ABRAHAM LINCOLN LOOKS DOWN ON US in magisterial dominion from his throne in Washington's biggest monument—the American demigod. There is some justice in the symbol, because it was Lincoln who, with rivers of blood, destroyed the old Constitutional Union and founded the American nation that we know. As M.E. Bradford writes: "The truth about the life and death of Lincoln seems to matter very little when it is confronted by the myth." Even though, he adds, there is "God's plenty of evidence" ...