The Lincoln We Need

These last 20 or so years has seen a bifurcated treatment of Abraham Lincoln. There are the enthusiasts and hagiographers that still revere him as the best that America has to offer — the proverbial great emancipator, Father Abraham. Then there is a second stream, enthusiasts of another sort, viewing the Civil War president in the opposite manner. That second group are the Lincoln haters. Those such as Thomas DiLorenzo, the sort that calls Lincoln a criminal and despot, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., the sort that castigates Honest Abe as an unremitting racist, have been joined by a small group of Lincoln detractors trying to convince America that Lincoln is to be discounted, even hated by history.