Papering Over Our Differences
America polarized, compromise unattainable: while it sounds familiar, it is not the upcoming election of 2020, but of 1860. The United States was in the ultimate Constitutional crisis, unable to resolve the issues. While revisionist historians now claim it was about the rights of states, or the abuse of tariff policy to the detriment of the South, or some other lame excuse; the men of the time knew exactly what the issue was: human bondage. As early 20thcentury reformer and essayist John Jay Chapman said:
“There was never a moment, when the slavery issue was not a sleeping serpent. That issue lay coiled up under the table during the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention in 1787.”
The chasm in American thought was never clearer than in the election of 1860. The Republican Party, though abolitionists were members, was not the Party of Abolition, but of Containment. Slavery could remain where it was, but it would not be allowed to spread on into the new territories of the United States.
The Democratic Party was as divided as the nation. The Party nominated Stephen Douglas of Illinois as their candidate, avowing the policy of popular sovereignty, giving each new territory the “right” to vote slave or free. But that wasn’t enough for the Southern Democrats, who walked out of the convention to nominate their own choice, John Breckenridge of Kentucky, dedicated to allowing slavery in every part of the nation. The split doomed both sides to electoral disaster.
A fourth political party, the Constitutional-Union, formed with the explicit message in their one-paragraph party platform: they would recognize no other principle but the Constitution of the United States. They specifically took no stand on the issue of slavery.
The election results were as fragmented as the nation:
Candidate Party Elect Votes Pop Vote Percent
Abraham Lincoln Republican 180 1866452 40%
John Breckenridge S. Democrat 72 847953 18%
Stephen Douglas Democrat 12 1380202 29%
John Bell Cons. Union 39 590901 13%
Lincoln won the electoral votes, but was governing with only 40% of the popular votes (note: Bill Clinton had 43% in 1992.) Secession and Civil War were in the air.
William Seward of New York was the pre-convention leader of the Republican Party. Lincoln, the “rube” from the plains of Illinois, demonstrated the skills of a Chicago lawyer in out-maneuvering Seward for the nomination, and Seward became Lincoln’s Secretary of State in the “team of rivals.” He was desperate to find a way out of War. His proposal: invoke the Monroe Doctrine and declare war on Spain and France for their incursions into Central and South America, uniting the nation against a foreign enemy instead of fighting a civil war. We could be “ All Americans” against an imperial foe. But the battle lines were already drawn, soon states began to secede and the cannons were firing at Fort Sumter.
Flash forward to this past Sunday. Conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt, speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press,was clearly searching for positives in President Trump’s awful, very bad week: the shutdown ending on Speaker Pelosi’s terms and the Roger Stone indictment. Hewitt pointed out that the Trump Administration was intervening in the Venezuelan government crisis, where the socialist-dictator incumbent, Nicolas Maduro, stole the Presidential election. Juan Guaido, the President of the National Assembly, claimed the Presidency, and the United States and several European countries backed his move. Russia and China are backing Maduro, and a full-scale international crisis is developing.
Hewitt praised the US intervention, using it as proof that the Trump Administration wasn’t following the Russian line on policy. But then he went even further, hoping that American involvement in Venezuela might serve to unify the nation, overcoming our internal political differences.
I don’t think Hewitt was calling for a foreign war to paper over our polarization, but he might have been. In this “Wag the Dog” scenario (after the 1990’s movie of a President who distracted from personal scandal by literally creating a war in the Balkans) the US would fight for Venezuelan democracy, along with our European allies. The socialist opponent, would be supported by Cuba and indirectly Russia and China. It would harken back to the Cold War anti-communist days, with a simple enemy for Americans to focus on.
And it would have the added benefit of blurring the lines between dictators like Maduro (and Chavez before him) and Democratic Socialists in the United States like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Should Trump survive to run in 2020, he could further weaponize the division through simplistic Twitter statements.
It was all “Sunday Morning Talk.” Then Monday, National Security Advisor John Bolton appeared at the surprise press conference, announcing additional sanctions against Maduro’s regime. The sanctions weren’t surprising; what was chilling was the note scribbled on the legal pad Bolton was holding: “5000 troops to Columbia.”
The Trump Administration has already announced the ominous phrase, “all options are on the table.” It must be tempting for them; to change the subject from Mueller and “Wall;” to reach for possible “national unification” in war. Russia, China: the Monroe Doctrine (and the Roosevelt Corollary) all could be applied.
I hope democracy wins out in Venezuela. I hope the United States uses all its diplomatic skills to make that occur. But Venezuela is not Granada, the island nation President Reagan invaded in four days in 1983. It is a nation-state with a long history of controversy and disruption; and a situation where American troops could be mired for decades. Military intervention there will not solve their problem, and it will not solve ours either. It will not paper over our differences, but simply make them worse.
