Lincoln in the News LINCOLN LORE IS THE BULLETIN OF THE William Galston in The Wall Streetjournal (November 23, ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY AND THE 2016) states: "America is not an ethno-state. As our greatest FRIENDS OF THE LINCOLN COLLECTION OF president, Abraham Lincoln, reminded us, it is a nation INDIANA 'conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.' It is a sign of our degraded times that it CONTRIBUTORS is necessary to restate what should be obvious to all." HON. RANDALL T. SHEPARD HON. FRANKJ. WILLIAMS DOUGLAS L. WILSON RICHARD CAMPANELLA ACPL JANE GASTINEAU [email protected] FRIENDS OF THE LINCOLN COLLECTION SARA GABBARD, EDITOR POST OFFICE ADDRESS BOX 11083 FORT WAYNE, INDIANA 46855 [email protected] N FO WWW.ACPL.INFO WWW.LINCOLNCOLLECTION.ORG WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/LINCOLNCOLLECTION Second Inaugural (LN-1588) LINCOLN LORE <~> ISSN 0162-8615 On the Opinion Page of The Wall Street journal (November 10, UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED, ALL IMAGES 2016) there is a call to reflect upon Lincoln's Second Inaugural ARE HELD BY THE LINCOLN FINANCIAL in which he "appealed to his fellow-countrymen to work toward FOUNDATION COLLECTION (LFFC). reconciliation and domestic peace "with malice toward none, with charity for all."' MEMBER DISCOUNT NewsWorks (October 11, 2016) carried a commentary by Richard Koenig which compared the debates of the 2016 election to MEMBERS OF THE FRIENDS OF THE LINCOLN the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates. The title of the piece is COLLECTION OF INDIANA RECEIVE A "Trump vs . Clinton is no Lincoln vs. Douglas." DISCOUNT FOR BOOKS PUBLISHED BY SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS. TO ORDER, CONTACT CHICAGO DISTRIBUTION ON THE COVER CENTER AT: Th is untitled oil painting by Fletcher C. Ransom (1870-1943) 1.800.621.2736 PHONE depicts a young Abraham Lincoln driving a team of oxen as 1.800.621.8476 FAX he and his father plow a field on their Indiana farm. The ORDER ONLINE AT WWW.SIUPRESS.COM painting is one of a series USE PROMOTIONjCODE FLC25 TO RECEIVE of Lincoln paintings that A 25% DISCOUNT 0 YOUR ORDER. Ransom created for the Chicago and Illinois Midland THANKS TO ASHE~ J GENCY FOR DESIGNING Railroad Company beginning THE NEW FORMAT;fOR LINCOLN LORE. in 1930. The paintings THIS ISSUE OF LINCOLN LORE WAS MADE were reproduced on the POSSIBLE IN PART BY A GRANT FROM company's annual calendars. THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN BICENTENNIAL 71.2009.081.0703 FOUNDATION. BY HON. RANDALL T. SHEPARD What Indiana Civic Life Likely Taught Young Mr. Lincoln Editor's Note: At the 2016 Rolland Lecture, Randall Shepard was asked to describe Indiana during the Lincoln family's residence. The year 1816 represented a seminal have influenced his political philosophy moment in Indiana, most widely and his approach to civic life. known as the year Congress Governor Otis Bowen was fond of saying, admitted us to the Union. Less "Indiana made Lincoln, and Lincoln widely known but surely important made Illinois." My objective here is to was the event that made tonight explore just what it was about Indiana possible. Thomas Lincoln and his public life that might have influenced family moved here from Kentucky the future career of a young man who late in the year, about the time fall lived here from 1816 to 1830. usually begins to turn to winter. To set the stage, recall a few fairly Newly arriving settlers always had obvious facts about the state and the a lot of work to do to establish the family. At the time of statehood, almost basics of their new lives on the all of Indiana's population lived within western frontier, but the Lincolns an easy horse ride of the Ohio River, would have found these challenges then the nation's superhighway for more difficult than expected, especially since there had hardly both commerce and migration. Most been a warm season that of Indiana's institutions were based year. Indeed, 1816 was often somewhere in population centers close called the "year there was no to the river-the seat of government was summer." at Vincennes, then at Corydon. The first newspapers were published in places Still, even as people wrestled like Vincennes and Brookville. And like with what was also labeled most other new residents during the "1800-and-froze-to-death," teens and twenties, the Lincoln family the public life of the put down stakes in the southern part state was very active, as of the state. They settled in what soon the whole nation worked became the northwest part of Spencer to move on from the County. It was not an easy trip from War of 1812, the recent their homestead to anywhere, but it conflict with Great Britain was within the range of these centers of often referred to as the culture, education, and politics. Second War for American Independence. And There were multiple themes in Indiana while it is certainly clear life that might have made an impression to anyone familiar with on a young person interested in the the life of ou r si xteenth world beyond the family farm. Three president that he achieved of those are/seem most important. One a monumental place in was a shared aspiration to build the the American history, bones necessary for a vigorous economy what has not been quite and to use government as an instrument so clear is how these towards that end, extending the years in Indiana might American system across the continent. LINCOLN LORE . NUMBER 1914 W H AT IND I ANA C I VIC LIFE LIKELY TAUGHT YOUNG MR. LI N COLN waterways in promoting commerce. The legislature of 1820 designated hundreds of miles along fifteen rivers and streams as navigable water, and it obliged those who operated mills on these waterways to provide locks so as not to block the passage of commerce. Of course, a longer-range strategy had to - I do with travel over land, across various navigable waters. As early as 1818, the I legislature authorized various ferries and bridges. During the 1820s, it passed laws "encouraging ferry-keepers" and it offered multiple inducements to make this work more attractive. The real action was in creating roads . J:t fDJll:.!.'f.f~ - Appropriations for building state roads began as early as 1821, and they covered all parts of the state, including a special Indiana, Young & Delleker (1821) 71200908520774 act for a road from Terre Haute to Fort Wayne passed in 1823. Some of this The second was a determination to the Wabash and Erie Canal got effort was financed by what people called create an educational system that under way at Fort Wayne, and in a the Three Percent Fund . It represented would provide young people with the neighborhood much closer to the proceeds from certain lands the federal foundation needed to thrive in that site of the Lincoln family home. To government gave the state for future development. That source was not nearly economy. The third was the struggle take full advantage of the usually sufficient, so the legislature decreed that against slavery. navigable Ohio, upon which so much commerce depended, the every able-bodied man age twenty-one The Ca mpaign for very first session of the General to fifty must work on building roads and Internal Improvements Assembly authorized creation of the highways "or pay an equivalent therefor" One of the signature events of jeffersonville Ohio Canal Company, in cash . This command for labor was nineteenth-century Indiana was the whose mission would be to build a structured like a progressive tax. Persons Internal Improvements Plan of 1836. canal on the Indiana side of the river who owned no real estate at all owed It launched a massive campaign to facing Louisville. The idea was to make three days labor each year, people who owned less than eighty acres owed four create roads, bridges, and canals, the Ohio more reliably navigable by days, and so on up to a maximum of ten financed by private money and state building a way to bypass the Falls of days. revenue-and debt that ultimately the Ohio when water was low and drove the state government to passage was perilous. Creating an The commitment to build new roads insolvency. This story is well known arrangement we now call public­ advanced vigorously through the 1820s to students of Indiana history, and it private partnerships, the legislature as Lincoln moved through his teenage was an experience that still influences contemplated that the state would years. Beyond mandated labor, the buy one-fourth of the company's our public life, even in the twenty-first legislature continued to appropriate stock. This project launched amid century. funds and expand the number of official great public celebration in May roads. In 1822, there were just twenty­ Of course, the ambitious act of 1836 1819, but it ultimately failed, and two of them; by 1831 , there were fifty. did not simply pop six years after the the state's money went with it, partly The federal government located the Lincolns left for Illinois. The debate because Kentucky was simply faster route for extending the National Road about building infrastructure in the on the uptake, building a canal on across Indiana in 1827, and in 1828 the wilderness was well under way when the Kentucky side of the river that state government launched its most they arrived. had the same objective. ambitious road project, the Michigan Indiana's experience with canals, for Still, this venture was but one story Road from Hanover to Michigan City. As ( example, began long before digging in a larger effort to take advantage of Governor james B.