LJI: Literary Prize Fight, Round 2: "My Mount Rushmore"

 "The Great Secession"

(PARK RANGER shoos the last people out the gate, then turns off the lights.)

TOM: FInally. I thought they'd never leave!

GEORGE: Man, it's been a long day.

ABE: Could be worse. Could be raining.

TOM: Get us updated, Ted.

(TED turns on his Google Glass, starts reading Twitter.)

TED: Voter purges in Georgia, hurricanes in Florida, Trump holding rallies, dissent everywhere...yep, not much has changed.

TOM: (mumbles) Why do I have to share the title of President with that idiot?

GEORGE: You know, Abe, I've been thinking.

ABE: About what?

GEORGE: Maybe you should've just let the South secede.

(All pause.)

ABE: Come again?

GEORGE: Just let them go. It wasn't worth it.

ABE: But the Union--

GEORGE: Yes, they were part of America. But you said it yourself: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." And the divisions were too deep.

ABE: How so?

GEORGE: We wrote it into the Declaration, didn't we, Tom? "All men are created equal."

TOM: Wrote it, sure. Didn't always live by it, though.

GEORGE: Maybe not. But we sure believed it.

TED: Did you, though?

GEORGE, TOM, AND ABE: SHUT UP, TEDDY!

TED: Sorry.

GEORGE: Anyway, it was clear even then that some people were just never going to accept that as an inalienable truth. And I don't care how great a debater you were--

ABE: Have you READ those debates?

TOM: Yes. We've got nothing but time on our hands.

GEORGE: --you were never going to convince them. And neither was any amount of bloodshed.

ABE: So what would I do instead? Just...accept them?

GEORGE: Yes! They came to you with a fully-fleshed out Constitution, didn't they?

ABE: Yes, but by the laws of the land--

GEORGE: Laws, schmaws. Just say, "You know what, that looks pretty good. Welcome to the world, neighbor."

TOM: Could they have lived as neighbors, though? I'm not sure I would've wanted to live so close to the border.

GEORGE: So work out some treaties. Mutual defense, trade, border security...

TED: Build that wall!

GEORGE, TOM, AND ABE: SHUT UP, TEDDY!

TED: Sorry.

GEORGE: ...and recognize that even though you can no longer be united, you can still be allied states.

ABE: ...Would it have worked, though? 

GEORGE: Who knows? It'd be a damn sight better than what we've got now.

ABE: There probably would've been a war eventually.

TOM: Perhaps. The Union would still have won, though.

GEORGE: And maybe America wouldn't have become the global force that it turned into.

TOM: Maybe that wouldn't have been a bad thing.

ABE: Maybe the Germans would've won the war.

GEORGE: Maybe there wouldn't have BEEN a war.

ABE: Maybe we wouldn't even be here, right now.

TED: Well, I sure would be. Don't know about you guys.

GEORGE, TOM, AND ABE: SHUT UP, TEDDY!