Hal Demarest
Politics before the Civil War vs Politics Today
Politics has always been messy when tempers flare and
compromises often frustrate both sides equally Though it was
worse in the mid-1800s. Congressmen openly despised each
other and at some points it got very personal. It was rumored that
those who did not bring a revolver and a knife for self-defense
had two revolvers. While the Northern Whigs supported banning
slavery and the Southern Democrats wanted to make it
constitutional, they could not gain a steady majority similar to
today as the president vetoes bills and the senate blocks cabinet
members and supreme court justices. At the same time, it is still
as cutthroat as ever. As politicians debate over how to “make
America perfect.” Political parties have interestingly swapped as
democrats have gone from a rural southern political party to one
found in the big cities of NYC and California. Meanwhile, the
Republicans have gone from an anti-slavery northern party to a
party whose votes can be found in the midwest and deep south.
Election Map 1888
Election Map 2000
As you can tell the political parties have completely changed as
the once radical Republican states in the north and midwest now
vote for the democrats and the southern states are now as vibrant
about being republican as their forefathers were about being
democrats. Different Beliefs can separate people who ended up
leading to the American Civil War. The two groups of people have
two conflicting ideas and hate the other for getting in the way of
their beliefs which creates distrust during the civil war weak
presidents like Millard Filmore were unable to ease the tensions.
Meanwhile, Obama used his position as president to please both
sides resulting in a lot of work getting done between 2008 and
2016. Compare this to the 1850s when everyone was trying to
pass laws that would stop one party from gaining a majority. Laws
like the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska act were
made to keep everyone “happy”. All these laws did was delay the
inevitable which was the country ripping itself apart. Nowadays
we have learned from our mistakes for the most part. We must
always stay as united as we have ever been. We will strive to
make America a beacon of hope and a bastion of democracy.
As the years passed their attitude toward their fellow
congressmen increased. Soon a political party was formed
against the more moderate northern Whigs.
One day an anti-slavery senator named Charles Sumner gave a
speech against slavery calling out two Democrats Stephen
Douglas of Illinois and Andrew Butler of South Carolina about the
violence in Kansas resulting from the new law they had created.
Eventually, the speech became a personal attack against the proslavery Butler involving some very inappropriate lines from
Sumner. Stephan Douglas who was watching the speech said
that “this damn fool [Sumner] is going to get himself shot by some
other damn fool.”
The prophecy would prove correct as two days after the speech
Preston Brooks, a member House of Representatives and first
cousin once removed to Butler stormed into the senate and beat
Sumner with his cane till it snapped in half.
Luckily such violence has never since happened on the floors of
congress nowadays. After the canning animosity between the two
parties went downhill to the point where Congressmen were
bringing weapons for self-defense. In the 1854 senate elections,
the whigs had fragmented into different parties depending on
where you went from. Parties often rise and fall but not many had
much of an impact that the Whigs had during their heyday.
Several parties emerged from the collapse of the Whigs and only
one of the Constitutional Union party to sent one of their own
(John Bell) during a presidential election (1860). The eventual
winner would be the modern republican party that still exists and
is still churning out presidential candidates—the 1856 election.
Nowadays politics are less personal but advertisements can still
be “less vote for me” and more “don't vote for them”. But luckily
they are more likely to attack someone for their political beliefs
and not their personal views. The exception might be
advertisements.