I punctures the Great American Myth and topples Father Abraham from his throne in his Olympian Temple on the Mall. Wars are not fought over other peoples' labour systems; they are fought over the control of other peoples' resources. This is imperialism, and the rulers of imperial nations who wage these wars wage them for power and self-aggrandizement. Lincoln and his crony-capitalists cloaked their crime in robes of morality, and duped posterity with what Voltaire called "the propaganda of the victorious."

The Confederacy had nothing to gain and everything to lose by inaugurating war against the industrializing colossus, but when Lincoln waged his war of invasion, conquest, and coerced political allegiance, he drove Virginia, "The Mother of States and Statesmen" – among others – out of the Union.