Our Country

Description

Following the Civil War, previous Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens compared Abraham Lincoln to Caesar, the “destroyer of the freedoms of Rome!” Lincoln’s patriot development of the Constitution and his utilization of official capacity to arraign the war and end subjugation recommended the com-parison. Keeping in touch with Americans who likely knew the Bible better than they knew old-style history, Stephens likewise contrasted Lincoln with Hazael, a dark oppressor of antiquated Israel. In any case—traditionally or scripturally—Lincoln epitomized tyranny, and Stephens fought that Lincoln’s “nonsensical” dedication to the Union drove him to merge government power to the detriment of the states, to make liberation a war point, and to disregard the common freedoms of thousands of political rivals during the war. “The Union with him, in conclusion,” Stephens said of his previous congressional partner, “rose to the sublimity of a strict mysticism.”