• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
    • About Current
    • Masthead
  • Podcasts
  • Blogs
    • The Way of Improvement Leads Home
    • The Arena
  • Support
  • Way of Improvement
  • About John
  • Vita
  • Books
  • Speaking
  • Media Requests

What if Trump refuses to give up power?

John Fea   |  September 2, 2020

Election of 1860

Clarkson University political scientist Alexander Cohen says that “American democracy will survive” if Trump decides to contest the election of 2020. He points to five previous contested elections: 1800, 1824, 1876, 1960, and 2000. In all five cases, democracy survived. But the contested election of 1860 was different. Here is a taste of Cohen’s piece at The Conversation:

The election of 1860 was a different story. 

After Abraham Lincoln defeated three other candidates, Southern states simply refused to accept the results. They viewed the selection of a president who would not protect slavery as illegitimate and ignored the election’s results.

It was only through the profoundly bloody Civil War that the United States remained intact. The dispute over the legitimacy of this election, based in fundamental differences between the North and South, cost 600,000 American lives.

What is the difference between the political collapse of 1860 and the continuity of other contested elections? In all cases, citizens were politically divided and elections were hotly contested.

What makes 1860 stand out so clearly is that the country was divided over the moral question of slavery, and this division followed geographic lines that enabled a revolution to form. Further, the Confederacy was reasonably unified across class lines.

While the America of today is certainly divided, the distribution of political beliefs is far more dispersed and complex than the ideological cohesion of the Confederacy.

Read the entire piece here.

If history is any indication, we will all make it through a potential Trump refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election. On the other hand, Americans have never seen a president quite like Trump. Stay tuned.

Filed Under: Way of Improvement Tagged With: #ageoftrump, 2020 Election, Abraham Lincoln, Donald Trump, Election of 1800, Election of 1824, election of 1860, Election of 1876, Election of 1960, Election of 2000, Joe Biden

Primary Sidebar

Patron Access

The Way of Improvement Leads Home

Commonplace Book #238

February 4, 2023 By John Fea

Commonplace Book #237

February 3, 2023 By John Fea

Rod Dreher in Hungary: “blogging and backtracking”

February 3, 2023 By John Fea

The Organization of American Historians responds to the Florida controversy over AP African American Studies

February 3, 2023 By John Fea

More from The Way of Improvement →

The Arena Blog

Equity and Justice at a Harvard Abortion Conference

February 3, 2023 By Daniel K. Williams 1 Comment

Complicity and the Failure to Care

February 2, 2023 By Elizabeth Stice Leave a Comment

Welcome to the Arena

February 1, 2023 By Nadya Williams Leave a Comment

“The Arena” is coming to Current

January 31, 2023 By John Fea Leave a Comment

More from The Arena →

Subscribe via Email



Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide

Footer

Contact Forms

General Inquiries
Pitch Us

Search

Subscribe via Email



Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide
Subscribe via Email


Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide