Bestriding our history.(books, arts & manners)(Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America)(Book review)

Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America, by Andrew Ferguson (Atlantic Monthly, 304 pp., $24)

NO, not a gay Lincoln, or a racist Lincoln, or a warmongering Lincoln, or a big-government Lincoln, or--for that matter--a perfect Lincoln. In his new book Land of Lincoln, Andrew Ferguson offers us something far more fascinating than yet another reinterpretation of Honest Abe; what he treats us to is a sparkling tome about how Americans process their history--how they celebrate it, debate it, and (sometimes) impersonate it. Ferguson, a veteran conservative journalist, handles Lincoln's America as any good reporter would: He tells a great story.

Ferguson estimates that there have already been nearly 14,000 books about Lincoln. And he would know: As a youngster, Ferguson was a member of Lincoln Nation. His father was a lawyer at a firm founded after the Civil War by the sole child of Abraham Lincoln to survive into adulthood. Ferguson grew up on Lincoln Street, as luck would have it; in his youth, photographs of the lanky icon hung on his wall.

Many of us can relate. I grew up in the Northeast, where our teachers taught us to venerate Lincoln's memory. How could anyone challenge Lincoln's place in our hearts? How could anyone loathe the Great Emancipator? Of course, plenty of folks do. It was a 2003 melee surrounding a statue erected at a Richmond, Va., park that led Ferguson to investigate Lincoln's place among the people. Would-be Confederates protested the effigy: After all, how could a Virginian worth his salt sit by and allow Lincoln to (eternally) hang out in the former Confederate capital? You almost feel for them. Almost.

One of the first things we learn is that Lincoln haters are touchy--particularly when it comes to the subject of race. As Ferguson points out, most serious critics of Lincoln don't want their "Abephobia" to be confused with "Negrophobia." Accordingly, they revel in pointing out that Lincoln was never really an abolitionist, but, in fact, a racist. (As if these allegations, even if true, would somehow shield neo-Confederates from their obnoxious views on race relations.)

The 16th president was, in fact, one of the most hated Americans of his time. Still, taking shots at the man who saved the Union, freed the slaves, and was murdered by an assassin's bullet is ... awkward. Ferguson writes that "after the assassination, Lincoln's acquaintances, including those who had bitterly opposed him, imposed a self-censorship. His martyrdom, one journalist said at the time, 'has made it impossible to speak the truth of Abraham Lincoln hereafter.'" Even today, his faults pose a rather prickly dilemma for critics.

Nevertheless, these days there is a renewed interest in knocking Lincoln down. The most celebrated attack is The Real Lincoln, by libertarian economist ...