LETTER: Getting our history wrong – Leavenworth Times

Robert Atwater Leavenworth

To the editor:

I am always fascinated how individuals can get our history wrong, how an individual can distort the facts through the fiction he or she creates. The Civil War from 1861-1865 was not a fight between political parties but over the issue of states rights and national authority. The issue of states rights and national authority had its inception in 1878 during the Constitutional Convention. The Articles of Confederation advocated the states authority over the national government while the constitution would establish a strong national government through a federation with supreme power resting in the national government.

In order to gain the support of most of the states for the new constitution, a number of compromises were made, including the Great Compromise on representation creating a Congress with two houses the Senate based upon equal representation and the House of Representatives based on the count of the population with an insertion of the Three-fifths Compromise, counting three out five slaves as a part of the population. At the time, many of the northern states favored states rights while many of the southern states were nationalistic.

When President George Washington issued his farewell address, he urged our nation to avoid the establishment of political parties because he believed they would divide the nation. At the time he left office in 1797, two political parties were already in existence. The Federalists supported a strong central government led by Alexander Hamilton that favored business interests, while the Republican-Democrats led by Thomas Jefferson favored states rights and the common man.

The Federalist Party evolved into the Whig Party and Republican-Democrat Party became the Democratic Party. As the nation grew so did the industrial and agricultural divisions. One of the economic issues involved slavery versus wage slaves. To maintain a balance between the slave and free states, the nation admitted new states to the union by admitting a slave state and a free state at the same time. The Compromise of 1820 (Missouri) and Compromise of 1850 changed the balance of slave vs. free states. Because of the Compromise of 1850, the Free State Party replaced the Whig Party.

The Free State Party platform promoted the abolition of slavery throughout the nation. In 1856, the Republican Party replaced the Free State Party but maintained the views on slavery. Hence, the southern states feared they were under attack. When Abraham Lincoln was elected as president in November 1860, the southern states believed their way of life was under attack. As a result, South Carolina seceded from the union in December 1860 because states rights allowed them to secede. This was prior to Lincoln being sworn in as president in March 1861. The Civil War was fought over the concept of states rights and national authority and not Republican versus Democrat. The result of the war was that states did not have the right to secede, and yet, some Republican states have talked about nullifying national laws or seceding from the union in the early years of the 21st century based on states rights.

It is interesting to note that the party of Lincoln has moved away from protecting the rights of the minority to accommodate corporations, banks and the wealthy in our society. The culmination of that movement has led to the election of Donald Trump as our president. It was evident that candidates for president in the election of 2016 were not acceptable and people had to hold their noses as they entered the polling booth. It is distressing that we have a president who has no concept of leading a nation and is an individual who is unwilling to accept fact rather than fiction. He has promoted fear of others rather than inclusion. However, he is our president and we will have to live with him for the next four years.

It is my hope that both political parties will be able to find more acceptable candidates in the 2020 election than we did in 2016 election.

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LETTER: Getting our history wrong - Leavenworth Times