Abraham Lincoln is shown seated and holding a quill pen in his right hand and a piece of
paper in his left hand, gazing up as if to the heavens. So the question is, what is he signing?
I'm Kirk Savage. I have studied public memorials for most of my professional life. This particular
memorial shows Abraham Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation.
It reflects an era in which Lincoln, as Lincoln believed himself, would be remembered principally
for the Emancipation Proclamation. I'm Harold Holzer, co-chairman of the U.S. Abraham Lincoln
Bicentennial Commission and the author of The Lincoln Image. When he signed it, he said,
if my name ever goes into history, it will be because of this act. And I think that's what
the early artists and the early sculptors were emphasizing, his aspiration and his impact on
society. After Lincoln's assassination in the spring of 1865, there was a huge outpouring of
proposals to commemorate him in public monuments all across the country. Philadelphia was
one of the early examples of this. This monument was first proposed in May of 1865,
just a few weeks after Lincoln had been assassinated.
And by 1868, they signed a contract with Randolph Rogers, one of the most significant American
artists of his time. I'm Millard Rogers Jr., the author of the book, Randolph Rogers, American
Sculptor in Rome, and no relation to the sculptor himself, Randolph Rogers. No, indeed. What you
see in the monument is not the only model that Rogers worked on as the idea for his Lincoln
Memorial. Initially, he seems to have submitted three designs. The simplest design was a standing
figure of Lincoln holding the Emancipation Proclamation. The next design was a standing
figure of Lincoln holding the Emancipation Proclamation, but trampling a demon of discord
and disunion under his feet. The third design was the standing figure with the demon, but also
with a crouching female figure of a slave at his feet. Looking up at the great emancipator,
then they shifted to a seated figure of Lincoln without any figure of a slave or without any demon.
The committee seems to have thought that a seated figure might make Lincoln look a little bit better
than a standing figure, because at that point in time, a lot of people thought that Lincoln
was a really ugly sculptural subject. He didn't have a heroic body. That was a big problem then.
There's a long history of seated figures. It goes back to Roman imperial sculpture.
By putting him in a seated posture, typically used for writers, composers, statesmen, people who are
known for their literary creations above all, it does actually turn him into a kind of almost a
kind of cultural hero and a moral hero. Rogers is quoted as saying, his eyes were turned toward
heaven asking the Almighty for his approval. Lincoln said it was God's will. He thought
there was divine will attached to all the suffering of the war that was required to cleanse the country
of the centuries-old sin of slavery. His final speech, April 11th, 1865, he says we should
seriously consider offering the vote to colored people. One of the people in the crowd turned
to a friend and said, did you hear that? That means Negro citizenship. That's the last speech
he'll ever make. And that person was John Wilkes Booth. Three days later, he shot him to death.
