Washington Gridlock – A Brief History of How We Got Here
It might sound odd, but I think that had Abraham Lincoln not been assassinated we might not have gridlock in Washington today. I have come to believe that the Southern state politics is the key to understanding how we inherited our current deadlocked political situation and how the assassination of Lincoln had a huge affect on how Southern politics developed after the Civil War. The following is my brief interpretation of the history that lead to the political gridlock prevalent in Washington DC today
As you can imagine Lincoln, the first Republican President, was not universally beloved in the South after the Civil War. John Wilkes Booth believed that he was striking a blow to revive the Southern cause by killing Lincoln five days after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House. In reality he did the South a huge disservice. For you see, Lincolns first priority was preserving the union and his plans called for swift and orderly re-assimilation of the Southern states back into the union fold. Had he not died when he did, it quite possible that Lincoln could have supervised the relatively peaceful and orderly reunification of the nation, but that was not to be.
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ow-we-got-here/ ?