Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory

Graphic material below the break (Photo of dead men at the Battle of Gettysburg)

  In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected as the first Republican candidate to run for president on a platform pledging to limit the spread of slavery. As a response, seven slave states in the deep south seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. Lincoln and the majority of the citizens in Northern states, refused to recognize this secession for fear that it would fracture the United States in multiple squabbling countries.

Corpses left unburied at the Battle of Gettysburg

  On April 12, 1861, the Confederacy bombed Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay. With this act, the United States Civil War began. The war would continue until 1865, claiming countless lives and leaving scars that would not heal for many years to come. The Union won the war, and slavery was abolished, but tensions between the Northern states and the Southern states run high even to this day.


  On November 9th, 2016, Donald Trump was elected as the 41st president of the United States of America. He is well known for inciting violence and hatred towards minority groups. His politics appeal only to a small minority of the American voter base. In response to the election results, there has been a movement growing that calls for resistance. One suggestion has been #CalExit. The idea being that California and other blue States should secede from the US as a method of protest given that their tax revenue largely supports red States economies. I'm not sure this is a good idea.

Thure de Thulstrup's Hancock at Gettysburg

  I will admit that I never understood the reasoning behind the South's decision to secede. I understood that it revolved around a desire to keep slaves and to avoid change to their ideology, but I felt the very notion was almost treasonous. And yet, here I am, strongly supporting CalExit. My politics are different, to say the least. Supporters of CalExit want increased civil liberties rather than increased oppression of certain minority groups. We support equality for all US Citizens regardless of age, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, etc. However, we're still essentially stating that we want nothing to do with America as a whole and would be better off on our own. We're still advocating the destruction of carefully constructed diplomacy and democracy. And I think that, much like Lincoln feared, we still would run the risk of breaking America into a number of small, squabbling, countries.

  During the Civil War, families would find themselves torn apart by political differences. Those who supported the Confederacy might leave a family that supported the Union or vice-a-versa. Brothers would be pitted against each other on the field of battle. Thankfully, we haven't quite reached that point yet. For the majority of Americans, political strife in the family is going to amount to little more than a heated discussion at the dinner table. So why don't we keep it that way? I wholeheartedly agree that we need resistance against Donald Trump and his dangerous shpiel. I just don't think it should be a violent resistance.

Anger and Fear about a Trump Presidency Spur Protests

  History has a frightening way of repeating itself. Throughout the years, I've often heard people ask "Will this be the start of World War 3?" I'm not sure that's the only question we need to ask. I think it's time to take a long hard look at ourselves and ask if we might not be about to start the second civil war. Tell me, parents, do you want your children growing up on a battlefield? Do you want to leave a life for your children where they have to fight just to survive each day? Do you want to leave them a life where their own country is divided and at any time their own backyard might become a battleground? I didn't think so.

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