While Scrooge and Subby were talking, a servant shouted from outside: "Abraham Lincoln! Mr. Lincoln is here!"

"Ah, Scrooge, John, Mr. Lincoln has arrived." Subby said, "Let's go and welcome him."

"All right," Scrooge said, still curious about the next president of the United States, who would leave a monumental reputation in future history.

"Mr. Lincoln is now a lawyer, he was a congressman, and in '50, when the slave owners made a mess of the Congress, Mr. Lincoln quit the Congress. He became a lawyer again." As he walked toward the door, Sobey also forgot to introduce the main character of the reception, Lincoln, to Scrooge.

The mansion standing at the entrance of the Lincoln is very conspicuous, because he is too tall, and seems to be taller than Subi ahead. So much so that Scrooge somehow came out of his head for a while with the phrase: "It's a waste for this guy not to go to the NBA." It's a good thing he doesn't have the problem of blurting out whatever comes into his head that some crossovers have, or he would have to spend time explaining to people what the NBA is.

Scrooge knows that there is a joke about Lincoln's height.

As a young man, Lincoln joined the militia in San Gamon, Illinois. His colonel commander was a short man, and Lincoln was so tall that he greatly outnumbered the commander. Because he felt tall, Lincoln was accustomed to walking with his head hanging and bent over. The colonel was very angry at his stooped posture and brought him in for a reprimand.

"Listen, Abe," the colonel shouted, "hold your head up high, you fellow!"

"Yes, sir," Lincoln replied respectfully.

"Hold your head up high, you fellow," the colonel insisted, "and hold it up higher."

Lincoln had to straighten his body, stretch his neck out, and ask, "Is that all right?"

"A little higher." The colonel said.

"Do you want me to look like this forever?" Lincoln asked.

"Of course you do, you guy, do you even have to ask?" The colonel was furious.

"I'm sorry, Colonel," Lincoln said with a sad face, "then I'll have to say goodbye to you because I'll never see you again!"

To be able to see others, Lincoln still maintains the posture of hanging their head and bending over, which also makes him appear extraordinarily kind and affable.

"This Lincoln looks like and the previous generation in the history book to see the picture is different, well then the book in the picture of the ugly look." The United States election is not a beauty contest, but if a person's image is too bad, or will be at a disadvantage? A guy who is this ugly, how did he get elected?"

But now is not the time to discuss this, because Mr. Lincoln has come up to them.

"Hello, Mr. Sobey. How's business these days?" Lincoln asked.

"Thanks to President Buchanan and the Democratic Party, the business has been terrible," Sobey replied.

"After all, the dark days are over, and your business will be as good as America's," Lincoln said in a double entendre.

"Well, Subby, you should introduce me to these friends." Lincoln continued.

Next, Sobey introduced Rockefeller and Scrooge to Lincoln, and Lincoln talked to them politely, surprised by Scrooge's youth.

......

After the guests gradually arrived, the reception began. Lincoln began with a speech in which, in addition to his usual criticism of Southern slavery, he also criticized the economic policies of the Democratic Party, especially the suicidal policy of maintaining ridiculously low tariffs at a time of crisis, when other countries throughout the world were raising their tariffs one after another.

"At first, we expected the Democrats to come up with effective economic policies to pull the United States out of the crisis, and then we expected them to at least take some solid actions to give us some confidence, but now we are praying to God every day that Buchanan will not do too much to interfere with the natural recovery of the U.S. economy. God, it would be great if he could finish four years without doing anything." Lincoln's satire of his political opponents was not at all gentle.

I have to admit that Lincoln's speeches were very good, and his jokes and insults were all good. After listening to his speeches, you can understand why he became the president of the United States. For example, in today's speech, he repeatedly stressed that the crisis could have been an opportunity for the United States to take advantage of the retreat of European capital to seize a large number of important sectors and markets from the control of European capital back into the hands of U.S. capital, and he repeatedly stressed that he could use those means to help U.S. He kept emphasizing the means he could use to help American entrepreneurs seize this opportunity, and that he would not let their expectations be dashed if they were willing to support him.

On the issue of how to deal with the South, Lincoln emphasized on the one hand that both the South and the North belonged to the same America and that under the premise of one America, everything could be discussed. On the other hand, he also recognized that the spirit of freedom was the foundation of the United States, and that slavery was fundamentally alien to it and that the question of slavery was not whether it should be abolished, but when it should be abolished. On this issue, the South must show their loyalty to the spirit of freedom.

"I believe that when the barbarous, vicious system of slavery was ended, it was not only the Negro slaves who were freed but also the great mass of the Southern people." Here again, Lincoln's words were heartfelt and touching.

"Mr. Lincoln got to the heart of the matter, and he understood what we cared most about." Scrooge told Rockefeller, "By 1860, he will be president."

"I dare say he won't get a single electoral vote in the South." Rockefeller said, "But the votes of the North will be enough to make him president."

"That's why the South must be so upset about his election. The fact that a man who could not even get a single electoral vote in the South could become president by a clear margin means that the South and the North are divided, and the South has lost its political influence completely. Even if the Southerners oppose it again, the North can elect a president who fully represents their interests, and can control both houses of the Senate and the House by the double advantage of numbers and states. Under such conditions, the South has completely lost almost all of its political influence, and they no longer have any influence in the federal government, in other words, this federal government will no longer represent their interests. Under these conditions, what choice did the South have but to withdraw from the Union?" Scrooge clasped his hands to his chest and said languidly, "At that point, as long as we are prepared, we will receive the most lucrative returns. That's the beauty of investing in political futures."

By this time, Lincoln had finished his speech, and the waiters brought out plates filled with glasses of golden champagne with an enticing aroma. The guests took up their glasses and began to wander around the courtyard talking. Another waiter brought out a notepad and started collecting donations for the Republican Party. If you are willing to donate five dollars to the Republican Party, you will get a Republican Party card, and then, you are a Republican.

Political parties in the United States are much more arbitrary than those in some European countries. Whether it's the oldest Democratic Party, the fractured Whig Party, or the now-emerging Republican Party, they all lack a tight organization. Joining or leaving a political party is easier than a child's playground, a tradition that has continued into the 21st century. In his last life, Scrooge had an American classmate who changed from Democrat to Republican and back to Democrat several times within a month because of his views on environmental protection, marijuana, abortion, homosexuality, and other issues.

Generally speaking, if you claim to have voted for a party in an election or donated to its political fundraising, well, you're a member of that party. As for the activities and discipline after joining the party, well, the only discipline is probably that if you are a Republican, you should vote Republican in the election, and the same is true for other parties.

In those parties in the United States, there are so-called party leaders, but they don't necessarily hold the so-called party positions. Moreover, the party does not have a "chairman" or "secretary general" or anything like that. The traditional explanation for this situation is this.

This situation reflects the American people's love of freedom and their instinctive vigilance against any organizational fetters that might be imposed on the precious freedom of the individual. It is this love of freedom and vigilance against totalitarianism that makes America a beacon of freedom, blah blah blah blah ......, as if the American people were wood elves belonging to a chaotic camp of goodness.

But the fact is, any industrial country is bound to belong to the camp of order, the difference is that they are the angels of order good, or order neutral titan, or just the evil dragon ribs. Because the industry is the most needed to organize, the most emphasis is on the order of production. Any country that rises in response to the tide of the Force of order - the industrial revolution - is bound to be a member of the order camp.

If we look at the U.S. Constitution and the system of separation of powers, how structured and orderly is it? The reason for the looseness of the political parties is that the political parties in the United States do not take on more social functions than those in some countries. It is not the political parties that carry out these functions and are in charge of the entire United States, but the large, well-ordered consortia that hide behind them.