Recently a friend argued with me that good and evil does not exist in politics. Hmmm... Try that one on Dred Scott.
Good and evil exist everywhere in our world. "For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2:11).
This book is largely about evil and its events unfold like a morality play. John Wilkes Booth is man corrupted by pride and licentiousness and therefore easily tempted. He becomes obsessed with the idea that killing President Lincoln will raise the south again and he will be its hero. Like all those who fall to the enticings of Satan, once the deed is done, he is abandoned. Booth ends up battered and broken in a stinking swamp until he burns to death in a barn. He is not beloved. He is not succored and saved, but hunted and hated and finally one of the most ignominious villains in history.
If only the 9/11 terrorists had read this book.
For those of us just trying to contribute what we can, the lesson is that there are conspiracies around us. There are those who want evil to come upon our country. While it's nice to think that everyone has good intentions, it simply isn't true. And it's truth that matters. We have to search for it, find it and hold it up.
Because there is opposition in all things, there are those who would love nothing better than to see America in bondage. It requires the efforts of those who love liberty to be always mindful and watchful to preserve the country that we love.