A longshot Republican wins the electoral college but a minority of the popular vote. Disgruntled Democrats, dominated by a wealthy wing terrified of having their wealth impaired threaten secession, They express concern that the new President is a threat to their way of life and institutions. Intellectuals defend their institutions, and admit socialism is better than capitalism. They actually actually start secession during the period before the new President takes office. Mobs in an East Coast city threaten him before the new President takes office.
Sounds modern? No. It's the 1860 election.
So true, and if the democratic party wasn't split in two the combined democratic vote would have beaten Lincoln. Today however I think its even worse since in 1860 the best europe could do to take advantage of our Civil War was to invade Mexico. Now if someone seceed's they are liable to find Russian troops landing in mass at several airports. And if not the Russians, China or Mexico.
ReplyDeleteIf voter fraud is taken off the totals, then the loser didn't even win the popular vote. Just in CA there are probably over 3 million illegals who voted (just as our president encouraged) and nationwide there are countless more. Those illegal votes should not count!
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I really hope President Trump and the Republican majority Congress will do is to encourage the States to clean up the electoral rolls, to remove all the dead people and stop multiple voting from the same person in different States.
James Gibson: "if the democratic party wasn't split in two the combined democratic vote would have beaten Lincoln."
ReplyDeleteNo. Even if the votes of all three other candidates (regular Democrat Stephen Douglas, southern Democrat John Breckinridge, and "Constitutional Unionist" (ex-Whigs) John Bell) had been cast for one candidate, Lincoln would still have won. Lincoln had popular vote majorities in 15 states with 169 electoral votes out of 303 total.
This was possible because Lincoln got zero votes in nine slave states, and only 5,545 of 416,000 in three others.
Clayton: to be fair, while Southern Democrats embraced secession, nearly all Northern Democrats supported Lincoln's measures to maintain the Union. When Lincoln called for 75,000 troops to put down rebellion, Stephen Douglas told him he should call for 200,000.
Rich: Lots of Copperheads, like the guy who was expelled from the U.S. and later shot himself by accident with an exhibit when defending someone charged with murder.
ReplyDeleteVallandigham.
ReplyDelete