Sick and tired of pro-Lincoln books during this bicentennial year of the sixteenth U.S. president’s birth? Here’s one that is anti-Lincoln and against his generals, his administration, and his supporters. Dr. John Avery Emison presents his arguments as to why Abraham Lincoln should not be as honored as he is almost universally today, chiefly that Lincoln and his administration did many illegal things that have helped create the powerful central government we know today.

According to Emison, Germans who had fought in the 1848 uprisings came to the U.S. to try to help form the strong central government that they fought for in Germany but failed to create there. Lincoln gained political support for his presidential election from many immigrant Germans, a demographic whose leaders had been involved in the 1848 rebellions to unite Germany. Some of these leaders, many of them intellectuals and military officers, were given commissions as generals and other officers in the Union army during the Civil War.

Emison argues that secession was indeed lawful under both the Constitution and international law, citing various court cases that allowed the possibility for secession and pointing up revealing slips of the tongue by various politicians and judges after the War that acknowledged the legality of secession. One major example is that the seceded states had to go through a process of re-admission to the Union; if secession were illegal, they had never left it.

He explores the lie that the Civil War was chiefly over freeing the slaves with the assertion that Lincoln and many others in the North were as racist as anyone else at the time. Emison relates how racist Lincoln was - and worse, his administration and generals were. Lincoln never considered blacks to be the equals of whites. General Sherman despised blacks and with Sheridan tried to exterminate American Indians. General Grant anti-Semitism betrayed itself when he ordered Jews in Kentucky and Tennessee to leave or be arrested; their property was looted while they left. Emison says these should be considered crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Emison’s work is an interesting view against Lincoln and his administration that attempts to wipe out the Lincoln myth as the Great Emancipator and greatest president. At first glance, some might think this book was written by a crack pot, but the research is well-documented. With its twenty black-and-white photos, endnotes, and index, Lincoln Uber Alles is recommended to Civil War enthusiasts and readers interested in Lincoln.

Dr. John Avery Emison is an environmental scientist with an interest in Southern history and Constitutional law. He has a B.A. in history from Union University, a M.S. in physical geography from Memphis State University, and a Ph.D. in resource geography from Oregon State University. He is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.