Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

President Obama today is faced by two implacable enemies. Outside our borders there is radical Islam, which hates him as the leader of the secular Western world. Within there is the extreme conservative alliance, dedicated to defeating any attempt he makes to solve national problems.

In 1860 President Lincoln faced just one enemy, the internal threat of secession by radical States’ Righters, who hated him as the leader of a majority who would vote to destroy their economic and social system. He offered compromise. They replied at Sumter, and four bloody years later secession ended at Appomattox.

All along the Republican Party were the stalwart defenders of the President and the Union. Where does that party stand today?

W.R. Deeble, West Tisbury