On April 9, 1865, the Confederate army under Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. U.S. Grant. The Civil War launched by the Democrats was over — or was it?
While the surrender of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia to Grant at Appomattox Court House was not the last Confederate surrender of the U.S. Civil War (another Confederate army had yet to surrender), it was undoubtedly a decisive victory for Grant and the Union and spelled the inevitable and final defeat of the Confederacy. The Union was finally abolishing slavery once and for all, and Lee's army, which had rounded up and enslaved or killed God knows how many black civilians and soldiers while abusing white Union officers, had to lay down its weapons. But the Civil War did not end at Appomattox Court House, nor even at Bennett Place, scene of the last major surrender of the war on April 26. In fact, it arguably never ended. Democrats simply shifted from firing cannons and rifles on a battlefield to weaponizing courts, laws, the press, and riots.
One of the most misleading claims in modern politics is, “This is not the Democrat Party of your grandfathers.” It is — and of your great-great-great-grandfathers. Now, obviously, in some particulars, there has been a shift. The Democrats of the 19th century were perpetually spouting Bible verses, even if they turned around and severely abused their slaves or violently attacked their Republican opponents the next day (e.g., see Frederick Douglass’s autobiography and the Red Shirts’ history).
Those 19th-century Democrats claimed to love our founding documents, even though their party platform always espoused policies explicitly antithetical to freedom and the idea that "all men are created equal." Certainly, Stephen Douglas and Jefferson Davis would be shocked by Barack Obama, "Rachel" Levine, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But the party of Douglas and Davis used the same political tools and espoused the same violence as the party of Obama, Levine, and AOC, and the former certainly paved the way for the latter.
For Our VIPs: Booker T. vs. Leftism: ‘Character, Not Circumstances, Makes the Person’
In the 1800s as much as in the 2000s, the Democrat Party utilized politically-fueled domestic terrorism, election fraud, character assassination, extreme rhetoric, race-baiting, and emotionally manipulative propaganda. The 19th century Democrats argued that unpaid foreign labor through slavery was absolutely necessary to their financial success. Modern Democrats argue that cheap foreign labor through illegal immigration is absolutely necessary to their economic success. The 19th-century Democrats believed that freedom was a zero-sum game, where the more free they were, the less free others must be — and modern Democrats believe the same.
From the Red Shirts and the KKK to Antifa and the anti-ICE rioters, from John C. Calhoun to Joe Biden, from Jim Crow to sanctuary policies and CRT, there is a continuum of Democrat lies, tyranny, racism, and violence. In the 19th century, Democrats justified the Fort Pillow massacre and the KKK assassination of Rep. James Hinds (R-Ark.), and in the 21st century, they justify a 1,347% increase in assaults against ICE and the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
At Appomattox Court House, Grant and his fellow Union soldiers had great hopes for the country to heal and experience peace. But they reckoned without Democrats' irrational zeal. The same fanatics who launched a Civil War to prove their "right" to enslave black men did not change their fundamental goals or their warped moral standards just because they had to surrender on the battlefield.
The Democrats' Civil War never really ended; it just changed form.
