case.
Had the Southern Democrats been less obsessed with Lincoln they could have simply bided their time and let the politics play out. The moderate Richmond, Virginia, Whig argued that Lincoln’s victory was not an existential threat because the United States was still a nation of laws.
‘Lincoln, within the Constitution and the laws, will and must be sustained,’ the editors wrote. ‘Lincoln, transgressing the laws or abusing the Constitution, will be rebuked, checked or punished.’
But the Fire-Eaters were so apoplectic at Lincoln’s victory that they drove seven Southern states to secede from the Union even before the new president took office. Their blind fear of the new order overwhelmed any rational reaction.
Some even imagined a preemptive insurrection, and Lincoln had to be smuggled into the capital for his inauguration.
The Fayetteville, Tennessee, Observer stated flatly, ‘the South will never permit Abraham Lincoln to be inaugurated President of the United States… whether the Potomac is crimsoned human gore, and Pennsylvania Avenue is paved ten fathoms in depth with mangled bodies.’ Southerners would never consent to the ‘humiliation and degradation’ of Lincoln’s ascent.
This is the context to Lincoln’s first inaugural address on March 4, 1861, in which he pleaded with the rebel states that there was no cause for apprehension and that he did not threaten even the institution of slavery they were intent on preserving. All would be forgiven if only they would return.
‘We are not enemies, but friends,’ Lincoln said, invoking ‘the mystic chords of memory’ to ‘swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.’
But the better angels were outgunned by the lesser demons. The same day Lincoln delivered his plea for unity, the Confederates raised their first national flag over their then-capital in Montgomery, Alabama. Congressional attempts at cooperation and reconciliation, such as the famous Crittenden Compromise, failed.
Ultimately, the Fire-Eaters forced the issue by attacking Fort Sumter, Lincoln mobilized troops, the upper South joined the rebellion, and the Civil War was on.
When reviewing the four-month period from the 1860 election to Lincoln’s inauguration, one can’t help but conclude that the Civil War was completely avoidable. There was no sound cause for secession. There was no reason for outrage.
Lincoln was not a dictator, nor could he be. But the country was driven into the abyss by a small group of radical Democrats who stubbornly refused to accept Lincoln as a legitimately elected president.
Likewise, today, reporters hound Trump for not pledging to back the outcome of the election but can’t be bothered to ask Democrats if they would do the same should Trump emerge the victor. We saw after 2016 that the answer to this question is no.
In the years that followed, Democrats used every means at their disposal to hobble, hinder and delegitimize the Trump first term. The current never-Trumpers are motivated by the same irrational, blind hatred that animated the anti-Lincoln Fire-Eaters who would rather drive the country into violent civil conflict than see the object of their disgust as president.
But as Lincoln said, truth and justice ‘will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.’ And if President Trump wins, the better angels will have to work overtime to keep the peace.