The Great Centralizer: Lincoln and the Growth of Statism in America

Abraham Lincoln as the “Federal Phoenix”

The Lincoln myth is the cornerstone of the ideology of American statism.

Lincoln was the most-hated president of all time during his own lifetime, as Larry Tagg documents in his book, The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln: The Story of America’s Most Reviled President.

The fact that he is now the most revered of all American presidents is a result of the work of generations of court historians and statist apologists who have literally rewritten American history in the same manner that the Soviets rewrote Russian history to consolidate their political power.

The deification of Abe Lincoln eventually led to the deification of all presidents, and to the American state in general, as Professor Clyde Wilson has written, effectively resurrecting a version of the medieval notion of the divine right of kings…

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