Read on Twitter
Those saying, over the past few days and on the House floor today, that impeachment, or accountability broadly, will only stoke more division and violence should learn the dark history of their rhetoric and perhaps abandon it posthaste.
A THREAD... https://twitter.com/SenatorTimScott/status/1349109681843826691?s=20
A THREAD... https://twitter.com/SenatorTimScott/status/1349109681843826691?s=20
In the first Congress under the 1789 Constitution, Franklin's petitions for the abolition of slavery generated outrage and threats from Southern states that such actions would threaten the great American experiment before it had a chance to succeed, leading to the Gag Rule
Before the Civil War, attempts were made to abolish slavery and trade in Wash D.C. as a step to national abolition. Southern Democrat Hugh Legaré responded to a 1837 bill by threatening the South would be ready to "take up the gauntlet" despite wanting "peace" See Sen. Preston:
Ahead of the 1860 Presidential election, Democrats from South Carolina warned of the division that would be created by the election of Lincoln. Then passed a formal resolution that the sheer act of electing Lincoln in a free and fair democratic election was an act of hostility.
During the House Debate on the 13th Amendment in 1864, those against abolition said that such a measure was not in the spirit of the Constitution and would only further push the Southern States away as President Lincoln was trying to put down the rebellion and secure allegiance.
The 1872 Minority Report from a Joint Committee reviewing the condition of Reconstruction in the South claimed that accounts of KKK violence and further protections of blacks amounted to the defamation of all white people in the South who only wish to move on from the crimes.
A final example, surely there are many, when LBJ and others pushed for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, opponents launched a filibuster that lasted 60 days. Once the logjam broke, Sen. Dick Russell gave the warning that this worked against unity and it will "cost the South."
This is just the tip of the iceberg of bad faith arguments made against progress and morality for the sake of unity. That somehow challenging a wrong or demanding accountability invalidates the rights and feelings of a group in opposition. That grievance or reaction is justified.
That our own actions to ensure accountability through enforcement and promote unity through healing somehow contradict our own ends. And thus non-action is the appropriate action so not to offend others who may not share such views and are party to said unity.
Yet, we need to look at these with clarity for exactly what they are and always have been: threats. And to realize what these threats are intended to prevent: the end of white supremacy.
