Times have been worse in our country's history
With the uncivil, highly partisan, violent times we continue to live through, truly almost every day brings more bad news.
BUT,
as Faith on the Mall brings to life, it was worse in our first hundred years as a nation.
Yes, that's one Senator trying to shoot another on the Senate floor.
Our original sin of slavery inflicted misery and suffering in so many ways on so many enslaved people that eventually the abolitionists made headway. Which then led to personal political violence that included near deaths in Congress as one elected official after another brought in their guns and knives and created dramatic life and death episodes. The image above is the notorious scene where Senator Henry Foote pulled out his pistol to shoot Senator Thomas Hart Benton who then barred his chest in defiance.
Yes, it was very, very bad
And the media...
was fanning the flames pushing voters farther and farther apart and leading to fracturing of political parties and the creation of new parties. Finally, with only 40% of the vote, Abraham Lincoln of the new Republican Party was elected. That proved the last straw and South Carolina seceeded before the inauguration, soon to be followed by ten more states. The war between the states lasted four years and killed approximately 620,000 - many from disease (but that's for another newsletter.)
Insurrection to stop an inauguration? That happened too
Lincoln's life was in grave danger at his first inauguration where soldiers were concealed under the dais and artillery waited nearby
While our January 6, 2021 insurrection to stop our Presidential election process was shocking, violent, and without precedent, Lincoln's first inauguration also triggered a widespread conspiracy to seize D.C. and inaugurate his opponent.
As reported by the New York Herald in January, 1861, "The most intense excitement exists in certain Congressional circles in consequence of the fact leaking out that the Howard Select Committee of the House have positive evidence before them of a conspiracy existing in the city and vicinity to overthrow the government, in which certain prominent officials and citizens in Washington and elsewhere figure .... The existence of the conspiracy has been known to certain officials in Washington for some time."
Yes, indeed, it was very, very bad and in many ways worse than today
Many readers of my latest historical fiction novel, Faith on the Mall, remark on the benefits of being reminded how awful the times were ... and with that perspective, view our own times in a different light.
For me as the author, my horror and dismay at many current events has given me, for good or for bad, a positive form of detachment that argues we will get through this. We need to do what we can to help us get through this, however small. But while we will stumble and fall in our efforts into a future, there are enough of us that the days to come will bring a more just and more equiable life for all.