ABSTRACT
In the years since his extraordinary death at the close of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln has been transfigured into an unassailable icon of the American union. We must confront Lincoln's cost to the character of our union, to the integrity of the Presidency as an institution, and to the nation's subsequent domestic and foreign policy. Lincoln began his administration in 1861 on a note of irony. In his inaugural address, coming after four months of disconcerting silence since his election concerning how he would handle the seceded states, he promised good will and prudential restraint on the part of the North. In Lincoln's mind, the union was not only perpetual, antecedent to the Constitution, and the creator of the very states that now sought to leave, it was also a spiritual entity, the mystical expression of a People. Lincoln's progressive view of history and his devotion to America's transcendent mission was evident throughout his political career.
