16. Abraham Lincoln was widely reviled by the press and public
As Abraham Lincoln was on his way to Washington to be inaugurated as President, an article appeared in a newspaper which compared him unfavorably to a “braying ass”. It was not a national newspaper but rather the Salem Advocate, published in Lincoln’s former hometown. More widely read newspapers were less than supportive, one, the Brooklyn Eagle, said the newly elected President, after being smuggled through Baltimore to avoid an assassination plot, should be treated with “the deepest disgrace that the crushing indignation of a whole people can inflict”. It wasn’t just the nation’s newspapers which demonstrated hatred for Lincoln; throughout his first administration, he received letters which contained threats on his life, referred to him as an ape, an orangutan, a baboon, a jackass, and other even less complimentary terms, most of which also appeared in editorial columns and cartoons. Even his Emancipation Proclamation was greeted with derision by many, the Chicago Times called it “a criminal wrong, and an act of national suicide”.