Loathing Lincoln: An American Tradition from the Civil War to the Present

Introduction

1 INTRODUCTION The founder of the modern conservative movement, William F. Buckley Jr., once said that Americans “shall not remember why lincoln was loved until we come to understand why he was hated.”1 Both emotions were certainly displayed in the immediate aftermath of Abraham lincoln’s assassination by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre. on April 20, 1865, the New Orleans Tribune, an African American newspaper that over the course of the civil War had periodically denounced the president for moving too slowly toward emancipation and black equality, told its readers: “Brethren, we are mourning for a benefactor of our race. sadness has taken hold of our hearts.” “no man,” the paper continued, “can suppress his feelings at this hour of affliction. lincoln and [radical abolitionist] John Brown are two martyrs, whose memories will live united in our bosoms. Both have willingly jeopardized their lives for the sacred cause of freedom.”2 on may 29, a little over a month later, shortly after lincoln’s body had been laid to rest in his hometown of springfield, illinois, edgar dinsmore, a black Union soldier stationed at charleston, south carolina, voiced similar sentiments, predicting that in the future “the name Abraham lincoln will ever be cherished in our hearts, and none will more delight to lisp his name in reverence than the future generations of our people.”3 distraught by the assassination, noted African American abolitionist Frederick douglass in June characterized lincoln as “the black man’s president.”4 White sentiment was no different. one clergyman, Alonzo H. Quint, predicted in his easter morning sermon that “in the story of the hard trial out of which America emerged a great and just nation, his name will be linked with its record as its martyred leader in its sufferings and its glory.”5 such loving appreciation, voiced all over the United states that spring, reflected the 2 Loathing LincoLn deep admiration for Abraham lincoln that had developed during the war and indicated the beginning of his heroic stature in American life. But other Americans, especially diehard confederates, vehemently disagreed with these laudatory assessments, and they expressed malevolent hatred for the president. Kate stone, a louisiana refugee living in Texas in 1865, thought lincoln had reaped a just reward for the “torrents of blood” that he had “caused to flow.”6 consequently, she praised Booth for killing him: “All honor to John Wilkes Booth, who has rid the world of a tyrant and made himself famous for generations.” stone hoped the famed actor and assassin would escape to the lone star state, where he could expect “a warm welcome.” later, after hearing of Booth’s death, she added in her journal: “Poor Booth, to think that he fell at last. many a true heart in the south weeps for his death.”7 likewise, the Texas Republican contended that “there is no reason to believe that Booth in killing lincoln was actuated by malice or vulgar ambition. He slew him as a tyrant, and the enemy of his country. Therefore we honor the deed.”8 The Galveston Daily News expressed essentially the same thought, predicting that in the future Booth would not be called a murderer but, instead, would be “awarded a place amongst the chivalric and heroic benefactors of mankind.”9 in la Grange, Texas, the True Issue editorialized that the assassination was a justifiable tyrannicide: “it is only a matter of surprise to us,” the paper declared, that it took over four years to kill a president who had wielded “the scepter of tyranny and despotism thus long.”10 lincoln’s secretary of war edwin stanton, assuredly aware of such sentiment in 1865, proclaimed lincoln a man for the ages, and indeed he has been as the arguments surrounding his legacy remain bitterly contested nearly 150 years after his death. When it comes to the subject of Abraham lincoln, it often seems that the author of ecclesiastes was right to wearily lament, “of making many books there is no end.”11 Yet the numerous individuals and scholars from all walks, regions, and eras of American life who have challenged accepted views of the civil War president form a rich, controversial, and heretofore largely unexamined area of lincoln scholarship.12 Although historian don e. Fehrenbacher penned a short essay on lincoln’s enemies in 1982, that was over thirty years ago, and thus far there has not been a detailed chronological investigation, which this work provides, of the numerous ways in which...