Abraham Lincoln

Illustration: Warren Schumacher
On the two hundredth anniversary of his birth.
President Obama:

"When President Lincoln was finally told of all the metal being used [in the building of] the Capitol, his response was short and clear: That is as it should be. The American people needed to be reminded, he believed, that even in a time of war, the work would go on; that even when the nation itself was in doubt, the future was being secured; and that on that distant day when the guns fell silent, a national capitol would stand, with a statue of freedom at its peak, as a symbol of unity in the land still mending its divisions."