"Abraham Africanus the First” was of course the chief target of the tar brush. “Passing the question as to his taint of negro blood,” commented a Catholic weekly, “Abe Lincoln . . . is brutal in all his habits. . . . He is obscene. . . . He is an animal. . . . Filthy black niggers, greasy, sweaty, and disgusting, now jostle white people and even ladies everywhere, even at the President’s levees.”29 Lincoln was “Abe the Widowmaker” who had sent half a million white men to their graves in this insane war to free the slaves because he “loves his country less, and the negro more.”
