One thing I found ironic is the suggestion that the Republicans continue to be the party of Lincoln, representing the general ideas about equal rights for our Black citizens; and that the Democrats represent the party of Jim Crow, the Ku Klux Klan, and others that worked to suppress Black rights. I know that is how it was back in the antebellum days and perhaps may have been correct if one goes back to as recently as 1960; but since then things are totally different. The parties have changed roles.
1860 brought us the Civil War which was a war about the rights to hold Black folk as slaves. Leading up to it various compromise were worked in Congress trying to keep the balance between the slave and free states in an attempt to keep the nation together. As opposition to slavery grew, the election of Lincoln, showed the power of the slave states in the national government would be lessened and slavery imperiled. Eleven states voted to leave the Union to form their own country: the Confederate States of America. They were South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennesssee.