ABSTRACT
In the realm of historical heroics, where the will to believe is forever locked in hard wrestle with the will to disbelieve, the line of ascent to the status of American national hero would seem to be from local to sectional to national. If an American hero does not attain to sectional status, he has little chance of becoming a national hero. Heroics there are dangerous to the principle of equilibrium which is vital to the American conception of the nation. The Northerner may attempt to annex the Southern hero, as Mr. Hendrick does, by distilling out of him most of his sectional essence. The Northern hero gets appropriated—or cancelled—by some depreciatory or possessive legend. There is a legend, well known in every part of the South, that Lincoln was the illegitimate son of John C. Calhoun; and another one claims that Lincoln was the half-brother of Jefferson Davis.
