On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln spoke for about two minutes at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The cemetery was the final resting place of the more than 3,500 Union soldiers killed at the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1-3, 1863. The ceremony’s main speaker was Edward Everett, a noted orator and Massachusetts politician. He spoke for two hours. A hymn was sung after Everett’s oration. Then the President rose and spoke 272 words. While Everett’s remarks have been relegated to the background, Lincoln’s simple and humble words have found a place in our Nation’s history.
Lincoln did not attend college, but he has connections to many colleges. There are statues of him on numerous campuses including in Morris Library at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and at Illinois College. There are colleges named for him. In 1856, Lincoln spoke at Eureka College on behalf of John Charles Fremont, the Republican candidate for President.
Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, is the only remaining site of a Lincoln-Douglas debate. The debate took place on October 7, 1858 between the two candidates for the Illinois Senate seat. Lincoln, the Republican candidate, and Stephen Douglas, the Democratic candidate, both made an interesting entrance to the debate. R. Lance Factor, in his book Chapel in the Sky, explained, “A hastily constructed platform blocked the east door and both Lincoln and Douglas had to use a window as a door to reach the debate platform. The obstacle of a window as a door prompted Lincoln’s (possibly apocryphal) remark, ‘Now I can say I have gone through College.'”
The six other debate sites were in Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, Quincy, and Alton. Lincoln lost the election and Douglas won the Senate position. Lincoln, however, was awarded an honorary degree by Knox College in 1860, the same year he was nominated by the Republican party as its candidate for President of the United States.
In 1994, C-Span reenacted the debates and those reenactments can be viewed on the internet. The new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum* in Springfield, Illinois, which opened in 2005, has an exhibit that is a replica of the debate scene. The debate has been reenacted several times at Knox College, and the picture above is of one of the more recent Lincoln impersonators coming out of the door of Old Main.
Photo by Chi Zhang, Courtesy of Knox College
* If you think you visited this museum in the 1960s with your parents as you traversed the country in a station wagon, you’re wrong. This is a fabulous new museum that deserves a visit. You will not be disappointed. http://www.illinois.gov/alplm/Pages/default.aspx
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