A Dream come true !!!!!!!!!
Ever since my first visit to Chicago in 2006, i had always wanted to make a trip to Springfield, Illinois, the home of Abe Lincoln. My first introduction to Lincoln was about 54 years back, when, as a school going 10 year old boy i heard my teacher telling us about Democracy and Lincoln's immortal words "..... of the people, by the people, for the people..." Later on, my friend's grandpa told us stories about how he ended slavery and brought in real equality etc. Thus Lincoln's image was permanently stamped in my young mind as the greatest ever American President and the man who influenced world history most in terms of democracy.
Thus it was nothing short of a pilgrimage for me when we left our Chicago home on Friday, the 24th June '2011 morning at 10-30am. We took the 55 South and made it to Springfield by 1-30pm, covering the 150 miles in three hours of comfortable drive in the SUV. The car parking lot was very close to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum located at 112 North , Sixth street in downtown.
The Museum is open from 9am to 5 pm daily and the entrance tickets are priced at $12 -adults, $ 9 - seniors and free for kids below 5 years age. From the reception area we go through a simple security check and guided into the Plaza. The Plaza is a big central circular hall and the museum opens outwards. In the Plaza you are greeted by the life like figures of the Lincoln family and all visitors are welcome to have themselves photographed with the Lincolns using your own camera. The staff are very nice and courteous and assist you in this.
After getting ourselves photographed, we had a quick bite at the Subway located right next to the Plaza before starting our tour in right earnest.
We started off with the Journey One- The Pre -Presidential years. It starts with an incredible Forrest cabin and a 9 year old Lincoln sitting on a tree stump and studying a book. You enter the cabin and see the poverty through which he had gone through as an young boy in that one room cabin where his entire family lived and the teen Lincoln reading by the fire light. He was SELF TAUGHT. There is a small gallery ON THE RIVER that shows he worked as a ferryman. Lincoln moved on to New Salem and has made trips own the Mississippi to New Orleans. The figures of a black family being torn apart by Auctioneers is gut wrenching and , probably, Lincoln had witnessed such scenes in New Orleans.
In 1832, at age 23, Lincoln and a partner bought a small general store on credit in New Salem , Illinois. Lincoln served as New Salem's postmaster and later as county surveyor, all the while reading voraciously. He then decided to become a lawyer and began teaching himself law.His second campaign in 1834 was successful. He won election to the state legislature. Admitted to the bar in 1836, he moved to Springfield, Illinois, and began to practice law under Mary Todd's cousin.He served four successive terms in the Illinois House of representatives as a Whig representative from Sangamon County. In 1846, Lincoln was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served one two-year term.Lincoln returned to practicing law in Springfield, handling "every kind of business that could come before a prairie lawyer".
After the state Republican party convention nominated him for the U.S. Senate in 1858, Lincoln delivered his House Divided speech , drawing on Mark's gospel from the Bible: "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." The 1858 senate campaign featured the seven Lincoln - Douglas Debates , the most famous political debates in American history. Lincoln argued that the Founding Fathers had little use for popular sovereignty and had repeatedly sought to restrict slavery. Lincoln insisted the moral foundation of the Republicans required opposition to slavery.On May 18, at the 1860 Republican National covention in Chicago, Lincoln's friends promised and manipulated and won the nomination on the third ballot.
Unwittingly, i had gone into quite a bit of the history but these years have been well and truly presented in this section of the museum through paintings, documents and other exhibits.
We then moved to the Union Theater for the "Lincoln's Eyes" . This is a theatrical special effects spectacular giving a broad overview of Lincoln's life. The focus is both on his personal and political dramas in his life.The system of layered digital projection screens and the special effects are fantastic. During a dramatic battle sequence the entire theater resounds with war and smoke. Truly fantastic experience !!
We then moved on to the Journey 2 - White House Years.
On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the sixteenth president of the United States. He was the first president from the Republican Party. Winning entirely on the strength of his support in the North and West, no ballots were cast for him in ten of the fifteen Southern slave states. As Lincoln's election became evident, secessionists made clear their intent to leave the Union before he took office the next March.On February 23, 1861, he arrived in disguise in Washington, D.C., which was placed under substantial military guard. Lincoln directed his Inaugural Speech to the South, saying, "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Union troops at Fort Sumter, forced them to surrender, and began the war.Lincoln encountered an unprecedented political and military crisis, and he responded as Commander-in- Chief, using unprecedented powers.
The Emancipation Proclamation, issued on September 22, 1862, and put into effect on January 1, 1863, declared free the slaves in ten states not then under Union control. Lincoln's comment on the signing of the Proclamation was: "I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper."
He addressed at the Gettysburg battlefield cemetery on November 19. Defying Lincoln's prediction that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here," the Address became the most quoted speech in American history. Lincoln asserted the nation was born, not in 1789, but in 1776, "conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."He declared that the deaths of so many brave soldiers would not be in vain, that slavery would end as a result of the losses, and the future of democracy would be assured, that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Lincoln concluded that the Civil War had a profound objective—a new birth of freedom in the nation. On April 9, 1864 the war was effectively over with the surrender of Lee to General Grant.
Lincoln was re-elected in a landslide, carrying all but three states, and receiving 78 percent of the Union soldiers' vote. On March 4, 1865, Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address.
Booth formulated a plan with co-conspirators to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson Secretary of State William H Seward and General Grant. Without his main bodyguard, Lincoln left to attend a play on April 14, 1865. Grant along with his wife chose at the last minute to travel to Philadelphia instead of attending the play. Lincoln's bodyguard, John Parker, left Ford's Theater during intermission to join Lincoln's coachman for drinks in the Star Saloon next door.
The now unguarded President sat in his state box in the balcony. Seizing the opportunity, Booth crept up from behind and at about 10:13 pm, aimed at the back of Lincoln's head and fired at point-blank range, mortally wounding the President. After being in a coma for nine hours, Lincoln died at 7:22 am on April 15. Secretary of War Stanton saluted and said, "Now he belongs to the ages." Vice President Johnson was sworn in as President at 10:00 am the day after the assassination. Lincoln lay in state in the East Room, and then in the Capitol Rotunda, before the funeral train bore him to his final resting place in Springfield, Illinois
This piece of history of Lincoln's presidential years is very well captured by the museum and it's exhibits. A truly remarkable job has been done in piecing this history together with a great care.The debate on Emancipation Proclamation is very well enacted by an actor with all other life like characters at the table and takes us back to those historic times. It was a wonderful experience.
Ask Mr. Lincoln is a small interactive theater allowing us to get answers from Abraham Lincoln in his own words. We have to select a question on the screen from the pre-programmed list and Lincoln answers us. I asked a couple of questions on his Gettysburg address and Liberty and got very satisfying answers !!!
Lincoln's Tomb is located at Oak Ridge Cemetery which is about a 10 minute drive from the Museum. Visitors are not allowed beyond 5pm so we had to really rush from the museum. Lincoln lived from 1809-1865 and he was assassinated on April 14, 1965. The granite monument within which lie the remains of Abraham Lincoln was designed by sculptor Larkin Mead and completed in 1874. His wife Mary and three of his sons also lie buried here. It is a very serene and beautiful place and people come from all over the world to pay their respects to this great man ,and , as i bowed my head and offered my respects to this great apostle of democracy, my heart was filled with a sense of accomplishment that i could do so in person. It is a tradition at the cemetery to rub the nose on Lincoln's bronze face for good luck and we promptly did that and took photos.
Thus ended my trip to Springfield , it was more like a very satisfying pilgrimage for me.
From there we went to St.Louis, but, that is another story.
