When our country was grappling with the scourge that was slavery, we held a party. For reasons unknown, this very uncivil event was misnamed the Civil War, at least by the Yankees. To the loser south, they called it The War Between the States.

One sorry result of our (very un)Civil War was the rapid, widespread growth of a group that named itself after the sound of a firearm being loaded, Ku Klux Klan. Its first appearance was in the late 1860s and slowly petered out to something much smaller by 1890. It was violent, it targeted black leaders, it targeted Republicans. At that time, the GOP was the party of Lincoln. It was liberal, empathic, caring, anti-slavery, pro-worker, and pro humanity, as we might describe it now.