QUARANTINE BLOG # 511

August 23, 2021

Continuing our series on monuments and memorials, we look today at three monuments dedicated to Abraham Lincoln.

The Emancipation Memorial, also known as the Freedman’s Memorial is a monument in Lincoln Park in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C.  Designed and sculpted by Thomas Ball and erected in 1876, the monument depicts Abraham Lincoln holding a copy of his Emancipation Proclamation freeing an African American slave.  The ex-slave is depicted on one knee, about to stand up, with one fist clenched, shirtless and broken shackles at the president’s feet.  

The funding drive for the monument began, according to much-publicized newspaper accounts from the era, with $5 given by former slave Charlotte Scott of Virginia, then residing with the family of her former master in Marietta, Ohio.  

According to the National Park Service, the monument was paid for solely by former slaves:

The campaign for the Freedmen’s Memorial Monument to Abraham Lincoln, as it was to be known, was not the only effort of the time to build a monument to Lincoln; however, as the only one soliciting contributions exclusively from those who had most directly benefitted from Lincoln’s act of emancipation it had a special appeal ... The funds were collected solely from freed slaves (primarily from African American Union veterans) ...

The first memorial to the 16th President was sculpted by Irish artist Lot Flannery and erected in 1868.  The statue was installed several blocks from Ford’s Theatre, where Lincoln was assassinated.  Flannery was present at the theater on the night John Wilkes Booth plunged the nation into a darkness from which it is yet to recover.

The Lincoln Memorial is a US national memorial built to honor the 16th president of the United States.  It is on the western end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., across from the Washington Monument.  The memorial’s architect was Henry Bacon.  The designer of the memorial interior’s large central statue, Abraham Lincoln (1920), was Daniel Chester French.  The statue was carved by the Piccirilli Brothers, an Italian family of renowned marble carvers and sculptors who carved many of the  significant marble sculptures in the United States (including the Tomb of the Unknown).

In 1867, Congress passed the first of many bills incorporating a commission to erect a monument for the sixteenth president.  Because fund raising lagged, the project lay dormant until the start of the 20th century, when, under the leadership of Senator Shelby M. Cullom of Illinois, six separate bills were introduced in Congress for the incorporation of a new memorial commission.  Actual construction began in March 1914.  William H. Taft – who was then Chief Justice of the United States – dedicated the Memorial on May 30, 1922, and presented it to United States President Warren G. Harding, who accepted it on behalf of the American people.  Lincoln’s only surviving son, 78-year-old Robert Todd Lincoln, was in attendance.

👉  Last week QB told you about the Honus Wagner $6 million baseball card, and I told one blog reader who commented about that very large price that there was a postage stamp that sold for over $9 million.  Said reader remarked, “I knew the price of stamps were going up, but that is ridiculous!”

The stamp I was talking about was the British Guiana 1 cent magenta, regarded by many philatelists as the world’s most famous rare stamp.  It was issued in limited numbers in British Guiana (now Guyana) in 1856, and only one specimen is now known to exist.

The 1 cent magenta was part of a series of three stamps issued in 1856 and was intended for use on local newspapers.  The other two stamps, a 4 cent magenta and 4 cent blue, were intended for letter postage.  An anticipated delivery of stamps by ship did not arrive so the local postmaster authorized printers to print an emergency issue of three stamps.  As a safeguard against forgery all correspondence bearing the stamps were to be autographed by a post office clerk.

The only copy of the 1 ceny stamp known to exist was discovered in 1873 by a 12-year-old Scottish schoolboy, Louis Vernon Vaughan, among his uncle’s letters.  Thinking there was a better specimen to be found he sold it for six shillings ($10 today).  When I was an active teenage stamp collector it was valued at $50,000.  It was sold in 2014 for $9.5 million.

This photograph of the 1856 One-Cent Magenta used an infrared filter to suppress the stamp’s red surface, making the black printing more visible.

👉  Tom T. Hall, a Country Music Hall of Fame artist who wrote unassuming songs with distinct depth, died Friday at age 85.  Hall timelessly chronicled the human spirit – from barstool stories to cemetery caretakers – with words that would influence generations of wordsmiths to follow.  

Hall wrote “Harper Valley P.T.A.” in 1968 and it became a major international hit single for country singer Jeannie C. Riley.  Riley’s record, her debut, sold over six million copies as a single, and it made her the first woman to top both the Billboard Hot 100.  In the final stanza of the song, Riley states that the story is true, and in the final line identifies herself as the daughter of Mrs. Johnson when she sings, “...the day my mama socked it to the Harper Valley PTA.”  This clip is from the 1978 movie, inspired by the song.

“Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine” is a true account of Hall’s experience at the 1972 Democratic National Convention, where he had a conversation with an old janitor at a Miami Beach hotel.  The janitor appraises his own life by concluding that the only worthwhile things are the three items listed in the song's title.

👉  Today’s close, “No Fear, Just Faith,” is by Chuck Swindoll.

While you were sleeping one Monday morning at the eerie hour of one o’clock, I was wide awake, talking to God in a steady stream! The seasoned pilot of the twin-engine Aero Commander I was aboard was having the time of his life. We were rapidly descending through a foggy, dense overcast at two hundred miles per hour. He loved it, but frankly, I was scared to death. At one point, he looked over at me, smiled, and said, “Hey, Chuck, isn’t this great?” I didn’t answer. I was trying to get on my knees,  reviewing every verse of Scripture I knew and confessing every wrong I’d ever done.

What a monster is fear! Its claws are sharp, dripping with the blood of the unknown and unseen. Its voice is piercing, shouting ugly and destructive words of worry. Most of its statements begin with a quiet “What if. . .” and end with a loud “so you’ll be sorry.” As we fall, it steps on our face with the weight of an 18-wheeler, and laughs at our crippled condition as it prepares for another assault.

David’s twenty-seventh Psalm brings much-needed perspective to the fearful heart. With broad, bold strokes of his pen, the monarch of Israel puts iron in our bones with these words: “The Lord is my light and my salvation – so why should I be afraid? The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble?” (Psalm 27:1).

King David spends the remaining refrains of that great hymn of praise reminding us of the triumphant power that presides over fear: faith.

Oh, how I needed this message as my pilot friend and I descended through the clouds on that overcast night! Maybe you need David’s words right now. Remember: God’s never missed the runway through all the centuries of fearful fog. Whatever it is that has you white knuckled and on your knees in prayer, He’s got your back. He’s already got it solved. No fear . . . just faith. Now that’s more like it.

-30-