It seems that the Washington, D.C. crowd is having a Twitter attack to respond to President Trump's remark questioning why the political leaders did not avert the Civil War.

Trump said:

People don't realize, you know, the Civil War – if you think about it, why?  People don't ask that question, but why was there the Civil War?  Why could that one not have been worked out?

Intellectuals like Chelsea Clinton and California Democratic representative Barbara Lee and CNN NeverTrump David Frum took time from their busy schedules to go to Twitter.

Trump asked a legitimate question as to why the political class did not avert the Civil War, which led to the death of over 600,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands injured.  There are thousands of books written on the causes and effects of the war, but when Trump asks the question, it somehow becomes illegitimate to question the cause.

Chelsea and Barbara Lee say the cause was slavery.  But that is not the question posed by President Trump.  He asks why the political class failed to deal with the issues that led to the war.  Of course, this question is not answered by a Clinton or Lee, speaking on behalf of the Democratic Party, because they did not understand the question or chose to deliberately misunderstand the question to take cheap shots at Trump.

The simple answer to Trump's question about why the political class failed to deal with the issues that led to war is that the Democratic Party insisted on expanding slavery to the new states and territories under the guise of popular sovereignty to allow each state to vote on slavery.  The Democrats knew that their power would decrease with the admission of free states and therefore sought to expand slavery. 

The issue led to the breakup of the Whig Party and the formation of the Republican Party as the anti-slavery party.  But it did not break up the Democratic Party, which remained the party of slavery.

It is a comment on the intelligence and honesty of Clinton and Lee that they do not say their Democratic Party was the party of slavery that ultimately caused the war.  Frum is just another NeverTrump.

Before Lincoln, the first Republican president, the Democrats had nine of the thirteen presidents after John Adams, including stars in the Democratic Party pantheon such as Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Van Buren, and Polk.

The simple answer to Trump's question is that the Democrats were the party of slavery, just as today they are the party of abortion.