The presidential election was unusually heated. The Republican Party standard-bearer campaigned on a contentious social issue. The Democrats warned that the Republicans were extremists and their victory would lead to disaster for the country. Talk of a third-party candidacy was everywhere. The Democratic Party had been badly wounded having suffered devastating losses in the most recent mid-term elections two years previously. The Democrats had sponsored and passed a federal piece of legislation that divided the nation. The Republicans were still involved in crony capitalism.
Would this be the presidential election of 2012?
No, I’m referring to the presidential election of 1856. The more things change the more things stay the same. Four years before the election of Abraham Lincoln and the coming War Between the States what can the presidential election of 1856 teach us? Or will we have failed to learn the lessons and will history repeat itself and an internecine confrontation become inevitable?
Many people are calling the presidential election of 2012 one of the most momentous in U.S. history because of the stated goal of stopping President Obama, Obamism, and Obamacare.
But, as is says in the Bible, there is nothing new under the sun. The 1856 presidential election and the subsequent Dred Scott decision in 1857 failed to quell the disunity in the country, which was only resolved by the War between the North and the South, 1861-1865. Today’s unresolved issue is whether Statism – the belief that the government should rule and is the source of wisdom in the nation – will win the day or whether the United States can be restored as envisioned by the founders.
What can 1856 tell us about 2012?
The first should be that a minority view can rapidly become the majority view and take over the country. In 1856 a mere 33.1 percent of the population voted for the anti-Slavery Republican Party, which means that two-thirds of the electorate favored maintenance of the status quo if it meant preservation of the federal union. On the other hand, Democrat James Buchanan received only 45.3 percent of the vote and still won the presidency by advocating for the continuation of the grand compromise and allowing the states to invoke “popular sovereignty” to decide the slavery question.
Amazingly, a third party, known as both the American Party and the Know Nothings, gained 20 percent of the vote running on a Nativist platform, concerned as they were about the first wave of Irish (Catholic) immigration and whether the Irish could become good Americans. Nevertheless, the issue of the day was slavery, and “Bleeding Kansas,” and the Democratic federal government permitting a policy of popular sovereignty there that threatened to allow the state to enter the Union as a slave state. Interestingly, today, we have Obamacare and the attempted federal takeover of the health care system in the United States. For many, including the numerous Attorneys General who have brought the suit against Obama, Obamacare is the proverbial “line in the sand” that cannot be crossed.
Even more interestingly, the challenge to Obamacare before the U.S. Supreme Court mirrors what happened in 1857 when that court ruled that a fugitive black slave named Dred Scott could be returned to his master even though he had already resided in a Free State. Moreover, the court decided then that Dred Scott as a slave was not a person and therefore had “no standing” to bring the case. The Chief Justice at the time, Roger B. Taney apparently believed that the court’s decision would help hold the Union together by “resolving” the slavery issue between the several states.
Will today’s court also believe it is preserving the Union if Judge Anthony Kennedy sides with the four liberal justices in upholding Obamacare? This would basically assert that the federal government’s authority is unlimited. To the point, if today’s Supreme Court decides that the individual mandate to buy health insurance meets the Constitutional standard of allowing Congress to regulate interstate commerce by virtue of the so-called “Commerce Clause,” then today’s Americans will also have their boneheaded Supreme Court ruling similar to what transpired in the late 1850s with Dred Scott! Not completely analogous to 1856, but pretty darn close.
What about talk today of a third party candidacy? Everyone wonders what Republican candidate Ron Paul wants. He, like Newt Gingrich and even Rick Santorum, refuses to withdraw from the Republican campaign despite Mitt Romney’s wide lead in delegates. In 1856, former President Millard Fillmore garnered 21.6 percent of the electoral vote, although no votes in the Electoral College. Fillmore ran a close second to Buchanan in the South, but won only 13 percent of the vote in the North. Overall, he finished third in the popular vote behind first-place Buchanan and second-place Republican John C. Fremont. What is clear is that the anti-administration sentiment captured 54.7 percent of the vote, a clear majority.
Let’s speculate for a moment that those today that identify with the Republican Party could learn the lesson of 1856. First they would have to disavow Statism, the belief as Obama said that “only government can solve the economic problems of the country.” Of course, they would have to go much further on so many fronts including foreign policy based on national interests rather than nation-building, scaling back entitlement and entitlement programs, and assuredly fiscal conservatism. Then Obama could be defeated with a solid majority based on these and other similar principles. That achievement, therefore, theoretically could begin some kind of unwinding of the progressive American century and a return the United States to self-government and liberty and the establishment of a “more-perfect union.”
As I’ve stated previously, this political realignment needs to take place with the Republican Party changing its name to the U.S. Patriot Party. Otherwise, we are going to be partying like it’s 1856. History has an unpleasant chance of repeating itself even worse this time in a second civil war or even much worse, a revolution. Time will tell.
Daniel Wiseman ——
Bio and Archives
Daniel Wiseman is an independent political commentator, who focuses on national and international affairs. He spent nine years as a professional journalist in Wyoming before working in fund-raising, non-profit management, and is now working in New York City. Wiseman focuses his writing on how to bring the United States back to its Constitutional moorings. He writes exclusively for Canada Free Press.
