[Restorer]

Disappointing article. While there are some parallels between Whigs and today's GOP, there are at least as many differences. It is notoriously difficult to compare political ideologies between different eras. Generally, the way you do so is by cherry picking similarities and ignoring the inconvenient anomalies.

The political situation in the 20 years before the Civil War was a lot more complex than this article indicates, as indicated by the rise and then rapid fall of the American or Know-Nothing Party, among other factors.

[Criminal Number 18F]

Disappointing article.

Against that I would say two things:

1. kudos to the Times for putting such a historical piece in the paper -- most papers in America would not print an article that treated of events 160 years gone, because they don't respect their readers enough to think their readers will understand. I am an inveterate basher of the Times's reporting, particularly some of the frankly fabricated stuff they have been writing in the hotel bars in Iraq, but credit where credit is due.

2. I think it's patent that Wilentz is a liberal Democrat, and he's studying conservatives like an entomologist does bugs under glass. Poor, gormless academic; somebody hit that man with a clue-by-four. Nonetheless, I am sure he could give us a lot more depth if he were not constrained by the usual 750-word Op-ed limit.

Anyway, an interesting article, not that I agree, but one that I was pleased to see.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F