The Apotheosis of the Lie

Publisher’s Note: Joe Sobran briefly discusses Lincoln’s subverting of the Constitution in the below column. For more on this topic, see Sobran’s 2008 column, Lincoln and His Legacy.

Sobran’s: The Real News of the Month, 2000 — “I cannot tell a lie,” the mythical little George Washington told his father. Parson Weems seems to have invented this edifying tale, and it summed up the old American assumption that republican rulers should be virtuous men, with honesty chief among their virtues. The...