History Interlude

I have been reading the excellent Civil War Daily Gazette, which--in honor of the sesquicentennial--has been presenting daily updates on the war as it happened, 150 years after the fact, beginning with the November 1860 presidential election. The reaction to Lincoln's victory played out like this in Savannah:



Click to embiggen, or just take my word for it that the flag of secession they've hoisted up there at the foot of the obelisk has the familiar Don't Tread on Me snake on it, accompanied by the phrases "Southern Rights" and "Equality of States." On the same day, the Charleston, SC newspaper stated “The tea has been thrown overboard, the revolution of 1860 has been initiated.”

I probably don't need to point out our own modern-day tea-festooned mobs brandishing snake flags and howling about states' rights, or, say, Arizona's legislature pursuing a Nullification bill, or even more generally the entire right wing of America losing its collective shit after another "black" candidate gained the White House.

Go read the Gazette, starting with the November 2010 archives. It's fascinating, and, after only a few posts, alternately depressing and terrifying.