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The election of 1876 presents a closer fact pattern to the situation which confronts us today except in one vital and decisive respect, the parties, the American North the American South, came together in 1876 in a corrupt bargain but one which least left contesting parties satisfied so that the compromise could prevail for 90 years. The deal put Rutherford Hayes in the White House and took federal forces of occupation out of the South ended reconstruction but sent the stage for Jim Crow.

The election of 1860 presents a closer analogy to today in this sense: the contesting factions had passed beyond understanding much less accepting the policies of the other side. The anti-slavery movement in the north, especially in Massachusetts and, fed by the powerful emotional reaction to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” condemned the South in moral terms and became increasingly militant in its demands that slavery be ended.

The South reacted to Lincoln’s election, a plurality victor without a majority, to conclude that the federal government would now deploy its power increasingly against the South which would find itself helpless. In other words, the South no longer accepted that the constitutional system would protect it, its culture, economy, freedoms and, yes, slavery from northern tyranny.

To the South, the mere election of Abraham Lincoln signaled that they could no longer coexist in the American government system as it evolved in 1860. So the South commenced what it regarded to be the Second War of American Independence.

What will patriotic conservatives conclude when and if the Marxists currently in power and who currently are abusing that power, prevail in their ambitions?