2017 Abraham Lincoln Institute Symposium at Ford's Theater

[Angela]

The symposium was a wonderful experience with some speakers I already knew and others that I had not had the honor to listen to before.

Having just returned to Germany last night, this is a belated report, but I thought I’d share the experience nevertheless.

You can all watch the details on C-Span here.

The speaker lineup was – at least for me – absolutely brilliant, starting with Daniel Croft who made me write down quite a few thoughts that he shared with the audience.

Stephen Engle gave a really entertaining presentation and made me order his book about the “War Governors” immediately. (At this point I was still thinking about traveling “light”).

I was incredibly thrilled to meet Jason Silverman again who is not only a wonderful speaker but also a very kind and warm person. His talk on Lincoln and immigration was passionate and on point.

Douglas L. Wilson had me on the edge of my seat because I always wanted to hear the man who put together this monumental collection of Herndon documents and I am now fully convinced that his latest work (“Letters”) will be a fascinating read.

Allen Guelzo simply blew me away with his fierce and powerful speech! His conclusions were absolutely convincing and the way he narrated his thoughts had me deeply impressed. I was terribly sad when his time was up!

The days surrounding this event were, of course, very Lincoln-heavy, starting with some of us getting in touch and trying to organize meetings.
We had to substitute a planned meeting the night before because of – surprise! – St. Patricks Day. The bars were FULL and it appears that Washington can party after all.
Breakfast instead it was.

In the evening after the symposium, a group of us – with Scott, Jason Silverman and a lovely friend of mine that works at Ford’s – headed to the Lincoln restaurant where we enjoyed a few hours of great conversation, Lincoln shirt shopping and excellent food.

Brian Steenbergen directed me to Capitol Hill Books and this is were my travel-light plan fell apart. Four publications later, I walked into the next Walmart to by a duffel bag.

With the floodgates open now, I visited the usual suspects and acquired new mugs, glasses, shirts as well as apparel and – of course – more books featuring The Man to take home.

For some strange reason, I was not able to convince anybody of our party to join me for a 4am visit to the Lincoln Memorial and thus made my way there alone on Tuesday morning.

The cab driver asked what was going on there at this early hour and joined me for a laugh when I replied “Absolutely nothing – that’s why I’m going”.

And indeed, I had it to myself for exactly 43 minutes before the first jogger ran up the stairs uttered a polite greeting towards the marble figure and then fled in horror when I replied from behind one of the columns.

For some strange reason, these visits always put an extra spring to my steps for the rest of the day. It allowed for an originally unplanned visit to the Portrait Gallery where a temporary exhibit of “Lincoln’s Contemporaries” opened just last year.

And just like that, four days were over.