First session: November 21, 2015. Last date to add: Sometime in the future.
Reading: Self-assigned. Recommendations made and welcomed.
Posting history, in reverse order
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The Charleston Convention exposes as Confederate propaganda that the Civil War was sparked by Lincoln’s aggressiveness. The anti-Douglas groups knew with certainty that any split among the Democrats would guarantee the Republicans winning the election. (As it was, Lincoln won a majority of electoral votes, but the discord among the Democrats might have cost them Pennsylvania; you can also see the plain unionist Democrat sympathy in the New York Times, here.) Yet even as Douglas won clear majority after clear majority of the vote, the insurrectionists denied him his victory, because he was too moderate. They wanted war, and a Lincoln victory would give them the pretext.
Within the year, Lincoln would withdraw union forces from most Deep-Southern army bases; his last troops dug in at Charleston, awaiting rescue to the North... and there they were attacked without provocation.
Sounds like the Dem party of the 19th century was no different than the Dem party of the 21st century.