Republicans vs. Civil Liberties -- 1862 Edition

[Geoff R. Casavant]

This is a repost of something I posted late last night. I had no replies, which I thought was odd, so I'm reposting at a more reasonable hour.

I just found out that Republicans have been trampling civil rights and elections almost as long as there have been Republicans.

I'm reading a book called What Ifs? of American History, an anthology of essays by several historians discussing pivotal moments in American history and speculating on what might have happened if events had unfolded differently.

The essay I'm currently reading discusses the so-called Northwest Conspiracy, a backwater of Civil War history I had not known of until I read the essay. Put simply, there was a strong Democratic backlash against the Republican excesses of the Civil War. There are descriptions of rampant Republican election crimes in 1862. For example, in one state federal troops burst in on a state Democratic convention and broke it up at bayonet point. Federal troops would also be posted at polling places and (these being the days before secret ballots) make it known that they "could not guarantee the safety" of anyone voting Democrat. Most chilling were accounts of dissidents essentially being renditioned to solitary confinement for the duration of the war.

I was floored by the wholesale destruction of the Constitution during the Lincoln administration. I expect if a few battles had gone differently, Lincoln might be remembered as one of the worst presidents rather than the best.

[FloridaPat]

1. Thanks for the post. I think since Lincoln won the war that he has

been forgiven by history. I went to the visitor information center at one of the big parks and they said that because of the anti-war riots in the north, had the civil war gone on much longer, the north would have pulled out and just left. If you get some more neat stores please post.

I guess tigers really can't change their strips. And some things never change. But how can people be this stupid. Wasn't it Lincoln that said "you can fool some of the people"?

[Minnesota Libra]

2. Election problems 1862-election problems 2000& since, does history........

.....repeat itself or what. PLEASE, exact title and author of this book? I'd definitely like to read it. :wow:

[Geoff R. Casavant]

7. The Exact Title is in the OP

The essays are by various people, but the editor is Robert Cowley, and if I remember my grade-school library research class, that's who would be listed as "author."

[Finder]

3. During the Civil War...

and the "Democrats" you are talking about were the Confederates. It is impossible to correlate either party today to the the politics practiced during the Civil War.

[Geoff R. Casavant]

8. Didn't mean to conflate the two

The Democratic Party is the same one that existed then, but I agree the demographic of the party has changed in the interim.

I wouldn't ordinarily try to say that today's Repubs are like the Repubs of old either, if not for the fact that they love to bill themselves as "The Party of Lincoln."

[Finder]

9. Not many Lincoln Repubs left.

The last bastion is in the northeast with a few out on the west coast. The parties were not split as far as conservative vs liberal back then and the bible thumpers were mostly in rural area in the south voting as democrats. It was the reconstruction period that formed the demographics we still see today.(carpetbaggers, etc)

I think it is fascinating and telling to consider what we would allow if we ever had another civil war. Of course most of the differences today are not geographical as much as ideological.

[Sammy Pepys]

4. Lincoln was pretty well despised in his time....

I just finished Manhunt, and it stunned me to think that the Union Army was worried about Booth making it into the deep south because he would probably escape capture there and have easy passage to Mexico.

But as another poster mentioned, I think being victorious in the Civil War vanquished him.

[Mrspeeker]

5. well plus the fact that only white land owners could vote

Yes American history is not really that bright as far as civil rights are concerned.

The Constitution itself was only approved by around 10% of the population at its time of drafting and was pushed on the people by a man named Alexander Hamilton, with his federalist papers.

Alexander Hamilton was later shot and killed in a duel by Thomas Jefferson's vice president Burr.

A quick look at the way women where treated is an indication of the true inequality of Early America.

[Finder]

10. There have been problems since the founding...

up to today. Ours is not a perfect government and we have always gone too far in the name of security especially. Lincoln,FDR,Nixon,Reagan, Clinton,Bush--as different as they are--ignored or stretched the Constitution for one reason or another during their presidencies. It really depends on the people to stand up in order to secure any sense of democracy(abolitionists, women's suffrage, civil rights movement, etc). The founders knew this as did/do many presidents if you listen closely to their goodbye speeches.(think Eisenhower and his warning against the military/industrial complex.)

[trackfan]

6. Intersting near-contemporary perspective:

Although it was touched upon when we learned history in school - at least the suspension of habeas corpus - certainly, Lincoln's wartime suspensions of civil rights were not a subject that we learned a lot about. It apparently was a bigger deal at the time.

I am in the middle of reading Hodgkin's "History of Italy and Her Invaders". In this huge work, written by a British
historian in the last quarter of the 19th century, he alludes to Lincoln's actions. To paraphrase, he says, in making some comparison with an event germane to his subject, "...similar to what, in our own time, we have seen, where in the most liberal democracy the world has know, President Lincoln severely curtailed normal civil liberties during the war". Or something like that.