In a little more than a week, Americans celebrate the birth of Abraham Lincoln, their 16th president as part of a federal “President’s Day” observance.
In the annals of American history, Lincoln, the sixteeth president of the United States, is accorded a special place because of his role in the Civil War. After the Union won the war, Lincoln became known as the “Great Emancipator,” referring to his role in freeing African-American slaves from bondage. Modern Republicans consider him the progenitor of the modern incarnation of their party, and the American people by and large portray him as a warmhearted Christian and a honest family man. Some people admire his humble upbringing on the then-frontier state of Kentucky, while others look up to his style of leadership and herald him as a military genius and master orator who helped the Union fight through the Civil War.
However, there is another side to Lincoln. This tyrannical side is often overlooked by the victors of the Civil War, and as a consequence seldom mentioned in history books. As American economist and historian Thomas J. DiLorenzo, and author of the book “Lincoln Unmasked” said:
The gigantic collection of myths, lies, and distortions that comprise The Legend of Abraham Lincoln is the ideological cornerstone of the American warfare/welfare state. It has been invoked for generations to make the argument that if the policies of the U.S. government are not “the will of God,” then at least they are the will of “Father Abraham.” Moreover, this legend — this false history of America — did not arise spontaneously. It was invented and nurtured by an intergenerational army of court historians who…are absolutely indispensable to any government empire.
The “real Lincoln,” is far from the benevolent and kind old man which has been taught for generations in schoolbooks and classrooms. Lincoln’s faults, in fact were numerous, both as an individual and a politician. Far from being the humble statesman that he is often portrayed as, he was, in fact a megalomaniacal tyrant whose influence on American politics were a death-knell for the Republic and the beginning of the American Empire.
Perhaps the most obvious were the draconian measures, that Lincoln took during the war to prevent criticism of his office and his person. Lincoln appropriated powers that no previous chief executive had thus far used. He suspended the writ of habeas corpus, and imprisoned 18,000 American citizens suspected of supporting the Confederacy without trial. Further, he jailed several thousand more citizens for attempting to vote against him, charging them with “polluting the ballot box,” and ordered purges of politicians who disagreed with him from congress in an attempt to supress anti-war sentiment within the Union. He also unconstiutionally invaded two non-seceeding states along with the Confederacy on the pretense that secession was treasonous, even though several states had attempted to seceed earlier in the 19th century and had not been found in violation of the law, and several states only signed the constitution in the first place under the assumption that secession was always an option.
Lincoln was ideologically very close to the German theoretician Karl Marx the father of communism. In his book Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, the American historian James M. McPherson writes, “Lincoln championed the leaders of the European revolutions of 1848; in turn, a man who knew something about those revolutions — Karl Marx — praised Lincoln in 1865 as ‘the single-minded son of the working class’ who had led his ‘country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.” This is confirmed in a letter that Karl Marx himself wrote to Lincoln, in defense of his war against the Confederacy, stating: “From the commencement of the titanic American strife, the workingmen of Europe felt instinctively that the Star-Spangled Banner carried the destiny of their class.” In fact, Lincoln became such a hero to socialists and communists, that during the Spanish Civil War, the anti-Nationalist forces enlisted the help of the so-called “Abraham Lincoln Brigade,” which consisted of socialist and communist volunteers from the United States. In a nation which seems to be struck with horror at the slightest mention of Soviet or Chinese communism, it is indeed odd that Lincoln’s clearly socialist leanings are almost never referred to.
Lincoln is often referred to as the “Great Emancipator,” in reference to the Emancipation Proclamation. However, a close examination of the Proclamation reveals that it only freed slaves in states not currently occupied by the Union Army. Lincoln issued strict orders to the Union Army not to free any slaves they came across. Today, the historiographers and propagandists in America state that the War Between the States was fought to free the slaves, as evidenced by the Emancipation Proclamation. However, there were diverse issues leading to the Civil War, and the Emancipation Proclamation was only a political gesture which attempted to undermine the support that the Confederate States of America would recieve from European powers. Abraham Lincoln on many occasions claimed that African-Americans were an inferior, non-human race. He refused to align himself with abolitionists because he felt that they were too radical because of their claim that African-Americans were human beings. Finally, he wanted to forcibly deport all people of African descent back to Africa or possibly to a Caribbean nation because he believed that they were polluting the White race.
Another issue is that of Abraham Lincoln’s religious practices. Today, there are even many Christian churches which see Abraham Lincoln as a Christian. However, the truth is that despite the fact that Lincoln frequently quoted from the Bible as a political gimmick, he was never formally baptised in any church, nor did he join a church as an adult (it is possible, however, that he attended the Little Pigeon Church – the church his father attended – as a child). Historian and Christian author Dr. Mark Noll, Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, states that “Lincoln never joined a church nor ever made a clear profession of standard Christian belief.” It is known that Lincoln had associations with the Freemasons, a satanic and anti-Christian cult. In 1860, while addressing the Grand Lodge of Illinois, Lincoln was recorded to have said, “Gentleman, I have always entertained a profound respect for the Masonic fraternity and have long cherished a desire to become a member.” Lincoln personally stated, “the Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma,” and was reported to have written a polemic against Christianity [1]. Lincoln was also known to have practiced witchcraft, often using ‘spirit mediums’ to contact his deceased son; Mary Todd Lincoln is said to have held séances in one of the upstairs rooms — a practice President Lincoln enthusiastically tolerated. Here, we see that history debunks yet another popular myth on a revered historical character. Far from being a Christian, Lincoln can be considered Deist at most, and atheist at worst.
Today, another American President has risen to fill Lincoln’s shoes — or so the media tells us. For a person who supports foreign wars, eavesdropping on citizens, indefinite detention, or the right to kill citizens without due process, Obama perhaps fits the bill, although not in the way that the elites would like to admit. One can only wonder what extraordinary fabrications and tales of wonder the future court historians will invent to propagate that myth.
