From the Electoral College to structural racism, America is feeling painfully aware of its inherent flaws these days. None looms more ominously now than that awkward moment that is the presidential transition. In the momentous winter of 1860-61, the United States literally split in two during the haze between the failed presidency of Pennsylvania’s James Buchanan and the first-ever Republican administration of Abraham Lincoln that terrified the slave-addled South.Now consider this scenario: A seemingly unending crisis has ripped millions of jobs from the U.S. economy, with a growing homelessne…