Nowadays the stand in for pure evil is Hitler.
Before WWII, who would you compare someone to if you wanted to make them out to be the worst person in the world, as seen in the examples of King George III during the American Revolution, or Abraham Lincoln in the American Civil War?
Before Hitler, people went to the Bible to make evil comparisons.
Both King George III and Abraham Lincoln were compared to Pharaoh.
Which means people in the South hadn’t quite gotten the hang of irony, as Lincoln was in FAVOUR of freeing slaves.