ABSTRACT
In Thomas Dixon's hands, Abraham Lincoln took form as an unashamed spokesman for white supremacy, as an evangelist for the colonization of blacks, and an enduring skeptic on the matter of racial equality. By examining the circulation of Dixon's Lincoln, people can measure its extent and describe its limits in the early twentieth century. At the turn of the century, Southern-born authors such as Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Joel Chandler Harris joined Grady in transforming Lincoln from abolitionist beast to tender-hearted custodian of an injured South. In The Southerner, Thomas Dixon presents Lincoln's unionism as distinctively Southern attributes rooted in his Kentucky nativity. In Dixon's world, Lincoln's commitment to the union sprang from his Southern essence and his prophetic consciousness of black difference. Though history has generally been kind to Lincoln, it has been less forgiving to the volumes of stories fathered on him by Dixon.
