The Meanings of the Lincoln Memorial

The essay reflects on the Memorial’s design, especially the counterpoint between sacred and secular styles. The former president is portrayed with human frailty, not as “one of the immortals.” And the space draws the visitor’s eye from Lincoln’s statue to the side walls, where Lincoln’s Second Inaugural and the Gettysburg Address, respectively, are engraved.

Lincoln, the essay argues, deserves two great accolades: he saved the Union and he ended slavery. When the monument was constructed in the early 20^th century—it was completed in 1922—the first of those achievements prevailed in the public mind. North and South were at peace and neither wanted to re-open old wounds, so the memorial was designed to remember Lincoln’s then-less-controversial achievement. The epitaph above the statue of Lincoln expresses that sentiment:

IN THIS TEMPLE AS IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM HE SAVED THE UNION THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN IS ENSHRINED FOREVER.

But the measure of old monuments is their ability to take on new meanings, and Lincoln’s role as the Great Emancipator re-asserted itself through the civil rights movement. Marian Anderson’s great open-air concert on the steps of the Memorial became an act of defiance towards segregation. And twenty-four years later, Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech—given from those same steps— irrevocably transformed the building into a monument of American freedom and equality. The Memorial was destined for both meanings, and we are grateful to professor Greenberg for showing us how it came to bear them.