The Danger Abraham Lincoln Feared — And the One He Couldn’t Imagine

Abraham Lincoln spent his early political life warning about threats that might rise against the people — mobs, demagogues, towering figures hungry for distinction. In his Lyceum Address, he imagined a destructive leader emerging from ambition and lawlessness, someone who would try to seize power by force or charisma. What he did not imagine was a different kind of danger: a moment when the electorate itself might elevate such a figure through the very mechanisms designed to protect the republic. For all his foresight, Lincoln assumed the people would be the safeguard, not the source, of the peril. It is the one blind spot in an otherwise remarkably prescient mind. [1]

From Lincoln’s vantage point in 1838, the greatest threat to the republic came from passion unmoored from reason — mobs burning presses, vigilantes dispensing “justice,” and charismatic men who might try to carve their names into history by tearing down what the Founders built. His fear was centrifugal: forces from outside the government pulling the nation apart from the fringes, from the fevered edges of public life. [1]

What he did not anticipate was the possibility of a centripetal danger — a force that would rise not from the margins but from the center, carried upward by ballots not bayonets. Lincoln believed deeply in the people’s capacity for self‑government. He trusted that the electorate, even when divided, would ultimately choose leaders who respected law, reason, and the slow, steady work of institutions.

That trust shaped everything he wrote.

In his Fragment on Government, he insists that the only legitimate authority is the authority that flows from consent. He treats consent as a kind of civic compass — imperfect, perhaps, but fundamentally reliable. The people, in his mind, might be misled or inflamed, but they would not willingly place power in the hands of someone who threatened the constitutional order itself. [2]

It simply wasn’t a scenario he entertained.

Abraham Lincoln’s political imagination was vast, but it was also rooted in the world he knew: a young republic still close to its founding ideals, still shaped by the memory of revolution, still wary of concentrated power. He feared ambition, but he assumed ambition would reveal itself as a threat before the people embraced it.

The idea that a destructive figure could be chosen through ordinary, lawful means — that the danger could come wrapped in legitimacy — would have struck him as a contradiction in terms.

And yet, that contradiction is precisely what makes his writings so haunting today.

Lincoln understood the fragility of institutions. He understood the volatility of public passion. But he placed extraordinary faith in the electorate’s ability to discern, to restrain, to choose wisely. His blind spot wasn’t naïveté; it was hope — a hope that the people, armed with memory and reason, would never willingly endanger the experiment they inherited.

That hope is what gives his words their enduring power. It is also what gives them their quiet ache.

✍️ Thoughts in Closing

Abraham Lincoln’s confidence in the electorate was shaped by a world where one issue — the expansion of slavery — dominated the national conscience. The crisis was unmistakable, its moral stakes impossible to ignore. Even those who wished to sidestep it found themselves drawn back into its orbit. In such a landscape, Lincoln could imagine the people ultimately choosing rightly because the central danger was so starkly defined. The nation’s fractures, however deep, radiated from a single source.

The turbulence of the present, however, does not gather around one moral axis. It rises instead from a tangle of dislocations — social, economic, institutional — none of them singular enough to command the entire nation’s full attention. The absence of a unifying crisis creates a different kind of fragility, one Lincoln never had to confront. Where he saw a republic strained by one overwhelming question, today’s strains emerge from many smaller fissures that do not announce themselves with the same clarity. The danger becomes harder to name, and therefore harder to resist.

Lincoln’s faith in the electorate was not naïve; it was aspirational. He believed the American people, bound by shared memory and guided by reason, would act as the final guardians of the constitutional order. That belief sustained him through years of turbulence, division, and war. Yet the very strength of that conviction left a narrow seam in his political imagination — a place where he could not quite envision the people themselves becoming the conduit for the danger he feared. His writings remind us that institutions are only as steady as the collective judgment behind them, and that consent, while sacred, is not infallible. In that tension lies the enduring relevance of his thought: a reminder that the republic’s greatest threats are not always external forces or singular figures, but the moments when the bond between principle and choice grows thin. Lincoln trusted that bond to hold. His words challenge reflection on how it might be strengthened.

Food for thought from the archives of Abraham Lincoln, Storyteller.

Mac

📚 Works Cited

[1] Lincoln, Abraham. “Fragment on Government.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler, vol. 2, Rutgers University Press, 1953, p. 221. [2] Lincoln, Abraham. “Address Before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler, vol. 1, Rutgers University Press, 1953, pp. 108–115.

Eddy Lincoln: The Springfield Son

Edward Baker Lincoln "Eddy"

Eddy Lincoln never became a statesman, a soldier, or even a schoolboy. History remembers him simply as a gentle child with bright eyes and a shy smile—a boy born in a modest house who vanished before he could grow into the tall, lanky frame his father joked he was destined for. Of the four Lincoln sons, Eddy belonged to Springfield, Illinois, the most. Almost every day of his short life unfolded within its dusty streets and quiet rooms, and when he died in the winter of 1850, the town felt the loss as if a part of its own heart had slipped away.

Edward Baker Lincoln arrived on March 10, 1846, at the home on Eighth and Jackson. [1] The baby was named for Edward Dickinson Baker, the family’s close friend and political ally. [2] At the time, Abraham and Mary were still finding their footing as a young family, with older brother Robert already a whirlwind of energy. Outside, Springfield was a bustling prairie capital of roughly 4,000 people, still small enough that everyone knew everyone else’s business, yet large enough to feel like a rising city. But inside, life revolved around the sweet-natured toddler everyone called “Eddy.” [1]

Neighbors remembered him as a deeply affectionate child, one who clung to his mother’s skirts and reached for his father the moment Abraham stepped through the door. Abraham, often away riding the legal circuit, once wrote that Eddy was “of a longer order” than Robert. It was a tender, fatherly observation of the boy’s lanky little frame—one of the few descriptions we have, and it glows with quiet pride. [3]

The most vivid snapshot of Eddy’s personality comes from May 1848. While Abraham was serving in Congress, Mary and the boys were visiting her family in Kentucky. A letter from that trip describes a frail Eddy recovering from a "spell of sickness." During Eddy's recovery, Robert found a stray kitten and brought it inside. Eddy was instantly smitten, “his tenderness broke forth," feeding his new companion tiny bits of bread. [3]

But the joy was short-lived. Mary’s stepmother, Elizabeth Todd—who famously “disliked the whole cat race”—ordered a servant to throw the kitten out. Eddy’s reaction was visceral. As Mary wrote, he protested “long and loud,” heartbroken by the cruelty. In that moment, we see the true Eddy: tender, emotional, and easily moved by the plight of small creatures. In his soft heart, he was his father's son. [3]

The winter of 1849 brought a change no one in the household could ignore. Eddy fell ill again—first with a lingering cough, then with a fever that refused to break. [*] Medical care in 1850 was often more hope than science, and the doctors could do little. Day after day, Mary sat at his bedside, giving him medicine, rubbing balsam on his chest, and feeding him oatmeal and gruel. Abraham, whenever he could be home from the legal circuit, hovered close—reading to his son, soothing him, and trying in vain to coax back that shy, familiar smile. [4]

For fifty-two grueling days, the family watched him fade.

On February 1, 1850, just weeks before his fourth birthday, Eddy died in the upstairs bedroom of the Lincoln home. The house that had once echoed with the chaotic laughter of two young boys fell painfully quiet.

The funeral the next day was simple and somber. The Springfield neighbors came—the same people who had watched the boy toddle across the yard or peek from behind his mother’s skirts. They followed the family to Hutchinson Cemetery, where Eddy was laid to rest beneath a cold, gray winter sky.

Eddy Lincoln’s 1st tombstone
(Courtesy Abraham Lincoln
Presidential
Library & Museum)

Shortly after, a local newspaper published a poem titled “Little Eddie” [copied below Works Cited]. For years, many believed Abraham or Mary had penned the verses themselves. Whether the words were theirs or those of a sympathetic friend, the poem captured the raw tenderness of a family facing their first great loss.

Eddy’s death marked a permanent turning point. The family would grow—Willie and Tad would soon arrive, and Robert would eventually grow into a man—but the shadow of that winter never truly lifted. Springfield, which had watched the little boy’s entire life unfold, carried the memory of him, too.

Years later, on the day Abraham Lincoln stood at the Great Western Depot to say farewell to Springfield, his mind turned back to Eddy. Summing up what the town had meant to him, he told the crowd:

"To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried." [6]

Today, Eddy rests with his family at Oak Ridge Cemetery, moved there to be near his father and brothers. But in many ways, he still belongs to the Springfield of the 1840s—the bustling frontier town where he lived, played, and was so deeply loved.

He was, in every sense, the Springfield son.

From the archives of Abraham Lincoln, Storyteller.

Mac

[*] Conclusion: A Note on Eddy’s Illness

No one in the Lincoln home ever knew exactly what carried Eddy away, but the pattern of his decline is familiar to modern historians. The lingering cough, the fever that rose and fell, the slow fading over long winter weeks — all echo what doctors of the time called “consumption,” the illness we now know as tuberculosis. [7]

Springfield saw its share of the disease in those years. It moved quietly through boarding houses, along the legal circuit, and into homes where families gathered close against the cold. A child as gentle and openhearted as Eddy could have caught it anywhere — from a visitor at the door, a hired girl in the kitchen, or someone Abraham met on the road

One question often lingers in the minds of modern readers: if Eddy suffered from tuberculosis, why did neither Abraham, Mary, nor Robert fall ill in the months that followed? The answer lies not in luck, but in what we now understand about the nature of the disease.

Young children, even when gravely sick, almost never spread tuberculosis. Their small lungs simply cannot muster the deep, forceful cough that sends the illness drifting through the air. Adults, on the other hand, can carry the bacteria silently for years without ever showing a sign of sickness. A family might be exposed and never know it. [7]

So while Eddy’s decline bears all the marks of tuberculosis, his presence posed little danger to the people who held him close. Mary could sit beside him for hours, smoothing his hair and whispering comfort. Abraham could gather him gently into his arms when he returned from the circuit. Robert could hover near his brother’s bed, worried and watchful. None of them were likely to fall ill from the child they loved.

In this small mercy, the science of today helps us understand the sorrow of yesterday.

📚 Works Cited

[1] Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Edward Baker Lincoln. Wikipedia. Retrieved January 16, 2026 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Baker_Lincoln

[2] Mr. Lincoln and Friends. (n.d.). Edward D. Baker (1811–1861). Retrieved January 16, 2026 from http://www.mrlincolnandfriends.org/the-friends/edward-d-baker/

[3] "Letter from Mary Lincoln to Abraham Lincoln, May 1848". Lincoln Collection, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (Springfield, IL).

[4] Fraga, Kaleena. "Edward Baker Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s son who died at just three." All That’s Interesting, February 17, 2022. Retrieved January 16, 2026 from https://allthatsinteresting.com/edward-baker-lincoln

[5] National Park Service. (n.d.). Edward Baker “Eddie” Lincoln. Lincoln Home National Historic Site. Retrieved January 16, 2026 from https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/eddie-lincoln.htm

[6] David Herbert Donald (1995). Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 107, 153-54. and Roy P. Basler, ed. (1953), The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press), 1:304.

[7] Lincoln, Edith M. (1963) Tuberculosis in Children. (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill).

🌼 “Little Eddie”

(Published in Springfield by the Illinois State Journal shortly after Eddy Lincoln’s death, 1850. Though the Journal used the spelling 'Eddie'—a common poetic flourish of the time—to his parents, he was always simply 'Eddy.' That one small letter 'y' serves as a quiet boundary between the public's mourning and the private, silent grief of the man and woman on Eighth and Jackson.)

Those midnight stars are sadly dimmed, That late so brilliantly shone, And the crimson tinge from cheek and lip, With the heart’s warm life has flown— The angel death was hovering nigh, And the lovely boy was called to die. The silken waves of his glossy hair Lie still over his marble brow, And the pallid lip and pearly cheek The presence of Death avow. Pure little bud in kindness given, In mercy taken to bloom in heaven. Happier far is the angel child With the harp and the crown of gold, Who warbles now at the Saviour’s feet The glories to us untold. Eddie, meet blossom of heavenly love, Dwells in the spirit-world above. Angel boy—fare thee well, farewell Sweet Eddie, we bid thee adieu! Affection’s wail cannot reach thee now, Deep though it be, and true. Bright is the home to him now given, For “of such is the kingdom of Heaven.”

🐶 Fido: The Dog Abraham Lincoln Left Behind

Meet Fido Lincoln 
(A CDV of from the Abraham Lincoln
Presidential Library and Museum's collection.)

In the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum's collection of photos, there are numerous photos of yellow, mixed‑breed dog. He isn't a pedigreed showpiece or a decorative fluff-ball. He’s just a big mutt with floppy ears, gentle eyes, and a face full of kindness. 

His name was Fido — the Lincolns' Fido — and this is his story.

🐶 The Dog Who Chose the Lincolns

Fido didn’t enter the Lincoln household with a pedigree or a purchase price. Like many mid‑19th‑century dogs, he simply drifted into the rhythms of a neighborhood and attached himself to the people who treated him kindly. In Springfield, that meant the Lincoln family.

Long before the term existed, Fido was essentially a rescued pet — or, in his case, perhaps a self‑rescued one.

There was no single moment when Fido became “theirs.” It happened the way these things often do — gradually, naturally, through affection and familiarity. He followed Willie and Tad wherever boys might wander on a warm Illinois afternoon. He greeted Abraham each morning at the door. He slept on their porch, trailed their footsteps, and accepted scraps and scratches as if he had always belonged.

They even gave him a name that suited him perfectly: Fido, from the Latin fidelis — “faithful.” By the mid‑1850s, everyone in town understood it. This gentle, floppy‑eared yellow mutt was the Lincolns’ Fido.

🚶‍♂️🐕 Life in Springfield: Fido’s Daily Rounds

Once Fido settled into the Lincoln household, he slipped easily into the family’s daily rhythm — not as a pampered pet, but as a familiar presence woven into the life of Springfield itself. He padded beside Abraham on quiet morning walks to the post office or the law office, trotted behind Willie and Tad as they darted through town, and waited patiently outside shops until one of his humans reappeared. Everyone knew him. He was the friendly yellow dog who followed the Lincolns everywhere, tail wagging, ears flopping, always ready to tag along on whatever small adventure the day offered.

Inside the home, he was just as much a fixture. Willie and Tad adored him, slipping him scraps, letting him inside when he scratched at the door, and treating him as a companion rather than a curiosity. He was gentle, steady, endlessly tolerant — the perfect match for two energetic boys and a father with a lifelong soft spot for animals.

In a household shaped by Abraham’s long absences and the growing pressures of public life, Fido offered something simple: a warm head resting on a knee, a quiet presence at the door, a reminder that affection didn’t have to be complicated.

Fido belonged to the Lincolns — and in the easy, unspoken way of dogs, the Lincolns belonged to him.

 🚂 Why Fido Was Left Behind

When Lincoln won the presidency in November 1860, the family’s world shifted overnight. Springfield’s quiet routines gave way to crowds, reporters, and a level of public attention none of them had ever known. As they prepared to leave for Washington, excitement and anxiety swirled through the house. The boys buzzed with curiosity, Mary packed for a life none of them had imagined, and Abraham prepared to shoulder the weight of a nation on the brink.

In the middle of it all stood Fido — gentle, sensitive, and unsettled by the sudden commotion.

Lincoln knew him well enough to recognize a hard truth: Washington would overwhelm him. The capital was noisy and chaotic. Carriages rattled, cannons boomed, strangers pressed in from every direction. Fido, who flinched at firecrackers and hid during thunderstorms, would not thrive there. And Lincoln, who had always been tender with animals, refused to drag a trusting companion into a life that would frighten and confuse him.

So the family made a decision that was both practical and heartbreakingly kind. Fido would stay in Springfield, cared for by their close friends, the Roll family, who lived just a few blocks away. The boys insisted he go with his favorite things — his blanket, his water bowl, and the horsehair sofa he loved to nap on.

Before they left, Lincoln took Fido to have his picture taken so Willie and Tad (and probably Dad) could keep a piece of him with them. Fido is one of the earliest American dogs ever photographed alone. Those images — the soft eyes, the floppy ears, the slightly awkward posture — are the ones above and below.

And amid the whirlwind of packing, planning, and preparing to lead a fractured nation, Lincoln paused to write a set of gentle instructions for the Rolls: Fido was never to be scolded for muddy paws, never tied up, and always allowed inside when he scratched at the door.

It was a quiet act of love and thanks. The Lincolns left Springfield for Washington, but Fido remained where he had always lived and roamed.

🏠 Fido’s Life With the Roll Family

When the Lincolns left Springfield, Fido didn’t lose a family — he simply gained another. John E. Roll, the carpenter who had added the second story to the Lincoln Home, lived nearby with his wife and their two sons, John and Frank. Close friends and trusted neighbors, the Rolls welcomed Fido with the same easy affection he had known on Eighth Street. They understood exactly what the Lincolns hoped for: that Fido's days would remain familiar, gentle, and full of kindness.

And so they did. The Rolls accepted the horsehair sofa he loved, placed his water bowl where he expected it, and honored every one of Lincoln’s instructions. They let him wander in and out as freely as ever. He padded through their kitchen, napped in warm patches of sunlight, and followed the Roll boys with the same steady devotion he once gave to Willie and Tad. Springfield was still his world — the same streets, the same smells, the same neighbors who greeted him by name.

Even as Springfield changed — filling with visitors, reporters, and the weight of national attention — Fido's life remained peaceful. He lived just as he always had: a gentle dog in a familiar place, cared for simply because he was Fido.

For the Lincolns, knowing he was safe and loved was a quiet comfort. For the Rolls, he became part of the household — and a living reminder of their friends now serving far away in Washington.

🕯️After Lincoln’s Death

When news of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination reached Springfield in April 1865, the town fell into a grief that felt both personal and communal. The Lincolns had been neighbors, friends, familiar faces on quiet streets — and Fido, in his own way, was a living reminder of that earlier, simpler time. As mourners gathered, as black crepe appeared on doors, and as Springfield prepared to receive Lincoln’s body for burial, Fido stayed with the Roll family, unaware of the national tragedy but quietly woven into the town’s sorrow.

People who visited the Lincoln home or passed the Roll house often paused when they saw him. He was still the same gentle yellow dog with floppy ears and kind eyes, but now he carried a different weight in Springfield’s imagination. He had once followed Lincoln to his office and trotted behind the boys on their errands. Those memories, suddenly fragile and finite, became precious. Fido stood as a quiet symbol of the Springfield life Lincoln had left behind — the life he would never return to.

The Rolls continued to care for him with the same tenderness the Lincolns had shown. They protected his routines, honored Lincoln’s instructions, and let him live out his days in the familiar comfort of the neighborhood he knew. In a town reshaped by grief, Fido offered something steady: a living thread to the past, soft and unassuming but deeply felt.

No one knew how short that thread would be.

🌑 A Tragic End

For nearly a year after Lincoln’s assassination, Fido remained a familiar sight in Springfield — padding along the sidewalks, greeting neighbors, and living quietly with the Roll family. Life moved on around him, but his days stayed gentle and predictable.

In 1866, Springfield suffered a second, smaller heartbreak. Fido was killed. In an 1876 pamphlet written by Fido’s original caretakers, the Roll family described the incident in detail. One afternoon, Fido approached a man on the street — a man who was intoxicated and in a volatile mood. Startled or irritated, he lashed out. The blow was sudden, senseless, and fatal. Sobered by what he’d done, the man reportedly expressed deep regret — a tragic, too‑late recognition of the harm he’d caused. Fido, who had never been anything but friendly, died not far from the neighborhood he had known all his life.

The news spread quickly. Neighbors were devastated, and the Roll family mourned him deeply. Local papers noted his passing, not because he was famous, but because he had belonged to a family the town still loved — and because Springfield had quietly adopted him as one of its own. His death felt like the closing of a chapter: the last living piece of the Lincolns’ Springfield years gone.

His loss was felt personally, locally, and with a tenderness that lingers long after the moment has passed.

🐾 Fido’s Unique Legacy

Though nearly forgotten today, Fido left a surprising mark on America’s dog culture. Before the Lincolns, “Fido” was an uncommon name; afterward, it became the default. The idea of a faithful, friendly, “everybody’s dog” named Fido spread across the country, appearing in cartoons, children’s books, jokes, and everyday speech. In a very real sense, he became part of the archetype of the American family dog.

His influence even shaped the way Americans think about dogs themselves. HowStuffWorks notes that “Fido” evolved into a commonly understood shorthand for “dog,” while the American Kennel Club explains that the name became the clichéd, universal choice precisely because of the Lincolns’ gentle yellow mutt. It’s a quiet but genuine cultural impact — one humble dog whose name slipped into the national vocabulary. Lincoln chose the name, but his Fido made it iconic.

🐕 A Dog in the Story of a Nation

Fido’s life was small in scale, lived on quiet streets and sunny porches, but his memory grew into something far larger. As Abraham Lincoln became a figure of national myth — the steady hand through civil war, the martyr for union and freedom — Fido remained a reminder of the man behind the monument. He was the dog who slept on a horsehair sofa, followed the boys to the barbershop, and waited outside the post office for his tall companion to return. In remembering Fido, people remembered Lincoln not as a statue or a speech, but as a father, a neighbor, and a man who loved a gentle dog.

In the years after Lincoln’s death, Fido’s story traveled far beyond Springfield. His photographs circulated, his name became iconic, and his gentle nature became part of the folklore surrounding Lincoln’s compassion. He was, in a quiet way, the nation’s first “celebrity dog” — not because of tricks or spectacle, but because he embodied the warmth of the family who loved him. When newspapers reported his death in 1866, it was treated not as a curiosity, but as a sincere loss in a country still grieving.

That level of public attention for an animal was unprecedented. Fido had appeared in newspapers during Lincoln’s presidency, after the assassination, and again when he died — each mention a reminder of the Springfield years and the ordinary life that shaped an extraordinary man.

Fido shows us that history is not only shaped by battles and proclamations, but also by the soft, everyday moments that reveal the human side of humanity. In the story of Abraham Lincoln, Fido is the thread that leads us back to Springfield — to the porch, the boys, the quiet walks, the life before the weight of the nation settled on Lincoln’s shoulders.

He was the Lincolns’ dog. He became Springfield’s dog. And in time, his story became a small but enduring part of the story of a nation.

A warm, loving anecdote from the archives of Abraham Lincoln, Storyteller.

Mac

🎩 For a dark, macabre story, read about the night thieves tried to steal Abraham Lincoln's body.

📚 Works Cited

AKC Staff. “Where Does the Dog Name Fido Come From?” American Kennel Club, https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/lifestyle/where-does-the-dog-name-fido-come-from/..

Angle, Paul M. Here I Have Lived: A History of Lincoln’s Springfield, 1821–1865. Abraham Lincoln Association, 1935. A foundational history of Lincoln’s Springfield years, including references to Fido and the Roll family.

Burlingame, Michael. Abraham Lincoln: A Life. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. One of the most comprehensive modern biographies; includes details about Lincoln’s affection for animals and the decision to leave Fido in Springfield.

Donald, David Herbert. Lincoln. Simon & Schuster, 1995. A Pulitzer Prize–winning biography with references to the Lincolns’ domestic life and Fido’s temperament.

Dove, Laurie L. “How Did ‘Fido’ Become the Default Name for a Dog?” HowStuffWorks, https://animals.howstuffworks.com/pets/fido-dog-name-origin-meaning-abraham-lincoln.htm..

Illinois State Journal. “Death of Lincoln’s Dog Fido.” Springfield, Illinois, 1866. The newspaper notice reporting Fido’s death — one of the earliest examples of a dog’s obituary appearing in print.

Lincoln Home National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service). Interpretive materials and historical summaries documenting Fido’s life with the Lincolns and the Rolls, as well as the surviving photographs.

McGovern, George S. Abraham Lincoln. Times Books, 2008. Includes discussion of Lincoln’s compassion toward animals and the symbolic role Fido played in Springfield memory.

National Museum of American History (Smithsonian Institution). Archival notes and photographic records related to Fido and Lincoln-era domestic life.

Sandburg, Carl. Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years. Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1926. Contains early popular accounts of Lincoln’s Springfield life, including anecdotes about Fido.

Springfield Historic Sites Commission. Fido: Lincoln’s Dog. City of Springfield, interpretive pamphlet. A concise summary of Fido’s life, the Roll family, and the cultural legacy of the name.

 

🌍 Abraham Lincoln and Immigration: What Then Can Teach Us Now — and What It Can’t

Immigrants entering NYC circa 1850s

People often reach for Abraham Lincoln when talking about immigration today. Sometimes the comparisons are fair. Sometimes they’re not. The truth is more interesting than either side usually admits.

To understand what Lincoln can teach us now, we have to start with the world in which he lived — then look at the world we live in now — and resist the temptation to pretend they are the same.

🌄 Immigration THEN: A Growing Nation With Land to Fill

In the mid‑19th century, the United States was a young, expanding country with enormous stretches of unsettled land. Railroads, farms, mines, and cities needed workers. Immigration wasn’t just tolerated — it was often desired.

Lincoln saw newcomers as a source of national strength. He opposed the nativist Know‑Nothing movement and welcomed immigrants as partners in building the country. Speaking to German-born citizens in 1861, he said:

“If there are any abroad who desire to make this the land of their adoption, it is not in my heart to throw aught in their way.” [1]

His support for immigration was rooted in the needs of a growing nation and in his belief that America’s promise was universal.

⚠️ Immigration NOW: A Political Fear Lever

Today, immigration occupies a very different place in American politics. 

Instead of filling a vast frontier, immigration is often used as:

• a symbol of cultural anxiety
• a tool for political mobilization
• a way to frame “us vs. them” narratives
• a pressure point in elections

But the material conditions have changed; the political incentives have changed; the national conversation has changed.

So no — the immigration debate of the 1850s is not the immigration debate of the 2020s.

And that’s exactly why Lincoln’s relevance requires careful handling.

🔍 So Is There a Modern Lesson? Yes — But Not the One People Expect

The lesson is not:

• “Lincoln welcomed immigrants, so we should too.”
• “Immigration was good then, so it’s good now.”
• “The situations are identical.”

They aren’t.

The real lesson — the one that does travel across time — is this:  Lincoln refused to let or use the fear of outsiders as a political weapon.

The Know-Nothings

Even when it was popular. Even when it was politically useful. Even when the Know‑Nothings — a "nativist" party [*] — was gaining influence and trying to claim Lincoln as its figurehead, he refused to be used. 

They believed Lincoln might be tempted by what they could offer — not a presidential nomination, not real leadership, but something subtler. They wanted his name. His reputation. His moral authority. His ability to draw ordinary voters. They hoped he would lend them credibility, soften their harsher edges, and give their movement a veneer of respectability. In short, they wanted to borrow Lincoln’s integrity to legitimize their cause.

But Lincoln saw the deeper danger. He understood that their anti‑immigrant, anti‑Catholic and anti-black ideology — and the exclusionary spirit behind it — violated the very promise of the Declaration. He refused to trade principle for convenience, or to let his popularity be used as a mask for exclusion.

In a letter to a friend in 1855, Lincoln reassured him that he wasn’t interested in joining them at all. "I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be?" [2]

He warned that if the country continued drifting toward the Know-Nothings' spirit of nativism, the nation’s founding promise would be hollowed out. He wrote that if they ever gained political control, the Declaration itself would soon read:

"'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.'"

And then, with his signature dry wit, he added what would happen if they ever gained control:

“I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic].”

He wasn’t talking about acreage.

He was talking about character.

🧭 The Compatibility Question, Answered Plainly

You’re right to sense a mismatch. The conditions of immigration then and now are not compatible. But the temptation to weaponize fear is absolutely compatible. 

That’s where Lincoln’s relevance lives.

He believed that degrading immigrants violated the nation’s founding principle of equality. He believed that liberty could not be selective. And he believed that a republic built on fear would eventually destroy itself.

Those beliefs are not tied to the 1860s.

They are tied to human nature.

⭐ The Modern Lesson Isn’t About Immigration — It’s About Integrity

Lincoln’s stance teaches something broader and more durable:

• Don’t trade principle for political convenience
• Don’t weaponize fear
• Don’t degrade people to win power
• Don’t abandon equality when it becomes inconvenient

These are not 19th‑century lessons.

They are democratic lessons.

They apply whether the country is 30 states or 50, frontier or metropolis, agrarian or industrial.

✨ Closing Reflection

The America of Lincoln’s time welcomed immigrants because it needed people. The America of our time debates immigration for different reasons entirely. But the lesson that survives is not about land or labor — it’s about character. Lincoln refused to use fear of outsiders as a political weapon, even when it was popular. That refusal, not the demographics of the 1860s, is the part of his legacy that still speaks to us.

A topic in the archives of Abraham Lincoln, Storyteller.

Mac

[*] The American or "Know Nothing Party" was an anti-immigrant political party of the 1850's. The term nativism is the political use of fear of immigrants to protect the political power of the native‑born voters.

Abraham Lincoln and the Myth of a Negotiated Civil War

This November 8, 1863 photograph is
often referred to as the "Gettysburg portrait".
Taken by Alexander Gardner at Mathew Brady’s studio
in Washington, DC, just days prior to
his delivery of the Gettysburg Address.

🔥 The Civil War: The Myth of "Negotiation"

The American Civil War didn’t erupt because politicians forgot to talk. It wasn’t a scheduling error, a missed handshake, or a failure of courtesy. It was a collision — decades in the making — between a nation trying to hold itself together and a region determined to break away.

Yet even today, some insist it could all have been avoided. In 2024, CNN commentator Scott Jennings offered the latest version of that old myth:

“I think that politicians could have negotiated an end to slavery without the bloodshed… maybe they could have settled it and gotten the South to agree.” [1]

It sounds reasonable. It sounds civilized. It sounds like the kind of ending we wish history had given us.

But it has one fatal flaw.

It isn’t true.

Here’s what actually happened.

🧭 Lincoln the Pragmatist

Abraham Lincoln despised slavery — he said so openly and often — but he also understood the explosive reality of the moment. Slavery wasn’t just a moral issue in the South; it was an economic empire. Cotton, tobacco, rice, and indigo were fortunes built on enslaved labor. Any threat to slavery was seen as a threat to Southern wealth, identity, and power.

So Lincoln did what pragmatists do: he compromised.

From the very beginning, he ran on a platform of containment, not abolition. His goal was not to eliminate slavery where it already existed, but to prevent its expansion into new states and territories. He made that clear in his 1858 Senate race against Stephen Douglas and again during his 1860 presidential campaign.

He even promised the South that he would not interfere with slavery where it already existed, believing it would eventually die out on its own. He explained in a letter to a friend:

"I hold it to be a paramount duty of us in the free states… to let the slavery of the other states alone; while… we should never knowingly lend ourselves… to prevent that slavery from dying a natural death…” [2]

Lincoln was offering the South the most generous deal any antislavery politician could offer.

They didn’t take it.

🗳️ The Election That Broke the Country

By 1860, the nation was in turmoil over slavery and whether new states would be free or slave. Voters understood that the next president would shape the country’s future. And they had four choices:

• Abraham Lincoln, Republican — opposed to the expansion of slavery.

• Stephen A. Douglas, Northern Democrat — champion of “popular sovereignty” (let the voters in each new state decide).

• John C. Breckinridge, Southern Democrat — demanding federal protection for slavery.

• John Bell, Constitutional Union Party — urging unity while avoiding the slavery question entirely.

Lincoln won less than 40% of the popular vote, but swept the Northern states (plus Oregon and California), giving him 180 electoral votes and the presidency. [3]

But before he even took the oath of office, Southern states began seceding and forming the Confederate States of America.

Negotiation wasn’t failing. Negotiation was being rejected.

🚂 Lincoln's Last Appeal

Still hoping to prevent disunion, President‑elect Lincoln left Illinois early for a whistle‑stop tour of the North before his inauguration. His goals were simple:

1. Let the public see and hear him in an age before mass media.

2. Reassure the South — again — that he would not interfere with slavery where it already existed.

Even in his March 1861 inaugural address, Lincoln repeated that promise:

“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists… I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”[4]

But at that point, his reassurance came with a boundary. Lincoln made it clear that secession — and war — would not begin with him:

“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow‑countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war… You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors.”[4]

The South heard him — and fired anyway.

⚔️ The South Chooses War

On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The fort surrendered the next day.

Lincoln had no choice. He called for troops and went to war — not to free the slaves, but to save the Union.

For two years, the Union stumbled. Generals failed. Battles were lost. The war dragged on.

Then came the summer of 1863.

• Vicksburg fell after a forty‑six‑day siege, giving the Union control of the Mississippi River.

• At Gettysburg, Lee’s second invasion of the North was stopped in a three‑day battle that turned the tide of the war.

The Confederacy began to see the writing on the wall.

And suddenly, they were interested in “peace.”

But not reunion. Not emancipation. Not compromise.

Just an end to fighting — while keeping slavery and independence intact.

Lincoln rejected that idea completely.

📜 The Gettysburg Address: A Moral Answer

Although the Gettysburg Address was not written as a direct reply to any specific Confederate proposal, it became Lincoln’s clearest public answer to the concept of “peace without reunion.”

By accepting the invitation to speak at the dedication of the new National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Lincoln seized the moment to define the war’s purpose — and the nation’s future.

What followed was the shortest speech of his presidency, and one of the greatest speeches in world history. Memorized by generations, quoted by scholars, and studied across the globe, the Gettysburg Address reframed the war as a struggle not just for Union, but for a “new birth of freedom.”

Lincoln wanted slavery to end because he abhorred it. But he had been willing to tolerate it where it already existed — if the South remained in the Union. When the South left, violently, Lincoln saw the chance to right a national wrong. As he said:

“that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom… and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” [5]

This was not negotiation.

This was purpose.

📖 The Real Lesson

Lincoln did attempt to settle the crisis before the war began. He remained open to peace during the war — but only if the South returned to the Union. It was the South’s insistence on independence and the preservation of slavery that made settlement impossible.

Misunderstandings like the one that sparked this essay aren’t harmless conjecture. When Scott Jennings dismissed this as “irrelevant historical meandering,” he missed the point. Inaccuracies cannot be corrected if the past is treated as irrelevant. In this case, they turn secession into a misunderstanding, slavery into a negotiable detail, and Lincoln into a man who simply failed to schedule the right meeting.

Lessons cannot be learned if the facts of the past are ignored — or worse, falsified.

But the record is clear.

Lincoln tried compromise. The South chose rebellion. And the war that followed reshaped the nation.

To pretend otherwise is to forget what Lincoln himself warned: that a nation “conceived in liberty” can still be undone by those who reject its laws and deny its ideals. The same forces that tore the country apart in 1861 — defiance of democratic norms, contempt for lawful authority, and the belief that one’s own power outweighs the nation’s survival — remain with us going into 2026.

That is why the past matters. That is why the truth matters.

The past is prologue. Human nature — love, hate, greed, generosity, morality, corruption — has not changed since the beginning of time. And in 2025–26, the same disregard for laws and traditions that tore the nation apart in 1861 threatens “government of the people, by the people, for the people” again.

To preserve it, we — the living — must be “here dedicated to the great task remaining before us.” A man who gave his life for these principles — expects no less.

Lincoln refuses to let us forget the dangers of the present — a warning preserved in the archives of Abraham Lincoln, Storyteller.

Mac

📚 Works Cited

[1] Jones K. Scott Jennings undertakes herculean task of explaining what Trump meant when he said Lincoln should’ve “settled” the Civil War. Mediaite. October 18, 2024. Accessed December 19, 2025.

[2] "Letter to Williamson Durley (October 3, 1845)" Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 1 [1824-Aug. 28, 1848]. In the digital collection Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed December 19, 2025.

[3] Wikipedia contributors. "1860 United States presidential election." Wikipedia. . . Published 2024. Accessed December 19, 2025.

[4] Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 4 [Mar. 5, 1860-Oct. 24, 1861]. In the digital collection Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed December 19, 2025.

[5] Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 7 [Nov. 5, 1863-Sept. 12, 1864]. In the digital collection Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed December 19, 2025.

🎄 Abraham Lincoln and Christmas: A Quiet Story

"American Homestead Winter"
19th Century Currier & Ives Print

Most Americans assume Abraham Lincoln must have said something memorable about Christmas — a line of comfort, a reflection on the season, a moment of warmth in the middle of the Civil War. But the truth is more surprising.

Lincoln left no Christmas quotes, no Christmas speeches, and no Christmas reflections. Not a single one.²

🕯️ Christmas in Lincoln’s America

In Lincoln’s lifetime, Christmas wasn’t yet the national celebration we know today. It wasn’t a federal holiday until 1870 — five years after his death.¹ In most of the country it passed like any other winter day. Government offices stayed open. Congress met. Soldiers drilled. The war didn’t pause.

Lincoln himself:

• issued no Christmas proclamations

• hosted no Christmas events

• wrote no Christmas letters

• and left no personal reflections on the holiday²

This wasn’t neglect. It was simply the world he lived in.

🎁 The One “Christmas Moment” We Do Have

On December 22, 1864, General William Tecumseh Sherman sent Lincoln a telegram after capturing Savannah:

“I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah…”³

It’s the closest thing we have to a Lincoln Christmas story — and even then, Lincoln’s reply focused on gratitude and military success, not the holiday itself.⁴

🌟 Lincoln’s Life and the Virtues of Christmas

Even though Lincoln never wrote about Christmas, his life offers countless examples of the virtues we associate with the season. These moments are not legend or supposition — they are documented in letters, eyewitness accounts, and Lincoln’s own writings.

🎁  Generosity

Lincoln quietly gave money to widows, soldiers, and strangers throughout his life — often slipping bills into hands or envelopes without signing his name. Herndon and Lamon both recorded this habit.⁵

❤️ Compassion

His pardons for soldiers — especially young soldiers who fell asleep on guard duty — are among the best‑documented aspects of his presidency. Lincoln said he could not “refuse mercy where mercy is possible.”⁶

🕊️ Peace

In the final weeks of the Civil War, Lincoln insisted on a peace policy “with malice toward none, with charity for all.” His instructions to Grant emphasized reunion without humiliation.⁷

🤝 Goodwill

Lincoln visited hospitals constantly, shaking hands with wounded soldiers from both sides, listening to their stories, and writing letters home for those too weak to hold a pen. Nurses described him as moving “like a father among his suffering children.” ⁸

✨ Hope

From the darkest days of the war, Lincoln kept returning to the idea that the nation could survive to have “a new birth of freedom.” His speeches and private letters show a stubborn, deliberate hope.⁹

🙏 Gratitude

Lincoln frequently expressed gratitude to ordinary Americans — soldiers, mothers, farmers, laborers — for sustaining the Union. His 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation remains one of the most sweeping expressions of national gratitude ever written.¹⁰

🎄 Joy

For all his melancholy, Lincoln loved simple joys: reading Shakespeare aloud, telling stories that made entire rooms collapse in laughter, and watching Tad’s antics. Staffers and friends recorded these moments vividly.¹¹

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Family & Togetherness

Lincoln’s devotion to his sons was unmistakable. Even under the weight of war and the demands of the presidency, he made time to write to Robert, play with Tad, read to Willie, pull Tad and Willie in a wagon, and welcome their visits throughout the day. He indulged their imaginations and protected their joy. For Lincoln, leadership never eclipsed love — it was shaped by it.

Lincoln lived the Christmas virtues — even if he never hung a stocking. 

✨ A Christmas Wish

Even though Abraham Lincoln never wrote about Christmas and did not celebrate it in the way we know it today, his life story radiates the very virtues we associate with the season — generosity, compassion, peace, goodwill, faith, hope, family, gratitude, and joy.

We are reminded that the heart of Christmas is not found in the gifts we receive or in the trappings of the season, but in the way we choose to treat one another — with respect, with mercy, with kindness, and with hope — not just in December, but all year long.

Just like Lincoln.

Some thoughts for this holiday season and the new year ahead from the archives of Abraham Lincoln, Storyteller.

Mac

🎩 There’s a reason Lincoln ended up on the smallest coin — and it says more about America than you think. Read: The Passing of the Penny: The Coin of Abraham Lincoln and the Common Folk

📚 Works Cited

1. U.S. Statutes at Large, Act of June 28, 1870 (establishing Christmas as a federal holiday).

2. Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler (no Christmas references in speeches, letters, or writings).

3. William T. Sherman, telegram to President Lincoln, December 22, 1864, War Department Archives.

4. Abraham Lincoln, reply to General Sherman, December 26, 1864, War Department Archives.

5. William Herndon, Herndon’s Lincoln; Ward Hill Lamon, Recollections of Abraham Lincoln.

6. National Archives, Presidential Pardons; Cabinet recollections in Nicolay & Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History.

7. Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address; instructions to Ulysses S. Grant, March–April 1865.

8. Accounts from nurses and hospital staff in Washington, D.C., 1862–1865 (various memoirs and letters).

9. Gettysburg Address; Annual Messages to Congress; private letters in Basler’s Collected Works.

10. Abraham Lincoln, Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3, 1863.

11. Accounts from John Hay, John Nicolay, and White House staff; Tad Lincoln anecdotes widely documented.

The Night Winston Churchill Stepped Into Abraham Lincoln’s Light

Winston Churchill at the Royal Albert Hall
in London (October 23, 1944), addressing a
 U.S. Thanksgiving concert & celebration.
(Imperial War Museum *)

On a cold November evening in 1944, Winston Churchill walked into the Royal Albert Hall to address thousands of American servicemen and diplomats gathered for a wartime Thanksgiving celebration — an American holiday, staged by American hands, on British soil.¹

Churchill was scheduled to speak that night, invited as the guest of honor by the U.S. Embassy.² He arrived to find the staging already in place, the lighting set, the hall prepared — all of it arranged without his involvement. And in classic Churchill fashion, he spoke without notes, delivering his remarks extemporaneously.³

Which is why, when Churchill stepped onto the stage, he found himself standing beneath a towering, illuminated portrait of Abraham Lincoln.

Churchill hadn’t chosen the image. He hadn’t requested it. He hadn’t even seen the staging until he arrived.¹

The portrait was placed there by the American organizers to honor the president who had proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday. It was meant as a nod to American tradition — not as a commentary on Churchill.¹

And yet, the moment became something more.

Churchill didn’t ask for the portrait to be moved. He didn’t shift the lectern. He didn’t comment on Lincoln at all.¹

He simply stepped into the light beneath Lincoln’s face and delivered his speech.

That silence — that acceptance — is where the symbolism lives.

🔍 What the Moment Actually Reveals

The photograph of Churchill beneath Lincoln is often interpreted as Churchill invoking Lincoln. But the truth is more interesting — and more revealing. It wasn’t Churchill invoking Lincoln at all. It was America invoking Lincoln around Churchill.

The Americans were saying, in effect: This is our holiday. This is our president. This is our symbol of unity and sacrifice. And tonight, Mr. Churchill, you stand with him — and with us.

The portrait behind him wasn’t Churchill’s self‑mythology. It was America’s projection. And Churchill, ever the master of optics, understood the power of stepping into someone else’s symbolism when the moment demanded it.⁴

🇬🇧🇺🇸 Churchill and Lincoln: A Connection Built on Echoes, Not Evidence

Here’s the academically solid part — the part that holds up even under the scrutiny of a Churchill scholar.

Churchill left no letters about Lincoln.⁵ He kept no diary entries about Lincoln.⁵ He rarely quoted Lincoln.⁶ And the surviving catalogues of his library cannot confirm which Lincoln books he owned.⁷

And yet historians agree that Churchill admired Lincoln — not loudly, not publicly, not in a way that left a paper trail, but in the ways that matter.⁴

He did, however, write about Lincoln once, in an essay later collected in Great Contemporaries. His tribute is striking in its clarity and warmth:⁸

“Others might try to emulate his magnanimity; none but he could control the bitter political hatreds which were rife… the death of Lincoln deprived the Union of the guiding hand which alone could have solved the problems of reconstruction and added to the triumph of armies those lasting victories which were gained over the hearts of men.”

It’s a beautiful passage — and a rare one. Churchill didn’t return to Lincoln often.⁶ He didn’t quote him frequently.⁶ He didn’t write letters about him.⁵

His admiration was real, but quiet. It lived in the echoes, not the correspondence.⁴

🖼️ So What Does the Photograph Mean?

It means this: the 1944 image of Churchill beneath Lincoln is not evidence of Churchill’s Lincoln worship. It is evidence of America’s Churchill worship.¹

The Americans cast Churchill in the role of their wartime Lincoln — the defender of democracy, the voice of resolve, the leader who stood firm when the world shook.⁴ And Churchill, recognizing the moment, stepped into that frame without needing to say a word.

Sometimes symbolism doesn’t need authorship. Sometimes it only needs acceptance.

🕯️Final Thoughts: The Power of a Borrowed Light

Churchill didn’t choose Lincoln that night. But he understood what it meant to stand beneath him.⁴ He understood that the portrait behind him was a bridge — between nations, between histories, between two wars fought for the same fragile idea.¹ He understood that the Americans were offering him a place in their symbolic universe.

And he understood that sometimes the most powerful thing a leader can do is simply stand still and let the moment speak.

The photograph endures not because Churchill created the symbolism, but because he recognized it — and allowed himself to be illuminated by another man’s light.

For readers of Abraham Lincoln, Storyteller, this moment is a reminder of something essential: Lincoln’s story did not end at Ford’s Theatre. It lived on in the hearts of those who drew strength from him — including a wartime prime minister who found, in Lincoln, a companion across time.⁸

Mac

[*] Imperial War Museum (IWM). “Thanksgiving Day Celebration, Royal Albert Hall, 23 November 1944.” — Archival photographs and description of the event featuring Churchill speaking beneath a portrait of Abraham Lincoln.

📚 Works Cited

1. International Churchill Society. “Thanksgiving Day Address, Royal Albert Hall, 23 November 1944.” Transcript and contextual notes on Churchill’s 1944 Thanksgiving speech.

2. Roberts A. Churchill: Walking with Destiny. New York, NY: Viking; 2018.

3. Lehrman LE. Lincoln & Churchill: Statesmen at War. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books; 2018.

4. Churchill Archives Centre. Catalogue and collections. Churchill College, Cambridge University.

5. Hillsdale College Churchill Project. Articles and research notes on Churchill’s writings, speeches, and influences.

6. National Trust. Chartwell House Collections and Library Notes.

7. Churchill WS. Great Contemporaries. London: Thornton Butterworth; 1937. Revised ed. 1947.

8. Gilbert M. Churchill: A Life. New York, NY: Henry Holt; 1991.

The Passing of the Penny: The Coin of Abraham Lincoln and the Common Folk

When Carl Sandburg first wrote about Abraham Lincoln in 1909, it was not in a sweeping biography but in a short newspaper piece for the Milwaukee Daily News. His subject was the brand‑new Lincoln cent. Sandburg saw in that coin a perfect symbol:

“The common, homely face of ‘Honest Abe’ will look good on the penny, the coin of the common folk from whom he came and to whom he belongs.” [1]

For Sandburg, Lincoln’s image on the smallest coin was a democratic gesture — a reminder that the president who rose from poverty belonged to the people, not to privilege.

Now, more than a century later, the penny itself has reached its end. Rising production costs finally outweighed its usefulness, and the government has decided to discontinue the cent. The last U.S. penny produced for general circulation was struck at the Philadelphia Mint on November 12, 2025. [2] A coin that has been part of American life since the founding era — and that has carried Lincoln’s visage since 1909 — will “now belong to the ages.” 

The penny’s story is long. Officially called "the cent", it has represented one‑hundredth of a dollar since the abolition of the half‑cent in 1857. The first U.S. cent was produced in 1787, and by 1793 the newly established Philadelphia Mint was issuing copper cents as part of the nation’s first circulating currency. Over time, the coin became a fixture of everyday life: copper or copper‑plated or zinc, jingling in pockets, passed across counters, saved in jars. [3]

Lincoln’s face gave the penny a special resonance. It was 'the coin of the common folk', echoing Sandburg’s words, and it carried with it the lore of Lincoln’s own humble beginnings. Children learned to count with pennies; adults used them for bus fares, newspapers, and candy. The penny was both practical and symbolic, a reminder that even the smallest denomination could carry the image of greatness.

Over its long run, the Lincoln cent carried not only his face but a series of changing backs that told their own story. From 1909 until 1958, the reverse featured two wheat stalks framing the words “ONE CENT” — a nod to agriculture and the nation’s roots. 

In 1959, to mark the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth, the design shifted to the Lincoln Memorial, placing the president’s memorial at the center of America’s civic life. Notice Lincoln's iconic statue by Daniel Chester French in the center of the enlarged image on the right.

  

Half a century later, in 2010, the reverse carried a new image: the Union shield, echoing Civil War iconography and standing for the strength and unity of the republic. This was the last change to the penny.

However, one year stands out for its variety: 2009, the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth. That year, four special reverses appeared, each depicting a stage of his life. 

• The “Log Cabin Penny” honored his birth and childhood in Kentucky. 
• Another showed young Lincoln reading while pausing from rail‑splitting in Indiana. 
• A third depicted him as a rising professional in Illinois, standing before the State Capitol in Springfield. 
• The final design featured the half‑completed Capitol dome in Washington, D.C., representing his presidency and the unfinished work of the nation. 

Together, these designs turned the penny into a miniature biography, carrying Lincoln’s journey from frontier boy to president - all in the palm of the hand.

With its discontinuation, the Lincoln penny now moves from circulation into history. It joins the ranks of relics and stories — a coin that once connected the nation’s founding, its most iconic president, and the daily lives of ordinary Americans. Like Lincoln’s stovepipe hat, the penny has become part of the folklore: an object that was useful, familiar, and now legendary.

The penny may vanish from our pockets, but Lincoln’s face will never leave our history.

A numismatics story from the archives of Abraham Lincoln, Storyteller.

Mac

🎩 Abraham Lincoln’s legacy — honored by contemporaries and historians alike — made his face the longest‑running image on U.S. coinage. Curious what shaped the man behind the penny? 👉 Read The Forage That Shaped Young Abe Lincoln   

☃️ There’s a Christmas story hidden in Abe Lincoln’s life — and it’s not the one you expect. Abraham Lincoln and Christmas: A Quiet Story

📚 Works Cited

[1] Sandburg C. "Lincoln on Pennies". Milwaukee Daily News. 1909 Feb 12; p. 1. [The coin was introduced February 12, 1909 on the centennial of Lincoln’s birth.] Available from: Indiana State Government archives. Lincoln Penny Sandburg Article PDF. https://www.in.gov/lincoln/pdfs/Lincoln_Penny_Sandburg_Article.pdf

[2] Isidore, Chris; Yurkevich, Vanessa (November 12, 2025). "The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia | CNN Business". CNN. Retrieved December 12, 2025.

[3] "History of U.S. Circulating Coins". www.usmint.gov. Retrieved December 12, 2025.