And the TEA Movements Anger
COLUMBUS AUTHOR TAKES ANOTHER LOOK AT LINCOLN IN RIVETING, NEW HISTORICAL NOVEL
April 5, 2016 Norie Libradilla Leave a comment
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Author David Selcer adds spice to history in “Lincoln’s Hat: And the TEA Movement’s Anger,” a historical novel that is set to hit the bookshelves nationwide this week.
Many have forgotten how unpopular Abraham Lincoln was in his time. He had to sneak into Washington for his first inauguration to avoid a reported assassination plot. He was opposed for his second term during the Civil War by one of his key generals. His resort to humorous parables at stressful moments exasperated his followers and detractors alike. Claims circulated that his lineage was partially black and that he fed his pets at the dinner table with a gold fork. He was a lightning rod for haters of every stripe, who didn’t hesitate to circulate outrageous stories of fiction about him.
The story of “Lincoln’s Hat” could have been one such story of fiction. Had his enemies known the contents of the congratulatory letter the sixteenth president received from the International Workingmen’s Association of Europe upon his reelection, they easily could have conflated it with his support for the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to paint him as a “socialist,” and the Civil War as his “war between the classes.” The congratulatory letter is a historical fact, and all the new civil rights legislation was the partisan work of radicals, albeit the radical Republicans of the day. Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, didn’t enforce the Constitutional Amendments nor, for that matter, did anyone else for the next 75 years. Ironically, had the Amendments been enforced, a strident movement like the Tea Party of today might have arisen back then among the Democrats, when the country was even more divided than it is now.
Published by Tate Publishing and Enterprises, the book is available through bookstores nationwide, from the publisher at www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore, or by visiting barnesandnoble.com or amazon.com.
Selcer, who was born on Lincoln’s birth date 78 years after the Civil War ended, has made studying Lincoln as a hobby for 50 years. He majored in American history and began writing at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Selcer has also written several murder mysteries for the “Buckeye Barrister Mystery” series.
Question: Does “historical fiction” actually change what occurred? Or is it simply a fictional story told against the backdrop of actual history during a particular period? Are the views held by Tea partiers today merely those that were held by the Democrat Party at the end of the Civil War that caused the Reconstruction of the South to fail? How are they different? How are they the same? Would things have been any different had Abraham Lincoln completed his second term?
Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and various other online and “brick and mortar” bookstores nationwide. Additionally, the novel is available directly through the publisher Tate Publishing on their website in numerous digital forms along with physical hard and soft copies.
