For many, Abraham Lincoln has gone down in history as a martyr for his country. That’s in part because of his assassination by John Wilkes Booth, which occurred on Good Friday.

But Lincoln had already begun to be mythicised during his lifetime, some of his contemporaries drawing parallels between him and figures like George Washington.

Lincoln had his critics as well, particularly in the South: there were those who regarded him as an opponent to the values of personal freedom and states’ rights.