[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16942-16943]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 160TH ANNIVERSARY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S ELECTION TO THE UNITED STATES 
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, Leo Tolstoy said of Abraham Lincoln that 
``His example is universal and will last thousands of years . . . He 
was bigger than his country--bigger than all the Presidents together . 
. . and as a great character he will live as long as the world lives.''
  Abraham Lincoln has been known and admired through the generations--
and around the world. But Abraham Lincoln is known primarily for his 
presidency and his leadership of the United States through the dark 
days of the Civil War. We recall his unwavering commitment to the 
``American experiment'' in democracy and his refusal to allow the 
national Union to fail, regardless of the odds against him.
  Few people remember, though, that Abraham Lincoln was also a Member 
of Congress at one time. Today, August 3, in fact, marks the 160th 
anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's election to a single term in the U.S. 
House of Representatives. I also had the privilege of representing the 
20th Congressional District of Illinois as a member of the House for 14 
years.
  There is a reason few people remember Lincoln's service in Congress. 
Frankly, his one term, in the 30th Congress, which sat from December 
1847 to March of 1849, was rather unremarkable. He was a young country 
lawyer who served with the likes of John Quincy Adams in the House and 
Daniel Webster and John Calhoun in the Senate. Most of his colleagues 
viewed him as a Westerner of average talent.
  He was a conscientious and hard-working Member, though, which isn't 
particularly surprising. He served on various committees, he voted on 
the floor of the House in nearly all of the rollcall votes during his 
term, and he corresponded faithfully with his constituents.
  His most famous contribution to the political and policy debates of 
his term--criticism of President James Polk for the Nation's 
involvement in the Mexican war--earned him scorn and disfavor back in 
Illinois where the war had been popular. Illinois Democrats called 
Lincoln, himself a Whig at the time, a disgrace.
  Lincoln left Congress and returned to his legal practice, arguing 
cases in country courthouses of Illinois' Eighth Judicial Circuit, and 
thinking he had no future in politics.
  On the contrary, Lincoln's time walking the Halls of this building 
introduced him to the issues on the national political stage. The 
Congress in which he served debated the Wilmot Proviso, which would 
have prevented the spread of slavery into territories newly acquired 
from Mexico. Those debates exposed Lincoln to the divisiveness and 
explosiveness of the issue that

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severely tried his presidency a decade and a half later and nearly 
destroyed the country. His time in Congress also produced personal and 
political connections that served him years later as President and 
Commander-in-Chief.
  Today, we mark the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's election to the 
House of Representatives as the beginning of this great man's ascent on 
the national political stage. In February 2009, the Nation will mark 
the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth. Congress established the 
Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission to help our Nation mark this 
milestone. I am privileged to cochair the Commission along with 
Congressman Ray LaHood and Lincoln Scholar Harold Holzer--we like to 
call ourselves ``a team of rivals.'' We have been working diligently to 
ensure that a ``fitting and proper'' commemoration is planned. I am 
pleased to report that a number of our goals have already been met--the 
authorization of new penny designs in the bicentennial year and the 
issuance of a commemorative coin, for example. Other educational, 
scholarly, cultural, and historical events are in various stages of 
planning--both here in the United States and abroad.
  After President Lincoln's untimely death, Edwin M. Stanton said, 
``Now he belongs to the ages.'' Mr. President, today we remember 
Abraham Lincoln's service in the House, his leadership during our 
Nation's most perilous time, and his legacy of freedom, democracy, and 
equal opportunity. Even great life begins with a series of small but 
important steps. Let us keep working to carry out Abraham Lincoln's 
vision in our day.

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