Benjamin Franklin was the last of the Founding Fathers to advocate independence. He was a generation older than hotheads like Patrick Henry and Sam Adams and went to every length he could go to to avoid a rupture with the system that he knew could be fixed if the other party were simply more reasonable.

Robert E. Lee was the least likely secessionist, a man from an aristocratic lineage who spent three decades serving in uniform. He counseled restraint and compromise at all points until he deemed those things impossible.

The people Mr. Kristol should worry about are not the hysterical gun-bros with too-tight American flag skull shirts and pseudo-operator beards. The people that should concern him are the patient men with wives and children and a stake in the existing order who nonetheless conclude that things are so far gone that the time for words is over.