Lincoln understood this. Too bad we've grown so stupid in the intervening 150 years.
It isn't stupidity. Sorry, but I wish it was.
While stupidity may swell the ranks of those seeking to impose totalitarian rule on these United States, it isn't the driving force.
That, instead, is the result of diverse efforts channeled together by funding which commonly traces back to a handful of sources at most for the purposes of fomenting mayhem in our streets. Those forces have been working toward this end since before the New Left hijacked the old Democrat Party (which would never have desecrated Confederate memorials, graves, or symbols). Their entire raison d'etre has been to push Marxism in the schools, at first to hamper the efforts of the US during the Cold War, and now, to create yet another failed Socialist utopia (because they have all failed). We saw with the Weathermen (yes, that 'quaint' terrorist outfit Bill Ayres and Bernadette Dohrn belonged to) the 'logic' that there would be blood in the streets from which their Communist 'people's republic' would arise, and that the (then) 25,000,000 or so Americans who could not be reeducated would have to be eliminated.
Since then, Marxists have made serious inroads into the political system and the Universities and media where they daily filter the information given to the public, shaping worldviews and philosophies on an individual basis, en masse. We are the 'eggs' they want to break to make their omelette, as are the monuments to our history.
When it comes, and it assuredly will, we will all be told the totalitarian edicts will be for our own protection, the sacrifice of our Liberty will be for our own security, the loss of our rights will purchase safety, and nothing will be farther from the truth.