Republicans seeking to repeal or to replace the new health care bill (passed by a margin of 2 votes in the House) have been called “nullifiers” (by E. J. Dionne) or sour-grapes politicians who cannot gracefully accept defeat. That is partisan rhetoric advanced by liberals, most of whom have been carping for years about repealing the Bush tax cuts, the Reagan tax cuts before that, the welfare reform law, and numerous other policies and programs they do not like.

By their standard, even Abraham Lincoln would have to be judged a nullifier and a sour grapes politician. Lincoln's entire career, up until the moment he was elected president, was based upon repeal of existing policies that he said were sympathetic to slavery.

Early in his political career, while a member of Congress in the mid-1840s, Lincoln opposed the war with Mexico, calling it an unjust war designed to extend slavery. He was ridiculed by opponents for taking that stand, and for a short time even driven from national politics.

A few years later, when Democrats passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, which opened up new territories for slavery, Lincoln called for its repeal and helped to organize the Republican Party around the principle that the legislation should be reversed. He was called a sectionalist and an enemy of national progress and unity for taking that stand.

In 1857, when the Supreme Court handed down the Dred Scott decision, Lincoln called for it to be overturned. His enemies said that he was undermining the authority of the Court and the rule of law—and again promoting sectional discord. He was, in the words of Mr. Dionne, a “nullifier.”

How did Lincoln plan to overturn the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott decision?

Those measures could be overturned, he said, by electing members of Congress who would repeal the Act and electing presidents who would appoint new members to the Court who would in turn reverse the Dred Scott Decision. These became the objectives of the new political party that Lincoln eventually led. He did not denounce the Constitution or pronounce the country lost to slavery, but turned to constitutional processes to reverse doctrines that he thought unwise and dangerous. He persevered in this even though some participants in the anti-slavery cause—John Brown—resorted to violence.

We know that Lincoln and his supporters managed to overturn those policies, though it took a civil war to accomplish it. Would it have been better if in 1846 or 1854 or 1857 he had said, “OK. You win. We will accept defeat and go home.”? That argument has been made, and it is a serious argument. Few today, however, would embrace it.

The interesting question today—and one yet to be decided—is whether the health care bill will resemble more the Social Security or Medicare Acts which proved to be popular and were sustained by public opinion or the Kansas-Nebraska Act which divided the country and was eventually reversed? I'm betting on the latter.

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