A Hollywood star growled Trump’s like ‘Hitler’ on TV. Trump roared Biden’s a ‘total moron’ at a rally. There’s not much kindness left in this election.

‘The past isn’t dead it’s not even past’ is an old truth. Reading dry tomes, diaries, following threads, Erik Larson just wrote a book about the firing on Fort Sumter.

Aging, George Washington saw slavery as evil but couldn’t see a way to end it without tearing a fragile nation apart. In his will he freed his slaves.

After he died, defending slavery, southerners called it a ‘necessary evil.’

The world changed.

Building mills, factories, railroads, the North landed in a new era – as the roots of the Industrial Revolution spread, needing workers not slaves, northern states abolished slavery. Power growing, abolitionists scorned southern planters as villains.

Scorn sowed anger: In the South fire-eaters striding onto stages, exploiting outrage, roared: ‘Slavery isn’t evil. It’s good.’ Southerners nodded, slavery went from being a ‘necessary evil’ to a blessing.

South Carolina fire-eater James Hammond was elected Governor, had an 18-year-old slave mistress, had affairs with four of his wife’s nieces – South Carolina sent him to Washington as a senator. Hammond crowed ‘Cotton is King,’ said the North’s economy would collapse if planters stopped sending mills and factories cotton; pouring gas on the fire boasted slavery gave the South an unmatched power – it could send more soldiers to fight in battles than the North. Cotton was king bred arrogance.

Running for president, Lincoln told southerners: You can keep your slaves. But we can’t have any new slave states.

Long white hair on his shoulders, hawk-faced, angry, craving attention, standing on stages, Virginia fire-eater Edmund Ruffin roared: Don’t believe a word he says. He’s going to take away your slaves.

Lincoln got no votes in ten southern states – but won. Sure cotton was king, blind to the risk of war, a small state – South Carolina – seceded before Lincoln took office.

The Secretary of State warned the president still sitting in the White House: Crush South Carolina, quickly. James Buchanan sat, did nothing. Six more states seceded.

In 1858 it took a fractured Congress months to elect a speaker. Two years later Vice President John Breckenridge, who’d run against Lincoln and lost, was in charge of counting the Electoral College votes. Congress convened, mobs took to the streets in Washington – the head of the Army, a southerner, Winfield Scott put lines of soldiers around the Capitol, stopped rioters. Inside the Capitol John Breckinridge counted the Electoral College votes, declared Lincoln won.

During his inauguration speech Lincoln promised southerners he’d pass a constitutional amendment to guarantee they could keep their slaves – then drew a line in the sand: No state could secede.

In Charleston Benjamin Ruffin fired the first cannon at Fort Sumter.

Writing about Fort Sumter in The Demon of Unrest Erik Larson told how, on January 6, as he watched rioters storm into the Capitol the past came alive in front of his eyes – sounded a warning:  Be careful. The demon is loose again.