The Reading Warehouse

The Civil War is about to end, but journalist, Harlan Pomeroy, has still not accomplished the purpose about which he obsesses; to kill Abraham Lincoln. Avid in his beliefs about states rights, the sanctity of private property, and free enterprise, Pomeroy is highly educated, and not a racist. In fact, he's in love with and marries Sally Hairston, a free Black from Tennessee. But he hates Lincoln so much for his expansion of the Federal government at the expense of the states and of individual freedoms that he twice tries to have him assassinated but fails. In Pomeroy's eyes, Lincoln is a socialist who's ruining the country by opening the floodgates of immigration to German's, the Irish and Italians so they can serve as cannon fodder for the North in the Civil War. So Pomeroy decides to ruin Lincoln's reputation with the public by spreading the lie that the President's real reason for fighting the Civil War was to foment a socialist class struggle in America. To do this Pomeroy founds a movement composed of industrialists, known as The Enlightened Association (TEA) to run a campaign of hate against the President. He also attempts to fill the press with headlines based on a letter signed by Karl Marx congratulating the President on his reelection and freeing the slaves. The letter was written on behalf of the European Workingmen's Association, and it is an actual true historical document. In this historical fiction portrayal, it was found in Lincoln's Hat when the hat was shot from his head in one of Pomeroy's failed assassination attempts. Lincoln often used his hat as a traveling filing cabinate for his mail and other documents. After John Wilkes Booth actually kills Lincoln, Pomeroy finds himself on the run from Allen Pinkerton and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton for what he's tried to do to Lincoln, and he hides out with negro friends of his wife in Tennessee. From there, he supports Andrew Johnson in his fight against the radical Republicans in Congress, which leads to Congressional gridlock, Johnson's impeachment, and the failure of the South's reconstruction. Instead of the rule of law, the Ku Klux Klan takes over in a rule of terrorr in the South with lynchings and roaming carpetbaggers perpetrating their frauds. Two of the casualties of this situation are Pomeroy's own wife and brother-in-law, who wind up hung in a Klan raid. Thus, as a result of his views, Pomeroy loses everything.