In explaining why the North and South went to war in 1861, historian Shelby Foote argued that “the genius of American politics is compromise.” He was referring, of course, to the compromises that made the writing and adoption of the Constitution possible in 1787, of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 that quieted the debate over slavery for a generation, and of the Compromise of 1850 that briefly silenced the dispute over the expansion of slavery in the territories won from Mexico during the Mexican-American War.
However, I think it's safe to say that once again the political center, where compromises are fashioned, no longer exists. Are we drifting back to the climate of 1860?
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--Mobilis in Mobili--
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