President Trump has called the impeachment inquiry facing him “bullshit” and tweeted furiously that it is nothing less than a coup. He has even warned of a civil war. These claims are as incendiary as his demonization of immigrants, his barely veiled anti-Semitism and his embrace by and of white supremacists, all of which have already led to violence, hate crimes and slaughter.

That is the threat he holds over our heads: to “tear our country apart” if Congress holds him accountable, a threat militia groups, including those with ties to white power organizing, are taking seriously. Yet if we bow down to his threats, it will once again be the United States capitulating to extortion, something made possible by Trump’s commitment to a raft of racist policies he promises his base in return for unchecked power.

When it comes to a nation held hostage to racism, we have been here before.

During the Revolutionary War, the British occupied New York City, ran George Washington’s Continental Army nearly ragged and went in for the kill as they attacked the rebellion’s soft underbelly — the South. Georgia and South Carolina were not ready for the onslaught. They simply could not find enough white men willing to take up arms to fend off the oncoming assault on Charleston and Savannah. As the British got closer and closer to Charleston, the Continental Congress rushed a representative to South Carolina with a plan. There were men available, the representative from Congress pleaded, they just were not white. It was time, he said, to arm the enslaved.

The South Carolina government recoiled in “horror” at the suggestion. This war for liberty did not and could not include those of African descent.