People who are not from the USA may be unfamiliar with our patriotic song "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" written by Julia Ward Howe. It's one of the better ones and written during our Civil War as an anti-slavery anthem based on another song called "John Brown's Body".

John Brown tried to seize arms to start a slave revolt but was unsuccessful and was executed in 1859. You can visit a National Park at Harpers Ferry, West Virgina where Brown made his last stand with his followers.

Ironically, the Republican Party back then was very progressive by the standards of the day. Even as late as the 1960's there were progressive Republicans. Of course that's all ancient history now.

Republican Abraham Lincoln would find today's Republican Party totally unrecognizable and extremely distasteful.