Larry Tagg and The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln is often regarded as one of the greatest presidents of all time, but he was a lightning rod for dissent and ill will while in office. Musician-turned-author Larry Tagg explores this side of Lincoln in his book The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln: The Story Of America’s Most Reviled President. In advance of Tagg’s reading at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum on Wednesday at noon, Decider talked with him about how winners write history, President Barack Obama’s train ride to Washington, D.C., and Hall And Oates.

Decider: How did you end up writing this book?

Larry Tagg: I was looking for a good story, and I kept coming across a recurring theme of these terrible opinions of President Lincoln. I was amazed at the amount of contempt for him.

D: So the popular assumption that he was always beloved isn’t true?

LT: There were people at both extremes who thought the Emancipation Proclamation was a terrible idea. He got a lot of opposition at the time, and you never hear about that. He never had Obama’s mandate. It’s funny to me that Obama took a train ride to Washington in a show of solidarity with Lincoln. Lincoln’s original train ride was a public relations disaster. He had to ride in the middle of the night in order to avoid an assassination attempt. When the newspapers heard about it, they just roasted him. Lincoln’s approval rating at the time he took office was about 25 percent. It was worse than George Bush’s was going out, and about the same as Nixon’s before he resigned. Lincoln got elected the first time with the lowest percentage of any winner ever.

D: How come we never hear about this?

LT: The winners write history, for one thing. Lincoln was always unpopular even though he got reelected—it was only by 1 percent more than he did his first term. He only became a revered figure after his assassination. Northerners used him as a political football in order to make the South pay. There was a lot of vengeful stuff going on. The whole idea of Lincoln the martyr, a Moses who led his people to the promised land, but then wasn’t able to cross over. That’s the genesis of the figure we think of today. But there’s good reason we perceive him as we do today. With distance, we can see the greatness of this man.

D: It’s hard to believe he was hated that much.

LT: People thought he was the biggest rube. His grammar was bad and he didn’t impress anybody. It makes a great tale to see how he managed to do what he did. There was just so much vehement opposition. A newspaper editor in La Crosse, Wis., actually suggested someone be Brutus and stab him. That was right before the 1864 election. It’s all pretty sensational.

D: Do you think people will bristle at your portrayal of his story?

LT: My angle is pro-Lincoln, but it isn’t really worshipful—it’s against the grain. I think conversation is good. I also think it ennobles him to have people learn he had so much opposition, and makes him a more heroic character. Though there might be some people who are miffed at the book. People don’t like to have their icons be seen as bunglers and vacillating timid types, which is what a lot of people thought about Lincoln in his time.

D: You’re a long-time musician. Are you also a trained historian?

LT: No, I come from a line of musicians and teachers. I played in Bourgeois Tagg in the '80s. I also played with Todd Rundgren for a while, and Hall And Oates. Right now I’m a high school teacher in Sacramento. This is my second book—I also wrote The Generals Of Gettysburg. I’d like to be part of the Lincoln conversation, and I’d like to be taken seriously.

D: Going from Bourgeois Tagg to Civil War author seems like kind of a strange path.
LT: Well, I was a songwriter, too. I wrote for Warner Chappell Music. I was a pop music guy, and you can’t really do pop music after you reach your mid-40s. But I was always the one on the tour bus reading a book, and it was usually a Civil War book. So it’s always something that’s been with me. I don’t think it’s all that weird, but it’s definitely not something I started out to do—I had to do the music thing first.

Here’s a clip of Bourgeois Tagg on The Tonight Show: