They are more like words and partial sentences. A symbol means an action or event rather then a letter.
If they would be like letters they would have been decrypted a lot easier, it took till the stone of roseta till they decrypted it
I think it's the Council of Elders
Explanation: The Civil war started roughly a month after Lincoln was elected, if Lincoln would have freed the slaves he more than likely would not have been elected due to the demand of slave labor in the south. Also he may not have had enough time to get the word out if he did free them because there wasn't instant communication, so the war still would have gone on for a couple of months until the word got around through the mail if that makes sense. Hope this helped you!
Many of the tactics used by the United States in the Vietnam War were brutal in nature and violated human rights laws and this was no exception, which prompted a backlash.