The monument, erected in 1868, is the country’s oldest surviving public statue of Lincoln and considered his best likeness in marble. It was removed twice, damaged multiple times and abandoned, yet it still stands.
public statue of Abraham Lincoln in the United States. Many consider it the best likeness of the Great Emancipator ever made in marble. The statue’s history is a story of survival: removed twice, renovated twice, damaged multiple times, abandoned for two years and replaced after a president’s intervention — yet still it stands, the tribute of the residents of the capital city to its fallen president.
Ultimately, the NLMA raised just $7,000. So the plan changed from a national monument to a local one from D.C. residents. The size and scope were scaled down, and artists were encouraged to submit proposals. schools, and flags flew at half-mast, while cannons boomed every half-hour. According to newspaper reports, people filled the streets, rooftops, windows and even treetops. Thousands of the city’s Black residents, mostly formerly enslaved, also showed up to honor Lincoln .The platform held 400 dignitaries. President Andrew Johnson presided, but no members of the House or Senate were present, because they were required to attend Johnson’s impeachment trial.
When asked later why he put Lincoln’s statue upon an 18-foot pedestal, Flannery told the Baltimore Sun, “I resolved and did place it so high that no assassin’s hand could ever again strike him down.”For 51 years, this statue stood in front of the old city hall. It was the second public statue of Lincoln in the United States; the first, made of bronze, was erected in San Francisco in 1867 and destroyed by the Great Fire in 1906.
The next year, newly inaugurated President Warren G. Harding said that he favored restoring the statue in front of the courthouse. Artist Freeman Thorp gave the sentiment further impetus when he found the displaced monument — not in the courthouse basement, but lying outdoors, roughly crated, by the banks of the Tidal Basin behind the old bureau of engraving.
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