The two materialise again - the air is hot and stuffy. They are in a busy street.

Yellowfang: Ugh, still not StarClan. Remind me why I signed up to this again?

Wikipedia: You didn't.

Yellowfang: *her lashes tail silently for a few moments, and she is resigned to observing their surroundings* Not much has changed since last time.

Wikipedia: No. It's still the 1860s.

There is a loud shout. The two cats shrink away as two twolegs bump into each other, one of them holding a large basket. Newspapers fall to the ground.

Yellowfang: *leaps to the side, narrowly avoiding being squashed by the rolls of paper, her fur on end* Wh-what is this?!

Wikipedia: *glancing down at the pages* aah, I see. It's the election results. From the election that was at the top of google's search suggestions before Hamilton became a thing. The election of 1860. The other year where everything turned to foxdung in America.

Yellowfang: Election...wha???

Wikipedia: Twolegs have a different system of leadership to the clans. They vote for their leaders, and this outcome was...problematic. In a different sort of way to the most recent election...

Yellowfang: In what way?

Wikipedia: In 1860, the political parties were so fragmented that there were four candidates - Douglas, Breckenridge, Bell and Lincoln. And Lincoln won, but...

Yellowfang: But?

Wikipedia: *shakes her head* There had been sectional tension-

Yellowfang: PFFFFFTTTT

Wikipedia: Shut up. By that I mean...huh, this will actually take a while to explain. So the Not So United States of America were divided geographically, and the votes being cast in congress were determined by geographics rather than party lines. The North and South had been disagreeing over a number of things, but the most important were economics, and as a consequence, slavery. And this tension grew and grew for a solid thirty years before the civil war broke out. President Buchanan, who held office from 1856-1860 certainly didn't help things, and Lincoln's success in the election was basically the Southerners' last straw.

Yellowfang: *is following approximately 10% of this* okay

Wikipedia: He only had 40% of the popular vote, and although his stance on slavery was actually incredibly moderate, the south had stareotyped all republicans-

Yellowfang: wait what aren't the south the republicans

Wikipedia: Did I tell you that??????

Yellowfang: ¯\_(•-•)_/¯

Wikipedia: Well, things changed. The Republicans and Democrats of before hold little resemblance to the Republicans and Democrats of now.

Yellowfang: Or maybe you should say........democats

Wikipedia: (๑•ૅㅁ•๑)

Wikipedia: No

Wikipedia: Anyway, everyone in the south thought the Republicans were all violent abolitionist extremists, like John Brown. And they were mad. Lincoln leading the country when he didn't represent all of its people...it was the breaking point.

Wikipedia: ...

Wikipedia: Not exactly........unfamiliar.

A leaf of paper blows in front of the two she-cats, and then the scene before them is gone. The time machine sucks them into the sky.

Chapter by Leafyyy
(I feel like this was actually way heavier than I intended oops.)