As I was sitting in the Jury holding area last week, I began to read volume one of the “Centennial History of the Civil War” by Bruce Catton: “The Coming Fury“.

Between periods of listening for my number to be called, I plunged into the 1860 presidential primaries. Those left wing liberal Republicans had the good-old-boy Democrats running in circles. Except that the main issue was homeland integrity instead of Homeland Security, the machinations seemed quite similar to recent news. That is, allowing for technological and social context.

We now know that the issue was powerful enough to split the conservative party down the middle, the liberal party won the election, and then the country split across the middle. Those were interesting times, in the Chinese Proverb sense.

This year the same formerly conservative party (“Democrats”) have as front runners two Senators who would have been ineligible to vote or own property in 1860. Some things do change.

But to keep this post short, a more recent historical note. I had cut this political cartoon from a paper some weeks less than 16 years ago and found it in my desk recently: