Flashback 1865. The New York Times on Abe Lincoln : “No living man was ever charged with political crimes of such multiplicity and such enormity as Abraham Lincoln.”

Professor Thomas DiLorenzo reports:

As with so many other statist stunts and superstitions, it all started with Lincoln. As Larry Tagg wrote in his book, The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln: The Story of America’s Most Reviled President, during his lifetime Lincoln was by far the most hated and despised of all U.S. presidents but became a “sudden saint” in death. On page 461 of his book Tagg quotes a May 1865 editorial in the New York Times about how “No living man was ever charged with political crimes of such multiplicity and such enormity as Abraham Lincoln.” The Times was referring to the words of Northern opinion makers. “He has been denounced,” wrote the Times, as “a perjurer, a usurper, a tyrant, a subverter of the Constitution, a destroyer of the liberties of his country, a reckless desperado, a heartless trifler over the last agonies of an expiring nation.”

An article worth your time.