
Civil War 160- Wednesday November 7, 1860-
In Springfield, Illinois- Abraham Lincoln’s day was pretty much spent- accepting congratulations on his victory in yesterday’s Presidential Election. He still had a four month wait before he was to take office but already Springfield was becoming a center of activity. Not only were people eager to congratulate Lincoln- but to pester him for government positions.
In Charleston, South Carolina- it didn’t take long for opposition to the election to appear- the palmetto flag was raised in defiance of the Lincoln victory. There wasn’t a lot of business going on in Charleston with crowds filling the streets reading bulletin boards on the election results. A judge in Charleston told his court- “So far as I am concerned, the Temple of Justice raised under the Constitution of the United States is now closed. If It should never again be opened I thank God that its doors have been closed before its alter has been desecrated with sacrifices to tyranny.”
Would that be a case of, ‘Plus ca change,’ I wonder?
Sounds eerily familiar.
The more things change…the more they stay the same.
The South has been a thorn in the side of the U.S. since its founding.
Yet our Constitution has survived in spite of such enduring divisions