The yankee Demigod has Fallen
The Death of a Tyrant and His Coin
(Dixie Drudge) - There’s an old tale that used to make the rounds at Southern (and sometimes northern) campfires. It details how a drunken white-trash lawyer in Illinois had dreams way beyond his capability. He dwelled on outrageous success night after night as he lodged in the back of a ramshackle general store. That was all he could afford as his career was going nowhere fast. One night as he drank himself into a stupor with his feet hanging off a too-short cot, all that changed.
A well dressed and elegant stranger loomed over him. Startled, Abe reached for a plow coulter, the closest make-shift weapon. However, the stranger raised a calming hand and introduced himself as the captain of Abe’s ship, the ship that had just come in…
He told Abe he had come to recruit him for the latest new political movement. He was sure he could be a star like none had ever seen. He could turn his legal career around. Give him success. Abe could be in the legislature. Congress. Even President. Why stop there. Abe could have absolute power. School children would be taught to practically worship him. Adults too. He could promise Abe that every American would carry a bronze icon of him in their pocket. If only Abe would follow his instructions to the letter…
Even in his drunken state, Lincoln couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He still had enough sense to know it was too good to be true. But… This stranger had references. He knew the most powerful people in the land. People with money, power. Everything Abe had been stewing over for a decade, yet it had always been beyond his reach. The die was cast. Abe signed up. The stranger told him to get a bath and a shave, tossed him a purse and told him to buy new clothes, and told him he’d be in touch. After the stranger left, Abe opened the purse. It held thirty newly-minted silver dollars…
Lincoln’s rise after that was indeed meteoric. Legal success. The Legislature. Just as promised. Abe tossed aside the young woman he had been pursuing and found another with money and family influence. All with the sound advice of his advisor who always popped around at the right moment. He found himself the star of a new politically party and rode it hard. After a hotly contested election, he found himself in the White House. All his peers said it was ‘Divine Intervention.’ He had come to know better.
War came. The fun was over. Abe knew the bill was coming due soon. The check was called in 15 April 1865 at Ford’s theater in a night of celebration at Abe’s triumph. One moment he was enjoying the play. The next he was amidst smoldering brimstone, facing the stranger who had never been a stranger.
The dark one had had shined so brightly when he visited Abe on earth took out his book and marked the account settled.
Abe had only one question, if it was allowed.
“Sure,” came the answer, “It’s the least I can do after the splendid death and destruction you have wrought.”
“Who was it that shot me?”
The dark one chuckled then answered, “He was a nobody. Just like you. He couldn’t measure up to his family or his peers. But he wanted to be the most famous actor in America.”
For more than a hundred years we have all carried that Icon of Abraham Lincoln in our pockets. First in copper-bronze, then in a weak copper-tin mix, finally in a worthless copper-plated zinc. Now, the penny will be minted no more. Thanks to Abe’s fellow travelers, a penny is now so worthless that it would be too expensive to make it from plastic. His statues are torn down now by descendants of the same slaves he claimed to have freed. The worship of the myth of Abraham Lincoln is waning fast.
They replaced the image of Liberty with this tyrant. Good riddance.
Bless your heart, said with a southern accent…