This is the second of two conversations about the House speakership election of Kevin McCarthy and historical parallels to the 1850s, when it often took dozens of ballots to elect a new speaker. The first conversation was with Sean Wilentz.
As politics grew increasingly violent in the 1850s, Americans understood that unresolvable conflicts over the extension of slavery and the disproportionate political power of the slaveholders could lead to disunion and war. In the view of some historians, activism outside Congress, driven by radical abolitionists as well as pro-slavery ruffians, forced the major parties to seek compromises and legislation designed to hold the country together, only to further inflame divisions. The result was the disintegration of the Whigs, the crackup of the Democrats and the creation of the Republican Party – the first major party dedicated to putting slavery on the course of ultimate extinction.
This political turmoil produced prolonged and acrimonious contests for House speaker in 1849, 1856 and 1859, a history that suddenly became relevant again when the House needed 15 ballots over five days to elect Rep. Kevin McCarthy, California Republican, as speaker of the House. In this episode of History As It Happens, University of Connecticut historian Manisha Sinha, a leading authority on the history of slavery and abolition, talks about the parallels between past and present.
“As I was watching the speakership contest over Kevin McCarthy, like most Civil War historians, I thought of those long, drawn-out speakers’ elections in the mid-19th century. There were many actors who brought that conflict to the forefront, and that resulted in partisan breakdown within Congress over the issue of slavery,” said Ms. Sinha, the author of “The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition.”
“What surprised me with the election of Kevin McCarthy was that we have a whole party that is being held hostage by these 20 extremists. In most of those Civil War speakership contests, a compromise candidate was found, and you would have both sides agree on the compromise candidate. One couldn’t visualize that happening today,” she said.
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If many antebellum Americans hoped national politicians could reach compromises to hold the country together, it is clear that in Washington today some lawmakers view compromise as anathema and the point of politics is not to govern but to cause chaos and dysfunction while demonizing your opponents.
Listen to historian Manisha Sinha discuss the issue of polarization from the 1850s to present, by downloading this episode of History As It Happens.
