Does History Repeat?

I cannot help but feel that we are a nation at war… with each other. We are two nations splitting along fault lines that may not be repairable.

America has not come to the blue and grey divide of the 1860s yet. We are more in the “Bloody Kansas” and Missouri border wars of the 1850s stage. What happened at the Capitol last week may have been the modern version of John Browne’s Raid of the Harpers Ferry armory in 1859. Coincidentally, Col. Robert E. Lee led the federal troops that crushed this insurrection.

If the authorities are correct about armed insurrection at all the state capitols later this week and next, then that could be our Fort Sumter. At some point if all 50 statehouses are attacked, there is a good chance at least one will fall to the modern-day rebels.

The Antifa and Maga sides of their day used violence against each other by those endorsing the expansion of slavery into the western states and territories and those that did not. The elites on both sides of the argument didn’t become involved in the border wars themselves but stroked the flames for their followers to fight.

In the decades leading up to the Civil War, there were at least 70 documented cases of congressmen and senators physically assaulting each other. It was common for members to carry pistols and knives on the floor. In 1856, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina walked onto the floor of the Senate and proceeded to “cane” Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts leaving him unconscious and severely injured. No…