While giving a fiery speech against Lincoln, Fernando Wood calls him "King Abraham Africanus The First." This epithet is based on a real pamphlet from 1864 titled "Abraham Africanus I: his secret life, revealed under the mesmeric influence; mysteries of the White House."Amen.
This pamphlet, printed by the "Copperheads" (a group of Democrats from outside the Confederacy who were nonetheless sympathetic to the Confederate cause and opposed to Lincoln), claimed that Lincoln had signed a contract with Satan to enable him to seize the US presidency for life and to "subvert the liberties of the American people and debauch their civic aspirations; to impose upon them in every imaginable form of low cunning, and cheat them with words of double meaning and with false promises, until by these, and kindred means, that end is accomplished, and his dynasty firmly established."
(My wife and I watched Spielberg's Lincoln last night and were startled to hear the above epithet. She searched the 'net afterwards and found this explanation.)
As an interesting coincidence, one of the physicians who attended Lincoln after his assassination was Albert Freeman Africanus King.
Sounds a lot like the conspiracy theories about Obama. History repeating itself?
ReplyDeleteI agree. In general, anyone who who puts an emphasis on Obama's middle name, I tend to tune out. They do that because they want him to sound scary. Don't even get me started with those stupid birthers.
DeleteInterested, since you've recently watched the movie, if you agree with a complaint I had.
ReplyDeleteI felt a better ending to the movie would have been the credits rolling after he puts on his hat walking down the hallway towards his carriage.
I thought the recounting of the shooting was unnecessary (since we all know how that happened), and took away more than it added to the film.
What say you?
I quite agree. The assassination is a whole different story from the focus of this film; I don't see why it had to be pasted on to the end.
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