Looking for Lincoln? Go to Knox

College included in statewide program

Thursday, May 17, 2007

By JANE CARLSON

The Register-Mail

GALESBURG - If you're looking for Abraham Lincoln, head to Knox College.

A permanent outdoor exhibit unveiled Wednesday on the college campus as part of the statewide Looking for Lincoln program commemorates Old Main as the last remaining site of the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates and links Galesburg to other Illinois cities with Lincoln connections.

The Looking for Lincoln Heritage Coalition selects sites and cities where Lincoln worked, spoke or traveled for inclusion in the program, then helps design exhibits to foster knowledge about Lincoln throughout the state.

Nikki Stratton, director of the Looking for Lincoln Heritage Coalition, is a 1962 graduate of Knox College.

While around 45 Looking for Lincoln sites are up and running in central Illinois, Galesburg is the northernmost community currently included in the project, which is affiliated with the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield.

"It is fitting that this exhibit be here at Knox College in Galesburg - a hub of Lincoln Scholarship," said Knox College President Roger Taylor.

Rod Davis, co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College, said the Galesburg site of the Lincoln-Douglas debates is of particular significance because it's where Lincoln began taking the "high road" on the issue of slavery in his campaign against Stephen Douglas for U.S. Senate.

"He came on very strongly in Galesburg on attacking what he construed to be the immorality of slavery," said Davis, noting it was in Galesburg that Lincoln famously said those who thought people had the right to own slaves were "blowing out the moral lights around us."

Located on South Cherry Street between George Davis Hall and Auxiliary Gymnasium on the Knox campus, the exhibit features images and text detailing the history of Galesburg and Knox College and outlining the significance of the fifth Lincoln-Douglas debate.

Visitors will face the east lawn of Old Main where the debate was held as they view the exhibit, which is part of a landscaped seating area designed and constructed by the college.

"We really wanted a bigger space that's welcoming and gives people somewhere to rest and reflect on the debate," said Knox College spokeswoman Karrie Heartlein.

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On the Net:

Looking for Lincoln

www.lookingforlincoln.com

Lincoln Found

"Here in Galesburg, thousands of spectators stood to the east of Knox College's Old Main to hear Lincoln and Douglas dispute for three hours the issues that had made this campaign the focus of intense national interest: the relevance of the Declaration of Independence to the legal status of African-Americans, the expansion of slavery in the West and the power of states to regulate local institutions."

- From the Looking for Lincoln exhibit on the Knox College campus commemorating the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates