by Sandy Brue

I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not [sic] remember when I did not so think and feel.

—President Abraham Lincoln to Albert G. Hodges, April 4, 1864(1)

The United States is approaching two significant anniversaries in the nation’s history: the bicentennial, in 2009, of the birth of former President Abraham Lincoln, and, in 2011, the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. These intertwined events bind the fabric of the U.S.’s national story, reconnect people to their frontier roots, remind them of a time when the nation was torn apart, and expose the evils of slavery and the challenges of race relations. As the 16th president of the United States, Lincoln, a complex man from humble beginnings, inherited the deeply rooted social, political, and economic contradiction of slavery passed over by the founding fathers.

Part of the British North American experience for 150 years by the time of the American Revolution, slavery was inherited by each successive generation until Lincoln, unwilling to compromise the issue further, confronted it.(2) Now, 200 years after Lincoln’s birth, the issues of his personal and political life are still relevant. When the two-year commemoration closes in 2010, a multi-year Civil War national memorial period will open. These two epochal periods offer a forum for the observance of America’s greatest national crisis. These tandem events remind us that Lincoln’s solutions to the nation’s still unresolved race relations problems were forever lost to an assassin’s bullet.

In 2000, the United States Congress appointed a 15-member Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission to increase national and international knowledge of Lincoln, pay tribute to his accomplishments, and highlight his influence on the nation’s development.(3) Co-chairs Senator Richard J. Durbin, Congressman Ray LaHood, and Abraham Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer were chosen as leaders for their knowledge and contributions to the study of the nation’s 16th president. Other commission members are collectors of Abraham Lincolniana, scholars, educators, authors, and government officials. Other active organizations include the Lincoln States Bicentennial Task Force, a National Park Service work group, and local, state, and county commissions. The Organization of American Historians, the Journal of American History, universities, Lincoln museums, and other associations and groups are working together on educational programming and community outreach for the commemoration period. Other plans and projects address the preservation of Lincoln-era artifacts, traveling exhibits, signature celebrations, statues and coins, and other memorabilia.

These collaborations, many of which include the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site in Hodgenville, Kentucky, promote the shared goals of strengthening the foundations of freedom, democracy, and equal opportunity, and encouraging public participation and scholarship on Lincoln and his legacy. The two-year celebration opens on the steps of the Memorial Building at the park on February 12, 2008.(Figure 1) A year of national signature events culminates with the rededication of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, in 2009, the year of Lincoln’s 200th birthday.

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