1809 2009
A NEW BIRTH
OF FREEDOM
ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S BICENTENNIAL
THE ARTISTS’ INSPIRATION
Artists throughout the ages
have been inspired by Lincoln
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This year, the C-SPAN Networks will bring you
programs exploring the life and times of Lincoln,
including the rededication of the Lincoln Memorial,
the joint session of Congress in honor of Lincoln's
birthday, and much more.
For TV schedules, video archives, a photo gallery, and
more, visit c-span.org/lincoln200years.
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Abraham
Lincoln:
Great American
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1809 2009
A NEW BIRTH
OF FREEDOM
ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S BICENTENNIAL
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On behalf of the Abraham Lincoln
Bicentennial Commission
P.O. Box 15244
Washington, DC 20003-5244
www.abrahamlincoln200.org
Co-Chairs
U.S. Senator Richard Durbin
U.S. Representative Ray LaHood
Harold Holzer
Members
Dr. Jean T. D. Bandler
Dr. Darrel E. Bigham
Dr. Gabor Boritt
U.S. Senator Jim Bunning
Julie Cellini
Joan Flinspach
Dr. James O. Horton
U.S. Representative
Jesse L. Jackson, Jr.
Lura Lynn Ryan
Louise Taper
Judge Tommy Turner
Chief Justice Frank Williams (ret.)
Lincoln Cabinet Co-Chairs
Hon. Jack Kemp
Hon. William H. Gray III
The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial
Commission is grateful for the major
support provided by:
Motorola Foundation
McCormick Foundation
John E. Fetzer Institute
Marjorie Kovler Foundation
Institute of Museum
and Library Services
Prudential
United Airlines
National Museum of African
American History and Culture
Caterpillar Foundation
Kennedy Family Foundation
C-SPAN
History Channel
Brown-Forman
Chicago History Museum
Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME)
John Deere
Howard University
Kentucky Lincoln
Bicentennial Commission
Abraham Lincoln Presidential
Library and Museum
Oxford University
Ira and Leonore Gershwin
Philanthropic Fund
Bridgewood Fieldwater Foundation
National Endowment for the Arts
Poetry Foundation
Jerry and Linda Bruckheimer
The Hon. Jack Kemp
The Hon. William H. Gray III
Jean and William Soman
Allstate
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Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
3
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1809
2009
A NEW BIRTH
OF FREEDOM
Forewords
9
Obama on Lincoln
11
The greatest president
Richard J. Durbin
13
The legend and the man
Ray LaHood
15
An enduring good
Harold Holzer
Introduction
16
Toward a more perfect union
Don Wycliff
A new birth of freedom
22
Lincoln above all others
Eileen Mackevich
26
The legacy of hope
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
31
A windshield tour of Lincoln land
Alan Solomon
38
The driving force of freedom
Jack Kemp
41
The heroic struggle
Charles Branham
44
The great orator
Theodore C. Sorensen
48
Imagine another ending
Orville Vernon Burton
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
5
Can we follow President
Obama’s every move in
his first 100 days?
Yes, we can.
Sky News reports from the US
with a uniquely British slant.
Now Adam Boulton, our Political Editor, is in
Washington, with US Correspondents Michelle
Clifford and Robert Nisbet, to cover Barack
Obama’s first 100 days in office. Outlining
the President’s policies for the Economy, the
War in Iraq, America’s Global Leadership and
the Nation’s Energy Challenge, Adam will
establish the implications for the US and
the rest of the world.
So, turn to Sky News for Presidential
news and analysis – as it happens –
and to read Adam’s distinctly British
blog at skynews.com/obama100
skynews.com/getskynews
CONTENTS
52
The commander in chief
72
Craig L. Symonds
56
The fruits of labor
Daniel Farber
75
Lewis E. Lehrman
58
Paying the price
The power of education
78
A lifetime of words
81
Taking up the mantle
Arms and the man
Julia Keller
84
Dianne Donovan
68
The artists' inspiration
David Grubin
Richard Herman
65
The better angels
Mark Noll
Robert D. Hormats
62
The law, then and now
Collecting Lincoln
Thomas F. Schwartz
87
State governors’ messages
Richard Norton Smith
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
7
1809-2009
Obama on Lincoln
This speech was
delivered by thenSenator Barack Obama
on April 20, 2005,
at the dedication of
the Abraham Lincoln
Presidential Library
and Museum in
Springfield, Illinois.
It is reproduced
here, with the
kind permission of
President Obama, as
a tribute to Lincoln
and by way of
introduction to A New
Birth of Freedom, the
official publication
of the Abraham
Lincoln Bicentennial
Commission.
W
hat is it that makes Lincoln such a seminal fig-
of his own failings, etched in every crease of his face
ure in our story? How is it that this man, born
and reflected in those haunted eyes...because of this es-
in the backwoods of Kentucky, with little formal educa-
sential humanity of his, when it came time to confront
tion, homely and awkward, a man given to depression
the greatest moral challenge this nation has ever faced,
and wracked with self-doubt, might come to represent so
Lincoln did not flinch. He did not equivocate or duck
much of who we are as a people, and so much of what
or pass the challenge on to future generations. He did
we aspire to be?
not demonize the fathers and sons who did battle on the
Some of it has to do with the trajectory of his life. In
other side, nor seek to diminish the terrible costs of his
his rise from poverty, his self-study and ultimate mastery
war. In the midst of slavery’s dark storm and the com-
of language and of law, in his capacity to overcome per-
plexities of governing a house divided, he kept his moral
sonal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated
compass pointed firm and true.
defeat – in all of this we see a fundamental element of
It serves us then to reflect on whether that element
the American character, a belief that we can constantly
of Lincoln’s character, and the American character
remake ourselves to fit our larger dreams.
– that aspect which makes tough choices, and speaks
Some of it has to do with the sheer energy of the
the truth when least convenient, and acts while still
man, the rail-splitter, ax-in-hand, looking out at a fron-
admitting doubt – remains with us today. Lincoln
tier of hope and possibility. Lincoln believed deeply
once said that “character is like a tree and reputation
in the American spirit of innovation and exploration
like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the
that accepts no limits to the heights to which our na-
tree is the real thing.”
tion might reach.
“
As President
Lincoln called
once upon the
better angels of
our nature, so
is he calling still,
across the ages
”
At a time when image all too often trumps sub-
In all of this – the repeated acts of self-creation, the in-
stance, when our politics all too often feeds rather
sistence that with sweated brow and calloused hands and
than bridges division, when the prospects of a poor
focused will we can recast the wilderness of the Ameri-
youth rising out of poverty seem of no consequence
can landscape and the American heart into something
to the powerful, and when we evoke our common
better, something finer – in all of this Lincoln embodies
God to condemn those who do not think as we do,
our deepest myths. It is a mythology that drives us still.
rather than to seek God’s mercy for our own lack of
And yet what separates Lincoln from the other great
understanding – at such a time it is helpful to remem-
men has to do with something else. It’s an issue of char-
ber this man who was the real thing. Lincoln reminds
acter that speaks to us, of moral resolve. Lincoln was not
us that our essential greatness is not the shadow of
a perfect man, nor a perfect president. By modern stan-
sophistication or popularity, or wealth or power or
dards, his condemnation of slavery might be considered
fleeting celebrity. It is the tree that stands in the face
tentative; his Emancipation Proclamation more a mili-
of our doubts and fears and bigotries, and insists we
tary document than a clarion call for justice. He wasn’t
can do better.
immune to political considerations; his temperament
could be indecisive and morose.
And yet despite these imperfections, despite his fallibility... indeed, perhaps because of a painful self-awareness
As President Lincoln called once upon the better angels of our nature, so is he calling still, across the ages, to
summon some measure of that character, his character,
in each of us, today.
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
9
Our New Birth of Freedom
On the occasion of the bicentennial
Since 1991 the people of Iraqi Kurdistan
On this historic day, the KRG and the
of one of the greatest American
have lived the dream of democracy
people of Iraqi Kurdistan offer our
Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, the
and freedom. We could not have
deep and sincere congratulations to
Kurdistan Regional Government
done this without our friends in the
President Barack Obama and Vice
(KRG) is honored to be America’s best
United States, who believed in us and
President Joe Biden. We are proud
and most proven ally in support of a
whose determined support has given
of our friendship and look forward
secular, democratic, and federal Iraq.
us our own new birth of freedom. We
to a relationship that should intensify
In the wisdom of President Lincoln, we
continue to build a pluralistic democracy
and deepen in the coming year and,
ended our internal struggles, bound
in the model of the United States.
to quote President Lincoln, “do
up our wounds and charted a course
We thank all Americans and extend
all which may achieve and cherish
to ensure that freedom reigns.
our hand as we forge a long, close
a just and lasting peace, among
relationship toward our common goals.
ourselves, and with all nations.”
KRG-US
 Eye Street, NW, Suite ,
Washington DC 
ǺǻǹǻǿǼȀǻǽȂǿtĨĨĨĜģĘĠģĘtĦĤ!ĜģĘĠģĘ
IRAQI KURDISTAN:
To m or r o w ’s I r a q Tod ay
UTE DIPSUM
A passionate commitment to
freedom and the Union
By Richard J. Durbin,
co-chair, Abraham
Lincoln Bicentennial
Commission and assistant
majority leader, United
States Senate
“
braham Lincoln was, I believe, America’s
Earlier generations of Americans could see “the true
greatest president. Our Founders decreed
and terrible costs of America’s revolution in the form of
that we are all endowed with an inalienable
a husband, a father, a son or a brother... A living history
right to liberty, but they could not reconcile their
was to be found in every family... in the limbs mangled,
noble ideals with the ignoble practice of slavery. It
[and] in the scars of wounds received,” Lincoln said.
was Abraham Lincoln who helped give meaning to
But “those histories are gone. They were the pillars of
our national creed of “liberty and justice for all.” He
liberty; and now that they have crumbled away, that
steered America through the most profound moral
temple must fall – unless we, their descendants, supply
crisis in our history and the bloodiest war. His leader-
their place with other pillars.”
A
ship saved the Union and his vision redefined what it
A living
history was
to be found in
every family
... in the scars
of wounds
received
”
meant to be an American.
I would like to think that Lincoln would be relieved
if he could see this great nation today. We are 171
In 1838, Lincoln, only 28 years old and a member of
years further removed from our Founders than we
the Illinois legislature, delivered a speech that still speaks
were when the young Lincoln spoke those words, but
powerfully to us today. His words expressed a concern
America is still fi lled with patriots who know and are
that he would later echo many times: What would hap-
willing to defend our founding principles. There are
pen to America now that its Founders and those who
many more of us today, and we are vastly more diverse
fought to gain our liberty were gone? How could Amer-
than the Americans of Lincoln’s time. But there is still
ica survive if new generations had no new leaders to in-
in us a deep and passionate longing to be one nation,
spire them with original ideas of our Republic?
one people, undivided..
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
11
Marie Stopes International (MSI) has worked every day for
30 years, providing quality family planning and sexual health
services all over the developing world. In 2008 alone, MSI
programs protected the equivalent of 13 million couples from
unwanted pregnancy.
A majority of MSI’s family planning impact is in rural,
under-served areas where women are particularly vulnerable
and at risk of dying in pregnancy and childbirth.
© Susan Schulman
She’s been
waiting for
change too
Women like Rachel have
been waiting for the right
to control the size and
spacing of their family
MSI stands ready to work with all those who believe in a
woman’s right to quality reproductive health care.
Marie Stopes International,
1 Conway Street, Fitzroy Square, London, W1T 6LP, UK
Tel: +44 20 7636 6200 www.mariestopes.org
Children by Choice not Chance
UTE DIPSUM
The legend and the man
From “small stories,” a larger understanding
By Ray LaHood,
co-chair, Abraham
Lincoln Bicentennial
Commission and United
States representative,
18th Congressional
District of Illinois
I
t is both remarkable and humbling to think of the
stories yet to tell. “Lincoln is someone of whom we can
lasting impression Abraham Lincoln has made – not
never know enough,” the historian David McCullough
only on our country but also on the larger world.
has noted.
Some of the nation’s other great presidents – Wash-
One aspect of Lincoln’s story that is not often told
ington, Jefferson, both Roosevelts, Kennedy, Reagan
holds particular interest for me: his one term in the U.S.
– certainly have had their actions recorded, scruti-
House of Representatives. The 11 counties of his old
nized and reviewed. Yet no one has ever captured the
7th Congressional District are within the boundaries of
world’s attention as Lincoln has. No one could have
the current 18th Congressional District of Illinois, and
imagined that a man who came from such rough-
it has been a particular honor for me to represent this
hewn beginnings would become such a global figure,
“Lincoln District.”
but, of course, Lincoln’s upbringing is a vital part of
his legend.
Above: Detail of
the rotunda of the
Illinois State Capitol
in Springfield, which
lies within the 18th
Congressional District
While it was a decade before his successful run
for president, Lincoln’s congressional service sharp-
Today, his standing as a role model is as relevant as it
ened his appetite for the national stage and laid the
has ever been. He came into office under extraordinary
groundwork for his pivotal leadership role during the
circumstances, the leader of a country going through
Civil War.
its darkest hour. He faced deep political divisions within
My hope is that this bicentennial celebration of
the country. He won an election in which more than
Abraham Lincoln’s birth will guide the citizens of the
60 percent of the vote went to other candidates. The
world on a journey of discovery – not just of the large
fact that he conquered these challenges is at the heart
Lincoln stories, but also of the many smaller stories
of why he has been studied so widely. Yet, with all the
that contribute so greatly to our understanding of the
pages written about the 16th president, there are many
legend, and of the man.
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
13
FOREWORD
An enduring good
The legacy that transformed a nation
By Harold Holzer,
co-chair, Abraham
Lincoln Bicentennial
Commission and author
of Lincoln PresidentElect: Abraham Lincoln
and the Great Secession
Winter 1860-61
rom “boyhood up,” Abraham Lincoln once
House working tirelessly to unite his party, assemble
confided to his old friend Ward Hill Lamon,
a Cabinet, fill hundreds of patronage jobs, assess the
“my ambition was to be president.” As the
constitutional and military threats to the Union, open
nation celebrates the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s
communications with Southerners, keep an eye on
birth and reflects on the abiding legacy of this most
America’s role in the world, and – most of all – draw
beloved of presidents, we are grateful for that young
a line in the sand to prevent the spread of human slav-
ambition, though its realization, even early on, was
ery. He could do no less, after all; as President Lincoln
not marked by joyful ease.
later told Congress, he felt that he could not “escape
F
President-elect Lincoln spent the then-lengthy transition period from Springfield, Illinois, to the White
history.” And escape it he did not.
Lincoln confronted America’s gravest crisis as an
altogether original leader – “inexperienced in wielding great power,” according to a newspaper of the
time – yet astonishingly intuitive and gifted, with
remarkable instincts for communication. Even before
taking the oath of office, he faced obstacles, challenges, citizen apprehension, disloyalty, and threats
greater than those that confronted any president-elect
before or since. But he would somehow survive them
all and go on to preserve the country and substantially
remake it by validating majority rule and eradicating
the stain of human slavery.
In his Second Inaugural Address, an embattled President Lincoln urged his countrymen to “strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds…
to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
“
Lincoln confronted America’s
gravest crisis as an original
leader – intuitive and gifted,
with remarkable instincts
for communication
He did not live to see that day. But his leadership,
intelligence, and unfailing humanity made him an
ideal steward during America’s darkest days. And
though Abraham Lincoln’s tenure as president lasted
only four years, to this day we as a nation are by far
”
the better for it.
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
15
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
Toward a more
perfect union
“The dream of our founders is alive in our time”
By Don Wycliff, editor, A
New Birth of Freedom;
distinguished journalist in residence, Loyola
University Chicago
W
hen he entered the race for president
There is more than a little poignancy in the his-
of the United States in February 2007,
torical coincidence of Obama’s becoming president
Barack Obama looked to be among the
within weeks of Lincoln’s 200th birthday. It was Lin-
longest of long shots. A little-known freshman sena-
coln whose presidency preserved the nation which the
tor from Illinois and an African-American, his most
new president will lead, a nation riven by sectional
notable national accomplishment was a speech that
conflict over the issue of chattel slavery of African-
he had given three years earlier at the 2004 Demo-
Americans. It was Lincoln whose decisions led to the
cratic National Convention.
eradication of slavery and to what he heralded at Get-
In 2009, Barack Obama, the long shot, stood on
tysburg as “a new birth of freedom.”
a balcony at the United States Capitol and took the
oath of office as president of the United States. He
is the first black man ever to ascend to this nation’s
highest office, an accomplishment that, as recently as
a year ago, perhaps only he and a few of his closest
supporters dared even imagine.
For sheer improbability, Obama’s accomplishment
exceeds that of any of his 43 predecessors, with the
possible exception of one: Abraham Lincoln, America’s 16th president and arguably its greatest, the man
whose natal bicentennial we celebrate this year with
this publication.
16
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
“
There is poignancy in the
historical coincidence
of Obama’s becoming
president within weeks of
Lincoln’s 200th birthday
”
1809-2009
A seated portrait of Abraham Lincoln late in his presidency,
by Alexander Gardner
President-elect Barack Obama greets a crowd estimated at more
than 200,000 people at his election-night victory in Chicago’s
Grant Park on November 4, 2008
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
17
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UTE DIPSUM
The union fashioned by
the nation’s founders
was stained by the
‘original sin of slavery’
Coincidence these two events may be, but it also
seems, to borrow a phrase from one of Lincoln’s
greatest speeches, “altogether fitting and proper.”
If Obama’s long campaign for the presidency could
be said to have had a theme, it was the phrase from
the preamble to the Constitution of the United States,
“to form a more perfect union.” Time and again the
young senator from Illinois invoked that phrase, most
notably perhaps in his Philadelphia speech on race
delivered on March 18, 2008.
The union fashioned by the nation’s founders was
stained by the “original sin of slavery,” he said then,
creating the need for Americans in each successive
generation “to do their part – through protests and
struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a
civil war and civil disobedience and always at great
risk – to narrow that gap between the promise of our
ideals and the reality of their time.”
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
19
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
“
I think about those like Lincoln and King who
ultimately laid down their lives in the service of
perfecting an imperfect union
”
For Lincoln and his generation, “their part” was
But the new president’s love of Lincoln is no
to fight a hideously bloody, internecine war whose
recent thing. In his second book, The Audacity of
aim was less to perfect the union than to simply
Hope, he spoke of the inspiration he took as a sena-
preserve it. Ultimately, the secessionist threat was
tor from an occasional run along the Mall, ending
defeated, but in a cruel coda to the conflict, the pas-
at the Lincoln Memorial: “And in that place, I think
sions it unleashed shortly led to Lincoln’s own death
about America and those who built it. This nation’s
by assassination.
founders, who somehow rose above petty ambi-
His martyrdom notwithstanding, Lincoln has
tions and narrow calculations to imagine a nation
always provoked ambivalence in African-Americans.
unfurling across a continent. And those like Lincoln
No less a figure than Frederick Douglass gave voice to
and [Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.], who ultimately
that ambivalence when he said in 1876 that Lincoln
laid down their lives in the service of perfecting an
was “preeminently the white man’s President, entirely
imperfect union....”
devoted to the welfare of white men.”
That work – perfecting the union – continues,
In the next breath, however, he said that “we
Obama said in his Philadelphia speech. It was “one
[black Americans] came to the conclusion that the
of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this pres-
hour and the man of our redemption had somehow
idential campaign – to continue the long march of
met in the person of Abraham Lincoln. It mattered
those who came before us, a march for a more just,
little to us what language he might employ on spe-
more equal, more free, more caring, and more pros-
cial occasions; it mattered little to us, when we fully
perous America.” Whether Lincoln ever imagined
knew him, whether he was swift or slow in his move-
that he might one day be succeeded in the presidency
ments; it was enough for us that Abraham Lincoln
by a black man is probably unknowable, but it seems
was at the head of a great movement, and was in
unlikely. And it doesn’t really matter.
living and earnest sympathy with that movement,
When Douglass said that Lincoln “was in living
which, in the nature of things, must go on until slav-
and earnest sympathy with” a movement that must
ery should be utterly and forever abolished in the
end in the demise of slavery, he meant the abolition-
United States.”
ist movement, to be sure. But he meant something
more besides. He meant the cause of human freedom
B
arack Obama makes no secret of his admiration
generally, the cause of “free labor,” that would allow
for Lincoln. Indeed, he seems to have quite con-
an American – even a black American – to pursue
sciously patterned the construction of his cabinet on
economic betterment by means of his industry and
Lincoln’s “team of rivals” approach. In his first sit-
imagination and determination.
down television interview after his election, he said
And whether Lincoln ever imagined it or not, it now
that he had “been spending a lot of time reading
means, on the 200th anniversary of his own birth,
Lincoln.” There is, he said, “a wisdom there, and a
that a black man, born and bred in America, has been
humility about his approach to government…that I
selected by a majority of his fellow citizens to be the
find very helpful.”
44th president of the United States.
20 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
VOPTIMISM
Continuing the legacy of Abraham Lincoln, America is again long on hope.
Chicago Board Options Exchange congratulates President Obama.
www.cboe.com
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
Lincoln above all others
A president “big enough to be inconsistent”
By Eileen Mackevich,
executive director,
Abraham Lincoln
Bicentennial
Commission
A
mong history’s heroes, Abraham Lincoln stands
Only Lincoln could have steered us from the tragic
out as the American original. Born to unaspiring
course that race relations took after his death. As John
parents on the hardscrabble frontier, his improb-
Hope Franklin, often called the dean of American
able rise was never less than inspiring. Lincoln continued
historians, put it: “Of all the American presidents,
to grow and remake himself throughout his lifetime.
only Lincoln stayed up nights worried about the fate of
Almost 150 years after his death, we still seek his guid-
[African-American] people.”
ance in his own writings and a never-ending stream of
Is Lincoln most revered because he was a war presi-
books about him. In truth, we can do no better than to
dent, the shepherd who fearlessly guarded his flock?
emulate our 16th president, a man of dogged, so very
If he was the greatest military leader, as historian
American, ambition, but also one whose resolve was
James McPherson attests, he definitely learned on the
always tempered by an unswerving determination not to
job. He spent much of his time during the war poring
compromise his personal integrity.
over maps, studying battle terrain and assessing the
Never boring, our Lincoln. He is a simple man, a
latest weapons technology. Then, when he met with
complex man, a roustabout, a jokester, a melancholic,
his generals for what have been described as intermi-
a recluse, a man of action, a visionary. Just when we
nable conferences, he knew more than they. He had
think we understand him, he eludes us. He is not a
studied their dispositions and characters. Judging them
man to be pigeonholed. There is a Lincoln for all
to be incompetent or lacking in bravery or ardor, he
seasons – and all reasons.
outrageously but confidently fired what seemed like a
Scholars mining his life and thought find rich ore
brigade of generals – until he selected the unpreten-
in Lincoln’s many manifestations. They debate the
tious Ulysses Grant. Grant delivered the victories, but
substance of his life and the larger meaning of his
Lincoln remained the hands-on commander in chief
tragic death. How did his views on race evolve? Why
throughout the war, defining for his successors the
did he move so cautiously on emancipation? Was he
wartime powers of the presidency.
moved only by the imperative of battlefield success
Lincoln was not afraid to use power, and word
and the consequent need to gather support from
power was his greatest weapon. He loved language
abroad? When did he embrace the idea of full citi-
and recognized that he could cast a spell. He could be
zenship for the former slaves? Would his Reconstruc-
as persuasive and logical as any high-powered corpo-
tion plan have successfully reunited North and South
rate lawyer; he could pull at your heartstrings in letters
while ensuring the former slaves full legal equality?
to orphans and widows. He could write poetry...that
Would he have checked the Republican Party’s retreat
may be going too far. But if he had written nothing
from Reconstruction?
more than the Gettysburg Address, which newly
22 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
UTE DIPSUM
Abraham Lincoln by George Peter Alexander Healy, 1869
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
23
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
naturalized Americans still memorize, and his Second
of the distinguished historian James Horton, the ulti-
Inaugural, he would be immortal.
mate “flip-flopper.” But the great social scientist W. E.
A good politician, Lincoln wanted the public to like
him and know him. He took the time to be photo-
“
B. DuBois may have reached the essential truth when
he called Lincoln “big enough to be inconsistent.”
graphed and to withstand the ordeal of making a life
My great attraction to Lincoln rests on his nobility of
mask. Contrary to public perceptions today, Lincoln
character, his “self-making” in the larger 19th-century
liked the way he looked as a young man and the power
sense described by historian John Stauffer. Because his
over others that came from his exceptional height and
thought was deeply grounded in a belief in equality
strength. If we no longer see the disheveled hair and
and in the ideals of freedom, we can imagine all things
lanky frame, we know every line on the aged, tortured
from Lincoln. He might have solved the race problem;
face that absorbed every blow of the Civil War.
he might have extended female suffrage. He is, more
than any other, the American hero.
W
hile Lincoln today enjoys the near-universal
On a sunny spring day, shortly before his assassina-
esteem of his countrymen, during his life-
tion, the president and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln,
time he was hardly a man for all seasons and all
took a carriage ride. The war was over. Optimism
reasons. Many Southerners and abolitionists disliked
reigned. He contemplated the future. After his pres-
him. Frederick Douglass, the former slave turned
idency, Lincoln told his wife, he hoped they would
abolitionist author, editor and political reformer,
travel to Europe and beyond.
faulted Lincoln for failing to act swiftly on eman-
That was not to be. But in a larger sense, Abraham
cipation. Douglass felt that Lincoln was too solici-
Lincoln has traveled the world. His belief that the
tous of the slaveholding border states that refrained
common man can make himself anew – and that
from joining the Southern rebellion. Only later did
government exists to help him do so – inspires not
Douglass perceive Lincoln’s political artistry: The
just Americans, but men and women in every city and
president, he came to understand, was a powerful,
village on the planet.
wily, pragmatic politician who knew just how fast
and how far he could push the American people
toward abolition.
Ever eager to learn, Lincoln invited outspoken
people to the White House. He respected their honesty.
Douglass was one. Another was Anna Dickinson, a
Quaker activist, women’s rights advocate and intense
Lincoln admirer. But she turned against Lincoln
because he would not support her charge of treason
against the pompous, politically-scheming General
George B. McClellan. Lincoln listened respectfully
to Americans of different stripes, from Negro abolitionists to Quaker activists, to the talented, high-powered individuals he included in his cabinet, his political rivals – but the important decisions always were
Lincoln’s alone. As a leader, Lincoln moved slowly,
always testing the prevailing political winds. He
changed his mind often. He was, in the modern jargon
24 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
Lincoln listened
respectfully to
Americans of
different stripes,
from Negro
abolitionists to
Quaker activists
”
The “Rail Splitter” at Work
Repairing the Union by J. E.
Baker, 1865. This cartoon
shows Andrew Johnson
mending the globe while
Abraham Lincoln raises it
with a railroad tie
1
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©2008 A&E Television Networks. All rights reserved. 1867.
www.History.com/lincoln
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
The legacy of hope
An inspiration, still, for aspiring democracies
By Ellen Johnson Sirleaf,
president of the Republic
of Liberia
I
t seems impossible to imagine an America without
country. It is hard to remember that the nascent
President Abraham Lincoln, and equally impos-
American democratic project and the evolution to-
sible to imagine that the course of American his-
ward a much stronger system were on the verge of
tory would have been so bold without his leadership
being erased from future history. But we can forget
in a period of such dire need. Lincoln took a calcu-
that divided America today only because President
lated risk when he set the wheel turning toward the
Lincoln had the strength of belief to carry Amer-
emancipation of slaves and maintaining the unity of
ica through and out of its darkest days; we forget
a very divided America. His decision involved protect-
because he made sure we had more to look forward
ing the greater good, rather than appeasing a smaller
to than back on.
segment of society.
“
He understood
the importance
of liberty, of
the recognition
of the liberty
of others, and
the need to aid
others in their
fight for liberty
”
The America we know was still a work in progress
From abroad, and especially in sub-Saharan Africa,
when Lincoln took the White House. Long before he
our memories of President Lincoln establish a bench-
was president, Lincoln counted among his greatest
mark that many great leaders strive to attain. But here
inspirations the Whig Party leader, Henry Clay – in
the legacy of Lincoln has much broader meaning.
particular, Clay’s idea for an “American system” of
To be sure, Lincoln stands for emancipation. He
strong infrastructure that would help transform the
stands for human freedom. He stands for a long list of
United States into a true economic power. At the
universal values to which many pay homage, but few
time, the American economy was largely dependent
understand completely. Almost a century and a half
upon the export of raw commodities to England.
after his death, these values he championed – democ-
Lincoln was driven by the vision of an economi-
racy, liberty, equality, humility in leadership – still
cally vibrant America that could compete with the
represent a rallying point for freedom fighters around
greatest industrial powers in the world. Agriculture
the world.
and industry would both be linchpins of the new
But in a post-conflict country like Liberia, devas-
American economy.
tated by 14 years of civil war, corruption and poverty, Lincoln also stands for the hope of our rebirth.
What he believed would be the salvation of America
L
incoln believed that private commercial concerns
would drive economic progress and innovation,
can still inform and inspire leadership in emerging
but that the government had a responsibility to set
democracies.
policies that would encourage growth and to invest
When we look now at the United States, it is
in the roads, railroads, canals and other components
hard to remember that it ever was a post-conflict
of the transportation system that would facilitate de-
26 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
1809-2009
velopment of the domestic economy. Because of its
He also believed in the importance of the Union
link to the economy, Lincoln saw infrastructure as an
upon which the United States was founded, and knew
enabler of freedom, liberty, and equality.
that if the Union failed, liberty and equality would
Lincoln also devised a system of paying for these
become tainted ideals. So when the Union was threat-
improvements without borrowing money and ac-
ened, he fought. He knew that even though the cost
cruing interest that would be owed by the American
in human lives would be staggering, there were some
people. In this and other matters, he was a principled
ideals for which this price is still a bargain.
leader who stood against corruption and the use of
public office for personal gain.
Liberians line the streets
to welcome U.S. President
George W. Bush in
Monrovia, Liberia
But near the end of the Civil War, Lincoln argued
for forgiveness and fairness in dealing with the “South-
Lincoln dreamed of the United States as a “world’s
ern aggression” and its leaders. He understood that,
model republic” – what, more than a century later,
for the sake of the Union, the cycle of antipathy and
President Ronald Reagan would refer to as a “shining
the settling of old grievances had to be suppressed.
city on a hill.” Lincoln was inspired by idealism, and
This was not a popular notion in the North, but he
would defend it until his last day. He understood the
knew the importance of a strong, whole United States.
importance of liberty, of the recognition of the liberty
And again he fell back on his vision of economic mod-
of others, and of the need to sometimes aid others in
ernization as the potential foundation for a rebuilt na-
their fight for liberty.
tion. The diversification of the national economy and
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
27
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
the creation of jobs was a crucial means of promoting
struggling to establish accountable governance and
stability and providing prosperity for all.
achieve economic growth. We are so pleased to be
Planning for the future – making hard decisions
now so no one else will have to face them again – is
even a small part of this legacy, passing on the light of
the fire that Lincoln lit for everyone who came after.
what makes a leader truly great. And in this, Lincoln
In a world in turmoil, Lincoln’s values still stand
excelled and remains an example for leaders to live by,
strong. Whether it be what we remember him for
no matter the challenges they face.
most – the emancipation of American slaves and the
Liberia’s own post-civil war reconstruction and the
restoration of the Union – or for the development and
hurdles to growth in many developing nations are not
economic policies that are often overlooked but still
dissimilar. The Liberian economy remains dependent
relevant today, President Lincoln remains an inspira-
on the production and export of raw commodities.
tion both for those yearning to be free and those strug-
Economic diversification via private sector invest-
gling under the weight of that newfound freedom.
ments is the key to our future. Addressing infrastruc-
But amid global financial crisis and new threats of
ture needs in both the transportation and the power
terrorism and extremism – in the middle of a world
sectors is a vital component of building the founda-
order in the throes of realignment – Lincoln would not
tion for private enterprise. After years of a staggering
lose sight of the importance of fighting for democracy
debt burden, we hope to manage much of this rede-
and individual freedoms. Lincoln’s legacy still shines
velopment without having to borrow anew.
bright, showing aspiring democracies a way ahead.
Systemic corruption, fostered during years of war-
Our most faithful tribute to him on his 200th birthday
lord governance, must be rooted out. The Liberian
is to continue to bring that light of liberty and equality
people, still fragmented after the long period of con-
to as many corners of the Earth as we can.
flict, are looking for ways to heal their society and rebuild a unified Liberia. Our development, economy,
security, and stability are integrally linked.
On all of these points, President Lincoln’s wisdom
still rings true. The hard work must be done now, so
that our future generations will be free of these burdens. Liberia, like America, must be whole, must be
one, to rebuild and take its place in its region and in
the world. And Lincoln’s own idealism can inspire us
to persevere on this path.
By preserving the Union and standing by his core
vision of strong infrastructure as the enabler of a modern, diverse, powerful American economy, President
Lincoln laid the foundation for the nation that would
become a guiding light for so many other nations in the
world. From abroad, in times of confl ict and turmoil,
we see this beacon in the distance and know that we
will emerge if we believe in better days ahead.
Two years after my own inauguration, five years after the end of our conflict, I am now blessed to be able
to speak of Liberia as an outpost of democracy in the
region, as a potential beacon for others around us
28 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
“
The Liberian
people,
fragmented
after the long
period of
conflict, are
looking for
ways to heal
and rebuild
”
President Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf of the Republic of
Liberia arrives at the House
Chamber to address a
joint meeting of the U.S.
Congress, March 15, 2006
Kenya Congratulates
President Obama
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UTE DIPSUM
A windshield tour
of Lincoln land
By Alan Solomon,
former travel writer,
Chicago Tribune
Tracing the Lincoln story from cradle to grave
T
he hills are as they were 200 years ago, as
ter from all directions make it impossible to wonder
are the clarity of the air and the warmth
why. His face is on the banners. It’s also on the sign
of the sunshine, and the green. This is a
at Ruthie’s Lincoln Freeze (“home cookin’”) on Lin-
very green place, north central Ken-
coln Boulevard south of Lincoln Square, the site of
tucky. It was so even before the land
the Lincoln Museum, which is across from a bronze
between the hills was cleared
seated President Lincoln – which itself is across from
and plows broke through the
a new statue of the Boy Lincoln.
grasses to find rich soil for
There was no Hodgenville when Thomas and a very
corn and tobacco – and so it
pregnant Nancy Hanks Lincoln, with toddler Sarah,
remains today.
The destination is the Kentucky town of Hodgenville.
settled onto Sinking Spring Farm in late 1808. With a
population short of 3,000 there isn’t much of one now,
but back then there was Hodgen’s Mill and...
The banners along the two
“It was a bit of a village, but it was the mill that
lanes leading into its cen-
they sought out,” says Charlotte Blair, manager of the
A view of Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace,
Hodgenville, Kentucky c.1944
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
31
UTE DIPSUM
LINCOLN – THE EARLY YEARS
32 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
Clockwise from top left: Lincoln working as a rail-splitter in New Salem,
Illinois, while he was studying law; the Hodgenville log cabin where Lincoln
was born, Kentucky; tourism plaque about Sinking Spring Farm; Abraham
Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site, Hodgenville, Kentucky
1809-2009
Lincoln Museum, an earnest attempt to summarize –
was largely a community of family farms and busi-
through dioramas, documents and souvenirs ranging
nesses, not of vast plantations.)
from shirts to golf balls to shot glasses – the life of
In 1816, having failed to regain the Sinking Spring
the man who made Ruthie’s Lincoln Freeze what it
farm, Thomas Lincoln again moved the family, this
is today.
time across the Ohio River into Indiana. It’s likely
Three miles south of the statues and shot glasses,
they reached Indiana just west of the town of Troy,
in a modest one-room cabin atop a modest knoll,
once a steamboat port and today, well, teetering. It
“Nancy Hanks,” Carl Sandburg wrote with ser-
was near Troy that Lincoln, then 17, earned a little
monic flourish, “welcomed into a world of bat-
cash running boats with passengers out mid-river to
tle and blood, of whispering dreams and wistful
waiting steamers. When a licensed ferry operator took
dust, a new child, a boy.” That was February 12,
him to court, Lincoln, acting as his own attorney, won
1809. The knoll’s still there at Abraham Lincoln
the case. Small beginnings.
Birthplace National Historic Site. The cabin’s up
there, too.
”
The future president was seven when the Lincoln
family settled on the farm along Indiana’s Little
“It’s on the site, on that knoll,” says Paul Tre-
Pigeon Creek a few miles north and west of Troy.
main, a National Park Service interpreter there.
They would stay 14 years. “A lot of people,” says Mike
“We do know that for a fact.” What they also know
Capps, head interpreter at Lincoln Boyhood National
for a fact: the “birth cabin” believed genuine when
Monument, “don’t know he was ever here.”
Teddy Roosevelt (in the centennial year 1909) laid
The farm – including the family cabin – has
the cornerstone of the wildly immodest Greco-
been recreated on site, as best they can. The cabin’s
Roman temple built to protect it, isn’t the birth cabin
actual location, confirmed by archeologists, has been
at all. The original cabin wasn’t preserved because,
marked and its stone hearth reassembled. A memorial
well, back then, who knew the kid would become
building houses a small museum; the building’s most
Abraham Lincoln?
impressive feature is a set of five carved exterior pan-
Jennie Jones is a National Park Service ranger who
“
Here is this
man who was
born to this
family that
literally lived
off the land
els tracing the great man’s life.
has been separating fiction from fact at the site since
Here, in Indiana, Lincoln worked hard on a pio-
1992. “A lot of people,” says Jones, “don’t understand
neer farm. From Indiana, when he was 19, he rode
that Lincoln was born as a pioneer or frontier person.
a flatboat down the Ohio and the Mississippi to New
Map of where Lincoln lived
prior to his presidency
Here is this man who was born to this family that literally lived off the land.”
The family lived off this land, and later another parcel about 10 miles northeast along a road that, then
Illinois
as now, connected Nashville with Louisville. In 1811,
the Lincolns, including two-year-old Abe, relocated to
a leased farm along Knob Creek during an ownership
New Salem
squabble over the Sinking Spring spread.
I
t’s at Knob Creek – “my earliest recollection” – that
the “Abraham-Lincoln-we-know” story begins to
take shape. His first schooling – such as it was – was
here, and it’s suggested he might have been influenced
here by an anti-slavery teacher. (There were slaves in
the area at the time, but not many; Hardin County
Decatur
Indiana
Springfield
Spencer
County
Kentucky
Hodgenville
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
33
UTE DIPSUM
LINCOLN IN SPRINGFIELD
34 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
Clockwise from top left: the Lincoln Family home; Great
Western railway site where Lincoln delivered his farewell
address; Lincoln’s tomb; the Old State Capitol building
1809-2009
Orleans. If he hadn’t seen slaves on the road at Knob
Creek, he surely saw them in New Orleans.
“These people were used to hard work,” says Charlie
Starling, lead interpreter at Lincoln’s New Salem State
In 1830, the 21-year-old Abraham Lincoln would
Historic Site. “We have people who lived here who
leave Indiana with his father, stepmother and newly
said, ‘He was lazy. He was real lazy. He spent so much
extended family, crossing the Wabash River at Vin-
time reading, wasting time....’”
cennes. At that spot – announced by a splendid bronze
The entire village is a reconstruction. (One building,
of the future president fronting a limestone relief of
the cooper’s shop, is authentic but had been moved
the traveling party – begins what license plates have
back from Petersburg, a couple of miles away.) Espe-
long designated the Land of Lincoln. Points of inter-
cially on a sunny spring day or as the leaves change in
est are everywhere in Illinois.
October, New Salem is wonderful.
There are seven sites where Lincoln famously
A 30-minute drive southeast from New Salem, past
debated Stephen Douglas (winning some, losing some)
acres of corn and soybeans, is Springfield. Lincoln
during their 1858 Senate race. Favorites, because they
bid farewell to the people of Springfield on February
look right: Galesburg and Quincy. Least: Charleston.
11, 1861, at the Great Western rail station, with his
Best statue: Alton. Hardest to find: Jonesboro.
speech: “I now leave, not knowing when, or whether
Vandalia: Illinois’ second capital after the first, in
ever, I may return.... ” It may not have been his most
Kaskaskia, turned out to be in a floodplain. As a state
familiar speech – Gettysburg (“Four score... ”) and the
legislator, Lincoln first spoke of slavery in the building
Second Inaugural (“with malice toward none”) cer-
that still stands. Beardstown: here, as a circuit lawyer,
tainly rank one and two – but even today, it buckles
Lincoln – dressed in a white suit (“It was summer,”
the knees.
explains a guide) – proved a man’s innocence with
The station stands. The Lincolns’ home is open
the help of an almanac. The courtroom, though not
for tours. The tomb, where he rests for eternity, can
quite the way it was in 1858, is nonetheless the only
be visited. Within the Abraham Lincoln Presidential
courtroom where Lincoln practiced that is still in use
Library and Museum are exhibits and artifacts too
as a courtroom.
numerous to list here. We’ll list three. A recreation of
Galena: Lincoln slept here, in a hotel (the DeSoto
Lincoln’s cabinet room as it would have looked in late
House). It is still a hotel, though the bathrooms are
1862. “The question,” says a costumed interpreter, “is
no longer down the hall. Decatur: a log courthouse
less whether to issue an emancipation proclamation,
where Lincoln practiced is preserved here. Mt. Pulaski:
but when....” Visitors then file out of the room and
another Lincoln courthouse, long ago repurposed.
are surrounded by the sounds of debate, raging.
Greenup: a hole Lincoln might have dug, as a well.
The Civil War in four minutes – a map of the coun-
Petersburg: surveyed by Lincoln. Lincoln: He did
try and animation showing troop movements along-
legal work here and even attended the christening of
side a running count of casualties, accompanied by
the town named for him.
music including a particularly melancholy version of
“When Johnny Comes Marching Home.”
I
n Illinois, there are two essential stops. In New
And finally – Abraham Lincoln, as he lay in state
Salem, an emergent Abraham Lincoln – truly on his
upon his return to Springfield, in a reproduction of
own for the fi rst time – wrestled, marched off to war
the House chamber of the Old State Capitol build-
and back, fell in love, flopped as a businessman, ran for
ing where he served; where he warned of the conse-
office three times (lost once, won the next two), worked
quences of a house divided; where so many important
as postmaster, studied law, read every book and period-
ideas were shared and debated, in a world of battle
ical he could find, and told stories – the latter pastimes
and blood, of whispering dreams and wistful dust.
annoying villagers who thought telling and listening to
That Old State Capitol is steps away. It is, without a
stories, and reading, were a waste of time.
doubt, the real one.
“
I now leave, not
knowing when,
or whether
ever, I may
return...
”
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
35
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
The driving force
of freedom
Moving forward, with none left behind
By Jack Kemp, former
member of the U.S.
House of Representatives and 1996 Republican candidate for vice
president
F
ew leaders in history have captured the hearts
and minds of as many people in so many nations as Abraham Lincoln. He is so universally
revered that he sometimes seems as much a president
for the world as for our own country. From Springfield, Illinois, to Warsaw, Poland, from Red Square to
Tiananmen Square, Abraham Lincoln is an inspiration for the world.
There is a very logical global extension of Lincoln’s
view of the “American idea” – that the principles
enunciated in America’s Declaration of Independence are universal, and that freedom is not just for
some people, but for all people, and not just for one
time, but for all time.
These ideals were the driving force behind Lincoln’s life and his political career. The Declaration
of Independence was so central to his politics, and
so close to his heart, that in the bleak winter of 1861,
on his journey from Springfield to the inauguration
in Washington, he felt he had to stop at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. He knew the American
experiment in democracy and freedom was in grave
peril, as was his own life. And in the very building
where the declaration was signed, Lincoln spoke
of “something in that declaration giving liberty,
not alone to the people of this country, but hope to
the world for all future time. It was that which gave
promise that in due time the weights should be lifted
from the shoulders of all men, and that all should
have an equal chance.”
38 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
Independence Hall, Philadelphia, where the
Declaration of Independence was signed
1809-2009
And then Lincoln added the words that prophesied
his destiny, and that of our nation: “If this country can-
won’t be fulfi lled until all nations embrace the inviolable rights Jefferson inscribed in our declaration.
not be saved without giving up that principle, I was
Abraham Lincoln was not the fi rst to link the suc-
about to say that I would rather be assassinated on this
cess of American democracy to the hopes of all man-
spot than to surrender it.”
kind. From our republic’s earliest days, Washington,
Lincoln risked both his career and his life to save the
Hamilton, Jefferson, Franklin and other great states-
Union and defend the inalienable rights to life, liberty
men believed that the American experiment in human
and the pursuit of happiness for all people.
freedom and democracy was without precedent – and
Were he with us today, Lincoln would remind us
would, if successful, be a precedent for others.
that the global surge towards freedom really began in
It is interesting to speculate how different our na-
the Revolution of 1776, the revolution whose promise
tion might be today had Abraham Lincoln been given
the chance to guide America through Reconstruction.
It is as true now as it was then that so much depends
on having the right leadership with the right motives
Lincoln risked his life to
defend the inalienable rights
to life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness
and at the right time in history. Tragically, from the
Emancipation Proclamation until this day, the dream
of equality of opportunity and freedom for all has yet
to be completely achieved.
But Lincoln showed us the way. He believed that the
American system of upward mobility was the bedrock
of our democracy, that no individual is excluded from
the “American dream,” and that poverty is not a permanent condition. And like the story of the “good shepherd” from Hebrew and Christian scripture, he believed
we must move forward, but not leave anyone behind.
Lincoln drew on this classical liberal view of human
nature when he signed the Homestead Act of 1862,
which transferred hundreds of thousands of acres of
public lands in the West to the immigrant poor and
became the most successful anti-poverty program in
American history.
Within a year, nearly 100,000 homesteaders and immigrants eagerly seized the opportunity to own their
own land. They built homes and farms on 1.5 million
acres, forging better lives for themselves, their families,
and indeed their country.
His support for the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act
of 1862 revolutionized higher education in America
and was a blessing to millions of future students – and
to the nation that benefi ted from their cultivated creativity and genius.For Abraham Lincoln, true welfare
meant not dependency, but well-being; not equality
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
39
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
“
I want every
man to have
the chance in
which he
can better his
condition
”
of reward, but equality of opportunity; not reliance
example of its just influence in the world – enables the
on the state, but reliance on one’s self and one’s fam-
enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt
ily. He wrote prophetically: “The progress by which
us as hypocrites – causes the real friends of freedom
the poor, honest, industrious, and resolute man raises
to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces
himself, that he may work on his own account and
so many really good men amongst ourselves into an
hire somebody else…is the great principle for which
open war with the very fundamental principles of civil
this government was really formed.”
liberty – criticizing the Declaration of Independence
Professor Gabor Boritt, in his great book Lincoln and
the Economics of the American Dream, cited the rest of Lin-
and insisting that there is no right principle of action
but self-interest.”
coln’s argument: “I don’t believe in a law to prevent a
To Lincoln, slavery was an abomination, a hideous
man from getting rich; it would do more harm than
stain defiling the nation’s soul. In the end, it would be
good. I want every man to have the chance – and I
cleansed only by a baptism of fire.
believe a black man is entitled to it – in which he can
Since the day Lincoln was taken from us by the
better his condition – when he may look forward and
assassin’s cowardly hand, American democracy
hope to be a hired laborer this year and the next, work
has met great challenges again and again: the in-
for himself afterward, and finally to hire men to work
justice of segregation; the evil of “Jim Crow” laws;
for him! That is the true system.”
the despair and economic contraction of the Great
In the most “radical” speech Abraham Lincoln
Depression; the crises of two world wars and the
ever gave, he compared America to a house divided
shameful unconstitutional denial of voting rights,
against itself: half-slave and half-free. I would submit
among others.
that today America is once again in danger of being
Our democracy is being tested today, not only by
divided – this time, however, into two economies, one
our war against terrorism abroad, but also by lev-
rich, the other poor; one affluent, the other in abject
els of poverty, homelessness and despair unaccept-
poverty; one a springboard to opportunity, the other a
able to a compassionate and affluent nation here at
trap of despair and dependency.
home. As the world’s leading example of democracy,
we must make it work better at home so that all our
L
incoln understood that it is impossible to support
people are empowered and fully enjoy true equality
equality of economic opportunity without also up-
of opportunity.
holding equal civil, human, and voting rights for all.
At the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, and 145
Until the Civil War, the threat to American democra-
years after his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln’s belief
cy had come primarily from foreign powers, but Lin-
that all human beings are created equal and endowed
coln faced America’s supreme crisis: The nation that
with inalienable rights – the faith upon which liberal
embodied mankind’s last best hope seemed hopelessly
democracy is based – is still the last best hope of peo-
divided. He believed that “as a nation of free men,
ple around the world.
we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” Slav-
Because of democracy’s long march from Indepen-
ery was the first great test challenging the American
dence Hall through Gettysburg to the streets of for-
democracy’s central principle of equality. Lincoln’s
eign lands, the world increasingly knows this simple
moral indignation over slavery was unbounded. In his
yet profound truth: The yearning for freedom cannot
1854 Peoria speech replying to Senator Stephen A.
be extinguished, the struggle for inalienable rights will
Douglas, he said: “I hate…the monstrous injustice of
never end, and nothing can deny the transcendence of
slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican
liberal democracy.
40 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
UTE DIPSUM
The heroic struggle
For African-Americans, ambivalence and acceptance
By Charles Branham,
senior historian,
DuSable Museum of
African American
History, Chicago
I
t would be interesting to know how many newspa-
American struggle for freedom and empowerment
per reports and commentaries on the 1963 March
as an extension of the historical legacy of Abraham
on Washington began with the phrase: “In the
Lincoln was an old habit among journalists and his-
shadow of the Lincoln Memorial,” “In the shadow
torians alike.
of the Great Emancipator,” or with some other allu-
African-American writers and historians under-
sion to America’s 16th president. Casting the African-
stand this phenomenon well, and many resent deeply
the truncation of their history and the diminishment
of black people’s role in their own emancipation in
favor of a simpler story, a story of a benighted people lifted up by the charity and generosity of a Great
White Father.
How easy to slide into cynicism. How tempting, for many, to give vent to their resentment by
marginalizing Lincoln’s legacy. For the last two
generations of African-Americans, born after the
Martin Luther King and
other civil rights leaders
gather before a rally at
the Lincoln Memorial
August 28, 1963 in
Washington
heroic struggles of the 1960s, assessing Lincoln’s
legacy is a highly problematic enterprise that opens
up old wounds and reveals anxieties and ambivalence
within the black community.
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
41
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
It was not always so. In the Civil War era, ordinary
notes of grief to weeping audiences, when the voices
African-Americans were Abraham Lincoln’s most
of the clergy repeat in moving tones the virtues of
loyal and enthusiastic supporters, even though many
the deceased and call up again the nation’s loss and
of their leaders tended more to clear-eyed realism.
a whole people is bowed in affliction, there will be no
Frederick Douglass best summed up this ambivalence
deeper mourning for the beloved and honored head
in his 1876 speech at the dedication of the Freedmen’s
of the Republic than in the cabins of slaves. In lonely
Monument in Washington. Lincoln, he said “was pre-
huts, where the news of the great crime has pen-
eminently the white man’s president, entirely devoted
etrated, in the villages of the emancipated from Vir-
to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing
ginia and the Carolinas, in the crowded haunts of the
at any time during the first years of his administration
poor negroes within the great cities, there will be grief
to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of human-
to-day, such as needs no funeral orations, or badges of
ity in the colored man to promote the welfare of the
gloom and mourning. The tears of the forgotten and
white people of this country.... The race to which
outcast and oppressed slave, now redeemed in man-
[black Americans] belong were not the special objects
hood, will be the sincerest tears that fall on the grave
of his consideration.”
of the President. From the cottages of the poor and
Nevertheless, Douglass went on, “The name of
“
downtrodden will come his truest requiem.”
Abraham Lincoln was near and dear to our hearts in
There will be
no deeper
mourning for
the beloved
head of the
Republic than
in the cabins
of slaves
”
the darkest and most perilous hours of the Republic.” This is because African-Americans “were able
F
or many whites, Lincoln’s legacy is best summed
up in the sculpture at the Freedmen’s Monument,
to take a comprehensive view of Abraham Lincoln,
which depicts an emancipated slave kneeling before
and make a reasonable allowance for the circum-
the martyred leader. But for blacks, Lincoln symbol-
stances of his position.”
ized empowerment and identity. The name Lincoln
“[T]hough the Union was more to him than our
supplanted the word “African” as the most common
freedom or our future,” Douglass observed, blacks
appellation for African-American businesses, fraternal
loved, understood and, more important, were forgiv-
orders, banks and shops. Beginning in 1865 and for
ing of a man whom he described as a white man who
decades thereafter, thousands of African-Americans
“shared the prejudices common to his countrymen
celebrated “Emancipation Day” on January 1, and
towards the colored race,” yet overcame them to offer
even today thousands of African-American churches
freedom and promote social justice. Blacks in general
hold “watch meetings” commemorating black expec-
had a less nuanced and more straightforward assess-
tancy on the eve of the original emancipation. In Loui-
ment of Lincoln: He was a great man who had done a
siana and Texas, Emancipation Day is commemorated
wonderful thing. They identified with his humble ori-
as “Juneteenth” and June 19 was transformed into a
gins; they identified him with Moses. They noted that
day of revelry, barbeque and music. In 1866, Ashmun
he was the first president to invite blacks to the White
Institute was renamed Lincoln University and became
House and the first to treat them as equals. After his
the first degree-granting black college in America.
assassination, thousands of black mourners were
Carter G. Woodson, often called the father of Afri-
among the throngs who lined the 1,700-mile funeral
can-American history (and buried at Lincoln Memo-
route from New York to Springfield, Illinois.
rial Cemetery in Suitland-Silver Hill, Md.), founded
An April 19, 1865 New York Times report entitled The
Negro History Week (later renamed Black History
Mourning of Slaves noted that: “On this day of national
Month) in February in a week that included the birth-
mourning, when the badges of sorrow cover the dwell-
days of Abraham Lincoln (February 12) and Freder-
ings of the rich, when funereal drapery festoons the
ick Douglass (February 14). In Woodson’s The Negro in
public halls and the churches, when organs peal the
Our History, his Lincoln “was the most formidable of
42 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
1809-2009
all [the] antislavery men” who hesitated to issue the
his age. Just as an old black woman allegedly gave
Emancipation Proclamation only because he “won-
thanks for black nationalist Marcus Garvey’s African
dered whether or not he had the authority.”
Orthodox Church because she knew “no white Jesus
Lincoln and John Brown were the favorite white
died for my sins,” so blacks had their darkest suspi-
subjects for black painters. Langston Hughes wrote
cions confirmed that Lincoln was just like all the rest.
Lincoln Monument as a tribute. Before performing at
The Lincoln mythology was just another betrayal.
the Lincoln Memorial, Marian Anderson thanked the
Malcolm X summed it up: “Lincoln did more to
Great Emancipator. The NAACP, whose creation was
trick Negroes than any other man in history.”
in part a response to the national horror over a race
In a 1985 speech to the Abraham Lincoln Associa-
riot in Springfield, Lincoln’s hometown, was founded
tion, John Hope Franklin noted: “Lincoln early became
on the 100th anniversary of his birth.
a symbol and an inspiration to those who chose to use
But African-Americans have never spoken with
his legacy, as well as those who chose to misuse it.” Mod-
one voice. As early as 1922, W. E. B. DuBois sparked
ern African-American scholarship increasingly focuses
criticism for referencing Lincoln’s “unfortunate”
on African-American agency, on what black people
speech at Charleston, Illinois, in 1858, and while
sought to do and were able to do for themselves.
In the aftermath of the fractious and bitterly-fought
2008 presidential campaign, African-Americans may
well revisit that image of Lincoln. They may come anew
to admire courage under pressure and presidential grace
amid crisis and despair. They may well come to appreciate what Franklin called “the flexibility of Lincoln and
his capacity for growth.” And in seeing Lincoln in a
new light, they may also come to adopt a more nuanced
approach to our often tortuous and dispiriting past.
Lincoln emerges again, as he has so many times
before, as a symbol of triumph, industry, aspiration
and empowerment. It was not by accident that Barack
Obama chose Springfield, and a venue shadowed by
Lincoln’s statue, for the announcement of his historic
In Louisiana and Texas,
Emancipation Day is
also celebrated
as “Juneteenth”
acknowledging him as “perhaps the greatest figure
presidential candidacy. (Nor was it a coincidence that
of the 19th century,” called Lincoln “a big, incon-
when reporters asked the newly elected president what
sistent, brave man.” In 1968, Lerone Bennett Jr.
he was reading to prepare for his new responsibilities,
wrote an article in Ebony magazine entitled “Was
he mentioned both Lincoln’s own writings and Team
Lincoln a White Supremacist?” which pictured
of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book on Lincoln’s
the 16th president as an “opportunist” who explic-
cabinet). Perhaps no other image is so quintessentially
itly endorsed racial inequality and urged blacks to
American or so enduringly a part of the African-
leave the country. Just as many blacks had sym-
American experience. Indeed, Abraham Lincoln is
bolically turned Lincoln’s picture to the wall when
as much a part of the African-American past as Afri-
they abandoned the Republican Party in the 1930s,
can-Americans are a part of American history. How
so, too, blacks abandoned the mythology of the
African-Americans feel about “The Great Emancipa-
benevolent white Moses and saw a politician, the
tor” says much about the tenor of black-white relations
ultimate self-made man, who shared and candidly
and remains a telling measure of both the optimism
expressed the most pernicious racial nostrums of
and self-assertiveness of the race.
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
43
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
The great orator
Words that carried power across time and around the world
By Theodore C. Sorensen,
special counsel and
speechwriter for President
John F. Kennedy and
author of Counselor: A Life
at the Edge of History
A
braham Lincoln, the greatest American presi-
principally a change in the ending, making it softer,
dent, was also in my view the best of all presi-
more conciliatory, invoking shared memories. But his
dential speechwriters. As a youngster in Lin-
proposed wording, often cited by historians, was pedes-
coln, Nebraska, I stood before the statue of Abraham
trian. Lincoln graciously took and read Seward’s sug-
Lincoln gracing the west side of the towering State
gestion but, with the magic of his own pen, turned that
Capitol, and soaked up the words of his Gettysburg
ending into his moving appeal to “the mystic chords of
Address inscribed on a granite slab behind the statue.
memory and the better angels of our nature,” words
Two decades later, in January 1961, President John
which still sing to us today.
F. Kennedy asked me to study those words again, in
preparing to help him write his inaugural address. He
also asked me to read all previous 20th-century inaugu-
Pictured right: Lincoln
giving the Gettysburg
Address in 1863
L
incoln was a better speechwriter than speaker. Normally, the success of a speech depends in consider-
ral addresses. I did not learn much from those speeches
able part on the speaker’s voice and presence. The best
(except for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inaugural) but I
speeches of John F. Kennedy benefited from his physical
learned a great deal from Lincoln’s ten sentences.
platform presence, his poise, personality, good looks and
Lincoln was a superb writer. Like Thomas Jefferson
strong voice. William Jennings Bryan moved audiences not
and Theodore Roosevelt, but unlike many other presi-
only with the extravagance of his language but also with
dents, he could have been a successful writer wholly
the skill of his movements and gestures, the strength of
apart from his political career. He needed no White
his voice and appearance. Democratic Party leaders who
House speechwriter as that post is understood today.
had not attended the 1896 national convention at which
He wrote his major speeches out by hand, as he did
Bryan delivered his “Cross of Gold” speech, and thus had
his eloquent letters and other documents. Sometimes
not been carried away by the power of his presence, later
he read his draft speeches aloud to others, including
could not understand his nomination on the basis of what
members of his cabinet and his two principal secre-
they merely read. Franklin Roosevelt’s speeches, for those
taries, John Hay and John Nicolay, and occasionally
who were not present for his performance, were merely
received suggestions, particularly at the start, from his
cold words on a page with substantially less effect than
one-time rival for the presidency, Secretary of State
they had for those present to hear them.
William Seward. On the first major occasion on which
But Lincoln’s words, heard by comparatively few, by
Seward offered an important contribution – Lincoln’s
themselves carried power across time and around the
First Inaugural – Lincoln demonstrated clearly that he
world. I may have been more moved by his remarks
was the better speechwriter. Seward’s idea was worthy,
at Gettysburg when I read them behind his statue at
44 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
XXX
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
45
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
“
Lincoln speeches
eschewed detail
for timeless
themes, never
partisan, pompous
or pedantic
the State Capitol in Lincoln in 1939 than were some
speech in 1854 and in the Cooper Union address in
of those straining to hear them on the outskirts of the
1860. But most Lincoln speeches eschewed detail for
audience at that vast cemetery in 1863. Edward Ever-
timeless themes and flawless construction; profound,
ett, with his two-hour oration fi lled with classical allu-
philosophical, never partisan, pompous or pedantic.
sions, had been the designated orator of the day. The
His two greatest speeches – the greatest speeches by
president was up and quickly down with his dedicatory
any president – are not only quite short (the Second
remarks in a few short minutes. One of the papers re-
Inaugural is only 703 words, the Gettysburg Address
ported, “The president also spoke.”
shorter still) but did not deal in the facts of current
”
Lincoln’s voice, reportedly high, was not as strong
policy at all, only with the largest ideas.
as Bryan’s, nor were his looks as appealing as Kennedy’s. (Lincoln himself referred to his “poor, lean, lank
face.”) His reading was not electronically amplified
1863 portrait, taken during
the writing of the
Gettysburg Address
A
president, like everyone else, is shaped by his
media environment, and if he is good, he
nor facilitated by a teleprompter,
shapes his communication to fi t
which today almost every presi-
that environment. Lincoln lived
dent uses to conceal his depen-
in an age of print. Oratory was
dence on a prepared text. (Why?
important political entertainment,
Would we have more confidence
but with no broadcasting, his words
in a surgeon or a plumber who
reached large audiences outside
operated without referring to his
the immediate vicinity only by
manual? Do we expect our presi-
print. His speeches were printed
dents to memorize or improvise
in the newspapers of the day and
their most important speeches?)
composed by him with that in mind.
Lincoln also spoke with a Mid-
He spoke for readers of the printed
western inflection that – in those
page, not merely for those listening.
days before mass media created a homogenized na-
His words moved voters far from the sound of his voice
tional audience and accent – was not the way folks
because of his writing skills, his intellectual power,
talked in Boston or New York, making him difficult
his grip on the core issue of his time, and his sublime
for some audiences to understand.
concept of his nation’s meaning. He drafted speeches to
But Lincoln’s success as an orator stemmed not from
be read by the public from the printed page, just as he
his voice, demeanor or manner of delivery, or even his
had educated himself by reading ideas and had trained
presence, but from his words and his ideas. He put into
himself to reach voters the same way.
powerful language the nub of the matter in the contro-
Kennedy mastered the formal address on tele-
versy over slavery and secession in his own time, and
vision, Franklin Roosevelt the fi eside
r
chat on
the core meaning for all time of this nation itself as
radio, Bill Clinton the more casual messages.
“this last best hope of earth.”
Of
course, modern American television audi-
Such great and moving subjects produce many
ences would not tolerate the three-hour debates
more great and moving speeches than do discussions
Lincoln had with Stephen Douglas, or his longer
of tax cuts and tariffs.
speeches – but that was a different age, with a different
With his prodigious memory and willingness to dig
media environment. Lincoln was adaptable enough
out facts (as his own researcher), he could offer meticu-
that he could have mastered modern modes of politi-
lous historical detail, as he demonstrated in his Peoria
cal speech – today’s sound-bite culture – had he lived
46 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
1809-2009
in this era. He had a talent for getting to the point.
Lincoln avoided the fancy and artificial. He used
Lincoln’s most famous speeches
the rhetorical devices that the rest of us speechwriters use: alliteration (“Fondly do we hope – fervently
do we pray”; “no successful appeal from the ballot to
the bullet”); rhyme (“I shall adopt new views so fast
as they shall appear to be true views”); repetition (“As
our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew”;
“We cannot dedicate/we cannot consecrate/we cannot hallow – this ground”); and – especially – contrast
and balance (“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present”; “As I would not be a
slave, so I would not be a master”; “In giving freedom
to the slave, we assure freedom to the free”).
He used metaphors, as we all do, both explicit and
implicit: think of the implied figure of birth – “brought
forth”, “conceived” – in the Gettysburg Address. He
would quote the Bible quite sparingly – but to tremendous effect when he did it. See how he ends the monumental next-to-last paragraph of the Second Inaugural
about the blood spilled by the war matching the blood
drawn by slavery’s lash: “Still it must be said, as was
said three thousand years ago, the judgments of the
Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
But the triumph of this greatest example of American
public speech did not come from devices alone. Lincoln
had, in addition, two great qualities infusing his use of
those devices. First, he had a poetic literary sensibility.
He was aware of the right rhythm and sound. Seward
wrote: “I close,”. Lincoln made a simple change that
made a huge difference: “I am loath to close.” An editor
might say “Eighty-seven years ago” is shorter; Lincoln
wrote instead: “Four score and seven years ago.”
And, fi nally, he had the root of the matter in him.
The presidents greatest in speechcraft are almost all the
greatest in statecraft also – because speeches are not
just words. They present ideas, directions and values,
and the best speeches are the ones that get those right.
As Lincoln did.
A version of this article appeared in the November 2008 issue of
the Smithsonian magazine
1858
HOUSE DIVIDED SPEECH, JUNE 1858
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” I believe this government cannot
endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will
arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the
belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it
forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, North
as well as South.
1858
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE AT QUINCY, ILLINOIS, OCTOBER 1858
There is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the rights
enumerated in the Declaration of Independence – the right of life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white
man. I agree with Justice [Stephen A.] Douglas that he is not my equal in many
respects, certainly not in color – perhaps not in intellectual and moral endowments; but in the right to eat the bread without leave of anybody else which his
own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of
every other man.
1860
COOPER UNION SPEECH, FEBRUARY 1860
Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be
changed. There is a judgment and a feeling against slavery in this nation, which
cast at least a million and a half of votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and
feeling – that sentiment – by breaking up the political organization which rallies
around it. You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which has been formed
into order in the face of your heaviest fire; but if you could, how much would you
gain by forcing the sentiment which created it out of the peaceful channel of the
ballot-box, into some other channel? What would that other channel probably be?
1863
GETTYSBURG ADDRESS, NOVEMBER 1863
It is rather for us, the living, to… take increased devotion to that cause for which
they here, gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve
these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of
freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall
not perish from the earth.
1865
SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS, MARCH 1865
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may
speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by
the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk,
and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn
with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” With malice toward
none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the
right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds,
to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan,
to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
47
UTE DIPSUM
Imagine another ending
Tweaking history to shape an alternate world
By Orville Vernon
Burton, Burroughs Chair
of Southern History
at Coastal Carolina
University and author of
The Age of Lincoln
W
hat if...
resulted in two nations. I disagree. Had secession
Students sometimes have the impres-
been established as a legitimate means of opposition,
sion that history had to go one way and
the splintering would not necessarily have stopped at
one way only. But imagining alternate endings high-
two. The other Southern states might not have joined
lights the importance of human agency and showcases
South Carolina in a new nation, but whenever an
history as dramatic and meaningful. This is especially
issue went against them, they would have peeled off one
true in the life of Abraham Lincoln and the history of
by one from the Union; likewise for the Northeast and
the Civil War.
the western states when their sectional interests were
threatened. It is likely it would not have stopped with
What if Lincoln had failed and the Confederacy
regional disaffection. States could have – and probably
had won the Civil War?
would have – seceded from the smaller nations of the
Confederate victory would have meant the end of
northern, southern, and western countries when their
America as we know it. Some say it would have
interests were threatened.
48 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
1809-2009
These balkanized new “nations” would have meant
ers in the Union border states. As one British newspa-
the arrival of the anarchy Lincoln feared. The demise of
per wrote: “The principle asserted is not that a human
the United States of America would have ended the new
being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot
experiment in freedom. And without the American prec-
own him unless he is loyal to the United States.”
edent, independence and democracy would have been
harder for the rest of the world. Freedom, liberty, and
What if Lincoln had failed to win reelection
democracy would have been stalled, at least for that time.
in 1864?
Confederate victory was a very real possibility in 1864.
“
Without the
American
precedent,
independence
and democracy
would have
been harder for
the rest of
the world
Would slavery have withered away and
A major source of hope for the Confederacy was the
died anyway?
chance that Lincoln would lose the election in No-
Although few acknowledged it in 1860, a long war
vember. He wrote in April of that year that “it seems
meant that slavery was doomed. A slave system requires
exceedingly probable that this Administration will not
strict adherence to the order of things, and wars bring
be reelected.”
total disorder. An enslaved population with some au-
No president had won a second term since Andrew
tonomy during war years became less tractable and less
Jackson more than 30 years earlier. Moreover, many
willing to pretend otherwise.
blamed Lincoln for the horrendous Union losses. That
Some aver that if the South had been let alone to
summer, the Democratic National Convention in Chi-
secede, or had been victorious in war, slavery would still
cago nominated General George McClellan for presi-
have ended. The Confederacy, after all, was part of a
dent. McClellan’s desire for an “immediate armistice”
world that was increasingly intolerant of enslaved labor.
and his promise to use “every means to secure peace
Brazil was the only other major country that continued
without further bloodshed” appealed to many who
a slave system.
were tired of bad news from the battlefront.
If the United States had become two or more
In the election of 1864, Lincoln garnered 2.2 mil-
nations, the boundaries of bondage would have been
lion votes, or 55 percent; McClellan got 1.8 million,
more porous. The Confederacy’s southern neighbor,
or 45 percent. Had McClellan won that election,
Mexico, would have been as much opposed to slav-
the United States likely would have mended itself by
ery as its northern neighbor, and neither would have
allowing the continuation of slavery. The U.S. would
returned fugitive slaves.
have forfeited the Age of Lincoln’s most enduring
It is likely that an independent South would have
achievement: inscription into the nation’s founding
eventually ended slavery in a modernizing world (Bra-
document the promise of equal rights without regard
zil outlawed it in 1888), but it would have been aboli-
to race. There would be no 13th Amendment forbid-
tion with a major difference. The Confederate States of
ding slavery; no 14th Amendment opening citizenship
America would have done it very gradually and prob-
to African-Americans; no 15th Amendment guaran-
ably would have institutionalized white supremacy in a
teeing African-American men the right to vote.
more blatantly apartheid legal system.
In the midst of civil war, Abraham Lincoln would
What if Lincoln had lived to guide the nation
have issued his Emancipation Proclamation as a war
through Reconstruction?
measure and as a matter of simple justice, but without a
Lincoln’s war was fought to prevent secession from end-
Union victory, the effect would have been limited. The
ing the American experiment of democratic freedom.
Emancipation Proclamation freed no one. First of all,
When the war itself uprooted the twisted tree of chattel
it was not effective in Confederate states because the
slavery once and for all, it also unleashed a broad new
U.S. Army was not in position to enforce it. Second, it
debate across the land about what freedom actually sig-
did not cover enslaved workers held by loyal slavehold-
nified, what it meant to be American, and what sort of
”
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
49
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
a new nation had been ushered in at such horrific cost.
rights, and when asked why he chose Chase, a critic
The New York World criticized Lincoln for not having
and a thorn in his side, Lincoln replied: “To have done
a plan for Reconstruction, comparing him to “a trav-
otherwise I should have been recreant to my convic-
eler in an unknown country without a map.” Not true.
tions of my duty to the Republican Party and to the
Lincoln knew where he was headed and had already
country.” Unfortunately, Chase died in 1873.
taken several important steps in that direction. Lin-
Lincoln’s bad decision was his choice of Andrew
coln had been considering the issue of Reconstruc-
Johnson to run with him as vice president in 1864.
tion, and in 1864 he had written to a Quaker constitu-
Johnson was a Tennessean known for his antipathy
ent: “Surely He intends some great good to follow this
to slavery and the master class it supported. Many
mighty convulsion.”
expected the Confederate-hating Johnson to seek
Lincoln also considered the place of African-Amer-
retribution against the former slaveholders. Instead,
icans in a nation undergoing a new birth of freedom.
he appeared to “out-Lincoln” Lincoln in leniency.
His views had evolved and expanded throughout his
While congressional Republicans shrieked for the
presidency. As he pondered racial issues, he became
final destruction of the planter class, Johnson opened
acquainted with people such as Martin Delany, who
up a virtual pardon mill in the Oval Office, restor-
was, he declared, a “most extraordinary and intel-
ing Confederate veterans to political standing with
ligent black man,” and Frederick Douglass, whom
startling eagerness.
he called “my friend.” Asking Douglass’s reaction
Regarding land ownership for former slaves, John-
to the Second Inaugural, Lincoln said: “There is
son quashed the successful plan outlined by General
no man in the country whose opinion I value more
William Tecumseh Sherman in January 1865. Lincoln
than yours.”
had approved Sherman’s Special Field Order No.15,
Lincoln pointed to Louisiana as an example of what
which subdivided hundreds of thousands of acres of
Reconstruction might look like. That state had already
farmland along the South Carolina and Georgia coast
granted total emancipation with no middle step of
“so that each family shall have a plot of not more
apprenticeship for freed slaves. It offered public edu-
than forty acres of tillable ground.” The experiment
cation to black and white children. Regarding suffrage
was successful. Within six months, more than 40,000
for African-American men, Lincoln said: “I would
freedmen purchased land – they thought for keeps.
myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very
What effect such revolutionary innovation might
intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as sol-
have had on the South and on the nation we will
diers,” but he was gratified that Louisiana held out the
never know. By August of that year, President Johnson
possibility of black suffrage.
rescinded any plan for distribution of confiscated Confederate land to the freedmen.
W
“
Surely He
intends some
great good
to follow
this mighty
convulsion
”
hile undoubtedly Lincoln would have strug-
Had Lincoln lived, he could not have prevented
gled with discord in his own party, after vic-
all Southern violence or the formation of groups like
tory in war, Lincoln had the gravitas of “Father Abra-
the Klu Klux Klan. However, Lincoln was commit-
ham” to move the country toward civil rights. Prior
ted to the rule of law and would not have allowed
to his death, Lincoln made two decisions that helped
that large-scale violence and terrorism to go unad-
define Reconstruction, one very good but short-lived,
dressed. African-Americans might have been left
the other very bad.
alone on their own land; they might have continued
The very good decision was to name Salmon P.
to garner political power with the right to a mean-
Chase of Ohio to replace Roger Taney as chief jus-
ingful vote. The success of Reconstruction might
tice of the Supreme Court. Lincoln knew that Recon-
have continued, and freedom might have flourished
struction would need an unfaltering advocate of black
for all Americans.
50 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
UTE DIPSUM
52 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
1809-2009
The commander in chief
Delegating authority – but not responsibility
By Craig L. Symonds,
professor of history
emeritus, U.S. Naval
Academy, Annapolis,
Maryland
A
braham Lincoln was the first American presi-
during the Nullification Crisis in 1832. Of course, both
dent to preside over a modern war, for the Civil
of those men had been generals before becoming presi-
War was the first American conflict to make
dent. During the War of 1812 and the war with Mexico
widespread use of the railroad, the telegraph, the rifled
in 1846–48, Presidents James Madison and James Polk
musket, mines, armored warships, and even a subma-
did not seek to exercise direct command over armies in
rine. It was also America’s only total war, one in which
the field, leaving that to the generals, and this was the
American fields and farms constituted the battlefields
tradition that Lincoln solidified as chief executive.
and American cities were the focus of sieges. In no
In part, this was because Lincoln knew that he lacked
other war did so large a percentage of Americans serve
both the expertise and the experience to exercise direct
in uniform. Not only did more Americans die in this
military command. Lincoln’s self-deprecating sense of
war than in all other American wars combined, but
humor extended to his brief career in the Illinois militia
it remains the only war in which the character of the
during the uprising known as the Black Hawk War in
Republic and the meaning of freedom, even the very
1832. Though he was elected the captain of his mili-
survival of the country, was at stake.
tia unit, he subsequently mocked his experience as
Given that, it is not surprising that Lincoln employed
“a war hero” by freely declaring that while he had
unusual emergency powers during the war, including
fought many “bloody battles” with the mosquitoes, he
the suspension of habeas corpus. And yet throughout the
had never seen a hostile Indian. Additionally, Lincoln
four years of modern total war, the most salient charac-
simply did not believe it was proper for the nation’s
teristic of Lincoln’s tenure as commander in chief was
chief executive to lead armies in the field. Others,
his restraint.
surely, could do that job better. Consequently, when
Being “commander in chief of the Army and Navy
of the United States” is the first of the enumerated
The Pennsylvania Memorial
at Gettysburg National
Military Park
the war began, Lincoln hoped that its conduct could
be entrusted to the professionals.
powers granted to the president by the Constitution. It
This is not to say that Lincoln simply turned the war
is not clear how the framers of that document intended
over to the soldiers; he delegated authority but not
this power to be exercised. During the first four score
responsibility, and he felt the burden of that responsi-
and seven years of the Republic, two presidents took
bility every day of his presidency. The advent of the
the charge literally. George Washington donned his
telegraph made it possible for him to keep close track
uniform and led the army into western Pennsylvania
of the operations of the Army and Navy, even when
to quell the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, and Andrew
they were a thousand miles away. But only rarely
Jackson at least considered doing much the same thing
did he step in and direct those operations. One such
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
53
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
President Abraham Lincoln
meets his generals
moment came in the spring of 1862, during a visit to
Hampton Roads, when he personally directed a landing on the Virginia shore that led to the capitulation
of Norfolk. As commander in chief of the Army and
the Navy, he was the only individual in the Republic who could direct joint operations, and without his
involvement, it is unlikely that this operation would
have taken place at all.
Another such moment occurred only a few months
later, when a rebel army under Thomas “Stonewall”
Jackson moved northward through the Shenandoah
Valley toward Harpers Ferry. Lincoln issued telegraphic
orders directing Union forces to converge on Jackson
from two directions, hoping to trap him in the lower valley and crush him. In the end, this gambit failed, and
Lincoln, perhaps chastened, never again sought to direct
the movement of particular units. He never wanted to
play the role of Cromwell or Napoleon, and he was an
unlikely actor for such a role. When he visited the troops
– which he did often – he was anything but a heroic figure in his plain black suit and top hat. Though he was
a competent rider, his angular frame rested awkwardly
on a saddle, and more often than not his trousers rode up
on his legs, exposing his ankles. The soldiers, of course,
loved him all the more for it and called out to “Uncle
Abe,” whom they considered “a trump.”
Several of Lincoln’s advisors urged him to become
a more assertive commander in chief, and there
were moments when Lincoln seemed poised to do
so. When General George McClellan fell ill with
typhoid in the winter of 1861–62, it was clear that
the entire war effort could not stop and wait for one
man to regain his health. If McClellan was not going
to be using the army, Lincoln suggested that perhaps
he could borrow it. He even told his friend Orville
Browning that “he was thinking of taking the field
himself.” Very likely, however, Lincoln meant that as
a metaphor for exercising a firmer direction of military events. In any event, when McClellan heard that
Union soldiers at camp,
Harper’s Ferry, 1862
54 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
Lincoln was holding talks with his subordinate generals
in an effort to construct a plan of battle, he dragged
1809-2009
himself out of his sick bed and asserted his command
S. Grant who, almost uniquely among the Union’s
authority. Lincoln did not press the issue. Assured by
army commanders, listened to the president when he
his commanding general that he did have a plan of
diffidently summarized his vision of a simultaneous
operations, Lincoln stepped back and resumed his role
advance against the enemy. It was a view Grant shared
as observer and supporter.
in any case, and when the spring campaign began in
May of 1864, fi ve Union armies moved not only the
I
t was an agony for Lincoln each time he learned of
same week, but the same day. It worked. Confederate
another Union disappointment in the field. Each
forces were overmatched in trying to defend every-
spring, a different Union Army commander led a
where at once. Lee bloodied the Army of the Potomac
well-equipped and hopeful army southward – to Bull
badly in the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania, though in
Run (twice), to the Virginia Peninsula, to Fredericks-
the end this only delayed rather than defeated Grant.
burg, and to Chancellorsville – only to report at first a
And while this was happening, other Union armies
hopeful beginning, then a reverse, and finally a retreat.
moved toward Petersburg south of Richmond, through
“My God, my God,” Lincoln cried out on hearing the
the Valley of the Shenandoah, and, most important,
news from Chancellorsville, “what will the country
toward Atlanta, which William T. Sherman captured in
say?” Even when the Army won
a victory, as at Gettysburg, the
“
I claim not
to have
controlled
events, but
confess plainly
that events have
controlled me
”
early September. Instead of claimGeneral Ulysses S. Grant
ing credit for the success of what,
commanding general, in this case
after all, was his own strategic plan,
George Gordon Meade, seemed
Lincoln gave all the credit to Grant
reluctant to follow it up and seek to
and Sherman.
end the war. “What does it mean, Mr.
If Lincoln was patient with his
Welles?” Lincoln asked Secretary of
generals (too patient, some thought),
the Navy Gideon Welles, when he
patience was a key element of his
learned that Robert E. Lee’s army,
entire administration. Though he
wounded but intact, had escaped
is rightly remembered for his revo-
back across the Potomac River into
lutionary – even radical – decisions
Virginia after Gettysburg. “Great
that led to conscription, a naval
God, what does it mean?”
blockade, paper money, even eman-
Lincoln had a clear and consistent strategic con-
cipation, Lincoln never got ahead of what he knew
cept. The North, after all, had overwhelming numeri-
public opinion would support. He was willing to let
cal superiority. He saw that if all the Union armies,
events determine not only the timing of his decisions,
east and west, moved forward at the same time, it
but sometimes the decisions themselves. This is what he
would compel the Confederates to choose which
meant when he remarked late in the war: “I claim not
of the several offensives to contest. If the rebels
to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events
spread out their forces in an effort to defend every-
have controlled me.” From his consideration of what to
where, they would be overwhelmed; if they con-
do about Fort Sumter to the management of his gener-
centrated their forces on one of the Union thrusts,
als and his admirals to his program for Reconstruction,
that force could halt while the other Union armies
Lincoln adopted a wait-and-see attitude in responding
advanced. But Union generals had difficulty getting
to the multiple and various crises of his unprecedented
their minds around this kind of continental strategy.
administration. In the end, his patience and forbear-
In the end, Lincoln found his general in Ulysses
ance were key elements in the Union victory.
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
55
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
The fruits of labor
For all men, “an open field and a fair chance”
By Lewis E. Lehrman,
advisor to the Abraham
Lincoln Bicentennial
Commission and author
of Lincoln at Peoria: The
Turning Point
he ant, who has toiled and dragged a crumb
tion of Independence applied to both black and white
to his nest, will furiously defend the fruit of
Americans. The declaration had declared that “all men
his labor against whatever robber assails
are created equal,” and Lincoln embraced this found-
him.” This parable expressed Abraham Lincoln’s belief
ing principle. During the first two decades of his politi-
in the dignity of human labor. The right to the fruit of
cal life his activities emphasized economic and free
one’s labor was so fundamental that “all feel and under-
labor policies. In 1854 Lincoln shifted his focus to fight-
stand it, even down to brutes and creeping insects,”
ing the extension of slavery (unfree labor).
“T
wrote Lincoln. The inalienable right to liberty, includ-
There was both a political and a strong moral com-
ing the liberty to the fruit of one’s labor, was a right
ponent to Lincoln’s policy: “Slavery is founded in the
announced in the Declaration of Independence.
selfishness of man’s nature – opposition to it is [in] his
For Lincoln, according to historian Gabor Boritt,
love of justice. These principles are an eternal antago-
the “right to rise” was “the central idea of the United
nism; and when brought into collision so fi ercely, as
States.” Lincoln said: “The prudent, penniless beginner
slavery extension brings them, shocks, and throes, and
in the world, labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus
convulsions must ceaselessly follow,” said Lincoln at
with which to buy tools or land, for himself; then labors
on his own account another while, and at length hires
another new beginner to help him. This...is...the just,
and generous, and prosperous system, which opens the
way to all – gives hope to all, and energy, and progress,
and improvement of condition to all.”
Lincoln himself had risen from poverty in Kentucky,
“
Indiana, and Illinois. As a farm hand, axeman, craftsman, militia captain, shop clerk and owner, Lincoln
Slavery is
founded in the
selfishness of
man’s nature
– opposition
to it is [in] his
love of justice
”
learned the liberating power of honest work. He did
not particularly like farm work, but he prided himself on his axe skills, even into his presidency. Like
America’s first president, America’s 16th president also
received an economic education as a surveyor, whereby
he witnessed the importance of land titles to secure the
fruit of one’s labor.
Lincoln, opposing many of his contemporaries,
believed that the principles enunciated in the Declara-
56 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
1809-2009
“
An open field
and a fair
chance for
your industry;
that you may
all have equal
privileges in
the race of life
”
Freed slaves harvesting
peanuts, Virginia
Peoria, Illinois, on October 16, 1854. These were hard
hired laborer this year and the next, work for himself
words in the free state of Illinois, which also had a wide-
afterward, and finally to hire men to work for him!
spread culture of racism.
That is the true system.”
For Lincoln, the Missouri Compromise of 1820 had
Slavery undermined the hope of the American Sys-
established a fence to block the northward and westward
tem of free labor that Lincoln cherished – public works,
expansion of slavery. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854
a national bank system, and revenue-producing tariffs
destroyed the fence, repealed the Missouri Compromise
– a system popularized by Henry Clay, the great Whig
line, opened the territory to slavery, and reversed what
leader from Kentucky, but also inspired by America’s
Lincoln argued was the Founders’ intention to put slav-
fi rst Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, three
ery on the “course of ultimate extinction.” Lincoln con-
decades earlier. Lincoln’s sense of the justice of the
tended: “Repeal the Missouri compromise – repeal all
American System was obvious in his fir st announcement
compromises – repeal the Declaration of Independence
in 1832, at age 23, as a political candidate: “Time and
– repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human
experience have verified to a demonstration, the public
nature. It still will be the abundance of man’s heart, that
utility of internal improvements. That the poorest and
slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of
most thinly populated countries would be greatly ben-
his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.”
efi ted by the opening of good roads, and in the clear-
For the last decade of his life, Lincoln would con-
ing of navigable streams within their limits, is what no
tinue to emphasize the immorality of slavery and the
person will deny.” Eventually, that vision would lead to
honor of free labor: “I want every man to have the
America’s first transcontinental railroad.
chance – and I believe a black man is entitled to it,”
Until death, Lincoln maintained his faith in the fun-
Lincoln told a New Haven audience in March 1860.
damental wisdom and benefi cial results of free labor:
In the wake of his remarkable Cooper Union speech
“We made the experiment; and the fruit is before us.
of February, Lincoln spoke of his economic beliefs
Look at it – think of it. Look at it, in its aggregate gran-
as he toured New England. A black American, too,
deur, of extent of country, and numbers of population
should be able to “look forward and hope to be a
– of ship, and steamboat, and rail[road]....” Himself
an innovator, Lincoln had a strong interest in new technology. He was America’s only president to file a patent
on his own behalf.
Above all, Lincoln’s economic philosophy meant
that labor and capital should work together rather
than in conflict. In his policy for prosperity, he held
the dignity of human labor to be primary. In his
1861 Annual Message to Congress, Lincoln wrote:
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital.
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never
have existed if labor had not first existed.” In 1864,
Lincoln spelled out his underlying economic goal to
the men of an Ohio regiment: “An open field and a
fair chance for your industry, enterprise and intelligence; that you may all have equal privileges in the
race of life.”
Equality of opportunity is Lincoln’s economic legacy.
As he said: “Work, work, work is the main thing.”
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
57
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
Paying the price
Everyone, rich and poor, shouldered the cost of war
By Robert D. Hormats,
vice chairman of
Goldman Sachs
(International) and
author of The Price
of Liberty: Paying for
America’s Wars from
the Revolution to the
War on Terror
A
braham Lincoln would have been the first
The Lincoln Administration faced an additional
to admit that he knew little about economic
obstacle in the lack of credible financial institutions in
and financial matters. As president, when
the country. The United States had no central bank
asked about them, he frequently suggested that
and no national banking system. Finances were con-
the questioner “go to Secretary Chase [Salmon P.
ducted largely through state-chartered banks, about
Chase, his Treasury secretary], he is managing the
1,600 of them in all, most of which were poorly run
finances.” Yet the president could not escape the need
and inadequately regulated. In addition, the United
to address the enormous challenge his administration
States had no national currency; transactions were
faced in paying for the Civil War – by far the most
conducted using gold, silver and copper coins, and a
expensive conflict in which the country had engaged to
bewildering array of bank notes, some of which were
that point.
Lincoln, Chase, and their Republican colleagues in the Congress had
issued by legitimate banks, others by
Salmon P. Chase, Treasury
secretary (1808–1873)
banks that had long been closed, and
still others by counterfeiters.
to raise enormous sums of money in
a nation that, since the War of 1812,
had relied almost exclusively on tariffs
I
n the mid-1800s there was no
income or corporate tax, and no
to supply the financial needs of the
capacity to collect internal taxes
federal government. Americans were
(only tariffs through customs houses).
almost pathologically opposed to any
And whereas the country had
other form of taxation. After all, the
received large sums of foreign capital
Revolution was fought in part against
through much of the 1840s and 1850s
heavy taxation by the British Crown.
– as European investors snapped up
Americans were also unaccustomed to their govern-
railway stocks and bonds, bank stocks, and state and
ment borrowing a lot of money. During the more than
federal bonds – such sales were sharply reduced at the
four decades since the War of 1812, except for peri-
advent of the Civil War. America’s internal struggle
ods of economic depression brought on by what were
led many overseas investors to believe that the country
called “panics” in the financial system, the government
would fragment and, later, to question when the heavy
had consistently run surpluses. President Andrew Jack-
Union debt could be repaid.
son had actually paid off the entire government debt
in the 1830s.
58 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
For Lincoln, dramatically increasing the financial
powers of the federal government was an imperative
UTE DIPSUM
Prelude to war:
December 20, 1860
the Charleston
Mercury reports on the
dissolution of the Union
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
59
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
for success in the war. But until the war, the notion of
enacting the nation’s first income tax and by imposing
such an increase was abhorrent to most Americans.
taxes on virtually everything else as well. They also enor-
In the decades before Lincoln’s election, Congressio-
mously increased federal borrowing, created a uniform
nal Democrats, primarily from the South, had enor-
currency (the “greenback” we use today), established a
mous influence in Washington. They, and many rural
national banking system and imposed such high taxes on
Republicans as well, were deeply suspicious of con-
state banks that most of them were forced to close.
centrating too much economic power in the hands of
the federal government.
“
Men readily
perceive that
they cannot
be much
oppressed by
a debt which
they owe
themselves
”
These measures were designed not simply to mobilize massive sums of money for the war, but also to raise
Andrew Jackson was the most vocal spokesman for
that money in a way that strengthened Northern eco-
this point of view. He killed the Second Bank of the
nomic, political, and social cohesion. To augment that
United States – which he denounced as a “monster
cohesion, Republican leaders also sought to convince
bank” because it concentrated too much fi nancial
their fellow Northerners that the burden of paying the
power in one government institution.
heavy cost of the war was being fairly shared.
Jackson’s closing of the Second Bank, like his move to
The changes Lincoln and his colleagues made in the
eliminate all federal debt in the 1830s, reflected his suspi-
nation’s fi nancial system were transformative – and
cion of the motives of those who held financial power. In
of a scope and depth unprecedented up to that time.
paying off all the government’s debt, he aimed “to pre-
The only comparable period of fi nancial reform was
vent a moneyed aristocracy from growing up around our
Franklin Roosevelt’s fi rst 100 days, when the Depres-
administration that must bend to its views and ultimately
sion made Americans receptive to sweeping changes to
destroy the liberty of our country.”
improve their desperate situation.
Many Americans, like Jackson, shared the Jeffersonian
Easing the way to this revolutionary economic change
concern that if the national government borrowed too
was the departure from Congress of most Southern
much it would end up owing too much money to this
legislators – largely agrarian Democrats – when their
“aristocracy” – i.e. wealthy people who had sufficient
states seceded from the Union after Lincoln’s election.
surplus income to buy bonds, in contrast to yeoman
Most of the departed members had staunchly opposed
farmers and laborers who did not. In such circumstances,
giving more financial and political power to the
they feared, the rich would exert undue influence on the
federal government.
nation’s leaders to the detriment of the poor. Democracy
Lincoln did not accept the Jeffersonian-Jacksonian
itself, Jefferson and Jackson believed, would be threat-
view that federal borrowing must pit rural against
ened if these willful people gained excessive power.
urban, or rich against poor Americans. He believed
that massive borrowing was not only necessary to raise
L
incoln and most Republicans adhered to a differ-
large sums of money (in the end it covered 60 percent
ent philosophy. They shared Alexander Hamilton’s
of the cost of the war) but also that if it were done cor-
view that sound national fi nances and robust national
rectly it could more closely tie large numbers of North-
fi nancial institutions were essential to a prosperous
erners, whom he sought to persuade to buy the bonds,
economy and a strong nation – and in the early 1860s
to the Union’s cause.
they saw these as necessary to mobilize the enormous
amounts of financial resources needed to win the war.
Lincoln explained that if large numbers of people
“of small means” bought bonds, rather than only the
They proceeded, during the conflict, to dramatically
wealthy, the government would be inoculated against
enlarge the federal government’s taxing authority by
the charge that its wartime borrowing was benefi ting
60 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
1809-2009
Bars, bricks, coins
and nuggets of 19th
century U.S. gold
the rich. “The great advantage of citizens being creditors as well as debtors with relation to the public debt,”
Lincoln pointed out, is that “men readily perceive that
they cannot be much oppressed by a debt which they
owe themselves.” Occasionally Lincoln himself would
walk over to the Treasury building next door to the
White House, empty his pockets of that portion of
his presidential salary he did not need for everyday
expenses and buy war bonds.
T
he income tax was an even more radical departure
from normal American practice. Affluent Ameri-
cans, who paid the bulk of the income tax (it was ini-
Passage of the income tax, which Chase ultimately
tially levied on incomes above $600 at a time when the
embraced because he soon saw it as a way to raise sub-
average income was only $150), deplored it as “unjust”
stantial sums of money, and other taxes on the well-to-
and a “heavy-handed federal intrusion.”
do, took on added urgency after draft riots broke out in
Some opponents also argued that this tax was
undemocratic on grounds that it “punished men
New York (as vividly depicted in the movie Gangs of New
York), Chicago, Detroit and other northern cities.
because they were rich.” Others claimed that it was
This violence reflected deep racial and class resent-
unconstitutional – for which there was some justifi ca-
ments – and was a constant and troubling reminder
tion. In fact, although the Civil War income tax was
to Lincoln and his colleagues that social issues and
phased out in 1872, the Supreme Court later found a
equity considerations could not be neglected if the
similar tax unconstitutional, requiring an amendment
Union was to sustain public support and obtain the
to the Constitution early in the 20th century (the 16th
required manpower for the Army. The administra-
Amendment) to establish its constitutionality.
tion and Congress saw the income tax and other pro-
The idea for the income tax came not from the Lin-
gressive taxes as needed, not only to raise money but
coln Administration but from the Congress. Chase ini-
also to demonstrate that the rich were paying their
tially opposed it, arguing that collection would require a
fair share of the cost of the war. Of course, taxes
big bureaucracy and little revenue would be generated.
were imposed on virtually everything during the war,
Legislative leaders saw it as an alternative to a proposed
so economic sacrifice extended to even the lowest-
property tax that, asserted Schuyler Colfax, an Indiana
income families.
Republican and Speaker of the House, would unfairly
Lincoln and Congress understood that Northern-
burden a farmer while “exempting a millionaire, who
ers had to bear a heavy financial burden to finance
has put his entire property into stock.” Representative
the war, and were not afraid to ask them to pay more
Justin Morrill, a Vermont Democrat and key fi gure
taxes. The Union’s leaders also recognized that war
on the House Ways and Means Committee, asked,
financing was not only about mobilizing large sums
“Ought not men…with large incomes, to pay more in
of money, as important as that was. For them it was
proportion to what they have than those with limited
also about unifying public opinion in support of the
means?” Most Americans, and a majority in the Con-
war effort and ensuring that the financial burden was
gress, believed that they should.
being shared fairly.
“
Ought not men
with large
incomes, to
pay more in
proportion to
what they have
than those with
limited means?
”
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
61
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
The power of education
For future generations, tools for the common good
By Richard Herman,
chancellor of the
University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign
A
braham Lincoln’s education was of the bootstrap variety, with roots in Kentucky’s roughhewn frontier isolation. Close to 200 years
later, Lincoln’s education remains a winning formula:
a curious boy, a handful of classic books, and a supportive mentor. Historian M. L. Houser wrote that
our 16th president was, thanks in no small part to his
encouraging mother, Nancy, “an insatiable student,” a
great borrower of neighbors’ books, and that he could
read – and comprehend – the Bible before he turned
eight. Lincoln felt self-instruction was the key. He
believed that one should read “the histories of his own
and other countries, by which he may duly appreciate
the value of our free institutions.”
The delight of discovery, the magic of making intellectual connections between disparate ideas from different eras, followed Lincoln from his Kentucky cabin
to the Illinois statehouse into the tall doors of the White
House. Because of his own experience and unimaginable success, Lincoln believed, as he said in a speech
in Michigan, that “every man can make himself.”
Today we would amend the pronouns to be more
inclusive, but the statement’s intent is clear: Education will not only enlighten us and feed our unending
human curiosity, but it will impel us to become more
active and able participants in American democracy.
In a sense, Lincoln shared the faith in education of
another president, Thomas Jefferson. Historian Ronald
Rietveld wrote: “He accepted Jefferson’s announcement
62 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
State Agricultural College, Kansas, the first
land-grant college, which became Kansas
State University after the Morrill Act
1809-2009
that, if the people are enlightened, tyranny and the oppres-
ernment to the states to create institutions of higher
sion of body and mind will vanish. The Monticello sage
learning and “to promote the liberal and practical edu-
also believed that an educated population would thus pre-
cation of the industrial classes in the several pursuits
serve constitutional principles and enact progressive legis-
and professions of life.”
lative measures. Lincoln knew the Jeffersonian credo.”
The Lincoln credo, if you will, was based on his faith
that, given the great, transforming tools of education,
K
ansas State University became the very first landgrant university on February 16, 1863. More than
men and women would use them for the common good
70 others have followed. Four years after KSU’s establish-
of humankind. Naive? Maybe. Inspiring? Certainly.
ment, the Illinois Industrial University opened its doors; it
The belief in the power of education to transform
was later renamed the University of Illinois (in 1885).
The Morrill Act changed access to higher educa-
of one of the most enduring pieces of legislation of
tion forever. Up to that point, college was rarefied
Lincoln’s presidency: the Morrill Act of 1862. The Act
air for what scholar Anne Colby and her colleagues
ceded more than 17 million acres from the federal gov-
described as “a relatively small number of white,
Representative
Justin Smith Morrill
(1810-1898),
introduced the
Morrill Land Grant
College Act (1862)
University Archives, Kansas State University
and to offer opportunity and access to all is at the heart
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
63
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
male students who were members of an economic
report “emphasized the diversity of U.S. society and
and social elite” preparing for “the positions of social,
insisted that education would not be ‘adequate until
economic, and political power and leadership” they
it catches the image [of the society] more exactly.’” [Italics
were destined to assume. By the early 1900s, only
added by the author.]
four decades after the Morrill Act was signed into law
Again, to quote President Lincoln: “That every
and following several other important education acts,
man may receive at least a moderate education, and
access had been broadened to “a much larger and
thereby be enabled to read the histories of his own
more diverse audience…[with a] greater emphasis on
and other countries, by which he may duly appreci-
practical and vocational education.”
ate the value of our free institutions, appears to be an
Lincoln never had the opportunity to attend an insti-
object of vital importance.”
tution such as those he created, but his signature on
the Morrill Act was an acknowledgement that everyone
“may receive at least a moderate education.”
“
I return often
to the idea of
the Morrill Act
as a guidepost
in my attempt
to increase
access to public
education
”
S
adly, I believe the intent expressed in those two
quotes – separated by a mere 80 years – is now
We will never know Lincoln’s exact feelings about
in peril. Almost a century and a half after the Morrill
the Act. Some historians, including Eugene Provenzo,
Act, our country is vastly richer – thanks in large part
believed Lincoln really was lukewarm about, if not
to the economic lift created by land-grant institutions.
actually indifferent to, formal education. Provenzo
And yet we seem intent on starving the geese that
wrote that “Lincoln’s failure to make reference to the
have laid our golden eggs. Annual increases in tuition
Land Grant College Act [during his next annual mes-
and fees make it increasingly hard, and in some cases
sage to Congress] is consistent with the indifference...
prohibitive, for families to send students to college.
he showed toward the public support of education
Implicit in this burden-shift is that users should pay
early in his political career.”
more and states (or taxpayers) should pay less.
But didn’t Lincoln have just a few more pressing
This affects students from all social and economic
matters on his mind when he reported on the state of
classes, but we all know that these increases hit the mid-
the Union in 1863?
dle and lower classes hardest. The danger is that the
The effect of the Act, I believe, is less in dispute than
price for access to a “moderate education” will increase
Lincoln’s feelings about it, and, as grateful chancellor
to the point that we withdraw from our mandate – and
of one of the great land-grant research universities that
Lincoln’s vision – to serve the public good.
Lincoln helped create, I return often to the idea of the
In this time of diminished financial support from
Morrill Act as a guidepost in my attempt to increase
state and federal governments, how do we stay true to
access to public education.
Lincoln’s vision? How will our citizens ever experience
In the 1940s, eight decades after Lincoln signed the
the incredible transformative power of public educa-
Morrill Act, two key reports were commissioned. The
tion if they are denied access? And, most chilling to me,
first, General Education in a Free Society, was commissioned
whom will we choose to exclude as we narrow access and
by Harvard President James Conant; the second Science:
opportunity to the riches of public higher education?
The Endless Frontier, came as a result of a direct request
Will it be a curious young woman or young man
by another great president, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
from a small town in the Land of Lincoln with an
Stephen Graubard, discussing the similarities of these
insatiable appetite for learning? Will it be someone
two reports in the 1993 volume The Research University in
perhaps inspired by the example of Lincoln, who,
a Time of Discontent, wrote that both reports “dwelled
as M. L. Houser wrote: “patiently and persistently,
on wasted talent, of those who failed to fi nish school,
year after year, sought through his own efforts to gain
who never accomplished what they might in other cir-
knowledge and power for usefulness, and rose thereby
cumstances have done....” Harvard’s general education
from obscurity to immortality...”?
64 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
UTE DIPSUM
A lifetime of words
Mythic stature, moral presence, and early martyrdom
By Dianne Donovan,
former literary editor of
the Chicago Tribune
I
n 2005, the 140th anniversary of Abraham Lin-
tender in the arena of presidential biography? And
coln’s death, a clever little paperback titled 101
even if reliable data were available on how many
Things You Didn’t Know About Lincoln, was published.
books have been written about each, it would hardly
What is remarkable about the book has nothing to do
be a fair comparison since Washington, who died in
with its scholarship. What is remarkable is that any-
1799, had what might be called a 66-year head start.
one actually thought there might be ten things – never
Daniel Weinberg, owner of the Abraham Lincoln
mind 101 – that we didn’t already know about Lin-
Book Shop in Chicago, suggests that Lincoln is not
coln. And yet the biographies just keep on coming.
only the most written-about U.S. president, but is sec-
Whether more books have been written about the
ond only to Napoleon Bonaparte as the most written-
16th president of the United States than about any
about figure in all of history, excluding religious lead-
other, as some have claimed, is debatable. What con-
ers and subjects of literary criticism.
stitutes a “book about Abraham Lincoln”, after all?
That is a debate for another day, and no doubt
Or about George Washington, his most serious con-
someday the two will be paired in print (though it was
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
65
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
“
Lincoln’s role
as the ‘Great
Emancipator’
vested in him a
mythic stature
enhanced by
the tragedy of
his death
”
Lincoln’s general, George B. McClellan, who earned
quence that touched the hearts of all who heard him,
the nickname “Young Napoleon”), rather like the
or later read his words, Abraham Lincoln was not
Newsweek magazine cover story by Malcolm Jones in
just murdered, he was martyred. Had he survived, he
the summer of 2008 that pitted Lincoln against the
might well have been the primary chronicler of his life
naturalist Charles Darwin, asking: “Who was more
and times, but he was robbed of that opportunity, and
important: Lincoln or Darwin?” It was, one suspects,
history is the poorer for it. As it was, the field lay open
a slow week for news.
for others to tell his story, and it didn’t take long for the
But despite the “What tastes better: apples or
books to start coming.
oranges?” tenor of the story, it was fascinating in
Certainly, biographies of Lincoln already had been
the way that stories about Lincoln seem always to
published, dating to his run for president in 1860. Wil-
intrigue. Supposedly, Bennett Cerf, the publisher and
liam Dean Howells, then a writer for the Ohio State Jour-
co-founder of Random House who died in 1971,
nal, was commissioned by the paper to write The Life of
when asked how to guarantee a best-selling book,
Abraham Lincoln that year, and a book about the candi-
replied that it should be called Lincoln’s Doctor’s Dog
date, which called him “Abram Lincoln,” reportedly was
because those three words sold the most books. True
in circulation at the Republican convention.
or not, the title has been used in a television show, a
movie, and at least one book.
But it was only after Lincoln’s assassination that
the literary floodgate opened. The year after his
But skillful marketing is not the reason behind the
death, his friend Isaac Arnold published The History
millions of words that have been written about Lin-
of Abraham Lincoln, and he was one of the first among
coln, and the thousands of books that have touched
many, many friends, acquaintances and hangers-on
on his life. “Honest Abe” holds a unique place in the
who wrote early, mostly hagiographic reminiscences
hearts, minds, and imaginations of Americans, and of
about the president. Starting in 1886, Century maga-
people around the world, because of a particular set
zine began publishing in serial form Abraham Lincoln:
of circumstances that make the story of his life, in its
A History by the president’s private secretaries, John
every aspect, an iconic tale, a rich and fertile field for
G. Nicolay and John Hay. The book form was later
the historian.
published in ten volumes, and distinguished itself as
a history not just of the man, but also of the times in
H
e came from humble roots, but was hardly alone
which he lived. In 1902, it was reissued in condensed
among presidents in that respect. More to the
form as A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln by John Nico-
point, he led the country not just in wartime, but in a
lay, a volume that is still available. Among the more
war that tested the very tenets of the Constitution itself.
interesting of the late 19th-century biographies was
Not only does wartime generally make a nation’s leader
one by Lincoln’s law partner, William H. Herndon,
more worthy of hindsight’s eye, but no book about the
and aptly titled, Herndon’s Lincoln. It is a testament to
Civil War could be complete without mention of Presi-
the endless intellectual fodder Lincoln has offered
dent Lincoln. What’s more, this was a war fought over
historians that Lincoln biographer David Herbert
slavery, that great stain on the country’s history, and
Donald wrote an even more interesting – and just
Lincoln’s role as the “Great Emancipator” vested in
as aptly titled – biography of the earlier author, Lin-
him a moral presence and mythic stature that would
coln’s Herndon, published in 1989. One has to wonder
only be enhanced by the tragedy of his death. Other
if some future scholar might write Lincoln’s Herndon’s
presidents have been assassinated, but because of the
Donald. It has the vague ring of a bestseller.
war, because of slavery, and because of a personal elo-
66 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
In fact, that notion may not be so far-fetched. The
1809-2009
variety of topics about which Lincoln biographers
have chosen to write is as impressive as the sheer
number of books. Besides the sweeping story of his
life and times, of which a handful or more are exemplary, there are books about Lincoln’s health and his
sex life – 2005 alone saw the publication of Joshua
mate World of Abraham Lincoln, about whether he was
gay – his wife (most discussing the question of her
sanity), his mother, his unruly Cabinet (which got
quite different but equally in-depth treatment from
Burton Hendrick in the 1940s and Doris Kearns
© Harper Collins
presidential depression, and C. A. Tripp’s The Inti-
© University of Illinois Press
Wolf Shenk’s Lincoln’s Melancholy, which diagnoses
Goodwin in 2005), and, of course, myriad volumes
devoted to his stewardship of a country at war
with itself.
F
acing such an embarrassment of riches, Daniel
Weinberg has attempted to assist the budding
Lincoln scholar by recommending the “basic books”
© Oxford University Press, USA
necessary for the essential Lincoln library – and has
for a few stellar modern volumes, including any of
a number of volumes edited or authored by Harold
Holzer, who provides invaluable research and insights
into how Lincoln was perceived by his contempo-
© Simon & Schuster
listed 157 titles. A busy reader, though, might settle
raries; Stephen B. Oates’ With Malice Toward None
(1977); James M. McPherson’s Abraham Lincoln and the
Second American Revolution (1991); David Herbert Donald’s Lincoln (1996); Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of
Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (2005);
and Douglas L. Wilson’s Lincoln’s Sword: The Presidency
and the Power of Words (2006).
Wilson’s book is less a biography of the man than
an insightful analysis of how he came, with his rugged
president. It is included here among the others as
a reminder that, in large part, it has been not just
his biographers’ words but his own that have made
Abraham Lincoln an enduring American icon.
© Vintage Books
arguably most quoted, certainly most eloquent,
© Vintage Books
roots and humble background, to be the country’s
A selection of covers from key Lincoln biographies
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
67
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
Taking up the mantle
Modern presidents ask: “What would Lincoln do?”
By Richard Norton
Smith, historian and
scholar-in-residence,
George Mason
University, and founding
director, Abraham
Lincoln Presidential
Library and Museum,
Springfield, Illinois
W
ednesday June 5, 1940 was a dreary day at
It is no accident that the president against whom all oth-
the White House. Forced to look on help-
ers are measured is also the greatest politician ever to
lessly as Nazi battalions devoured France,
occupy the White House.
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s mood was not improved by a
This point is not lost on his presidential acolytes.
meeting, arranged at his wife’s behest, with 50 youthful
Theodore Roosevelt, who wore a ring containing a
idealists in the State Dining Room. Angered by their
lock of Lincoln’s hair, and transplanted boxwood cut-
host’s shift from the social concerns of the New Deal to
tings from his hero’s Springfi eld home to Sagamore
those of national defense, the visitors tested even FDR’s
Hill, classifi ed presidents as Lincoln types and Buch-
habitual geniality.
anan types: “When I am confronted with a great
Roosevelt took refuge in history. He recalled a time,
problem,” said Roosevelt of the Lincoln portrait
80 years earlier, when another wartime president had
behind his desk, “I look up to that picture, and I do
confessed plainly not to be in control of events, but
as I believe Lincoln would have done.” One won-
rather, to be controlled by them. To one persistent
ders: Would Lincoln have embraced the Rooseveltian
questioner he directed a query of his own: Had the
stewardship theory of the presidency, under which
young man read Carl Sandburg’s epic biography of
a president is empowered to take virtually any
Abraham Lincoln? Informed that he had not, FDR
action not explicitly prohibited by the Constitution?
administered a gentle, if unmistakable, verbal spanking: “I think the impression was that Lincoln was a
pretty sad man,” claimed Roosevelt. As “one of those
“
When I am
confronted
with a great
problem, I do
as I believe
Lincoln would
have done
”
T
rue or false, what matters is that the first Roosevelt
– and the second, for that matter – sincerely
unfortunate people called a politician,” America’s 16th
believed that he would, applying in peacetime the
president suffered from persistent melancholy, trace-
same spacious view of executive authority as when the
able in part to the realization that “he couldn’t get it
nation’s very survival lay in doubt. Crisis management
all at once.” Here FDR paused, before noting emphati-
aside, Lincoln transformed the presidency from chief
cally, “Nobody can.”
administrator to national agenda-setter. Long before
How much of Sandburg’s literary monument
Roosevelt mounted his bully pulpit, Lincoln had estab-
Roosevelt had actually read is open to question;
lished himself as the original “Great Communicator.”
according to his latest biographer, H. W. Brands, the
A classic example was his carefully crafted reply to a
president’s reading tastes ran to dime mysteries. That
group of New York Democrats protesting the arrest of
Roosevelt was Lincoln-haunted, however, was beyond
Ohio congressman Clement Vallandigham, accused
doubt. The same could be said about most of the 26
by the Lincoln Administration of promoting military
men who have followed in Lincoln’s outsized footprints.
desertion and hindering the draft.
68 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
UTE DIPSUM
Andrew Johnson, Democrat
Apr 15, 1865 – Mar 4, 1869
Ulysses S. Grant, Republican
Mar 4, 1869 – Mar 4, 1877
Rutherford B. Hayes, Republican
Mar 4, 1877 – Mar 4, 1881
James A. Garfield, Republican
Mar 4, 1881 – Sep 19, 1881
Chester A. Arthur, Republican
Sep 19, 1881 – Mar 4, 1885
Grover Cleveland, Democrat
Mar 4, 1885 – Mar 4, 1889 and
Mar 4, 1893 – Mar 4, 1897
Benjamin Harrison, Republican
Mar 4, 1889 – Mar 4, 1893
William McKinley, Republican
Mar 4, 1897 – Sep 14, 1901
Theodore Roosevelt, Republican
Sep 14, 1901 – Mar 4, 1909
William Howard Taft, Republican
Mar 4, 1909 – Mar 4, 1913
Woodrow Wilson, Democrat
Mar 4, 1913 – Mar 4, 1921
Warren G. Harding, Republican
Mar 4, 1921 – Aug 2, 1923
Calvin Coolidge, Republican
Aug 2, 1923 – Mar 4, 1929
Herbert Hoover, Republican
Mar 4, 1929 – Mar 4, 1933
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Democrat
Mar 4, 1933 – Apr 12, 1945
Harry S. Truman, Democrat
April 12, 1945 – Jan 20, 1953
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Republican
Jan 20, 1953 – Jan 20, 1961
John F. Kennedy, Democrat
Jan 20, 1961 – Nov 22, 1963
Lyndon B. Johnson, Democrat
Nov 22, 1963 – Jan 20, 1969
Richard Nixon, Republican
Jan 20, 1969 – Aug 9, 1974
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
69
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
“Must I shoot a simple-minded boy who deserts,”
In the 1930s, FDR had invoked the same words to jus-
asked Lincoln rhetorically, “while I must not touch a
tify a dramatic expansion of federal power in order to res-
hair of the wily agitator who induces him to desert?”
cue democratic capitalism from itself. No surprise here;
Half a million copies of his letter were printed for dis-
sooner or later, virtually every president wraps himself
tribution. These, in turn, were read by as many as 10
in the Lincoln mantle. Lincoln is the patron saint – some
million people – a far greater share of the electorate
might argue the security blanket – of chief executives as
than might watch an Oval Office address on television
assertive, misunderstood, or unpopular as he was during
today. No less a literary critic than the public printer
his lifetime. Thus Harry Truman likened his firing of the
disparaged Lincoln’s use of phrases like “sugar-coated”
insubordinate General Douglas MacArthur to Lincoln’s
as unpresidential. Lincoln knew better. Above all, he
dismissal of the sluggish George B. McClellan. Before
grasped the essential truth of democratic government:
Ronald Reagan enlisted Lincoln in support of Nica-
that there can be no authority without moral authority.
raguan contras, before Bill Clinton cited Lincoln to
His successors took note. Vallandigham’s name
sanction Boris Yeltsin’s brutal repression of Chechnya,
resurfaced in April 1941, when Franklin Roosevelt
Lyndon Johnson claimed a Lincolnian blessing for his
likened Colonel Charles Lindbergh, the darling of
policies in Vietnam.
Gerald Ford, Republican
Aug 9, 1974 – Jan 20, 1977
Jimmy Carter, Democrat
Jan 20, 1977 – Jan 20, 1981
America First isolationists, to Civil War Copperheads.
On another occasion, FDR regaled reporters with the
famous meeting of the Lincoln Cabinet at which the
I
nsisting “this nation was torn apart in an ideological
way by the war in Vietnam, as much as the Civil War
president called the roll, discovered he was the only
tore apart the nation when Lincoln was president,”
one voting “aye,” then announced, “The ayes have
Richard Nixon used national security – and Lincoln’s
it.” It is an oft-told tale among presidents, for obvi-
ghost – to legalize illegal burglaries and wiretaps. Is
ous reasons. Woodrow Wilson related the same story
anyone surprised that George W. Bush, presiding over
to former British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith on
a controversial war in Iraq, should feel a special affinity
the eve of the Versailles Peace Conference. Harry
with the wartime leader who attracted more ridicule
Truman shared it with his Cabinet in May 1945, an
than respect among his contemporaries?
ironic tribute to department heads whose role had
As Lincoln recedes in memory, his legacy in mat-
atrophied under the New Deal. Dwight Eisenhower
ters of race, economic management, and civil lib-
quoted it in his presidential memoirs to describe the
erties in wartime grows ever more elastic. Gerald
civilian equivalent of a war council.
Ford recognized as much when he declared himself,
Not content to hang Lincoln’s portrait in the Cabinet
with becoming modesty, to be a Ford and not a Lin-
Room, Ike painted his own likeness of the first Republi-
coln. Few of his contemporaries have followed suit,
can president. But the Lincoln to whom he paid tribute
it being almost impossible for a president to refrain
was not the democratic dictator who suspended habeas
from asking in times of trial, “What would Lincoln
corpus, declared a blockade of the South, and engineered
do?” Might I suggest a simpler, more universal test
the nation’s first income tax. To the contrary, it was Lin-
of presidential performance, one crafted in Lincoln’s
coln the decentralizer, the common laborer’s son who
own words?
employed Hamiltonian means to achieve Jeffersonian
“The occasion is piled high with difficulty,” Lincoln
ends. “The legitimate object of government is to do
told his countrymen in December 1862, “and we must
for a community of people whatever they need to
rise with the occasion.” A century and a half later, we
have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do,
are left to ponder this fact – that had Lincoln failed to
for themselves,” Eisenhower quoted Lincoln. “In all
meet his own standard, had he been a different kind
that the people can individually do as well for them-
of president, less elusive, more conventional, he might
selves, government ought not to interfere.”
very well have been America’s last president.
70 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
Ronald Reagan, Republican
Jan 20, 1981 – Jan 20, 1989
George H. W. Bush, Republican
Jan 20, 1989 – Jan 20, 1993
Bill Clinton, Democrat
Jan 20, 1993 – Jan 20, 2001
George W. Bush, Republican
Jan 20, 2001 – Jan 20, 2009
UTE DIPSUM
President-elect Barack Obama
Asked at his first post-election news conference what he
was doing to prepare for the presidency, President-elect
Barack Obama replied that he already had spoken with all
of the living ex-presidents, and he added: “I have re-read
some of Lincoln’s writings.” Lincoln, he said, is “always an
extraordinary inspiration.”
Extraordinary, indeed. Other presidents may have been
“Lincoln-haunted,” but Obama makes no secret of being
Lincoln-inspired.
At his election-night celebration in Chicago’s Grant Park,
the president-elect invoked Lincoln twice. Paraphrasing the
concluding phrases of the Gettysburg Address, he lauded the
volunteers who had flocked by the thousands to his campaign
as proof that, more than two centuries after the nation’s
founding: “government of the people, by the people and for the
people has not perished from this earth.”
Alluding to the frequently bitter campaign that he and
Senator John McCain had just waged, Obama recalled Lincoln’s
words in his First Inaugural Address “to a nation far more
divided than ours: ‘We are not enemies but friends. Though
passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds
of affection.’”
The organizers of Obama’s own inaugural festivities went to
Lincoln for the theme that will run through all of those events,
“A New Birth of Freedom,” also from the Gettysburg Address. It
is worth reading the words in context:
“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take
increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last
full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that
these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under
God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government
of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish
from the earth.”
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
71
LAW
The law, then and now
Lawyer Lincoln wouldn’t recognize today’s legal world
By Daniel Farber,
Sho Sato Professor
of Law and director,
Environmental Law
Program, Boalt Hall,
University of California
at Berkeley
Above: Lincoln practiced
law in this office between
1843 and 1850
72
T
hanks to the efforts of the Illinois Historic
in lawyering between the mid-19th century and the
Preservation Agency, we now know more about
early 21st century are far more striking.
Lincoln’s law practice than about that of any
This is not because, as the popular image would have
other lawyer of his era – perhaps more than we know
it, Lincoln was a rustic backwoods lawyer, riding from
about any other lawyer’s practice, ever. More than
town to town to defend individuals from injustice by
100,000 documents relating to Lincoln’s law practice
speaking to jurors’ consciences. Today we know that
are now available online.
this image was only partially correct. Much of Lincoln’s
Many of these documents were fairly routine or were
practice involved debt collection, suing individuals who
drafted by his partner, William Herndon, so they are
had borrowed money against promissory notes and
not necessarily illuminating about Lincoln’s thought
had defaulted on their payments. He also represented
processes. The cases themselves rarely pose particularly
railroads in some significant litigation, and took on pat-
interesting legal issues; still, we do learn a great deal
ent cases and other more complex litigation.
about the lawsuits, what papers were filed, and how
Yet there is a grain of truth to the popular image.
the cases progressed. As we learn more about Lincoln’s
Lincoln did “ride circuit” along the muddy roads of
practice, we obviously find commonalities with current
central Illinois, and he did shine in the courtroom,
legal practice. But in some ways, the profound changes
often in cases involving ordinary individuals.
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
1809-2009
Still, defaulted loans, breached contracts, physical
assaults, and property disputes were the routine of
traveling around from courthouse to courthouse in
rural areas to argue cases.
his life as a successful lawyer in a growing but largely
Today, all of this has changed. Law is no longer an
agricultural region. He was capable of shrewd cross-
all-male preserve, or, for that matter, a white enclave as it
examination or stirring summations for juries, and
was in his time. In terms of size, there are still very small
he was well respected by his peers. But the record
firms such as Lincoln’s, but American law firms now
does not indicate that he was extraordinary in his
can include up to 1,000 lawyers, with offices across the
legal work.
United States and in foreign cities from Hong Kong to
In some ways, law was what Lincoln did for a liv-
Paris. Even small firms are much more likely to special-
ing, not, seemingly, a deeply held vocation. He was
ize than in the 19th century, concentrating on a specific
much more a politician at heart than a lawyer, let alone
area such as consumer bankruptcy, insurance disputes,
a legal philosopher. He did think deeply about con-
criminal law, or family law. And even in the most remote
stitutional issues, particularly about those relating to
area, lawyers can access thousands of volumes through
the status of slavery and the nature of the Union, but
online services such as Lexis and Westlaw.
these were issues that arose in his political life, not in his
legal practice.
“
Lincoln’s
neighbors
were said to be
astounded by
his desire
to become
a lawyer
”
The route to becoming a lawyer has changed even
more dramatically. Like the large majority of lawyers
Historians continue to debate Lincoln’s attitude
in his day, Lincoln did not go to law school. Instead, he
toward law as an institution. The truth is that the record
“read the law”; he was unusual only in that he did his
on this point is scant and ambiguous. As a young man,
reading independently, rather than being under the tu-
he wrote a passionate address praising strict adherence
telage of an established lawyer. His neighbors were said
to the rule of law as the only safeguard for democratic
to be astounded by his desire to become a lawyer – but
government. But as president, he countenanced direct
that must be true of many a prospective lawyer today.
disobedience of a court order, when Chief Justice Roger
Taney declared that Lincoln lacked the power to suspend habeas corpus. In between, he suggested that court
T
he difference is that a modern-day Lincoln would
have to go to law school rather than study on his
judgments in individual cases, such as Dred Scott, were
own. Today, becoming a lawyer by reading the law is
binding but that the Supreme Court’s pronouncements
almost a forgotten memory. This route to becoming a
Graduates of Harvard Law
School raise gavels during
Commencement exercises
at Harvard University in
Cambridge, June 2008
about the law were not, at least not unless they were
firmly settled. Lincoln’s legal work accustomed him to
working with large numbers of diverse people, with
framing persuasive arguments for different audiences,
and with the problems that many Americans faced in
everyday life. Whether it had a deeper effect on his philosophy is unprovable.
Perhaps what is most striking about Lincoln’s work
as a lawyer is how dramatically the legal world has
changed since his time. Institutionally, it has become far
larger and more complex, as well as being more diverse.
Lincoln practiced in two-man law fi rms, relying on a
small number of reference volumes for knowledge of
the law. He belonged to a small community of men
who knew each other well, particularly from the ordeal
of “riding circuit”, which involved spending weeks
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
73
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
“
In Lincoln’s day
any lawsuit
had to fit
within one of
the recognized
writs dating
back to the
Middle Ages
”
lawyer is closed in all but a few states, and even in those
less structured, and issues of substance were no longer
it is little used. Instead, three years of law school have
confined by procedural straitjackets.
become standard. Barriers to entry such as the Law
Lincoln’s acquisition of basic legal knowledge through
School Admission Test (LSAT) or college grade point
self-education was possible not only because of his
requirements did not exist in Lincoln’s time – indeed,
exceptional dedication and intelligence, but also because
Lincoln did not even have a high school diploma, let
there was much less law to learn. There were no income
alone high grades in college. The modern bar examina-
tax, civil rights laws, environmental regulations, securi-
tion also did not exist, with its elaborate multiple choice
ties regulations, zoning ordinances. There was a federal
and essay questions. Instead, the norm was an informal
bankruptcy law for only a few years during Lincoln’s
oral interrogation by established lawyers. And modern
professional life – a bankruptcy law had been passed by
requirements of continuing legal education were un-
Congress and then quickly repealed because of com-
heard of – the law changed too slowly for anyone to
plaints from creditors. Corporate law was in its infancy,
worry that lawyers’ knowledge would become obsolete
awaiting the huge business firms that arose after the Civil
over their careers.
War. Those firms would also trigger the creation of an-
William Blackstone’s four-volume treatise, the great
titrust law, but not until long after Lincoln’s death. Much
18th-century survey of the law, was still the standard
of modern constitutional law revolves around the 14th
reference with which Lincoln and many other aspir-
Amendment, which came into being because of Recon-
ing lawyers began. Nearly all of what Lincoln needed
struction (and thus, indirectly, because of Lincoln him-
to learn was part of the common law, the judge-made
self). The Supreme Court had accumulated only seven
body of rules that had evolved in England and the
decades of precedent when Lincoln died, but today it
United States over centuries. Today, although the com-
has had three times as long to elaborate its interpretation
mon law remains the preoccupation of the first year of
of the Constitution. Of course, the law that Lincoln had
law school, most legal rules are contained in legislation
to master was not simple; in some ways, its medieval en-
such as the Uniform Commercial Code, the Federal
crustations made it harder to understand than modern
Rules of Evidence, the Clean Air Act, and so on.
legal rules. Lincoln had to memorize more Latin than a
modern law student will ever see. But there were simply
I
74
t was still true in Lincoln’s day, as it had been
fewer legal rules that had to be mastered.
true in Blackstone’s and for centuries before, that
This is not to say that the law of Lincoln’s time had
any lawsuit had to fit within one of the recognized
been static, because society had gone through impor-
writs dating back to the Middle Ages. A tort injury
tant changes since Blackstone’s compendium of the
claim had to fit with trespass or conversion; a con-
common law. But the transformations since Lincoln’s
tract claim needed to fit with assumpsit or debt.
time have been far more profound, as the law adapted
These writs were essentially forms that had to be
to the Industrial Revolution and then to post-industrial
used for any legal complaint; a complaint that could
society. The complexities of modern society have been
not be squeezed into the requirements of one of
matched by increasingly complex bodies of law, while
these forms could not be brought at all. In the years
law firms themselves have gone through the same
after Lincoln died, these writs were first replaced by
process of growth and specialization as other
state procedural codes in the later 19th century and
businesses. Undoubtedly, if he were alive today,
then in the 20th century by the federal rules of civil
Lincoln’s talents and character would have made
procedure (upon which most state procedures are
him a great lawyer – but his hypothetical life as a
modeled today). The ancient distinction between law
21st-century lawyer would be far different than that
and equity was abolished. As a result, lawsuits became
of the historical lawyer Lincoln.
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
1809-2009
The better angels
A spiritual life grounded in unwavering moral consciousness
By Mark Noll, Francis A.
McAnaney Professor of
History, University of
Notre Dame
T
he religion of Abraham Lincoln is a perennially
cally for souls on the opening frontier. From these early
fascinating and perennially contentious subject.
years, he seems to have retained a strongly providential
It is fascinating because the nation’s 16th presi-
view of reality, while wanting no part in conflict over
dent so obviously displayed a deep religious sensibility.
Abraham Lincoln reading
the Bible to members of
his family. From left: Mrs
Lincoln, their sons Robert
and Thaddeus (c.1860)
competing religious claims.
It is contentious because so many different religious
As a young man in New Salem, Illinois, Lincoln read
groups (and a few anti-religious ones) have claimed
Tom Paine’s religious works and the writings of others
Lincoln as their own.
who were suspect in their day for questioning traditional
As a boy in Kentucky and Indiana, he was schooled
Christian teachings. Even by this time, however, it was
in the religion of his family, which was Calvinism of the
obvious that early reading and hearing of the Scriptures
sort practiced by Separate Baptist churches. The domi-
had created a lifetime’s reservoir of expressive biblical
nant theme in these churches was divine control over
phrases and enduring familiarity with biblical themes.
all human events (including eternal salvation or dam-
In 1846, and for the only time in his life, Lincoln
nation). Lincoln’s Baptists were strongly committed to
wrote about his faith publicly when supporters of
democratic ideals of congregational autonomy that
his opponent in a race for Congress, the Methodist
rejected outside control in favor of local self-govern-
circuit-rider Peter Cartwright, accused him of religious
ment. After he moved to New Salem, Illinois, Lincoln
infidelity. Lincoln replied with these carefully chosen
witnessed a great deal of interreligious strife, as local
but noncommittal words: “That I am not a member
ministers and itinerating preachers competed energeti-
of any Christian Church, is true; but I have never
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
75
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
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.”
B
y the time Lincoln married Mary Todd in 1842,
his religion had become a mostly private affair.
He did not object to his wife’s regular worship fi rst at
Episcopalian and then Presbyterian churches, where he
would sometimes join her, especially in their last years
in Springfield. Lincoln also enjoyed good relationships
with at least two Presbyterian ministers from the conservative Old School branch of that denomination. James
Smith of Springfield’s First Presbyterian Church was a
particular help to the family after the death of the Lincolns’ four-year old son, Eddie, in 1850; in Washington,
Lincoln maintained a cordial relation with Phineas D.
Gurley of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church
(Gurley preached the funeral sermon at the White
House in April 1865). Yet despite these connections,
Lincoln never joined a church, he rarely mentioned
Jesus, and he was certainly not a born-again believer or
a committed evangelical Christian in the modern sense
of those terms.
In addition, Lincoln’s style of life did not square
with any identifiable sect of believers or anti-believers.
“
Both [sides] read
the same Bible
and pray to the
same God, and
each invokes His
aid against
the other
76
”
Although he abstained from drink and tobacco along
after the early death in battle of friends from Illinois,
with many of the era’s stricter Protestants, he never hid
and then of his own son Willie in February 1862, the
his love of the theater; he also engaged frequently in
president seemed to ponder more deeply the ways
risqué verbal horseplay and frivolities frowned upon
of God with the creation. In September 1862, as he
by many religious leaders. When the Lincolns came to
moved toward issuing the Emancipation Proclamation,
Washington in early 1861, the president-elect brought
Lincoln wrote a short memorandum to himself that his
with him a strong knowledge of the Bible, though no
secretaries later labeled a “Meditation on the Divine
denominational affiliation. He possessed an unswerv-
Will.” In it he speculated along lines taken by very few
ing moral consciousness that particularly scorned the
of his contemporaries, since most of them were con-
economic injustice of one person’s reaping the fruits
fi dent in God’s support for one side or the other. To
of another person’s labor, a principle that grounded
Lincoln, by contrast, “In the present civil war it is quite
his enduring opposition to slavery. He also displayed a
possible that God’s purpose is something different from
nearly absolute dedication to the highest American ide-
the purpose of either” – the North or the South.
als as spelled out in the Declaration of Independence
As the confl ci t went on, the deepening of Lin-
– for Lincoln to save the Union was tantamount to pre-
coln’s faith also went on. Some of that deepening was
serving those ideals.
reflected in a heightened respect for Scripture. In 1864,
The experiences of a cataclysmic war pointed the
when a delegation of freed African-Americans from
way to deeper moral and spiritual maturity. Especially
Baltimore presented him with a Bible, Lincoln replied
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
UTE DIPSUM
Lincoln’s Second Inaugural
Address, March 1865
that Scripture “is the best gift God has given to man.
“the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous al-
All the good the Saviour gave to the world was com-
together.” That providential accounting of American
municated through this book. But for it we could not
history became Lincoln’s basis for the great perora-
know right from wrong.”
tion that followed: “With malice toward none, with
Even more impressive was Lincoln’s own use of the
charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives
Bible, especially in the Second Inaugural Address of
us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work
March 1865, where he depicted God not as fighting
we are in....”
for one side or the other, but as himself the one who
The mature Lincoln of the last Springfield years and
controlled all destinies. After observing that in the
during his time in Washington appears to have been
Civil War: “Both [sides] read the same Bible and pray
seriously religious, certainly familiar with the Scrip-
to the same God, and each invokes His aid against
tures, and not publicly opposed to main tenets of the
the other”; and after restating his own opposition to
Christian faith. His belief in providence was strong,
slavery as a great wrong, Lincoln went on to quote the
sometimes expressed in nearly Christian terms, other
Gospel of Matthew: “Let us judge not, that we be not
times much closer to a belief in impersonal fate or
judged.” Then he reminded his listeners that if the
destiny. On the spirituality of this singular leader, his
war would continue until the quantity of its sacrifice
wife may have been the best witness when she said
equaled the quantity of bloodshed created by the “of-
shortly after Lincoln’s death that he was “a religious
fence” of slavery, nonetheless (quoting the 19th Psalm)
man always” but not “a technical Christian.”
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
77
78
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
1809-2009
The artists’ inspiration
Artists throughout the ages have been moved and inspired by Lincoln
By David Grubin,
award-winning director,
writer, cinematographer
and producer of
programs such as the
PBS documentary,
Marie Antoinette
o American president has inspired more artists
Artists were drawn to Lincoln by more than the dem-
than Abraham Lincoln. Sculptors, composers,
ocratic ideals he came to represent, or the archetypal
playwrights, filmmakers, and poets have turned
outline of his biography. There was something they
to Lincoln and found their muse. For many, Lincoln
intuited about his complex inner life that moved them.
seems to embody America itself.
Lincoln was a profoundly melancholy man – brooding,
N
In marble and bronze, he has been memorialized in
driven, wrestling not only with the nation’s grave politi-
more than 200 statues in more than 30 states by sculp-
cal problems, but also with dark, internal forces that, at
tors, from Gutzon Borglum (who put him on Mount
times, threatened to overwhelm him. In spite of less than
Rushmore and named his son Lincoln) and Augustus
a year of formal education, Lincoln called upon words
Saint-Gaudens, to Daniel Chester French, whose mag-
to articulate his deepest fears and forebodings. In his
nificent Lincoln Memorial is perhaps America’s great-
own way, Lincoln was an artist, finding in the artful use
est work of public art, and certainly its most beloved.
of language a healing power. It was a skill he honed as
Sculptors loved his long, sad, craggy face – hardly the
a young man.
face of a movie star, yet Hollywood has embraced him,
too, in more than 200 films.
Gutzon Borglum works on
the eye of Abraham Lincoln
during the construction
of the Mount Rushmore
Memorial
In 1844, aged 35 and a prominent lawyer with a family, Lincoln visited his boyhood home in south central
His rise from the log cabin where he was born to the
Indiana. He had never returned before, but when a
White House is at the center of the American dream –
group of Whig politicians invited him to speak nearby, a
ripe for mythologizing. And as John Ford, whose Young
political trip became a pilgrimage into the past.
Mr. Lincoln is itself a study in Lincoln’s legendary nobility
Lincoln had been just seven when, in 1816, his fam-
and strength, famously believed: “When the legend be-
ily moved to Indiana in the dead of winter to lay claim
comes fact, print the legend.”
to a remote piece of land in the wilderness. His near-
As Americans began fighting in World War II, the
est neighbor lived more than a mile away. The cease-
composer Aaron Copland drew on Lincoln’s own
less, punishing work to build a life on the frontier, the
words for A Lincoln Portrait to remind Americans what
loneliness and isolation, the howling of wolves and the
they were fighting for. Walt Whitman, too, though he
terrifying scream of panthers all left their mark. Later,
never met him, felt a keen bond with the president who
when Lincoln grew successful, he turned his back on
met his gaze as Lincoln rode through Washington in his
the hardscrabble world he had come from. The Indiana
carriage. Lincoln’s assassination was a shattering expe-
homestead, as well as the log cabin in Kentucky, were
rience. Whitman poured out his grief, epitomizing the
painful memories he had long ago tried to erase.
nation’s sorrow in poems that became enormously pop-
Perhaps Lincoln could contemplate the journey home
ular. The poet was asked to read O Captain, My Captain so
in 1844 because, by then, he had grown secure – a proud
many times he once said he was sorry he ever wrote it.
member of the best society in Springfield, with a thriving
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
79
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
law practice and auspicious political prospects – but nev-
“
ertheless, it was brave of Lincoln to return to Indiana.
She was my
angel mother.
All that I am, or
hope ever to be,
I owe to her
”
Life “in the tombs” perfectly describes the depression Lincoln battled. He was a “companion of the
Lincoln, a friend said, was a “shut-mouthed man.” He
dead,” who was discovering how language could
never talked to anyone about the childhood ghosts he
help him manage profound grief and numbing sad-
would encounter there, but once he fell into their grip, he
ness. Although he had some of his poems published
turned to the only way he knew to exorcise them – poetry.
anonymously in the spring of 1847 in the Quincy Whig,
My childhood’s home I see again
And sadden with the view...
Lincoln never aspired to be a poet. He was a man of
In this tender poem, he speaks directly in the first per-
and spent hours brooding on lines from Shakespeare’s
son, quietly meditating on the tension between what was,
tragedies. He would later write that he pondered the
and what is, calling upon memory to sacralize everything
meaning of life with such “intensity of thought,” that
that had been lost.
he wore ideas “thread bare” and turned them “to the
So memory will hallow all
We’ve known, but know no more.
But memory cuts in both directions: Just as it can bring
the past back to life, it is a reminder of what is gone.
Near twenty years have passed away
Since here I bid farewell
To woods and fields, and scenes of play,
And playmates loved so well...
The friends I left that parting day,
How changed, as time has sped!
Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray,
And half of all are dead.
The rhyming quatrains and regular rhythms temper
the pain of his loss, mediating and gentling it, but there
is no mistaking what lurks beneath the lines, the unseen
power that is driving him to write – death.
In October 1818, as the Lincolns struggled to make
a life on the frontier, a mysterious illness swept through
Indiana and found its way into the Lincoln home, taking
the life of his beloved mother. Nancy Hanks Lincoln was
just 34 when she died. Lincoln was nine and he never
got over the loss. “She was,” he said later, “my angel
mother. All that I am, or hope ever to be, I owe to her.”
His mother’s death turned his mind and spirit toward a
kind of fatalism. All his life, he would brood deeply over
death, and struggle with depression.
I hear the loved survivors tell
How nought from death could save
Till every sound appears a knell
And every spot a grave.
I range the fields with pensive tread,
And pace the hollow rooms,
And feel (companion of the dead)
I’m living in the tombs.
80 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
practical ambition. But he would always love poetry
bitterness of death.”
A
ll his life Lincoln wrestled with words, struggling fi rst to give expression to his own feelings,
then to those of his fellow countrymen. When the
Civil War brought death to Americans on a monumental scale, he was prepared to use words to comfort them. His intensely felt personal concerns fl owed
into the larger drama of the nation. Loss had become
a communal experience. By the time he was crafting his presidential speeches, the colloquial, ordinary
language of his poetry had long given way to a formal, elevated, ceremonial style – something more
“fi tting and proper.” But in his speech at Gettysburg,
as he honors “the brave men who struggled here” by
proclaiming that “we can never forget what they did
here,” he echoes the poem he had written almost two
decades before, in which he invoked memory to “hallow all we’ve known, but know no more.” And when the
war was over, in the soaring speech at his second inauguration, he sought to “bind up the nation’s wounds,”
just as he had once tried to assuage his own.
As he labored to restore the shattered union, Lincoln’s tragic sense of life mirrored the tragedy that
befell the nation. By merging his own grief with the
grief of other Americans, Lincoln gave voice and
meaning to the collective suffering. Although he no
longer wrote in rhyming quatrains, he was nonetheless a poet, with all the poet’s empathy and gift for
language. Perhaps, in the end, that is why so many
artists have felt a kinship with him.
1809-2009
By Julia Keller,
cultural critic of the
Chicago Tribune and
author of Mr. Gatling’s
Terrible Marvel: The
Gun That Changed
Everything and the
Misunderstood Genius
Who Invented It
Arms and the man
A fancier of firearms – and why not?
L
Emblems of the Civil
War by Alexander Pope
(c.1888), which includes
the Springfield model 1861:
the most widely used
shoulder firearm during
the Civil War
incoln liked guns. We are not accustomed to
intriguing – but relatively obscure – aspect of the life
thinking of Abraham Lincoln, that most cere-
and passions of this most studied of presidents.
bral and contemplative of our presidents, as
Lincoln continues to surprise us – another measure
someone comfortable with – even fascinated by – fire-
of his greatness. In the thorny debates that forever
arms. Yet he was. And as American culture continues
bedevil a democracy, from race relations to civil lib-
its long debate over the moral and legal implications
erties to economic justice, we find ourselves wonder-
of firearms ownership (revealed most recently in the
ing: “What would Lincoln do?” For despite the mas-
Supreme Court’s decision in June 2008 to affirm an
sive and ever-expanding number of biographies and
individual right to gun ownership under the Second
social histories and scholarly studies of the man, we
Amendment), Lincoln’s attitude toward guns is an
continue to find new ways of looking at Lincoln. We
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
81
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
“
Lincoln was
interested in
the newfangled
weapons that
were beginning
to make a
splash in the
armaments
world
”
never come to the end of learning about him or of
pistons pushed and propellers turned and machines
being educated by him.
functioned. Lincoln wrote beautiful speeches and was
His abiding interest in firearms is a case in point. We
prone to thinking deep thoughts – but he also liked to
cannot know, of course, precisely how Lincoln would
fiddle around with mechanical things. He was besot-
have felt about the recent Supreme Court decision
ted with the telegraph. He loved locomotives. The son
validating the right of American citizens to maintain
of a carpenter, Lincoln had grown up working with
fi rearms for self-defense. But certainly the 16th presi-
his hands. Many people don’t realize that Lincoln is
dent would not have been at all surprised by the fact
the only president to hold a patent: He obtained U.S.
that, within the nation whose soul he seemed to know
Patent No. 6,469 in 1849 for an inflatable device that
so well, people are still fighting about guns, still debat-
attached to the bottom of steamboats, enabling them
ing the role of arms in the destiny of an enlightened
to be dragged across sandbars.
democracy. He might be puzzled to discover that his
Lincoln, forced to become a war president virtu-
own interest in guns has been downplayed – if not
ally overnight, studied long and hard. He learned
ignored – by so many of his biographers, however well-
all about armaments. On many days, he visited the
meaning these biographers may be; but he would not
Washington Navy Yard to test-fire the new weapons
be astonished by the fact that in America, guns are still
that were arriving in great clumps and bunches from
guaranteed argument-starters. He understood the great
hopeful inventors – inventors eager to secure fat gov-
moral burden that goes along with firearms ownership,
ernment contracts for their wares.
whether those fi rearms are wielded in military battles,
or in domestic law enforcement, or in private disputes.
When the Civil War began, the North was desper-
the Navy Yard. The White House, too, was impli-
ately short of guns. Governors of states loyal to the
cated. A gunsmith who showed up at the president’s
Union, such as Oliver P. Morton of Indiana, were
residence reported that he was “ushered immediately
more than willing to send soldiers Lincoln’s way – but
into the reception room, with my repeating rifle in my
they also criticized the administration for its inability
hand.” Historian Robert Bruce, author of Lincoln and
to provide these volunteers with adequate weapons.
the Tools of War (1956), still the best account of Lincoln’s
“Twenty-four hundred men in camp and less than half
keen knowledge of fi rearms, pointed out that “dur-
of them armed!” Morton railed in a letter to Lincoln’s
ing the Civil War, the nearest thing to a research and
war secretary, early in the conflict.
development agency [for armaments] was the presi-
Procuring arms was crucial to the war effort, as
dent himself.” It was Lincoln, in fact, who insisted that
any president would have known. But Lincoln, whose
the ordnance department – which initially wanted no
interest in technology and innovation is well-docu-
part of spiffy new armaments – buy ten Ager coffee-
mented, knew something else too: Conventional arms
mill guns, primitive precursors to the machine gun, the
were not the only answer. Lincoln was interested in
innovation which was to transform warfare throughout
the newfangled weapons that were beginning to make
the second half of the 19th century from a matter of
a splash in the armaments world, employing such
battlefield valor by brave individuals to the impersonal
ideas as rifling the bores and loading from the breech
work of machines.
instead of the muzzle.
Indiana Governor Oliver
Perry Morton (1823 –1877)
B
ut Lincoln’s interest in guns was not restricted to
Visitors to Lincoln’s White House noted that the
Lincoln seems a timeless figure, and in an over-
president’s outer rooms were often cluttered with guns
arching sense, of course, he is. But he also was the
that eager inventors had dropped off, hoping Lincoln
quintessential 19th-century man. He was a tinkerer.
would try them out and then urge the Union Army to
A man enthralled with how things worked, with how
buy them in bulk. William O. Stoddard, one of Lin-
82 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
1809-2009
coln’s assistants, kept piles of firearms stacked on tables
– always a source of suspicion to Jefferson and those
and chairs.
who shared his philosophy – have the power to limit
So why don’t we know about Lincoln, the gun fan-
Navy Yard,
Washington, D.C., c.1861
individual rights, such as the right to bear arms?
cier? We know about Lincoln, the lawyer; Lincoln,
When Walt Whitman glimpsed Lincoln as the com-
the politician; Lincoln, the rhetorician; Lincoln, the
mander in chief ’s carriage passed him in the streets of
thinker. But Lincoln, the practical Midwesterner, the
Washington, the poet noted that the president’s face
man who loved to visit the Navy Yard and break down
revealed a “first-class practical telling wisdom.” Whit-
the new weapons and chat with the ordnance officers –
man adored words as much as the next poet, yet in this
that man, that Lincoln, is scarcely recognizable to us.
instance, what he found praiseworthy about Lincoln
Perhaps this is because in the United States, the
was not his metaphors but his mechanical mind, a mind
use of firearms has always been a contentious issue.
that could appreciate the beauty of a well-designed
Founders such as Thomas Jefferson fretted that a
weapon just as readily as it could recognize the beauty
strong military would result in a too-powerful cen-
of a well-constructed sentence.
tral government. If the fledgling Republic were to
We may be slightly unsettled by the image of Lincoln
be truly different – if it were to avoid becoming just
on his way from the White House to the Navy Yard,
another loutish, domineering superpower – then
perhaps smiling a bit as he looks forward to the firearms
military strength must be carefully and conscien-
he will find there, but the record is clear. Lincoln liked
tiously deployed. Likewise, the private ownership
guns, and he understood them, and he surely under-
of firearms was fraught with special responsibil-
stood, too, that his countrymen would be arguing about
ity and gravity. Technical innovations throughout
them for a long time to come. By recreating the United
the 19th century rendered guns easier to make and
States from the ground up, in the shadow of its dark-
cheaper to buy, potentially putting guns into the
est hour, Lincoln guaranteed that such debates could
hands of a greater number of people than ever
take place with civility and good order, in a land that
before in any nation’s history; those advances, how-
respects the opinion of all of its citizens, be they black
ever, only intensified the debate over the wisdom of
or white, be they proud gun-owners or those passion-
arming citizens. Yet should the central government
ately opposed to gun ownership.
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
83
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
Collecting Lincoln
Lincolniana rapidly became collectible, from signatures and writings,
to more grisly souvenirs of his life and death
By Thomas F. Schwartz,
Illinois state historian,
Abraham Lincoln
Presidential Library and
Museum, Springfield,
Illinois
n June 1, 1860, Republican presidential can-
One neighbor grabbed letters that were exchanged
didate Abraham Lincoln wrote the following
between the Lincolns when he served in Congress. A
response to a request from F.A. Wood: “You say
carpetbag stuffed with drafts of speeches, including a
you are not a Lincoln man; ‘but still would like to have
public address on “Discoveries and Inventions,” was left
Mr. L’s autograph.’ Well, here it is.”
in the hands of Elizabeth Todd Grimsley, Mary’s cousin.
O
This was one of scores of such letters Lincoln wrote to
After Lincoln’s assassination, Cousin Lizzie began selling
collectors seeking his autograph. So many requests were
off the contents of the carpetbag, realizing that Lincoln
received that a form letter was devised so that his secre-
manuscripts now carried value beyond the interest of
taries could pen the body of the text, leaving Lincoln the
autograph collectors.
act of providing the signature.
Below left: The first reading
of the Emancipation
Proclamation before the
Cabinet. Right: Lincoln’s
signature on a letter
written during the Civil War
The war provided a new outlet for Lincoln collectibles.
Neighbors in Springfield, Illinois, avoided asking
Frederick Law Olmsted, best known for his design of
Lincoln to sign autographs. Rather, many simply
urban green space, especially New York City’s famed
waited for Abraham or Mary Lincoln to haul stacks
Central Park, also served as executive secretary of the
of old correspondence to the backyard of their home
United States Sanitary Commission. This voluntary
on Eighth and Jackson Streets to feed a burn pile.
organization held “sanitary fairs” to raise money for
Seeing no need to store boxes of old correspondence
medical supplies, food, clothing, and volunteer nurses
off-site while they rented their home, the Lincolns
who served in military camps and hospitals. Lincoln
spent many hours simply burning it, oblivious to the
frequently supplied portions of speeches or appropriate
fact that historians someday might be interested in
patriotic sentiments to be sold at these fairs. The original
those letters.
draft of the Emancipation Proclamation fetched $3,000
84 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
1809-2009
at the 1863 Northwestern Sanitary Fair in Chicago.
All of this is to point to the wide dispersion of things
It eventually made its way into the collections of the
associated with Abraham Lincoln. His life was literally
Chicago Historical Society, where the manuscript, and
picked apart. After his death, writers began the search
the “fireproof ” building in which it was housed, were
for documents and individuals associated with the mar-
destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. For the
tyred president. Lacking a public records act at either
Great Central Philadelphia Sanitary Fair in 1864, Lin-
the federal or state level, clerks either gave Lincoln docu-
coln signed printed copies of the Emancipation Proc-
ments away or often tossed out old records, many with
lamation. Sales of the 48 copies were not brisk, and
Lincoln’s name on them, to make room for more recent
remaining copies were either given to libraries or offered
materials. Even after the federal and state governments
at discount prices months later at the Boston National
became more mindful of the value of public records, the
Sailors Fair. What could have been purchased for $10 in
demand for Lincoln materials made it worth the while of
1864 now sells for over $1 million at auction.
some to pilfer public archives.
A booming – and grisly – trade in Lincoln body parts
emerged after his assassination and death. The attending military surgeons at Ford’s Theatre and the Petersen
F
or every action – the chaotic dispersion of Lincoln
materials – there is a reaction: enter the collector. In
House, in addition to assistants to the embalmer, snipped
many ways, collectors understood, long before public and
locks of the president’s hair as souvenirs, along with
private cultural institutions did, the value of assembling
bloody pieces of his shirt and coat. Laura Keene, the
things associated with the Lincoln story. Writers have
actress whose theatrical troupe was performing the Brit-
tried to explain the obsessive compulsion that motivates
ish comedy of manners, Our American Cousin, the night
collectors to go to great lengths to secure materials.
of the assassination, claimed to have held the president’s
Ralph Geoffrey Newman, the legendary Chicago
head in her lap, staining her dress with his blood. She
bookseller and Lincoln manuscript dealer, recalled
distributed small pieces of the garment as keepsakes.
advice he received early in his career: “While you don’t
Lincoln’s funeral was orchestrated by Edwin Stanton
have to be crazy, it helps.” However one evaluates collect-
and carried out by the military in coordination with 12
ing, there is no denying the importance of the individual
local arrangement committees. The funeral generated
collector in attempting to recover Lincoln materials
tens of thousands of commercial mourning ribbons,
from far-flung corners. Without the efforts of individual
photographs, published funeral sermons and orations, as
collectors, the great institutional collections would be
well as an untold number of homemade remembrances.
noticeably poorer.
It is estimated that roughly eight million of the more
Andrew Boyd, who assembled a large collection of
than 35 million Americans at the time saw Lincoln’s
published writings about Lincoln and wrote A Memo-
funeral train or participated in a public observance.
rial Lincoln Bibliography (1870), sold his to the Library
His hometown of Springfield, Illinois, burgeoned
of Congress in 1873 for $1,000. Robert Todd Lincoln
from roughly 12,000 to more than 75,000 on May 3
selected the Library of Congress as the repository for
and 4, 1865, as people sought to get a glimpse of his
his father’s papers. Even though he sent them to the
visage one last time.
library in 1919, a restriction prevented their public use
But as people sought to pay their respects, they also
“
Without
individual
collectors,
the great
institutional
collections
would be
poorer
”
Abraham Lincoln’s top
hat, last worn to Ford’s
Theatre on April 14,
1865, preserved by the
Smithsonian Institution
until July 26, 1947.
wanted to procure a piece of history. Floral arrange-
After Robert’s death, his eldest daughter, Mary Lincoln
ments were picked apart, tassels from the fringe of the
Isham, donated the items Abraham Lincoln was carry-
casket were quietly removed, small pieces of black bun-
ing in his pockets the night he was killed at Ford’s The-
ting were taken and, oddest of all souvenirs, hairs from
atre to the Library of Congress. The items were placed
the mane and tail of Lincoln’s horse, Old Bob, were in
in a box on a vault shelf and forgotten until 1975. Librar-
great demand.
ian of Congress Daniel Boorstin came upon the box by
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
85
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
happenstance and revealed the contents to the public on
Future memorabilia:
Released in time for the
Lincoln Bicentennial
celebrations, pennies
issued by the U.S. Treasury
and a commemorative
stamp issued by the
U.S. Postal Service
February 12, 1976. The Library of Congress purchased
William Herndon’s and Jesse Weik’s research notes and
correspondence, adding another invaluable collection.
Alfred Whital Stern, a Chicago Lincoln collector,
donated his materials to the Library of Congress shortly
before his death in 1960. Among his great treasures were
Abraham Lincoln’s scrapbook, used to compile the published Lincoln-Douglas debates, and Lincoln’s letter to
General Joseph Hooker offering the advice: “Beware of
rashness but with energy, and sleepless vigilance, go forward, and give us victories.”
My own institution, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, began collecting Lincoln
materials at its inception in 1889. Known throughout most of its history as the Illinois State Historical
Library, this institution benefi ted from its location in
Lincoln’s hometown.
Artifacts and documents passed down through local
families, especially those of Mary Todd Lincoln’s sisters, eventually found a home at the library. Ironically,
the library fared well during the Great Depression and
A
s might be expected, reassembling Lincoln items
places them in unexpected places. You will not find
World War II, marking a period of important acquisi-
the rocking chair from Ford’s Theatre at Ford’s Theatre.
tions, such as Edward Everett’s copy of Lincoln’s Get-
Automaker Henry Ford (no relation to John Ford of
tysburg Address.
Ford’s Theatre) purchased it and took it to his museum
Right before his death in 1940, Governor Henry
in Greenfield Village, Michigan.
Horner bequeathed his important collection of Lincolni-
The contents of the room in which Lincoln died at
ana to the library, immediately making it a major reposi-
the Petersen House are at the Chicago History Museum.
tory. The recent acquisition of the Louise and Barry
Charles Gunther, who made his fortune making candy,
Taper Collection adds more than 1,600 items, including
purchased the entire contents of the room, even down
one of Lincoln’s top hats, his presidential seal, his wallet,
to the gas jets.
and a page from his childhood sum book.
Some of the greatest collections went to auction only
Other institutions that have benefited from collectors
to be dispersed once again. Such was the fate of the Wil-
are the Henry Huntington Library (the Judd Stewart
liam Lambert collection, the Oliver Barrett Collection,
Collection); Brown University (the Charles Woodberry
the Philip Sang Collection and, most recently, the Mal-
McLellan Collection and the John Hay Collection); the
colm Forbes Collection.
Chicago History Museum (the Charles Gunther Collec-
New electronic sources, most notably eBay, have
tion); Ford’s Theatre (the Osborn Oldroyd Collection),
made it easier to track materials in obscure geographic
Indiana University (the Joseph Benjamin Oakleaf Col-
locales. The global cyberspace marketplace has also led
lection); Allegheny College (the Ida Tarbell Collection);
to a proliferation of reproductions and forgeries that
Meisei University (Masaharu Mochizuki Collection);
are passed off as original materials. And so the chal-
and the National Portrait Gallery (the Frederick Hill
lenge of identifying and reassembling the pieces of the
Meserve Collection).
Lincoln saga continues.
86 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
“
As might be
expected,
reassembling
Lincoln items
places them
in unexpected
places
”
STATE GOVERNORS’ MESSAGES
88 Alabama
Bob Riley
89 Alaska
Sarah Palin
90 Arizona
Janet Napolitano
91
Arkansas
Mike Beebe
92 California
Arnold Schwarzenegger
93 Colorado
Bill Ritter, Jr.
94 Connecticut
M. Jodi Rell
95 Delaware
Jack Markell
96 Florida
Charlie Crist
97 Georgia
Sonny Perdue
105 Louisiana
Bobby Jindal
106 Maine
John Elias Baldacci
107 Maryland
101 Indiana
Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr.
102 Iowa
Chester J. Culver
103 Kansas
Kathleen Sebelius
104 Kentucky
Steve Beshear
124 Oregon
125 Pennsylvania
Deval L. Patrick
109 Michigan
Jennifer M. Granholm
110 Minnesota
Tim Pawlenty
111 Mississippi
Haley Barbour
112 Missouri
Jay Nixon
113 Montana
Brian Schweitzer
114 Nebraska
Dave Heineman
Jim Gibbons
Rod R. Blagojevich
Brad Henry
108 Massachusetts
115 Nevada
100 Illinois
123 Oklahoma
Ted Kulongoski
Linda Lingle
Butch Otter
Ted Strickland
Martin O’Malley
98 Hawai‘i
99 Idaho
122 Ohio
116 New Hampshire
John Lynch
117 New Jersey
Jon S. Corzine
118 New Mexico
Bill Richardson
119 New York
David Paterson
120 North Carolina
Bev Perdue
Edward G. Rendell
126 Rhode Island
Donald L. Carcieri
127 South Carolina
Mark Sanford
128 South Dakota
M. Michael Rounds
129 Tennessee
Phil Bredesen
130 Texas
Rick Perry
131 Utah
Jon M. Huntsman, Jr.
132 Vermont
Jim Douglas
133 Virginia
Tim Kaine
134 Washington
Christine Gregoire
135 West Virginia
Joe Manchin
136 Wisconsin
Jim Doyle
137 Wyoming
Dave Freudenthal
121 North Dakota
John Hoeven
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
87
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© Alabama Bureau of Tourism and Travel. Photographer: Dan Brothers
Bob Riley
Governor
State of Alabama
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The statue of Rosa Parks on a Montgomery bus in the
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
KEY DATES
April 24, 2009
The Alabama Historical Association Annual Dinner
Event: Dinner
Speaker: Professor Steven Berry, University of Georgia, author of
House of Abraham: Lincoln & the Todds, A Family Divided by War
(Houghton Mifflin, 2007).
Location: Tuscaloosa, Alabama (exact location TBD)
Contact: Dr. Kenneth Noe, Auburn, AL 36830
334 844 6626
2009–2010
The American Village Programs
Event: The American Village, Alabama’s history and civic education
center located in Montevallo, just south of Birmingham, will sponsor
one or more programs during 2009–2010 that will commemorate the
Lincoln Bicentennial. The programs will have a particular focus on the
life, words, and legacy of the 16th president of the United States.
For further information:
www.americanvillage.org/presidents/lincoln/
88 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
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January 12 – May 2,
2009
Lincoln and the
Civil War
February 12, 2009
Lincoln Day Dinner
February 12, 2009
Lincoln and the Enduring
American Frontier
June 24 – July 5, 2009
Lincoln and the Civil War
in Song
Event: Traditional Lincoln Day
dinner, sponsored by the Alaska
Lincoln Bicentenary.
Event: Undergraduate
Commemoration to benefit the
Honors Seminar
Forty-Ninth State Fellows
Location: University of Alaska
Program, University Honors College.
Anchorage, Consortium Library,
Location: University of Alaska
Dean’s Conference Room, Room
302a. Mondays and Wednesdays, Anchorage, Consortium Library,
Lewis Haines Hall, Room 307.
11.30 a.m. to 12.45 p.m.
Contact: [email protected] Contact: [email protected]
907 786 1051
907 786 1057
Event: 2nd Annual Lincoln
Day Polaris Lecture in the
Teaching American History
series, sponsored by the Anchorage School District with assistance from the U.S. Department
of Education.
Location: University of Alaska,
Anchorage, Consortium Library,
Lewis Haines Hall, Room 307.
Lecturer: Professor
Wilfred M. McClay, SunTrust
Bank Chair of Excellence in
Humanities, University of
Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Contact: [email protected]
907 786 1051
Event: Bicentennial choral tour
by the Alaska Children’s Choir.
Locations: Sites in Washington,
D.C., Pennsylvania, Maryland,
West Virginia, and Virginia.
Contact: [email protected]
202 255 4314
November 19, 2009
Dedication Day
Commemoration
Event: Annual reading of
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
Location: University of Alaska
Anchorage, Consortium
Library lobby.
Contact: [email protected]
907 786 1051
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
89
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Janet Napolitano
Governor
State of Arizona
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KEY DATES
February 12, 2009
Arizona’s 97th Statehood Day Commemoration and
Lincoln Legacy Day
Event: A proclamation by the Governor to mark Arizona’s 97th birthday, as well as the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth,
and recognize student winners of the annual Polly Rosenbaum
Writing Contest. The topic of the writing contest will center on
Lincoln’s Legacy.
Location: Phoenix - Arizona Capitol Museum
Historic Senate Chambers
Organizer: Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records
February 14, 2009
Arizona History Adventure
Event: Enjoy stepping back in time with living history characters in
the John C. Fremont House and Territorial Governor’s Mansion.
Organizer: Sharlot Hall Museum
Location: Prescott, John C. Fremont House and the Territorial
Governor’s Mansion
March 14–15, 2009
Civil War in the Southwest
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90 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
Event: Reenactments of three different Civil War battles. The battles
were originally fought in Arizona and New Mexico and included
battles at Valverde, Glorietta Pass, and Picacho Pass. Since many
people only know of the Civil War battles that were fought in the
eastern states, these desert battles become another exciting history
lesson. With nearly 250 reenactors living in authentic camps, the
event is truly like stepping back in time.
Organizer: Picacho Peak State Park
Location: Picacho Peak State Park
April 23-26,
2009
Arizona History
Convention
Event: Territorial
papers will be presented at the 50th
Annual Arizona
History Convention
with a focus on the
Arizona Territory.
Location: Prescott,
Hassayampa Hotel
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Mike Beebe
Governor
State of Arkansas
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FACTS
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Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
91
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Arnold Schwarzenegger
Governor
State of California
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June 23, 2009 – August 22, 2009
With Malice Toward None:
The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition
Event: Museum exhibit
Organizer: Library of Congress
Location: California Museum for History, Women and the Arts,
1020 O Street, Sacramento, CA 95814
For further information: www.californiamuseum.org
Starting in February 2009
(and running through the bicentennial year)
Lecture series, film festival and other ongoing exhibits and events
Organizer: Lincoln Memorial Shrine
Location: Lincoln Memorial Shrine, 125 West Vine Street,
Redlands, CA 92373
For further information: www.lincolnshrine.org
Created by artist Robert Berks, this bust
(right) of Abraham Lincoln is in Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office in Sacramento.
Below, California’s Central Coast
February 12, 2009, Noon
17th Annual Abe Lincoln Remembrance
Event: Remembrance ceremony at Los Angeles National Cemetery
Organizer: Duke Russell
Location: Los Angeles National Cemetery,
950 South Sepulveda Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90049
Contact: Duke Russell, 323 464 6801, [email protected]
February 7, 2009 – April 17, 2009
The Last Full Measure of Devotion: Collecting Abraham Lincoln
Event: Library exhibit
Organizer: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
Location: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens,
1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA 91108
For further information: www.huntington.org
December 2008 – December 2009
Lincoln and California
Event: Museum Exhibit
Organizer: Drum Barracks Civil War Museum
Location: Drum Barracks Civil War Museum,
1052 Banning Blvd., Wilmington, CA 90744
For further information: www.drumbarracks.org
92 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
Photograph of bust by Peter Grigsby. Photograph of Calfornia, courtesy of California Travel and Tourism Commission
FACTS
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Bill Ritter, Jr., Governor
State of Colorado
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FACTS
KEY DATES
Colorado communities will offer a variety of programs at the local
level. The Colorado Commission will focus outreach efforts around
three areas: primary resources for K-12 teachers, traveling exhibits,
and a speakers’ bureau. Programs include:
October 9, 2008 through October 2009
A House Divided: The Money of the Civil War Exhibit
Douglas Mudd, Curator
Edward C. Rochette Money Museum,
American Numismatic Association
Colorado Springs
Contact: 719 482 9828
October 23, 2009 - November 13, 2009
Lincoln Learning Stations Exhibit
Location: Four Mile Historic Park, Glendale
February 2009
“Abraham Lincoln: A Man of His Time,
A Man for All Times” Exhibit
Colorado Christian University Library, Lakewood
February 2009
Looking for Lincoln
Rocky Mountain PBS
Photographs courtesy of Colorado Historical Society
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Dedication of Colorado’s State Capitol, Colfax and Lincoln
Street (above). Mount Lincoln, 1882 (below)
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Lincoln Speakers’ Bureau
Various topics and locations throughout Colorado in 2009
Colorado Humanities and Colorado Historical Society
Date to be confirmed
An Evening with Abraham Lincoln
Colorado Humanities and Colorado Historical Society
Location: to be confirmed
Website: colincoln200.org
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
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Governor
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KEY DATES
February 12, 2009
The Amistad Center for Art & Culture (Wadsworth Atheneum)
Event: A three-month exhibit of Lincoln artifacts, “Lincoln: Man, Myth,
and Memories.”
For further information: www.amistadartandculture.org
February 2009
Special Feature
The Connecticut State Medical Society’s February 2009 issue of Connecticut Medicine will feature articles on Lincoln’s medical history,
and on medical innovations of care and treatment during the Civil War.
March 23, 2009
The Life of Abraham Lincoln: New Findings, Fresh Perspectives
Event: Lecture
Speaker: Michael Burlingame
Location: Trinity College, 300 Summit St., Hartford, CT 06106
May 30, 2009 / July 18, 2009 / October 3, 2009
Civil War Encampments and Living History Events
Event: The Civil War Encampments and Living History Events, will be
conducted by Connecticut’s reenacting regiments,
the 2nd, 8th, 11th, 14th and 27th.
Locations: The Torrington Historical Society (May 30), Fort Trumbull
State Park (July 18), the Connecticut Historical Society (October 3).
August / September 2009
The Connecticut Historical Society
Event: An exhibiton presented by the Connecticut Historical Society.
“Civil War Treasures” will feature the Lincoln Assassination Flag and
Civil War artifacts.
Location: The Connecticut Historical Society, One Elizabeth Street at
Asylum Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105
For further information: www.yale.edu/glc/lincoln/
94 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
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Jack Markell
Governor
State of Delaware
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The Delaware Abraham
Lincoln Essay Contest
High-school seniors will
compete for scholarships. The
contest will be administered
by the Delaware Higher Education Commission with support from the Lincoln Club,
WSFS, the DuPont Company,
and the State of Delaware.
January 27 – June 5, 2009
“Abraham Lincoln: a Bicentennial Celebration”
Event: Drawn from the University of Delaware’s Lincoln Collection,
this exhibit includes one of three duplicate copies of the 13th Amendment engrossed by Isaac Strohm and signed by President Lincoln, as
well as one of 48 printed copies of the Emancipation Proclamation
signed by the President and Secretary Seward. It will be hosted by
the Morris Library in Newark. A selection of materials will then be
displayed at the State Archives in Dover through September 2009.
Delaware History Magazine
The Delaware Historical Society will publish a special issue of
Delaware History Magazine devoted to Lincoln and Delaware.
February 10, 2009
Delaware Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Dinner
Event: At the Chase Riverfront Center in Wilmington, this event will
feature an exhibit including a carriage used by Lincoln during his
first inauguration. Lincoln Club member Justin Carisio will moderate
a discussion on “The Legacy of Abraham Lincoln in the 21st Century”
with Rhode Island Chief Justice (Ret.) Frank J. Williams, founding
chairman of The Lincoln Forum; and Harold Holzer, co-chair of the
United States Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.
February 19, 2009
“Lincoln Comes to Sussex”
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Event: Lincoln presenter Jim Rubin will visit Delaware Technical and
Community College in Georgetown to speak and participate in an
open forum with students, faculty and the public.
February 23, 2009
Widener University Law School Lincoln
Bicentennial Program
Event: This Wilmington Campus event will include panel discussions
concerning “Abraham Lincoln the Lawyer: Ethical Issues Raised by
Lincoln’s Law Practice,” and “Lincoln and Civil Liberties.” A keynote
address on the Lincoln assassination will be presented by James Swanson, author of Manhunt – The 12 Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killers.
May 1, 2009
Law Day
Event: Delaware lawyers will visit schools around the state to speak
to students about “Abraham Lincoln the Lawyer.”
November 2009
The Music of the Lincoln White House
Event: A concert to be sponsored by the Delaware Abraham Lincoln
Bicentennial Commission and The Lincoln Club of Delaware.
For further information: www.lincoln200.delaware.gov
or contact [email protected]
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
95
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Charlie Crist
Governor
State of Florida
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February 11 – March 15, 2009
Exhibit and Lecture
Event: Includes letters, pamphlets, and
historical artifacts, focusing on Lincoln
and civil liberties. Lecture with Dr. Stephen
D. Engle, American Civil War historian,
professor of history and author.
Organizer: Florida Atlantic University
Location: FAU Main Campus Library,
Boca Raton
Contact: Ellen Randolph, 561 297 3594
February 2009
Black History Month Celebration
Event: Includes student essay contest
focusing on Lincoln’s legacy.
Organizer: Governor’s Office
Location: Governor’s Mansion, Tallahassee
Contact: Governor’s Office,
850 410 0501
www.FloridaBlackHistory.com
October 2009
Abraham Lincoln: A Man of His Time,
A Man for All Time
Event: Traveling exhibit from Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History and
National Endowment for
the Humanities.
Organizer: Nova Southeastern University
Location: Alvin Sherman Library,
Fort Lauderdale
Contact: Nora J. Quinlan, 954 262 4637
Fort Jefferson, Garden Key
96 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
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Sonny Perdue
Governor
State of Georgia
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FACTS
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January 23 – February 20, 2009
Abraham Lincoln: Self-Made in America
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Event: Project focusing on Andrew Ferguson’s Land of Lincoln and
Stephen Berry’s House of Abraham.
Location: Savannah
Event: Exhibit
Location: Massie Heritage Center, Savannah
January 29 – May 7, 2009
Savannah Reads
February 7, 2009
Booktalk by Charles Bracelen Flood on 1864:
Lincoln at the Gates of History
Part of the Savannah Book Festival
February 7 - April 26, 2009
Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War
Event: Exhibit
Location: Jimmy Carter Library and Museum, Atlanta
February 12, 17, 25, 2009
Letters to Lincoln
Location: Jimmy Carter Library and Museum, Atlanta
March 21, 2009
“Envisioning America: the Leadership of Abraham Lincoln
and Jefferson Davis” Symposium
Location: Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw
May 2009
The Life and Legacy of Abraham Lincoln
Event: Lecture by Dr. David Blight and course by Dr. Lee Williams.
Location: The Learning Center at Senior Citizens, Inc., Savannah
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
97
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Linda Lingle
Governor
State of Hawai‘i
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FACTS
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KEY DATES
March 12 – April 6, 2009
Abraham Lincoln: A Man of His Times, a Man for All Times
Event: Exhibition, lectures, performances, student poster contest
Location: Hawai‘i State Library, Honolulu
Contact: 808 586 3499, [email protected]
March 18 and 21, 2009
Memory and the Meaning of Emancipation
Event: Public lecture featuring historian David Blight, and a
teacher workshop.
Location: East-West Center, Honolulu
Contact: 808 956 553, [email protected]
April 14 and 17, 2009
Controversial Issues in Public History
Events: Public lecture featuring historian Dwight Pitaithley (April 14,
at Volcano National Park), and symposium for museum and historic
site interpreters (April 17, at Bishop Museum).
Contact: 808 956 553, [email protected]
Other events and materials for teachers can be found by contacting
the Hawai‘i Council for the Humanities on 808 732 5402 or
[email protected], or at the HCH website:
www.hihumanities.org
98 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
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Butch Otter
Governor
State of Idaho
FACTS
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KEY DATES
February 1, 2009
The publication of Lincoln Never
Slept Here: Idaho’s Abraham Lincoln
Bicentennial Tour
February 12, 2009 (noon)
The rededication of the oldest Lincoln
monument in the Western United States,
the statue of Lincoln the Emancipator
(Book available through the website)
Location: Capitol Grounds, Boise
January-September 15, 2009
“Lincoln and Idaho”
traveling museum
September 17 – December 7, 2009
A nationally significant artifact exhibit,
“Lincoln: The Preservation of Nation”
Event: Exhibit, touring various school,
community, and museum locations
Location: Museum of Idaho in Idaho Falls
www.lincolnbicentennial.idaho.gov
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
99
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Rod R. Blagojevich
Governor
State of Illinois
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FACTS
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100 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
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KEY DATES
Weekends closest to debate dates in 2008
Reunion Tour ’08
Event: Lincoln and Douglas share their recollections and discuss some of the important issues of the 1858 debates.
Organizer: Lincoln-Douglas Debate Communities.
Location: Illinois debate sites: Alton, Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Galesburg,
Charleston, Quincy and Bement.
www.lincolndouglasreunion.com
February 11, 2009
Lincoln’s Farewell Address
Event: The event will recreate the excitement of February 11, 1861, on February
11, 2009, with school children from Springfield. The students gather at the Prairie
Capitol Convention Center during the morning of February 11, bringing with them
banners, flags, etc. they have made in school as part of a curriculum-based education program on Lincoln and the Civil War. Free and open to the public.
Organizer: Illinois Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.
Location: Prairie Capitol Convention Center, Springfield.
www.lincoln200.net
Ravinia Festival’s “Mystic Chords of Memory” 2009
Fondly Do We Hope, Fervently Do We Pray
Event: Commissioned work of dance and theatre by Tony Award winner, Bill T. Jones,
September 17, 19, 20, 2009.
Organizer: Ravinia Festival, Highland Park. www.ravinia.org
Ongoing through 2009
Lincoln Log
Event: Creation of daily entries of what Lincoln said, wrote or did each day provided
free to all Illinois newspapers.
Organizer: The Illinois Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, the Papers of
Abraham Lincoln.
Contact: IALBC: [email protected]
Abraham Lincoln: Self-Made in America
Event: Mobile Museum exhibit traveling the United States in 2008-2010. The exhibit
examines Lincoln’s life, highlighting his 1861 farewell address and the award-winning
“The Civil War in Four Minutes” video presentation.
Organizer: The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.
www.presidentlincoln.org
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Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr.
Governor
State of Indiana
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KEY DATES
The Lincoln Bicentennial Mother’s Day Celebration
'"$54
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Event: A national signature event honoring Lincoln’s mother and step-mother,
commemorating his time in Indiana, was held in May 2008 in Spencer
County, Indiana.
The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Celebration and Conference
Event: Featured the premiere of an original musical composition telling the story
of Indiana’s Lincoln in August 2008 in Indianapolis.
Lincoln’s Journey of Remembrance
Event: Launched in Spencer County in September 2008. The flatboat voyage to
New Orleans reenacted a similar trip Lincoln took in 1828.
The Indiana Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission
Event: Dozens of events have been endorsed, including Lincoln Highway activities scheduled for 2009 in northern Indiana.
Indiana’s Lincoln Bicentennial Commemoration
Event: Includes educational programs, license plates, welcome signs, a 200th
birthday celebration and the June 2009 opening of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Plaza at Lincoln State Park and re-opening of the Lincoln Amphitheatre.
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
101
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Chester J. Culver
Governor
State of Iowa
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KEY DATES
February 11, 2008
Bicentennial Kick-off
Event: Proclamation by Governor Chet Culver.
Location: Iowa Statehouse and Historical Museum, Des Moines.
March 22–April 27, 2008
Morrill Act Exhibit
'"$54
Event: Display of original College Land Grant Act, signed by
President Lincoln.
Location: Iowa State University, Ames.
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102 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
June 30, 2008
Juneteenth Celebration
Event: Remembering the freeing of the slaves through Lincoln’s
Emancipation Proclamation, Des Moines.
October 29, 2008
Event: Harold Holzer, co-chair of the ALBC, speaks on Lincoln at
Salisbury House, Des Moines.
January 24–March 22, 2009
“Lincoln’s Life: A Bicentennial Reflection”
Location: Herbert Hoover Museum and Library, West Branch.
“Lincoln’s Legacy in Iowa: A Bicentennial Celebration”
Location: University of Iowa Library, Iowa City.
February 12, 2009
Lincoln Birthday Celebration Banquet
Location: State Historical Building (tentative), Des Moines.
Throughout 2009
History on the Move
Event: The Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs takes a trailer with an
interactive Lincoln exhibit on the road.
The State of:
KANSAS
“AD ASTRA PER ASPERA / TO THE
STARS THROUGH DIFFICULTY”
Kathleen Sebelius
Governor
State of Kansas
Abraham Lincoln has a special meaning to the Great State
of Kansas. Two years prior to our statehood – and one year
before he was elected to the presidency – Lincoln visited the
Kansas territory where he spoke out against the institution of
slavery. At the time, Kansas was embroiled in its own struggle
to be founded as a free state and Lincoln’s words embodied our
state’s cause.
It was here, in Kansas, where Lincoln learned of John
Brown’s death. In his wisdom, and perhaps with great foreshadowing, Lincoln asserted that John Brown’s good intentions could
not justify his gruesome means – a prelude to the tragedy of the
Civil War: “Even though he agreed with us in thinking slavery
wrong. That cannot excuse violence, bloodshed, and treason,”
Lincoln said. “It could avail him nothing that he might think
himself right.”
FACTS
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northeast Kansas on what turned out to be an early presidential campaign trip.
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founders considered “evil,” and blamed the violence in Kansas Territory on the
new policy of “popular sovereignty.”
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treason. “We cannot object, even though he
agreed with us in thinking slavery wrong. That
cannot excuse violence, bloodshed,
and treason.”
t"GFXNPOUITBGUFSIJTWJTJU-JODPMOTBJEi*G I went west, I think I would go to Kansas
– to Leavenworth or Atchison. Both of
them are, and will continue to be, fine
growing places.”
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marking Kansas’ entrance into the
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As President, Lincoln looked fondly on the 34th state to enter
the Union, telling others: “If I went west, I think I would go to
Kansas – to Leavenworth or Atchison. Both of them are, and
will continue to be, fine growing places.”
Nearly 150 years later, Lincoln’s legacy endures because he
possessed the moral courage to tackle the most fundamental issue
in our democracy and inspired a nation to embrace freedom.
Lincoln found strength of spirit from the most humble beginnings; he took losses, professional and personal, and turned them
into life lessons. He was a gifted storyteller who always kept a
sense of humor.
Lincoln brought his political rivals into his Cabinet to keep
America together. To this day, he continues to be a role model,
reminding us what we can achieve by working together.
His legacy lives on and will continue for generations to come.
KEY DATES
January 15, 17, 2009
Aaron Copland’s A Lincoln Portrait
Event: Performance by Topeka Symphony Orchestra.
Organizer: Topeka Symphony Orchestra with Lincoln Club of Topeka.
Location: White Concert Hall, Washburn University, Topeka.
Contact: 785 232 2032, www.topekasymphony.org
January 29, 2009
Kansas Day at the Museum and Kansas Day at the Capitol
Event: Schools celebrate the state’s 148th birthday.
Organizer: Kansas Historical Society.
Location: Kansas Museum of History, Kansas State Capitol, Topeka.
Contact: 785 272 8681, 785 296 3966, www.kshs.org
January 29–July 26, 2009
Lincoln in Kansas
Event: Exhibit on Lincoln and his visit to Kansas.
Organizer: Kansas Historical Society.
Location: Kansas Museum of History, Topeka.
Contact: 785 272 8681, www.kshs.org
February 4, 11, 18, 25, 2009
Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Symposium
Event: Nationally-known scholars.
Organizer: Emporia State University.
Location: Granada Theater, Emporia.
Contact: 620 341 5573, www.emporia.edu/lincoln
February 8, 15, 2009
“Bleeding Kansas ’09”
Event: Lecture, Feb 8: “Great Emancipator or Great Racist?” Feb 15: “Abraham Lincoln Remembered.”
Organizer: Constitution Hall State Historic Site, community of Lecompton.
Location: Constitution Hall, Lecompton.
Contact: 785 887 6520, www.kshs.org/lincoln
February 13–14, 2009
Lincoln Day Reenactment
Event: Lincoln look-a-like contest, march and ball.
Organizer: Reenactment Committee, Lincoln.
Location: Lincoln County Courthouse, Lincoln.
Contact: 785 524 5133, www.villagelines.com/1564460.html
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial 103
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Steve Beshear
Governor
Commonwealth
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FACTS
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KEY DATES
February 12, 2009
Hodgenville Lincoln Birthday Activities
Event: All-day commemorative activities include the unveiling of the
Kentucky Lincoln penny.
Location: Abraham Lincoln National Historic Site, Hodgenville
Contact: Lincoln birthplace, 270 359 3137
February 12, 2009
Springfield Statue Unveiling
Commemorative event
Contact: Kathy Elliott, 859 336 5440
www.lincolnsculptureky.com
February 12–16, 2009
Lincoln Bicentennial Commemorative Events and Activities
Event: Community commemorative events and activities are
scheduled across the Commonwealth.
For further information: www.kylincoln.org
March 2009
A House Divided
Event: This special exhibit explores the relationship
between the Lincolns and Confederate sympathizers in the
Todd family.
Contact: The Lexington Public Library Gallery, 859 231 5520
June 4, 2009
Waterfront Park Statue Unveiling
Renowned Kentucky sculptor Ed Hamilton will unveil a bronze
Lincoln statue.
Contact: Louisville Waterfront Park, 502 574 3768
Until June 6, 2009
Beyond the Log Cabin: Kentucky’s Abraham Lincoln
Event: Museum exhibition
Location: Kentucky Historical Society Frankfort, Ky.
www.history.ky.gov
Lincoln website: www.kylincoln.org
104 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
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Bobby Jindal
Governor
State of Louisiana
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KEY DATES
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Event: A new portrait of Lincoln (above right)
by Ed Pramuk, a prominent painter
living in Baton Rouge, was unveiled at a
major event.
Event: Historians Lawrence Powell, Gary Joiner,
Charles Vincent, James Hollandsworth, Peter
Breaux, and novelist David Madden lectured
throughout the state and on Louisiana Public
Television and WRKF public radio on “Louisiana
as Lincoln’s Choice to Serve as a Model for His
Benevolent Reconstruction Plan.”
Event: “Lincoln Lives,” a new play about Frederick
Douglass and Lincoln by historian-novelist Kent
Gramm, was performed with new music by
Bill Grimes.
Location: Episcopal High School, Baton Rouge
Event: A panel compared Lincoln with
other emancipators: Garibaldi, Bolivar,
and Ataturk.
Event: “Lincoln Without Borders” was a three-day
conference in Shreveport, Chennai,
India, and Argentina, sponsored
by the International Lincoln Center,
LSU-Shreveport.
Event: “What the British Think of Lincoln” was a
lecture given by Julian Brazier, Member of Parliament from Canterbury, England.
Location: Baton Rouge
Event: The Civil War Book Review, United States
Civil War Center, Louisiana State University,
devoted a special issue to Lincoln.
Event: The Gettysburg Address was set to music
for voice by Rebecca Gillan.
Location: Baton Rouge Community College
Event: Jay Dardenne, secretary of state, hosted
the Louisiana Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, with offices in the State Capitol.
Event: Louisiana poets gave readings
throughout the state of poems by and
about Lincoln.
Event: David Madden, Chair of the Louisiana
Commission, published 30 reviews of new books
about Lincoln.
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial 105
Lincoln-Louisiana Icon reproduced courtesy of the Foundation for Historical Louisiana
FACTS
The State of:
MAINE
“DIRIGO”
John Elias Baldacci
Governor
State of Maine
At the outset of the Civil War, the State of Maine staunchly
supported the preservation of the Union and the abolition of
slavery. One of the most significant books leading to the war
was Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, first published
in 1852. Stowe wrote this highly influential volume while living
in Brunswick, and her house still stands there, now owned by
Bowdoin College. Maine voted for Abraham Lincoln in 1860, in
part due to his vice presidential running mate, Hannibal Hamlin,
born in Paris Hill and later of Bangor, who served the state as a
congressman, senator, and governor.
Maine contributed more than 30 regiments to the Union
cause. Maine men played critical roles both on and off the
battlefield. General Joshua L. Chamberlain of Brunswick, in
command of the 20th Maine, executed a crucial maneuver in
the Battle of Gettysburg, which protected the Union lines from
Confederate assault, and helped win that decisive engagement
of the war.
FACTS
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Chamber of the Maine State House in Augusta.
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Smith, is also displayed in the Senate Chamber of the Maine State House.
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Richmond, Virginia in April, 1865 is part of the collection of the Blaine House, a national
historic landmark that serves as the home of Maine’s governors and their families.
General Oliver Otis Howard of Leeds organized the Freedmen’s
Bureau to assist emancipated African-Americans, and was honored
by having Howard University in Washington, D.C. named for him.
Today, Maine remembers the eventful years of Abraham
Lincoln’s presidency through such massive granite Civil War
fortifications as Fort Popham at the mouth of the Kennebec River
and Fort Knox, which guards the entrance to the Penobscot River.
Both these coastal forts are open to the public as state-owned
historic sites. Moreover, in town squares, parks, and cemeteries
from Kittery to Caribou are more than 150 Civil War monuments
commemorating the sacrifices of Maine’s citizens, who helped to
accomplish Abraham Lincoln’s mission of saving the Union and
forging a more equal and just society for all Americans.
These stone and bronze monuments are the silent sentinels
that remind us of the courage and resourcefulness with which
Lincoln and his fellow countrymen met the extraordinary
challenges of their times.
KEY DATES
March 21, 2009
Leadership in a Time of Crisis: The Abraham Lincoln
Bicentennial Symposium
Event: Discussion of the many aspects of Lincoln, including an
exploration of his development as a politician. The speakers will
also lead small group discussions.
Organizer: The Maine Humanities Council, Maine Historical Society
and the University of Southern Maine’s American and New England
Studies program.
Location: The University of Southern Maine’s Abromson
Community Education Center
For further information: www.mainehumanities.org
Birthplace of Hannibal Hamlin, Paris Hill, 1948
106 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
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KEY DATES
January 15 - December 20, 2009
Remembering Mr. Lincoln
Event: Exhibition
Location: Surratt House Museum
www.pgparks.com
February 8, 2009
Threads of Time:
Profiles of AfricanAmerican Seamstresses
Event: Lecture
Location: Surratt House Museum
www.pgparks.com
February 8, 2009
Walk in Lincoln’s Footsteps
Event: Procession
City of Annapolis
Assemble:
Loews Annapolis Hotel
www.visitannapolis.org
February 14, 2009
The Madness of Mary Lincoln
Event: Workshop – Frederick Historic
Sites Consortium
Location: Frederick
Community College
Contact: 301 600 4042
March 11, 2009
Abraham Lincoln:
the President and the Man
Event: Lecture
Historical Society of Frederick County
Location: Frederick Community
College
www.hsfcinfo.org
April 11, 18; May 2;
September 5, 12, 19, 2009
John Wilkes Booth
Escape Route Tours
Event: Tour
Surratt House Museum
www.pgparks.com
May 8, 2009
Lincoln and Taney
March 27-29, 2009
Lincoln’s Assassination: All
Things Considered
Event: Symposium
Historical Society of
Frederick County
Location: Frederick County
Community College
www.hsfcinfo.org
Event: Tenth Annual Symposium
Location: Surratt House Museum
www.pgparks.com
April 2009
The Lincoln Assassination
May 30, 2009
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I Give You President
Lincoln
Event: Lecture
Maryland Historical Society
www.mdhs.org
Theater, Living History
Location: Surratt House Museum
www.pgparks.com
April - October, 2009
The Hunt for Abraham Lincoln:
Our National Treasure
Event: Treasure Hunt
Location: Surratt House Museum
www.pgparks.org
August 15, 2009
In Honor of the
President: Mr. Lincoln’s Music
April 4 - December 12, 2009
Lincoln and Taney
Event: Concert
Location: Surratt House Museum
www.pgparks.org
Event: Exhibition
Location: Roger Brooke Taney House
www.hsfcinfo.org
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
107
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Deval L. Patrick
Governor
Commonwealth of
Massachusetts
FACTS
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KEY DATES
February 8, 2009, Noon - 4.00 p.m.
Forbes House Museum: Lincoln’s Birthday Celebration
Event: Bicentennial activities will include Civil War Reenactors, a
living history team portraying President Lincoln and Mary Todd,
period music, hot chocolate and selections from the Museum’s
Lincoln Collection. The Museum also plans to present a series of
lecture/discussion events during its Lincoln bicentennial season.
Location: Forbes House Museum, 215 Adams Street, Milton, MA
For further information: Please visit the events page at
www.forbeshousemuseum.org
March 1 – March 26, 2009
Abraham Lincoln: Self Made in America
Event: Brookline, Massachusetts was selected to be one of 40
sites in the United States to host a bicentennial traveling exhibit
from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in
Springfield, Illinois. The exhibit consists of seven kiosks with
archival-quality replicas of photographs, documents, and artifacts
that tell the story of Lincoln’s life. A series of town-wide events are
being planned to complement the exhibit and further celebrate and
honor our 16th president.
Location: Public Library of Brookline, 361 Washington St.,
Brookline, MA
For further information: www.brooklinelibrary.org
The exhibit will be open during library’s regular hours.
108 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
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Governor
State of Michigan
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assassinated, on exhibit at The Henry Ford, Dearborn,
Michigan. Photo courtesy of The Henry Ford Museum
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A bronze statue of Lincoln by sculptor Charles H. Niehaus,
dedicated May 30, 1900, in Hackley Park, Muskegon, Michigan
Photo courtesy of Muskegon County Museum
KEY DATES
January 17, 2009
Performance
Event: Premiere performance of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra’s
original composition in honor of the bicentennial (a signature project commissioned by the Michigan Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Committee, the
Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra).
February 12, 2009
Lincoln vs. Douglas Sesquicentennial Debate by Jim Getty
and Tim Connors
Location: Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies, Grand Valley State
University, Grand Rapids
Spring 2009
“Lincoln and Statesmanship: What it Means to Be a Statesman”
Event: Legislator roundtable discussion – part of the Fetzer Institutesupported Lincoln Leadership Series, Lansing.
April 20, 2009
“Race, Opportunity and Equality”
Event: Town Hall Meeting at The Henry Ford, Dearborn.
Spring 2009
Publication of Lincoln in Michigan
Event: A collection of original essays and anecdotes highlighting Lincoln’s
many Michigan connections, published by Michigan History magazine.
Throughout 2008-09
“John Beechard and Mr. Lincoln: A Michigan Story”
Event: An original play authored by Waverly Middle School English and
history teacher Sam Sicilia (to be performed by hundreds of classrooms
and historical societies statewide). A digital storybook, based on the
play, was produced by Central Middle School (Plymouth) students,
sponsored by the Plymouth Historical Museum and Society and the
Michigan Department of Education.
For more information on these and other Michigan
Lincoln Bicentennial events, contact the Michigan
Department of History, Arts and Libraries at
517 373 2486, or visit www.milincoln.org
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial 109
The State of:
MINNESOTA
“STAR OF THE NORTH”
Tim Pawlenty
Governor
State of Minnesota
Abraham Lincoln never visited Minnesota, but he will forever be
joined with our state.
When news came that Fort Sumter had been taken by Confederate troops, Minnesota’s first governor, Alexander Ramsey,
was in Washington, D.C. Early the next morning he went to
the office of the secretary of war, Simon Cameron, and offered
1,000 Minnesota soldiers for the national defense. Secretary
Cameron took the offer to President Lincoln and soon after,
Minnesota became the first state to commit troops to the war.
Our state was only three years old.
Out of that commitment came the First Minnesota Regiment
– a brave group of Minnesotans whose heroics at Gettysburg
changed the battle, the Civil War and the fate of our nation.
As he stood upon the hallowed fields of Gettysburg, Lincoln
said: “from these honored dead we take increased devotion to
that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”
We remember Abraham Lincoln as a great leader, but let us
also remember him as the man who taught us never to forget
that America is a good nation eternally committed to our
greatest cause – freedom.
FACTS
KEY DATES
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history in a direct manner on several counts. His advocacy
of several key laws affecting Minnesota include the Homestead Act of 1862, which brought thousands to settle our
frontier; the Morrill Land Grant Act, which established land
grant colleges, thereby establishing the University of Minnesota; the Transcontinental Railroad Act, which accelerated
settlement in Minnesota; and the creation of the Federal
Department of Agriculture.
t-JODPMOBMTPCFDBNFJOUJNBUFMZJOWPMWFEJOUIF%BLPUB$POflict of 1862 in Minnesota. He was in frequent contact with
our governor and eventually repealed the death sentences of
265 people who were sentenced to hang at Mankato. When
the Dakota war began, Lincoln’s secretary, John Nicolay, was
in Minnesota negotiating a treaty with the Ojibway tribe.
April 25, 2009
Lincoln Civil War Roundtable Symposium
Throughout 2009
School Curriculum relating to Lincoln
Event: Discussion of Civil War events relating
to Minnesota and Lincoln’s impact.
Organizer: Minnesota Civil War Roundtables
Location: Fort Snelling, St. Paul, Minn.
Contact: Steve Osmen, Minnesota State
Historical Society
The development of the curriculum for Minnesota
schools to highlight Lincoln.
Organizer: Ann Pflaum, University of Minnesota,
and Lynn Genter, Minnesota Council for
Social Studies.
Contact: pfl[email protected], [email protected]
February 16, 2009
Capitol Rotunda Observance
Spring 2009
Essay Contest
Event: To commemorate the date of Lincoln’s birth
Organizer: Minnesota State Historical Society
Location: State Capitol Rotunda, St. Paul, Minn.
Contact: David Kelliher, 651 259 3103
Promote an essay contest for Minnesota school
students on the topic: “What Does the Gettysburg
Address mean to us today?”
Organizer: Council of Minnesota Social
Studies Educators
Contact: Council of Minnesota Social
Studies Educators
Date to be confirmed
Panel Discussion on Lincoln’s Impact
on Minnesota
Event: A discussion of Lincoln’s social and
economic impact on our state featuring
panelists of Indian, African/American and
Euro-American background.
Organizer: Professor Hy Berman,
University of Minnesota
Contact: [email protected]
Late 2009
Video Documentary of Lincoln
and Minnesota
2009
Lincoln Exhibit at the Minnesota
History Center
Late 2009
Symposia and Concert Series
Event: Display of Lincoln correspondence to
Minnesota and Lincoln-related items.
Organizer: Minnesota Historical Society
Contact: Minnesota State Historical Society,
651 259 3000
110 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
Event: Examine the impact of Lincoln’s policies
on Minnesota.
Organizer: Duluth PBS
Contact: Tad Johnson, 320 630 2692
Event: Featuring speakers and music of the era
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Haley Barbour
Governor
State of Mississippi
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KEY DATES
The 2008 meeting of the Mississippi Historical Society focused on Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, and
the Civil War in Mississippi. The theme was chosen as part of a national observance of the bicentennials of the two men’s births. The keynote speaker was Frank J. Williams, chief justice of the Rhode Island
Supreme Court, who discussed “Abraham Lincoln’s Importance to the Twenty-First Century South.”
The Journal of Mississippi History published an issue (spring 2008) on the topic “Abraham Lincoln,
Jefferson Davis, and the Civil War in Mississippi.”
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
111
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Jay Nixon
Governor
State of Missouri
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KEY DATES
February, 2007
“Forever Free”
Event: Abraham Lincoln’s Journey to Emancipation – traveling panel
exhibit in Springfield, Missouri.
March 20, 2008
“Forever Free”
Event: Abraham Lincoln’s Journey to Emancipation – traveling
panel exhibit in Ellis Library on the University of Missouri campus in
Columbia Missouri with featured speakers and a reception.
April 4, 2008
Abraham Lincoln in Song
With Chris Vallillo in the Columbia Public Library, Columbia, MO.
August 25, 2008
Legacy: Abraham Lincoln in the Presidential Years
Event: Opening of exhibit at St Louis University
November 14, 2008
“Forever Free”
Event: Exhibit in St. Louis, Missouri History Museum
January, 2009
“The Abraham Lincoln Legacy in Missouri”
The State Historical Society in Columbia Missouri will publish “The
Abraham Lincoln Legacy in Missouri” in the issue of the Missouri
Historical Review.
112 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
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Brian Schweitzer
Governor
State of Montana
FACTS
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Date to be confirmed
Washington’s and Lincoln’s Birthday
Event: A visit by “President Lincoln” to the Legislature
to celebrate Lincoln’s 200th birthday.
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
113
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Dave Heineman
Governor
State of Nebraska
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FACTS
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114 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
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KEY DATES
February 11, 2009
PBS/Nebraska Educational Television Premier of
“Looking for Lincoln”
Location: Ross Media Arts Center, 313 North 13th Street,
Lincoln, Nebraska, 7.00 p.m.
February 12, 2009
The Jay Ungar and Molly Mason Family Band
Performing music of the Civil War era
Location: Lied Center for the Performing Arts, 301 North 12th Street,
Lincoln, Nebraska, 7.30 p.m.
February 13, 2009
Civil War Voices
A new musical by Jim Harris of Lincoln, Nebraska,
composed by Mark Hayes of Kansas City, Missouri.
Location: Lied Center for the Performing Arts, 301 North 12th Street,
Lincoln, Nebraska, 7.30 p.m.
February 15, 2009
Lecture by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Location: Lied Center for the Performing Arts, 301 North 12th Street,
Lincoln, Nebraska, 7.30 p.m.
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Jim Gibbons
Governor
State of Nevada
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KEY DATES
June 22–26, 2008
Abraham Lincoln and the
Civil War
Event: Educational –
Chautauqua performances.
Organizer: Nevada Humanities, Inc.
Location: Bartley Ranch Regional
Park in Reno
Contact: Steve Davis,
www.nevadahumanities.org
February 14, 2009
Lincoln Commemorative
Medallion Minting
Event: Educational Demonstration
Organizer: Nevada State Museum
Location: Nevada State Museum,
Carson City
Contact: Bob Nylen, Curator
of History
October 31, 2009
Nevada Day Parade in
Honor of President
Abraham Lincoln
Event: Annual parade celebrating
Nevada’s heritage and statehood.
Organizer: Nevada Day Parade
Committee
Location: Nevada’s Capital City –
Carson City
Contact: Nevada Day Parade
Committee, [email protected]
www.nevadaculture.org
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
115
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John Lynch
Governor
State of New Hampshire
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116 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
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away in search of the fatal bullet wound
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KEY DATES
February 12, 2009
Event: A celebration with the New Hampshire State Legislature,
State House, Concord, in honor of the Bicentennial.
February, 2009–February, 2010
Event: Follow Lincoln’s historic trail of speeches in New Hampshire
in 1860.
Organizer: New Hampshire Division of Travel and Tourism
Development
February, 2009-February, 2010
Event: A series of public lectures
Location: Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter
February-June, 2009
Lincoln in New Hampshire Exhibit
Location: New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord
February, 2009-February, 2010
Event: Civic Reflections Forums at three New Hampshire colleges,
hosted by New Hampshire Humanities Council and Campus Compact
of New Hampshire.
February 14-December 31, 2009
Abraham Lincoln: Manchester Remembers
Location: Millyard Museum, Manchester, NH, presented by the
Manchester Historic Association.
May 23-October 31, 2009
Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish
Event: Tours relating to sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens’
Lincoln monuments.
May, 2009
Event: A visit from “President Lincoln.”
Location: The Woodman Institute Museum, Dover
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Jon S. Corzine
Governor
State of New Jersey
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FACTS
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KEY DATES
February 20, 2009
A Visit with Mr. Lincoln
February 12, 2009
Ceremony and Dinner
Event: A celebration of the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth with nationally
renowned Lincoln portrayer, Jim Getty.
Location: 1 Miller Road
Morristown NJ 07960
Contact: 973 538 6161, www.jfpl.org
Event: New Jersey Abraham Lincoln
Ceremony and the 144th Annual Dinner
at the Casino in the Park, Lincoln Park,
Jersey City.
Location: At the statue of Abraham
Lincoln at the entrance of Lincoln Park,
Kennedy Boulevard and Belmont Avenue
in Jersey City.
February 2009
Pennies for Peace
Event: A program whereby people will be
able to donate their pennies to help build
school libraries in Pakistan and Afghanistan; donations will be collected in a jar on
the library’s circulation desk.
February 2009
Lincoln Display in Lobby Case
Location: Cinnaminson Library (a branch
of the Burlington County Library system),
1619 Riverton Road, Cinnaminson,
NJ 08077
Contact: 856 829 9340
February 2009
Lincoln Civil War and War
Journal Exhibit
Event: An exhibit focusing on the Civil War,
featuring the Roxbury Honor Roll, a journal
written in 1887 that chronicles the service
of the soldiers from the Roxbury Area.
Location: Roxbury Public Library, 103
Main Street, Succasunna, NJ 07876
Contact: 973 584 2400
October 2008 – April 2009
Five-Part Program Series
Celebrating Lincoln
Event: A five-part program series celebrating the 200th anniverary of Lincoln’s birth.
The final three programs taking place in
2009 are: “Abraham Lincoln the Writer”
(January); “Lincoln’s Virtues” and the
connection between Abraham Lincoln
and local Jersey City history (March); and
a panel discussion on the influence of the
anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, hosted by the Glenn D. Cunningham
Branch Library, in collaboration with the
Lincoln Association of Jersey City (April).
Location: Glenn D. Cunningham Branch
of the Jersey City Free Public Library, 275
Martin Luther King Drive, Jersey City,
NJ 07305
Contact: 201 547 4555
[email protected]
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
117
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Bill Richardson
Governor
State of New Mexico
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FACTS
KEY DATES
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118 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
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Tuesday 17 February
Lincoln in American Life
Event: The University of New Mexico will hold a panel discussion as
part of the UNM Linoln/Darwin week-long celebration
beginning February 12.
February, 2009
“Lincoln’s Legacy in N.M.”
Event: A featured project of the Office of the State Historian’s
Digital History Project.
www.newmexicohistory.org
The Legacy and Lore of the “Lincoln canes”
An Oral History Project: conversations with Pueblo governors
regarding the “Lincoln canes.” Sponsored by the Office of the State
Historian, 2009.
Proclamation by the New Mexico State Governor
Bill Richardson proclaiming Abraham Lincoln Day in
New Mexico.
Student Activities related to Abraham Lincoln in New
Mexico Schools relative to the governor’s proclamation.
www.newmexicohistory.org
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David Paterson, Governor
State of New York
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KEY DATES
FACTS
November 2008 – October 2009
The New York Historical Society’s
Lincoln Year
Event: Culminating in October 2009
with the opening of the landmark
exhibition, Lincoln and New York.
Winter 2009
Lincoln in New York magazine
New York Archives magazine will
release this special edition, edited by
Harold Holzer and featuring articles by
some of the most important Lincoln
scholars in America.
Contact: 518 473 7105
July 28, 2009
Abraham Lincoln the President:
War, Justice, Words, and Images
Event: Archives Partnership
Trust Lecture
Location: Chautauqua Instiution,
Chautauqua, NY
Mystic Chords of Memory: Abraham
Lincoln and the Performing Arts
Event: A series exploring Lincoln’s love
for the performing arts, and works that
have been inspired by him.
Organizer: Presented by the New York
Public Library for the Performing Arts
February 2009 – February 2010
The Cooper Union Celebrates its
150th Anniversary
Event: A series of eight commemorative events celebrating the historic role
The Great Hall played in movements
that have furthered the rights of all
Americans and contributed to the
advancement of science and art.
This photograph of Abraham Lincoln was taken in February 1860 by Mathew Brady
before the Cooper Union Address
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
119
Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
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The State of:
NORTH CAROLINA
“ESSE QUAM VIDERI / TO BE
RATHER THAN TO SEEM”
Bev Perdue
Governor
State of North Carolina
Abraham Lincoln’s legacy still looms large in the life of North
Carolinians and all Americans. His honesty, his compassion and his
leadership still inspire us today. Few people’s actions have been as
important to the history – and the future – of our state and nation.
When America was confronted with one of its most challenging moments, when we were faced with the question of whether
“a nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition
that all men are created equal… can long endure,” President
Lincoln rose to the occasion.
He ended slavery, he healed the wounds of civil war, and he
helped bring together a divided country as one nation.
At the time of his death in 1865, Lincoln was awaiting word from
North Carolina about the surrender of Confederate General
Joseph Johnston’s troops at the Bennett Farm outside present-day
FACTS
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Sumter surrendered. Governor John Ellis responded: “You can get no troops from North Carolina.”
The state seceded a little over a month later on May 20, 1861.
t.BSZ5PEE-JODPMOTQFSTPOBMTFBNTUSFTTXBT&MJ[BCFUI,FDLMZoBGPSNFSTMBWFXIPTQFOUIFSUFFOage years in her master’s house in Hillsborough.
t-JODPMOXBTOPUPOUIF641SFTJEFOUJBMCBMMPUJO/PSUI$BSPMJOBOPSJOBTOP$POGFEFSate States participated in the election. He also never visited North Carolina.
t1PFUBOEXSJUFS$BSM4BOECVSHXIPXBTBXBSEFEB1VMJU[FS1SJ[FGPSPOFWPMVNFPG BTFSJFTPG biographies he completed concerning Lincoln, lived in Flat Rock, Henderson County, for the final 22
years of his life. His home, Connemara, is a National Historic Site.
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who resided in California just prior to the war, as the provisional state governor in May 1862. Stanly
resigned the following year, over a disagreement with Lincoln about the Emancipation Proclamation
and returned to California.
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James founded the Lincoln School at the Freedmen’s Colony on Roanoke Island. In September 1865,
during the Freedmen’s Convention in Raleigh, a bust of Lincoln stood in front of the AME Church.
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for Benjamin Lincoln), local institutions are named for
him. The Lincoln
Heights Rosenwald
School existed in
Wilkesboro, as did
the Lincoln Hospital
for African Americans in Durham,
circa 1910.
The Somerset Place State Historic Site – antebellum plantation
120 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
Durham. Lincoln intended a policy of compassion concerning
the South to honor his words of “With malice toward none; with
charity for all... ”
On this bicentennial anniversary of his birth, Lincoln’s legacy
lives on in the lives of all North Carolinians, including our state’s
more than 2 million African-Americans. He began the tapestry
we are still sewing today – an America where the self-evident
truth of equality is a reality for all, regardless of race.
As North Carolina Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carl Sandburg observed, “out of the smoke and stench, out of the music
and violent dreams of war, Lincoln stood perhaps taller than any
other of the many great heroes.”
To commemorate Lincoln’s 200th birthday, the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources will host a symposium at
the North Carolina Museum of History on February 12, 2009.
The event will provide an overview of Lincoln’s leadership,
address his political style and accomplishments, and assess his
legacy and the abolition of slavery.
KEY DATES
February 12, 2009
The Lincoln Bicentennial: A Symposium
Location: North Carolina Museum of History, Raleigh, N.C.
Scheduled speakers include:
“Lincoln’s Political Leadership: An Overview”
William C. Harris, North Carolina State University
“Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederacy:
A Comparison”
Paul D. Escott, Wake Forest University
“Lincoln as Military Commander”
Joseph T. Glatthaar, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“United States Colored Troops”
John David Smith, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
“Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the
End of Slavery”
Loren Schweninger, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
“Lincoln’s Legacy”
Heather A. Williams, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Contact: jeff[email protected]
The 1840 North Carolina State Capitol
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John Hoeven
Governor
State of North Dakota
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February 12, 2009
Official state observance of Lincoln’s 200th birthday
Event: Held during a joint session of the 2009 North Dakota Legislative Assembly, patterned after the Lincoln Centennial joint assembly
legislative program on February 12, 1909.
June 2009
Event: A group of people with ties to North Dakota will travel to
Norway to take part in the ceremony, which is held every year on or
near July 4, at the site of the heroic-sized bust of Lincoln in Oslo’s
Frogner Park. The bust was a gift to Norway in 1914 from the people
of North Dakota to celebrate the centennial of Norway’s independence from Sweden. The 2009 ceremony will take place June 28.
Website: www.history.nd.gov
State officials and schoolchildren cut the ribbon to open the Lincoln’s
Legacy in North Dakota exhibit in February 2008 at the North Dakota
Heritage Center in Bismarck
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
121
Photographs by (right) Sharon Silengo and (left) Brian R. Austin, State Historical Society of North Dakota
Among those who came to view the 1862 Homestead Act, signed
by President Lincoln, when it was unveiled at the North Dakota
Heritage Center in Bismarck on May 16, 2008 were (from left)
Johannah and Suzannah Miller, whose family from Mandan, North
Dakota, performed period music. The document was on loan from
the National Archives through November 11, displayed for the first
time since 1979
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Ted Strickland
Governor
State of Ohio
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KEY DATES
February 12 and 16, 2009
Lincoln Birthday Celebration
Location: Rotunda and West Plaza (February 12) and Mary L. Cook
Public Library, [email protected] (February 16).
April 24, 2009
Lincoln Reenactor Presentations
Location: West Plaza
May 1, 2009
Abraham Lincoln: A Man of his Time
Event: Exhibition
Location: Mary L. Cook Public Library
Contact: [email protected]
May 20, 2009
Lincoln and the Jews
Event: Panel discussion with Dr. Gary P. Zola, Harold Holzer and
Jean Soman.
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
September 16, 2009
Event: Reenactment of Lincoln campaign speech
Organizer: Ohio Statehouse
122 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
The State of:
OKLAHOMA
“LABOR CONQUERS ALL THINGS”
Brad Henry
Governor
State of Oklahoma
The State of Oklahoma is pleased to join the rest of the nation
in celebrating the legacy of Abraham Lincoln during the
bicentennial of his birth. Through educational programs,
speeches, publications, and performances, we hope to raise
awareness of Lincoln’s impact on our history and the relevance
of his message to our lives today.
In Oklahoma, we will emphasize three aspects of Lincoln’s legacy. The first is his leadership during the Civil War. In Oklahoma,
then called the Indian Territory, more than 80 engagements were
fought between the North and South. Each of the Five Civilized
Tribes, consisting of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek,
and Seminoles, signed treaties of alliance with the South in 1861
but eventually fought on both sides of the conflict.
Lincoln’s legacy will also be traced through the story of
emancipation and the struggle for civil rights. Oklahoma was
the only part of the Old South where Lincoln’s promise of “40
acres and a mule” for former slaves was fulfilled. Through the
Reconstruction Treaties of 1866, former slaves and their descendants were given land during the allotment of tribal lands prior
to 1907 and statehood. This concentration of African-American
farmers and ranchers created more than 30 all-black towns that
prospered and survived well into the 20th century.
The third aspect of Lincoln’s legacy emphasized in Oklahoma will be the impact of the Homestead Act passed by Congress in 1862. Whereas many western states can claim Lincoln’s
promise of free land as their own heritage, Oklahoma is the only
state in the Union where the Homestead Act was implemented
primarily through land runs. The first land run took place on
April 22, 1889, when more than 50,000 land-hungry pioneers
from all walks of life ran for free land in the central part of the
present state. The hope and drama of land runs, combined with
the promise of new opportunity for all men regardless of race
or economic status, imprinted on the state a personality that still
affects public life in the 21st century.
Our hope in Oklahoma is that Lincoln’s legacy will never be
forgotten. His dreams, his sacrifices, and his leadership improved
the world around us. Those same qualities are needed more than
ever before in our rapidly changing world.
KEY DATES
A Teacher’s Unit on Lincoln’s Legacy of Freedom
Featuring a DVD by the noted scholar, Dr. Rufus Fears.
February 12, 2009
Event: A museum exhibit on Lincoln’s Legacy in Oklahoma
Location: Oklahoma History Center.
February 12, 2009
A Taste of Lincoln’s World
Event: Featuring a historical menu and living history presentations from the 1860s, at the Oklahoma History Center.
The Murrell Home – the oldest antebellum home in Oklahoma
that survived the Civil War in the Indian Territory
The Oklahoma State Capitol, seen
from the Devon Great Hall of the
Oklahoma History Center
February 12,
2009
A Historical
Tribute to
Lincoln’s Legacy
Event: Narrated by
Dr. Bob Blackburn
and Pulitzer Prizewinning author, N.
Scott Momaday,
at the Oklahoma
History Center.
February 12,
2009
A Musical
Tribute to Lincoln
The Unconquered – a monumental sculpture by Oklahoma-born
Apache artist, Allan Houser, at the entrance to the Oklahoma History Center
Event: Featuring
the Oklahoma City
Philharmonic and
N. Scott Momaday,
at the Oklahoma
History Center.
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
123
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Ted Kulongoski
Governor
State of Oregon
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KEY DATES
Town Hall Meetings
Event: The Oregon Lincoln Bicentennial Commission(OLBC) will host five Town Hall
meetings accross the state. Topics inlude: Lincoln’s political leadership, myths, Lincoln
and race, and Lincoln and the 21st century. Lincoln scholars Richard Etulain and Elliott
Trommald will lead community discussions.
Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Essay Writing Competition
Event: Hosted by OLBC, encouraging high-school students from each of Oregon’s
congressional districts to address the topic of “Lincoln’s Political Leadership.”
Public lectures
Event: Visiting Lincoln Scholars Richard Carwardine, Ronald White and Doris Kearns
Goodwin will present public lectures addressing the complexities of Lincoln’s life
and presidency.
Lincoln and Remembrance Day
Event: The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War will reenact battle scenes, remembering the lives and deaths of the Civil War’s unsung heroes.
History Day
Event: Diverse organizations in the state will meet at the Memorial Coliseum in Portland
to celebrate Lincoln’s Birthday and to promote historical work in Oregon.
Lincoln Press Conference
Presented by Lincoln actor, Steve Holgate.
Event: “Illinois” Doug Tracy will perform with a banjo and discuss the music of the
1860–1864 campaigns.
Information on each of these events and more can be found on the OLBC website:
http://www.ous.edu/lincoln/
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Edward G. Rendell
Governor
Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania
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February 11, 2009
Lincoln Day in Harrisburg
Event: Speeches, art exhibits, Civil War encampment
Contact: Gordon A. Haaland, PA ALBC chair,
[email protected], 717 337 6608
www.palincoln.org
February 12, 2009
An Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Celebration:
The American Spiritual Ensemble
Event: Choral concert
Contact: [email protected]
717 337 8200, www.gettysburgmajestic.org
February 12–16, 2009
Grand Opening of the David Wills House, Gettysburg
Event: Exhibition
Contact: Main Street Gettysburg and
the Gettysburg National Park Service
[email protected], 717 337 3491
November 19, 2009
Dedication Day 2009
Event: 146th Anniversary of the Gettysburg Address
Contact: Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College
[email protected], 717 337 6590,
www.gettysburg.edu/civilwar/institute/lincoln_fellowship
For more information:
Contact the PA ALBC: Gordon A. Haaland, chair
Pennsylvania Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission,
or Tina M. Grim, executive administrator,
Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College, Gettysburg,
PA 17325, [email protected], 717 337 6608,
www.palincoln.org
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
125
The State of:
RHODE ISLAND AND
PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS
“HOPE”
“HOPE”
Donald L. Carcieri
Governor
State of Rhode Island
and Providence
Plantations
To quote President Lincoln: “In the end it’s not the years in your life
that count. It’s the life in your years.” The vast array of meaningful
commemorations honoring President Lincoln gives each of us the
opportunity to reflect upon the remarkable accomplishments and
gifts his life inspired – freedom, equality and justice. Nearly two
centuries after his birth, we are ensuring that his legacy lives on.
From colonial times to the present, Rhode Island has embraced
its rich and colorful ties to some of the most influential characters in American history. Rhode Island has strong connections to
President Lincoln, including his “train stop” speaking engagements
in Providence and Woonsocket, where our citizens witnessed firsthand his wit, cogency and honesty. Rhode Island also boasts hosting
the world renowned collection of Lincoln’s life and political career
archived at the Hay Library (located in Brown University) and our
own nationally recognized Lincoln scholar, Chief Justice
Frank Williams.
I applaud the efforts of the members of the Rhode Island Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and would like to express
my gratitude to them for sharing their knowledge, expertise and
insights to make this important commemoration a reality. The
impressive list of substantive events will enable countless Rhode
Islanders to learn more about our nation’s beloved and revered
16th president. My sincere appreciation to Chief Justice Frank
Williams, chair; Hon. Sue Stenhouse, vice chair; Walter Stone, Esq.,
second vice chair; Randall Rosenbaum, secretary; Risa Gilpin; Dr.
Michael Vorenberg; Dr. James Tackach; Dr. Morgan Grefe; Dr.
Holly Snyder, John Hay Library; David DePetrillo; Zachary Farrell;
Edward Sanderson; James DiPrete; Representative John Loughlin,
III; Senator Daniel Connors; Senator Kevin Breene; Cliff Montiero;
The Hon. Frank Caprio; Fausto Anguilla, Esq., Joseph Fowlkes, Jr;
RIALBC staff: Lisa Maher; RIALBC advisory board: Senator Jack
Lyle; Charles Cox, III, Dr. Fred Zilian and Kamlyn Keith.
President Lincoln once said: “I like to see a man proud of the
place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will
be proud of him.” All Rhode Islanders will take pride in participating in the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial celebrations.
FACTS
KEY DATES
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inconsequential: in September 1848, Lincoln changed trains
in Providence while en route from Worcester to New Bedford,
Massachusetts, during a campaign tour for Whig presidential
candidate, Zachary Taylor.
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February 27, 1860, Lincoln traveled by train to Rhode Island.
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on February 28 and in Woonsocket at Harris Hall (now Woonsocket City Hall) on March 8.
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garnering 12,244 votes to Stephen Douglas’s 7,704 votes. He
carried the state again in the 1864 election, besting George
McClellan, 14,343 votes to 8,718 votes.
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Williams Park in Providence.
February 2009 – March 2009
Abraham Lincoln
Bicentennial Exhibit
February 2009
Rhode Island in the
Time of Lincoln
January 18, 2010, 4.00 p.m.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Celebration
Event: Exhibition
Organizer: John Hay Library
Location: John Hay Library,
Brown University, Providence, RI
Contact:
Holly Snyder,
401 863 1515
Event: Exhibit
Organizer: Rhode Island
Historical Society
Location: Providence,
Aldrich House
Contact: Dr. Morgan Grefe,
401 331 8575
February 20–21, 2009
Abraham Lincoln
Symposium
February 16, 2009
Remembering Lincoln,
by Lincoln Scholar
Thomas Turner
Event: Speaking event
Organizer: Martin Luther King
Commission
Location: Ebenezer Baptist
Church, Cranston St.,
Cranston, RI
Contact:
Randall Rosenbaum,
401 222 3853
Event: Symposium
Organizer: Brown University
Location: Brown University,
Providence, RI
Contact:
Professor Michael Vorenberg,
401 863 9577
February 28, 2009,
8.00 p.m.
A Lincoln Portrait, by
Aaron Copland
The John Hay Library at Brown University – visitors welcome
126 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
Event: Concert Performance
Organizer: Rhode Island
Philharmonic
Location: Veterans Memorial
Auditorium, Providence, RI
Contact: Randall Rosenbaum,
401 222 3853
Event: Speaking program
Organizer: Community College
of Rhode Island
Location: Community College
of Rhode Island, Warwick
Contact: John Every,
401 825 2454
September 12, 2009
Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Sprague Mansion Gala
Event: Gala
Organizer: Cranston
Historical Society
Location: Governor Sprague
Mansion, 1351 Cranston St.,
Cranston, RI
Contact: Lydia Rapoza,
401 822 0020
February 12 –
March 10, 2010
“Abraham Lincoln:
A Man of His Time,
a Man for All Times”
Event: Exhibition
Organizer: Gilder Lehrman
Institute
Location: Rhode Island State
House, Providence, RI
Contact: Sue Stenhouse,
401 222 2389
For more information:
www.RILincoln200.org
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Mark Sanford
Governor
State of South Carolina
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KEY DATES
February 19, 2009
The Age of Lincoln: Abraham Lincoln, the Southerner
Event: The Program in the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World
presents Dr. Vernon Burton, Burroughs distinguished chair of
Southern History at Coastal Carolina University, in its Wachovia
Distinguished Speaker Series, who will speak on his new biography
of Abraham Lincoln.
Location: Randolph Hall on the campus of the College of Charleston.
The following day he will lead a faculty seminar on Lincoln at the
Blacklock Alumni House at the College of Charleston.
Contact: Copies of Dr. Burton’s Age of Lincoln will be available for
sale and signing after his talk. For more information, contact David
Gleeson, Dept. of History, College of Charleston, 66 George St.,
Charleston SC 29424, or email [email protected]
February 6-7, 2009
Lincoln and the Civil War in Contemporary America
Event: Leading scholars discuss the continuing presence of Lincoln
and the Civil War in current politics, art, literature, tourism, and
historical reenacting.
Location: McKinley Washington Auditorium, Avery Research Center
for African-American History and Culture, College of Charleston
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
127
The State of:
SOUTH DAKOTA
“UNDER GOD THE PEOPLE RULE”
M. Michael Rounds
Governor
State of South Dakota
When asked about Abraham Lincoln’s history with South
Dakota, one’s first response would be he did not impact our state
because he never visited us in person. How could he have had an
influence on South Dakota?
However, there are many reminders of our link to Abraham
Lincoln. After the Civil War, a group of veterans settled a
town in central South Dakota and named it Gettysburg. South
Dakota has streets, schools, and a county named Lincoln. We see
Lincoln’s face on everything in South Dakota, from road maps
to clothing, license plates, and a mountain carving that is recognized around the world. For many of us, his face is as familiar as
the faces of our grandparents.
A man by the name of Mentor Graham is regarded by many
as the greatest influence on Abraham Lincoln. Graham taught
Lincoln the art of surveying, tutored him in grammar, and was
a major influence behind Lincoln’s succinct speaking style. Graham was born in Kentucky, but spent his last years living with his
son in Blunt, South Dakota, where he is buried.
We like to brag that Abraham Lincoln will always have a
“home away from home” in South Dakota at Mount Rushmore,
in the Black Hills National Forest. Lincoln is one of the four
FACTS
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presidents carved into a granite outcropping in the Black Hills National Forest. The mole on the right
side of Lincoln’s face is not visible from the main visitor area, but it measures 16in sq. The faces are
approximately 60 ft from chin to the top of each head, scaled to a 465ft-tall figure. The full sculpture
is 185ft across and 150ft tall.
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Abraham Lincoln, his favorite president. Lincoln Borglum completed the carving when World War
II broke out. The interactive museum at Mount Rushmore National Memorial is named Lincoln
Borglum Museum.
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Graham was born in Kentucky, but lived out the last years of his life with his son in Blunt, South
Dakota. The home is listed on the National History Registry and was opened to the public in 1950.
That city’s web site is: http://sr009.k12.sd.us/blunt.htm
faces carved into a granite outcropping in the Black Hills, a
carving known as Mount Rushmore National Memorial,
America’s Shrine of Democracy.
In 1992, South Dakota’s state flag was modified to include our
new state nickname – The Mount Rushmore State.
From childhood into adulthood, we’ve learned of Lincoln’s
honesty, his obsession with schooling, and his hard-work ethic.
South Dakota has one of the highest percentages of high-school
graduates in the nation and one of the lowest unemployment
rates in the country. Whether or not these values can be attributed to Abraham Lincoln, we share them with him.
The state of South Dakota works closely with the National
Park Service officials at Mount Rushmore National Memorial
to promote the Memorial as living history, through reenactors
and hands-on-exhibits for people of all ages. The Memorial
has served as a location spot for national weather broadcasts,
entertainment shows, and movies such as North by Northwest and
National Treasure: Book of Secrets.
Yes, we enjoy our working relationship with Lincoln; and we’ll
continue to honor his presence in South Dakota, working with the
Mount Rushmore National Memorial and the Park Service.
KEY DATES
June 26 – June 27, 2009
Festival of Presidents Weekend
Event: Patriotic celebration
Location: Rapid City Downtown Association; Rapid City, South
Dakota; Brent Kertzman, PO Box 624, Rapid City, SD 57709-0624
Contact: [email protected], 605 430 6690,
www.festivalofpresidents.com
July 3 and 4, 2009
Mount Rushmore Independence Day Celebration
Contact: Mount Rushmore National Memorial
Diana Saathoff, 605 341 8883
Mount Rushmore National Memorial Society, PO Box 1524, Rapid
City, SD 57709
www.mountrushmoresociety.com or www.nps.gov/moru
Other events at Mount Rushmore National Memorial
can be found at:
http://www.nps.gov/moru/planyourvisit/special_events.htm
or www.nps.gov/moru
128 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
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Phil Bredesen
Governor
State of Tennessee
FACTS
KEY DATES
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Until September 2009
Lincoln in Memory: The 16th President in
Personal and Cultural Recollections
Event: This new temporary exhibit examines the
public perception of Lincoln through marketing,
the media, Hollywood, and even folk art. Scores of
artifacts from the museum’s substantial collection
will be utilized, including movie posters, calendars,
advertisements, political and patriotic memorabilia, and popular and fine art. Selected quotes from
Lincoln admirers, friends, and contemporaries
will be used to describe Lincoln as perceived by
those who knew him. This exhibit is a collaborate
effort involving the talents of many people, and
the hard work of some very dedicated students.
These capable individuals are honored on the
acknowledgement panel.
All events and programs are free unless
otherwise noted.
Location: The Kresge Gallery, Abraham Lincoln
Library and Museum at LMU, Harrogate
Contact: The Museum, 423 869 6439
February 12-13, 2009
Lincoln Bicentennial Birthday
Celebration
February 12, 2009
Let Us Praise Famous Men:
Abraham Lincoln
Event: Presented by Dr. Liz Murphy
April 17, 2009
Now He Belongs to the Ages
April 23, 2009
Readers’ Theatre: Letters from the
Civil War
Event: Showcasing education – 355 students’
work on The Civil War’s History
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial 129
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TEXAS
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Rick Perry
Governor
State of Texas
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130 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
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KEY DATES
Humanities Texas
Event: Humanities Texas will create a series of educational posters
for Texas schools, showing Lincoln and five other presidents, and
bearing the title, “A President’s Vision.” Each poster will feature a
quotation from the president and describe important initiatives of
his presidency.
Abraham Lincoln: A Man of his Time, A Man for all Times
Event: The Fort Worth Public Library will host this traveling
exhibition. The project includes multimedia materials as well as
the exhibition.
Lincoln and the Mexican-American War
Event: Humanities Texas is planning a symposium on Lincoln
and the Mexican-American War.
February 12 - August 28
With Malice Toward None
Event: The W. R. Poage Legislative Library of Baylor University in
Waco will display Lincoln materials in an exhibition.
5IF4UBUFPG
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“INDUSTRY”
Jon M. Huntsman, Jr.
Governor
State of Utah
Abraham Lincoln served as president of the United States during one of the most important periods of Utah history. During
his presidency, the transcontinental telegraph was completed,
connecting Utah with the rest of the nation; plans moved forward for construction of a transcontinental railroad; Fort Douglas was established; Utah’s mining industry was born; the Uintah
Indian Reservation was established; and the first anti-polygamy
legislation, “The Morrill Act,” was signed.
Lincoln’s predecessor, James Buchanan, had sent an armed
force of 3,000 federal troops to Utah in 1857–1858 to replace
Brigham Young as Utah’s first territorial governor and ensure
that Utah residents remain loyal to the nation. As Lincoln took
office in 1861 he looked to ease the tensions in the aftermath of
the Utah War, which had brought the first territorial governor
from outside the area; an army of occupation under the command of Albert Sidney Johnston; the construction of Camp
Floyd (a military post 40 miles southwest of Salt Lake City) and
FACTS
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)PNFTUFBE"DUFODPVSBHFEJNNJHSBUJPOJOUPUIFUFSSJUPSZBOEGBDJMJUBUFETFUUMFNFOU5IF.PSrill Act was the first anti-bigamy legislation that was passed by the United States Congress. The
Pacific Railway Act authorized the construction of the transcontinental railroad, which was
completed in Utah Territory, and is commemorated on the Utah State Quarter.
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come out here and known us, he would have understood us and liked us.”
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and reported that Lincoln had said, “When I was a boy on the farm in Illinois there was a great
deal of timber on the farm which we had to clear away. Occasionally we would come to a log
which had fallen down. It was too hard to split, too wet to burn, and too heavy to move, so we
plowed around it. You go back and tell Brigham Young that if he will let me alone I will let
him alone.”
t*O.BSDI6UBISFTJEFOUTGSPNEJWFSTFCBDLHSPVOETo.PSNPOTTPMEJFSTBOEOPO.PSmon businessmen – joined together in celebration of Lincoln’s second inauguration. A month
later, they came together once again, this time at a solemn memorial service in honor of the
assassinated president.
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were devoted to the problems of slavery and the Civil War during his tenure as president, he
nevertheless took time to hear and to act on behalf of the problems of the Latter-day Saints.
The number of instances of his dealings with these people were necessarily few, but they were
of such a nature that he was to become loved and honored by the Latter-day Saints; and his
memory is revered by them still.”
aimed to improve relations with Utah’s native peoples, the Ute,
Shoshoni, and Paiutes.
In March 1865, Utah residents from diverse backgrounds
joined together in celebration of Lincoln’s second inauguration.
A month later, they came together once again, this time in a
solemn memorial service in honor of the assassinated president.
As governor of the great state of Utah, and on behalf of all
Utahns, I honor and salute the life and service of one of our
country’s finest presidents – Abraham Lincoln. President Lincoln
is one who is viewed not only as a liberator in the United States,
but also in places I have traveled to across the globe as a diplomat, businessman, and governor – places such as Singapore,
China, Mexico, and India. It is a privilege to honor a person
who is not only revered at home in America, but whose life also
is a symbol of freedom and emancipation the world over.
Lincoln provided leadership that I, personally, still look to
today for direction, inspiration and solace.
KEY DATES
September 12, 2008
56th Annual Utah State History Conference
Event: “The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial,” Michael K. Winder;
“Abraham Lincoln and the Mormons,” Robert Voyles;
“Uncertain Neutrality: Lincoln and Utah during the Civil War.”
September 17–19, 2009
57th Annual Utah History Conference
Event: Sessions concerning Lincoln and Utah
July 10–14, 2009
Center for Study on New Religion (CESNUR), Salt Lake City
Event: Sessions concerning Lincoln and Utah
Signed by President
Abraham Lincoln
in 1862, the
Pacific Railway
Act authorized the
construction of the
transcontinental
railroad, which was
completed in Utah
Territory, and is
commemorated
on the Utah
State Quarter.
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
131
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Jim Douglas
Governor
State of Vermont
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EFTDFOEBOUTPG "CSBIBN-JODPMO3PCFSUmSTUWJTJUFE.BODIFTUFSXJUIIJTNPUIFSJOUIFTVNNFSPG KEY DATES
February 25, 2009
Vermont Civil War Songbook
Music – Linda Radtke
Location: State House, Montpelier, 7.00 p.m.
April 26, 2009
Lincoln and Liberty
Music – Counterpoint
Location: McCarthy Arts Center,
St. Michael’s College, 4.00 p.m.
February 2009 (TBD)
A Lincoln Portrait
Music
Location: Middlebury College Orchestra, Middlebury
Arts Center
March 4 and April 1, 2009
First Wednesdays Series VT Humanities Council
March 4, Rutland Free Library, Rutland, 7.00 p.m.,
Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, author of Mr. and
Mrs. Prince.
April 1, Goodrich Memorial Library, Newport,
7.00 p.m., Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina
January 31, 2009
Hildene
Event: Lincoln Essay Contest, Award Presentation
Ronald White, author of Lincoln’s Greatest Speech:
The Second Inaugural, will speak, and winning essays
will be read.
Location: Equinox, Manchester
January 22, February 26, March 26 and April
23, 2009
Lecture Series
January 22, Seth Bongartz, Executive Director,
Hildene, “Lincoln the Politician.”
February 26, Craig Symonds, Professor of History,
US Naval Academy, “Lincoln as Commander in Chief.”
March 26, Brian Dirck, Department of History,
Anderson University, “Lincoln the Lawyer.”
April 23, Michael Burlingame, Conneticut College,
“Lincoln’s Character.”
Humanities Council Reading and Discussion
Offerings
“Lincoln: The Bicentennial of his Birth” (3 sessions).
“Our Civil War Legacy” (5 sessions).
“Influential First Ladies” (5 sessions).
“Seminal Statements of American Values” (5 sessions).
February 12, 2009
Friends of the State House Lincoln celebration,
statewide tolling of bells
Location: State House, Montpelier
Workshops with Vermont teachers are
organized by Sigrid Lumbra, Social Studies
Coordinator, VT Department of Education
www.lincoln200vt.org
132 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
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KEY DATES
January 1, 2013
Emancipation Proclamation Jubilee
Event: A presentation to recognize the sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation and its legacy.
Organizer: The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Commission
February 12, 2009 and 2010
Annual Lincoln Day Ceremony
Organizer: The Lincoln Society of Virginia
Location: The Lincoln Homestead Cemetery in Rockingham County
February 12, 2009
The Virginia General Assembly
Event: Legislative members of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
Commission will introduce a legislation recognizing the Lincoln’s bicentennial in the 2009 session of the Virginia General Assembly, and will
deliver morning hour floor speeches in the Virginia House of Delegates.
Date to be confirmed
Commemoration
Event: Lectures and a walking tour to retrace Lincoln’s steps and
sites he visited to commemorate his April 4–5, 1865 visit.
Organizer: The Planning Committee of “Steps Towards Freedom”
February 2009
Event: Reading clubs, musical tributes to Lincoln, and gala reception.
Organizer: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Subcommittee of the
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Commission
April 21, 2009, 7.30 p.m.
The Fifth Annual Lincoln Symposium
Event: Dr. James I. (Bud) Robertson Jr., will address the topic,
“Lincoln, the Man.”
Organizer: The Lincoln Society of Virginia
Location: Bridgewater College, Bridgewater, VA.
April 18, 2009
Special Lincoln Concert
Event: Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, conducted by Maestro Keith
Lockhart of the Boston Pops.
Location: The University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, Virginia
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
133
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of Virginia
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FACTS
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KEY DATES
January 1, 2013
Emancipation Proclamation Jubilee
Event: A presentation to recognize the sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation and its legacy.
Organizer: The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Commission
February 12, 2009 and 2010
Annual Lincoln Day Ceremony
Organizer: The Lincoln Society of Virginia
Location: The Lincoln Homestead Cemetery in Rockingham County
February 12, 2009
The Virginia General Assembly
Event: Legislative members of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
Commission will introduce a legislation recognizing the Lincoln’s bicentennial in the 2009 session of the Virginia General Assembly, and will
deliver morning hour floor speeches in the Virginia House of Delegates.
Date to be confirmed
Commemoration
Event: Lectures and a walking tour to retrace Lincoln’s steps and
sites he visited to commemorate his April 4–5, 1865 visit.
Organizer: The Planning Committee of “Steps Towards Freedom”
February 2009
Event: Reading clubs, musical tributes to Lincoln, and gala reception.
Organizer: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Subcommittee of the
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Commission
April 21, 2009, 7.30 p.m.
The Fifth Annual Lincoln Symposium
Event: Dr. James I. (Bud) Robertson Jr., will address the topic,
“Lincoln, the Man.”
Organizer: The Lincoln Society of Virginia
Location: Bridgewater College, Bridgewater, VA.
April 18, 2009
Special Lincoln Concert
Event: Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, conducted by Maestro Keith
Lockhart of the Boston Pops.
Location: The University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, Virginia
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
133
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Christine Gregoire
Governor
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FACTS
www.washingtonhistory.org
134 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
February 21, 2009
Time: 1.00–4.00 p.m.
Location: Pearson Air Museum
1115 E. 5th Street, Vancouver, WA 98661
Fort Vancouver Barracks, established on the
site of today’s Vancouver National Historic
Reserve, played a little known, yet significant,
role in the Civil War. The site became not only
a military center for Western expansion, but
also acted as training ground and network hub
for Civil War soldiers, such as Ulysses S. Grant,
Phil Sheridan, and countless others. Many who
became the heroes and villains of the War
Between the States also protected settlers on
the Oregon Trail, built roads and houses, and
fought in the Pacific Northwest Indian Wars of
the 1850s.
The Center for Columbia River History and its
partners will present “Abraham Lincoln’s Pacific
Northwest Birthday Bicentennial.” This familyoriented array of activities begins with a color
guard, music, and an Abraham Lincoln living
history press conference. Next come a series of
educational and fun activity stations. You may
choose to talk with Lincoln actor, Steve Holgate,
discuss Lincoln, race, and the West with historian, Elliott Trommald, listen to 1860s campaign
songs by Doug Tracy, or examine the hidden
Civil War history of the Northwest with historian,
Richard Etulain. Perhaps you will attend the
1st Oregon Volunteers “Civil War School of the
Soldier” with your child, color with your toddler,
or play a 19th-century parlor game before the
program concludes with birthday cake and song.
Whether your interest is in Lincoln and his hidden connections to the Northwest, or if you are
seeking fun, be sure to attend Lincoln’s Pacific
Northwest Birthday Bicentennial.
Images courtesy of Washington State Tourism
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KEY DATES
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Joe Manchin
Governor
State of West Virginia
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FACTS
KEY DATES
Statue and Capitol Dome
February 11, 2008
Dr. Kevin Barksdale: “From Lincoln’s Desk: Secession, Slavery
and the Birth of West Virginia, 1861-1863”
Event: Collegiate Series Lecture and Reception
WV Division of Culture and History
Location: The Cultural Center, Charleston, WV
www.wvculture.org
April 19, 2008
“A Visit with Abraham Lincoln”
Event: Presentation by Lincoln portrayer, Jim Rubin
WV Division of Culture and History
Location: WV Independence Hall, Wheeling, WV
Contact: 304 238 1300
2008–2009
“Lincoln Walks at Midnight”
Event: Traveling Exhibit
WV Division of Culture and History
Locations: The Cultural Center, Charleston, WV and
WV Independence Hall, Wheeling, WV
www.wvculture.org
October 30, 2008
Richard Norton Smith: “Lincoln at 200”
Event: McCreight Lecture in the Humanities
Location: WV Humanities Council, The Cultural Center, Charleston, WV
www.wvhumanities.org
February 12, 2009
Abe Lincoln Birthday Celebration
Event: Presentation and Reception
WV Division of Culture and History
Location: The Cultural Center, Charleston, WV
www.wvculture.org / www.wv.gov
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
135
Photographs by Martin Valent, West Virginia Legislative Photography
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Governor
State of Wisconsin
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136 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
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KEY DATES
March 4, 2009
Wisconsin Lincoln Teach-In
Event: Teach-in series focusing on second Inaugural Address.
Organizer: Marquette University
Location: Marquette University and colleges and universities
throughout Wisconsin.
Contact: James Marten, [email protected]
May 2, 2009
National History Day in Wisconsin
Event: Academic Enrichment Program for grades six to 12.
March-May awards event.
Organizer: Wisconsin Lincoln Bicentennial Commission
Location: State Capitol
Contact: Robert Drane, [email protected]
June 2009
Support Juneteenth Celebrations
Event: Community celebration
Organizer: Milwaukee Juneteenth Committee
Location: Milwaukee
Contact: Clayborn Benson, [email protected]
July 25, 2009
Camp Randall Memorial Park Events and Activities
Event: Encampment, parade, First Brigade Band Concert
Organizer: Wisconsin Lincoln Bicentennial Commission
Location: Camp Randall, Madison
Contact: James Hoyt, [email protected]
Fall 2009
Creation of a Wisconsin Lincoln Heritage Trail
Event: Three tours complete with site markers, travel brochures
and maps.
Organizer: Wisconsin Lincoln Bicentennial Commission
Location: Milwaukee, Madison, and Beloit/Janesville
Contact: Peter Skelly, [email protected]
October 10, 2009
Rededication of Lincoln Memorial Drive
Event: Dedication Ceremony
Organizer: Wisconsin Lincoln Bicentennial Commission
Location: Milwaukee County War Memorial Center Hall and Lincoln
Memorial Drive, Milwaukee.
Contact: David Hecker, [email protected]
To be confirmed
Restoration of the Tallman House and Dedication of
Hanchett Hall
Event: Dedication ceremony
Organizer: Wisconsin Lincoln Bicentennial Commission
Location: Janesville and Beloit
Contact: George Steil, Sr., [email protected]
For updated event information, visit: www.Lincoln200.wi.gov
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Dave Freudenthal
Govenor
State of Wyoming
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July 10, 2008
Wyoming Statehood Day
Event: Public commemoration
of Lincoln Bicentennial atop the
Summit of Interstate 80 (former
Lincoln Highway).
February 12, 2009
© Photograph of governor: Rick Carpenter, WYDOT; all others: Richard Collier, WSPCR
Event: Public celebration of the
Lincoln Bicentennial in rotunda of
State Capitol in Cheyenne.
February 12, 2009
Lincoln Traveling Exhibit
launched by Wyoming
State Museum
Guest speaker: Dr. Cheryl Wells,
Civil War historian.
November 15, 2008–June 1,
2009, Spring Semester, 2009
Lincoln Educational
Curriculum begins Statewide
Event: “Lincoln Activity
Community Grant” statewide
activities.
November 1, 2008
“Lincoln Minutes”
Event: A series of radio broadcasts
begins, lasting through
February, 2009.
0ĐDJBMXFCTJUFIUUQXZPTQDSTUBUFXZVT
Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
137
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
The publishers gratefully acknowledge the contribution
of the following companies, organizations and governments
in supporting this project:
Bantam Hardcover (In Lincoln's Hand) ...............................14
B'Nai B'Rith International .................................................. 30
BP ........................................................................................8
CBOE ...................................................................................21
CME Group ....................................................................... 140
ConocoPhillips .....................................................................4
C-Span .................................................................................2
Government of Kenya ......................................................29
Marie Stopes International .................................................12
OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) ...................36
Shanghai J. Sun Trading Consultants .................................51
Sky News .............................................................................6
Congressional Black Caucus Foundation .......................... 18
The History Channel ..........................................................25
The Kurdistan Regional Government ................................ 10
Washington DC ................................................................ 139
138 Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial
Sitting in on Marian
Anderson’s concert
Front row at the newly
renovated Ford’s Theatre
Face-to-face
with Honest Abe
People-watching in
Lincoln Park
A seat at his
Inaugural Ball
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!#LincolninDC.com
Exhibitions Films Music Lectures Theatre Tours Food & Wine Hotel Packages
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09
January - April 20
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