Abraham Lincoln Was Also a Politician Who Would Fuck Your Shit Up:
On President's Day, it's good to remember that, despite the deification going on, especially in the last year or so, Abraham Lincoln was a politician, a man who wanted to get into office and was willing to pander to the public to do so. Here's a response Lincoln wrote to the people of the Seventh Congressional District in Illinois when he was running for Congress in 1846. Lincoln had been accused of being anti-Christian because political campaigns have always and forever been filthy affairs. He responded forcefully to the charge:

"A charge having got into circulation in some of the neighborhoods of this District, in substance that I am an open scoffer at Christianity, I have by the advice of some friends concluded to notice the subject in this form. That I am not a member of any Christian Church, is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or of any denomination of Christians in particular. It is true that in early life I was inclined to believe in what I understand is called the 'Doctrine of Necessity'---that is, that the human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest by some power, over which the mind itself has no control; and I have sometimes (with one, two or three, but never publicly) tried to maintain this opinion in argument. The habit of arguing thus however, I have, entirely left off for more than five years. And I add here, I have always understood this same opinion to be held by several of the Christian denominations. The foregoing, is the whole truth, briefly stated, in relation to myself, upon this subject.

"I do not think I could myself, be brought to support a man for office, whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at, religion. Leaving the higher matter of eternal consequences, between him and his Maker, I still do not think any man has the right thus to insult the feelings, and injure the morals, of the community in which he may live. If, then, I was guilty of such conduct, I should blame no man who should condemn me for it; but I do blame those, whoever they may be, who falsely put such a charge in circulation against me."

They tried to Swift Boat Lincoln early on, and he went right at those who did so while still maintaining some integrity on the matter. Notice that he didn't say he couldn't vote for a nonreligious man, just not one who insulted religions. That's some masterful ass-saving.