To fully understand Lincoln’s relationship with the Revolution we need to place him within its specific context. Though 1776 seems hazy and distant to us now, it was recent history when he was born in 1809. The Declaration of Independence was only 32 years old, and the Constitution was almost 20. Lincoln’s namesake grandfather had served as a captain in the colonial militia against the British, his father Thomas was born during the war, and both his mother Nancy and stepmother Sarah were born within 5 years of its end. The nation established by the Revolution was a radical experiment in self-government and the fire of liberty it ignited felt fresh to young Abraham’s generation.

Yet the Revolution’s legacy would also have seemed more fragile. Other democratic movements spurred by the same wave of classic liberalism had failed and would continue to do so through Lincoln’s lifetime. As a white man born in Kentucky, he reaped the full benefits of citizenship, but many others living within America’s borders lacked such freedoms and privileges, and they knew it. Lincoln repeatedly pointed to these inequalities in his writings and speeches, and worked to repair some of them, in no small part because he saw how they potentially endangered American democracy itself by embedding the seeds of despotism within its elaborate quilt.

Maintaining and furthering the Founders’ experiment in self-government was Lincoln’s life’s work. We hope you’ll enjoy our year-long exploration of these two quintessential American legacies.