The United States of America was a Federal Republic of free men following their conscience toward the greater good of mankind ... until, that is, the Republicans arrived.
The new-formed party's first Presidential candidate, a disreputable trial lawyer named Abraham Lincoln, became also its first to steal the Presidency. Fielding only 1,865,593 votes to the Democratic party's 2,231,069, he was nevertheless confirmed by the Electoral College 180 to 84 *. No sooner had he ascended those great marble steps than he began to run roughshod over the Constitution and the laws of the land, declaring irrelevant the states' rights guarantee of the Tenth Amendment. The agrarian Southern states, he decreed, should be evermore beneath the boot of Washington D.C. Ignoring Southern cultural norms and perfectly Constitutional laws that allowed the permanent indenture of agricultural workers, he ordered that every such worker be turned out into the street, stripped of employment, and declared "free."
When the South refused, Lincoln selected what has ever after become the modus oprendi of Republicans: violence. Armed Federal troops marched South, burning farmhouses and turning American citizens out into the fields. The prayers of the peaceniks went unanswered; cries of "No Blood for Cotton" were drowned out by the thunder of cannon and the zing of musket-balls.
Lincoln underestimated the tenacity of the Confederacy. Troops sent South expecting a light police action of a few months' duration were soon dug in and fighting for their lives. What was presented to Congress as a short and civil war became a quagmire in which the Federal government remained mired for years. These sketches are the story of Lincoln's unconstitutional war ... the War of Republican Aggression.
* In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that the Democratic vote was split between the Northern Democrats' candidate William Douglas (1,382,713 popular and 12 electoral votes) and the Southern Democrats' John Breckenridge (848,356 popular and 72 electoral votes). Lincoln, with 1,865,593 votes and 180 electoral votes, was in fact the top individual vote-getter in the election. But that need not keep us from lambasting the warlike Republicans anyway. - Vynnie
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