Yes Lincoln was never denied the term president, it prefaced the other titles most used “ape,” tyrant, ogre and the like by his fellow northerners. For a man who never received a majority of the vote his actions were worse than hideous.

Perhaps Mr. Hitchens can enlighten us all where in the Constituion it reads that it was binding forever? Or gave Lincoln the power to war on states leaving the Union. Perhaps Mr. Hitchens could explain why as a precondition to the ratification of the Constitution all states agreed to the stipulation of three states that they be allowed to depart the union at any time for any reason.

Of course Islam isn’t a threat compared to Lincoln. He compiled a butcher’s bill that equalled all American wars until Gulf War I combined.

Quite an accomplishment. Quite a villian.

Is he going to re-create the assassins that were waiting along the route, too? Is he going to pose as an invalid going through Maryland to fool assassination plotters? Maybe he can get a female Pinkerton agent to accompany him as a bodyguard. How far is he going to go to try and make himself into the black Lincoln?

No, Islamic terrorism merely threatens us with violent death. If Hitchens is worried about unjustified Presidential powers and its effect on civil liberties, what about FDR’s interment of American citizens on the grounds that they were Japanese? Many high school history books either gloss over this fact (blaming “bureaucracy” or J. Edgar Hoover, or whatever), or ignore it completely.