The Parallel Lives

Abraham Lincoln of Illinois was elected President of the United States of America on November 6, 1860, for a four-year term. One year later, on November 6, 1861, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was elected President of the Confederate States of America for a six-year term. 

     Between those two dates, eleven states, each in the south, voted to secede from the Union and form their own government, the Confederates States of America. 

     That division between north and south over the issue of slavery had widened into a chasm that neither side could bridge. It was Lincoln’s victory that prompted the southern states to secede. The southerners feared that Lincoln would terminate slavery, their way of life.

     Jefferson Davis was inaugurated on February 22, 1862, George Washington’s birthday, in Montgomery, Alabama. Some 10,000 people came out to witness the inauguration.

     Jefferson Davis spoke that day and said,

    “I enter upon the duties of the office to which I have been chosen with the hope that the beginning of our career as a Confederacy may not be obstructed by hostile opposition to our enjoyment of the separate existence and independence which we have asserted, and, with the blessing of Providence, intend to maintain.”

     That hope had already been dashed ten months before, on April 12-13, 1861, when southern canons had fired upon Fort Sumter, and war came upon the south and Jefferson Davis.

     That evening after his inauguration, Davis wrote to his wife, Varina, and said,

     “The audience was large and brilliant. Upon my weary heart were showered smiles, plaudits, and flowers; but beyond them, I saw troubles and thorns innumerable. 

     “We are without machinery, without means, and threatened by a powerful opposition; but I do not despond, and will not shrink from the task imposed upon me. As soon as I can call an hour my own, I will look for a house and write you more fully.”

     Three years later, on May 5, 1865, Jefferson Davis met with his cabinet in Georgia and dissolved the Confederate government. He had no more troops or cannons to advance the fight.

     Secession had not proved the panacea that the southern states had anticipated, had hoped for. 

    Instead, it ushered into their towns and cities an unimaginable and vicious war, incredible destruction of property, immense bloodshed, and thousands of deaths of young southern boys.

    Between November 6, 1860, and November 5, 2024, lies 164 years of relative peace between the states. No civil wars. Yet, today there is no shortage of opinion writers who warn readers and caution the wiser sorts that the potential for strife exists, and it is alarming.

     In the “New York Review of Books,” dated November 7, 2024, two writers—Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson—wrote the following.

     “Two years ago, when the U.S. was still convulsed by January 6, we suggested that the possibility of spiraling violence verging on civil war warranted serious consideration. It remains imprudent to dismiss it. MAGA fever has hardly broken.”

     “Today the U.S. political situation radiates civil instability.”

     “Many Republicans refuse to see January 6 even as a contravention of American constitutional democracy, let alone as an insurrection, characterizing it as as exercise of free speech that got a little out of hand.”

     “The rhetoric of his campaign has been grossly autocratic and anti-constitutional, and he has demonstrated clear intent to rally willing Republican state election officials to refuse to certify the vote.”

     When I wrote this column on Sunday, November 3, I did not know the election’s outcome.

     When you, my friends and readers, read these words, the American electorate may have voted into the Oval Office either a former President, or the current Vice-President.

     Secession fever in 1860-1861, and MAGA fever in 2024.

     I take hope that someday in the future MAGA fever will break. Maybe not now but someday.