Lincoln, Obama, and Know Nothings

The Missouri Compromise of 1820 divided the States along a line running east and west—the 36° 30' parallel--to delineate between the agricultural, pro-slavery South, and the anti-slavery, industrial North. The compromise lasted until 1854, when the Kansas-Nebraska Act stipulated that settlers would decide whether their States should be free or slave.

It was a time of political reorganization. A Know Nothing Party was formed to express anger at the new immigrants, particularly Irish Catholics. Out of the turmoil, the Republican Party emerged, which elected Abraham Lincoln in 1860. The long-term result was that Republicans pretty much controlled politics in the North, and nationally, until 1932, when the Great Depression overran them. Democrats dominated Southern States.

Today, the party of Abraham Lincoln dominates the South, and Democrats have moved north. Even more curiously, it is the Democrats who have elected a Black man to the Presidency; a man whom many compare with Abraham Lincoln. We still have our Know Nothings who express fear and anger at our newer immigrants, not so much from Ireland, today, as from Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Tea Party Republicans, who absurdly charge that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, are this generation's Know Nothings.

I am not sure what to make of all this tumbling around of politics, and racism, and religious hostility, except for this: it is nice to figure out where the Know Nothings went.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Friends-- My step-father of 35 years died this morning. His name was Conrad Royksund. He was 86 years old. He was born into poverty on a farm near Puyallup, WA. He was the first member of his family to attend college and earned a PhD from the University of Chicago. He paid his way through all of that by fishing in Alaska. He spent his professional career as a college professor. I met him when I was just 3 years old and don't actually have any memories of my life befor e he was in it. He was intimidatingly smart, funny as hell, and worked his ass off. He taught me to meet people with kindness and decency until I was certain they could not be trusted. He taught me to meet ideas with carving knives until I was certain they could. I will remember him as one of the bravest, most curious, and funniest people I have ever met. He left this world with a satisfied mind. We are so grateful. Dan Hubbard

Caliche Busters and Government Work

When I was young and both stronger and smarter than I am now, I put my might and brain to work doing nothing useful, unless it might be thought that hand/foot/eye coordination might come in handy. Those were skills to be learned and practiced. I found an iron bar our grandfather had shaped in his blacksmith shop. He took old car, truck, or wagon axles, and made tools from them for digging post holes. He sharpened one end to a tip, and the other to a blade. Washington State, like many places, had a hard layer of soil, probably created by water and limestone, or some such materials, that made digging holes a miserable chore. The bar chipped through the natural concrete so that a shovel could take it up. I found Grandpa's iron bar, and since I was young and dumb and strong--or so I thought--decided to punch a hole down to hardpan and ultimate truth. I knew how to do that. Raise the bar vertically with both hands, and then slam in straight down. On the second try, aimi

The Sea is Rising

Let us just step back: two hundred and fifty years ago, or so, the ships of England and Spain had drifted onto a whole new continent, as they saw it, from far north to a savagely cold south; pole to pole, as if there were such things. Millions of people already lived here, some of them still hunters and gatherers; some of them very wealthy, indeed! Gold and silver stolen from the southern Americas funded Spanish and English dreams. There was land, lots of land, under starry skies above, rich land, and oil and coal and iron ore. The whole western world learned how to build industries not on simple muscle power, but on steam and oil. We farmed, too, of course. All we needed was cheap labor--slave labor from Africa, mostly, so the ships came with slave labor. Chinese labor built railroad beds where there had been rock cliffs. Europeans, long used to killing each other for good, religious reasons, brought their religious savagery with them. Even when all they wanted to do w

SmokeSound

Search This Blog