They haven’t changed a bit in all these years.

In 1860, with the election of Abraham Lincoln as U.S. president, the newly-formed Republican Party controlled the U.S. House, Senate, and presidency. As was the case with most every state in what would become the Confederacy, my home state of Georgia cited slavery, Tepublicans, and the election of Lincoln as its reasons for seceding:

A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the federal government has been committed [the Republicans] will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia [who voted to secede]. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican Party under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. . . . The prohibition of slavery in the territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of…