Quorum Denied

In the Illinois State Legislature in 1839 the Democrats had sponsored a bill requiring the state’s central bank to “make payments in gold or silver, rather than paper money.” The members of the Whig Party (the precursor of today’s Republicans) were strongly opposed to this measure (my…how things change…now it is the hard right folks like Beck calling for a return to the gold standard).

The chosen strategy of the Whigs to block the bill, as they did not have the votes to actually defeat the measure, was to stage a walkout in order to deny the Democrats the quorum necessary to vote on the bill. With the numeric breakdown of the Illinois Legislature at the time, two of the Whig members were able to be present and there still be no quorum, so two stayed in order to officially point out that there was no quorum.

However, the Democrats had managed to secretly bring in another Whig, thereby creating the necessary quorum. One of the two that had originally stayed actually literally jumped out the window of the state house in an attempt to block the vote.

That individual was to eventually become the first Republican President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.

Now that it is Democrats that are attempting to essentially do the exact same thing to the modern day “Party of Lincoln” here in Wisconsin (deny them a quorum) that Lincoln himself did to the Democrats in 1839, the Republicans want them literally arrested. I guess that means that they believe that Lincoln should have been dragged into the Illinois State house in handcuffs back then, as they would like to see with the “Wisconsin 14”?

Time and time again, the Republicans prove that hypocrisy is what they’re best at.