On December 19^th the Colorado Supreme Court ruled to remove Donald Trump from the presidential ballot in that state.  Then on December 20^th California’s Democrat Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis released a letter she had sent to the Democrat Secretary of State Shirley Weber instructing her to “explore every legal option to remove former President Donald Trump from California’s 2024 presidential primary ballot.”  Similar actions are underway in other states, as the Democratic Party overtly seeks to deny the Constitutional right of tens of millions of citizens to vote for the candidate of their choice. This has surprised many, but the history of the Democratic Party is replete with similar subversion of right to vote.

Most honest legal experts predict that the Supreme Court will overturn the Colorado ruling and, in the process, sweep aside all attempts to deny Donald Trump ballot status under the provisions of the 14^th Amendment.  Nevertheless, the Democrats, RINOs and other Trump haters are nothing if not fanatical, and further dictatorial dirty tricks by them should be expected.

Thus, it seems useful, at this moment, to remind our readers of the heritage of these kind of dictatorial operations.  The “Democratic” Party has never been a friend of Democracy, let alone of our Republic.

1860—the Prelude

Between 1801 and 1860, except for the four-year presidency of John Quincy Adams and a couple of other very brief intervals, the United States government was under the control of the Southern slavocracy.  In the 60 years between 1801 and 1861, the President of the United States was a southern slave owner for 40 of those years.  The Speaker of the House of Representatives was a southern slave owner for 46 of those years.  The Supreme Court had an almost permanent southern majority, and the entire nation suffered under constant threats by the south to secede if elected northerners did not surrender to southern demands.  Each new “compromise” resulted in an expansion of southern dominance. 

By 1860, however, the threat to continued southern rule was extreme.  The handwriting was on the wall.  In the slave state of Missouri, the Republican Frank Blair was elected to Congress, and in the slave state of Kentucky an independent anti-slavery candidate was also elected to Congress.  In Maryland a chapter of the new Republican Party was formed, and in both the highlands of Tennessee and the western region of Virginia, the Republicans began to recruit and build support.  Now, with the candidacy of Abraham Lincoln, the slavocracy faced the prospect of losing the Presidency. 

The response of the Democratic Party to all this was to double down with brutal tyranny.  Already, by 1859, anyone in the south who openly opposed slavery was subject to arrest, imprisonment and even execution.  In 1859 a northern minister who had been hired to teach at a Louisiana school was arrested when an abolitionist pamphlet was found in his living quarters.  He was hanged..  That same year, the great anti-slavery Democrat from California, David Broderick, was assassinated.  A reign of terror descended on the south.  In the slave state of Kentucky, the abolitionist Cassius Clay never appeared in public without a pistol and a Bowie knife in his waistband.  Two attempts were made to murder him, and in both cases he killed his attackers.

As the 1860 election approached, it became increasingly apparent that Lincoln would win a plurality of the popular vote.  The only chance the Democrats had was to deny Lincoln a majority of the Electoral College vote and to throw the election into the House of Representatives.  If that occurred, the new President would be chosen by the House members who had been elected in 1858—where the Democrats had a comfortable majority—not by the newly elected 1860 Congressmen. 

“You’re Not Allowed to Vote for Him!”

Their first step was to ensure that Lincoln receive no electoral votes from the south.  In those days, neither a Presidential candidate’s name, nor the names of his electors, “appeared on the ballot.”  There was no “ballot” per se.  Each party printed up their own ballots, with the names of the proposed Presidential Electors, and distributed the ballots to qualified voters.  On election day those voters then turned the pre-printed ballots in at the polling places.  In 1860, through threats, stonewalling and physical attacks, the Democrats prevented the Republican Party from doing this anywhere in the south.  To distribute these ballots, or to be an elector willing to have one’s name appear on a ballot, was to put one’s life in jeopardy, and everyone knew this.  As Lincoln’s friend Edward Baker accused the Democrats:  “You won’t allow us to go down south and recruit Republicans or we would soon have a host of converts in that latitude.”

As a result, no ballots were printed for Lincoln, and he received no votes in ten states:  Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, and in an additional four states—Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Virginia—Lincoln ballots were distributed in small numbers in only a handful of (mostly rural) counties.  In other words, southern voters were simply NOT ALLOWED to vote for Lincoln.  This is precisely the model for what the Democratic Party is trying to do today.  THEY will decide who you are allowed to vote for.

The deadly dirty tricks did not stop there.  In the northern states, the three other candidates—Stephen Douglas, John Breckinridge and John Bell—formed “fusion tickets” in a number of states, knowing that individually none of them could defeat Lincoln.  For example, if a combined Bell-Douglas or Bell-Breckinridge slate out-polled Lincoln they would take the state’s electoral vote and then later divide up the delegates between them.

“He’s a Dictator!”

Finally, the accusation was launched and spread through the news media—including in the north—that Lincoln was planning to impose dictatorial rule and overthrow the Constitution.  As proof of this, the anti-Lincoln coalition pointed to the “Wide Awake” movement which was created in February, 1860, as a small group of young men who volunteered to act as bodyguards for Cassius Clay when he delivered an anti-slavery speech in Hartford, Connecticut.  Originally numbering about 50, by March there were 2,000 Wide Awakes, and by election day in November there were more than 400,000 with chapters in almost every major northern city.  Southerners pointed to this as proof that Lincoln was organizing a coup d’état.

If one looks at the forces that were arrayed against Lincoln in 1860, it seems a miracle that he was elected to the Presidency.  Yet, it happened.  That tells you something about Lincoln, but it also tells you something about the American people and about our situation today.  The oligarchical evil and the crisis we face today are perhaps even worse than in 1860, but one must recognize the desperation of our enemy.  They are losing, and as in 1860, they are about to lose everything. 

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