James Swanson, author of “Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer” spoke with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Friday, the anniversary of the Lincoln assassination, which took place on April 14, 1865.
Swanson discussed the manhunt for the assassin, John Wilkes Booth, as well as Lincoln as a man and his legacy as president.
As for his translation into politics today, said Swanson, “Conservatives and Republicans, I think, have the better understanding of Lincoln. They distort him less.”
Continued Swanson, “Everyone wants to be a Lincoln man, everyone wants to claim Lincoln. Lincoln certainly was a common man. He believed in equal rights. He believed in opportunity. He believed America was the greatest country in the history of the world.”
“But,” he added, “he didn’t believe in social justice in the way we understand it in the modern sense. He, of course, was anti-slavery. But the left seems to hijack Lincoln’s principles to justify vast national programs.”
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