Letter: Please stop the hatred now

The level of division in the United States has not reached such heights since the Civil War, when the southern states said they could not live with Lincoln in the White House.

In April 1861, Confederate batteries around Charleston harbor opened fire on Fort Sumter. Mary Chestnut, the wife of former U.S. Sen. James Chestnut of South Carolina, wrote in her diary, 'We are divorced, north from south, because we have hated each other so.”

Fast forward 156 years and we might say, 'We are divorced, left from right, because we have hated each other so.” For the mental, economic and moral health of the United States, and the preservation of our democracy - please stop the hatred now! It is a poison that will kill the whole of our society. All will lose, and none will win.

Richard Pohorsky

Cedar Rapids