About Lincoln250

Learn about our organization, goals, history and purpose of this website.

Why are we doing this?

July 4, 2026, marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This semiquincentennial will be marked by events focused on the founders who signed the Declaration and the framers who wrote the Constitution that guides our nation. Just as important, however, is Abraham Lincoln, a founder of our Second American Republic, the renewal of the original founders’ intentions to create a more perfect Union.

As the epigraph above demonstrates, Lincoln looked back to the Declaration as the embodying spirit of America. He often referred to its principles as the basis for the present and future development of the nation. In the words following the lines above, Lincoln noted that:

It is not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the mother land; but something in that Declaration giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence.

But Lincoln also understood that the principles of the Declaration were under attack. “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” the document says, “that all men are created equal.” And yet, there were men such as Indiana Senator John Pettit who argued that Thomas Jefferson’s idea that “all men are created equal” was not a “self-evident truth” but instead “is nothing more to me than a self-evident lie.”

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, its repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and the dismantling of the founding principles “aroused” Lincoln to get back into politics after a hiatus. He became driven to restore the intentions of the founders and the values of the Declaration.

Lincoln’s leadership helped save the Union as he saw us through our nation’s greatest trial. He helped renew the founding principles through his support for the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery, followed by the 14th and 15th Amendments securing citizenship and voting rights for Americans who had been dispossessed of those rights.

The public recognizes Lincoln’s critical contributions to saving the country, regularly ranking him as our nation’s greatest president.

A COLLABORATION BETWEEN

CREDITS

The Lincoln250 website was created and maintained by the following senior students from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Media in the Sandage School of Advertising, under the direction of Professor Marisa Peacock.