I've received many thousands of emails in response to my book and articles on Lincoln. One of the most astute letters I've received so far came recently from Larry T. in California:
"What interests me most is the amazing Lincoln cult itself, in which our most ruthless politician has become a saint, a christ, and finally a god. I don't know if anyone has ever analyzed this cult in detail, but it begs comparison with the leader cults of the 20th century. The ersatz piety and sanctimoniousness has the obvious function of draping Lincoln's unprecedented abuses of power, but there is more to it than that. . . . What to my knowledge has not been explored is Lincoln's chilling mastery of the rituals of blood sacrifice. Lincoln would have understood Lenin or Mao, but he could have taught them a few tricks."
"Lincoln's use of the war dead to sanctify revolutionary change laid the emotional foundation for American nationalism. His own generation provided him with the materials (as in the text of the "Battle Hymn") and understood what he had done. . . . "
"Lincoln not only created a leviathan state which has a bad habit of launching crusades abroad to distract the masses from problems at home; he also taught subsequent presidents the dark art of using war and casualties to discredit opposition and rally the electorate. "
"Lincoln would smile at the recruitment of world Trade Center victims as ghost campaigners. He would have no trouble grasping the logic of "it may have been a mistake to invade Iraq, but now that we've taken so many casualties we have to stay the course."
'What the Lincoln cult needs to hide most is the fact that Lincoln, like all successful dictators, was a master emotional manipulator. The founders' experiment with a new kind of government based on "reflection and choice" lasted four score and seven years. Undr Lincoln the ancient curse of government by "force and fraud" returned with a vengeance."
