Springfield, Ill. — FOR the last couple of generations, all U.S. presidents -- even the ones who don't move the needle on the greatness scale -- end up with grand libraries and museums.
But for 140 years, Abraham Lincoln, the man many consider the greatest U.S. president, lacked even a modest edifice that chronicled the leadership that led to freedom for millions -- and, ultimately, to his death.
After a 10-year nationwide campaign, the $115-million Lincoln museum and library opened here in April to preserve his memory and honor an apocalyptic presidency: four years that ended slavery and preserved the Union -- for which the cost was 600,000-plus lives.
Since its opening, half a million people have visited, many, like me, history buffs. We come for the same reason a Dodger fan goes to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.: This is the mountaintop of American history.
The museum is divided into two broad-themed "journeys": one depicting Lincoln's life up to his election as the 16th president and the other his White House life and prosecution of the Civil War. Both journeys employ animatronics and lifelike displays.
The 40,000 feet of display space feature brought-to-life scenes of Lincoln's boyhood, daily life in his White House and a chilling re-creation of a slave auction.
We're also given a sense of Lincoln's "other" Civil War, which was fought among his Cabinet members. The tension of those encounters is dramatized by a display of a Cabinet meeting. There sit smug Secretary of State William Seward, combative Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and ambitious Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase, life-size figures frozen in the moment. At the head of the table is the patient president, more discerning than the others know.
Tim Russert of "Meet the Press" lends a modern touch to this 19th century cast in a video in which he analyzes the players and the stakes of those times.
The mood takes a sharp turn at the replica of the old State Capitol where the slain president lay in state after he was assassinated in April 1865. The sense of grief at the senseless loss is almost palpable.
Small touches give daily-life insights to the man and his family: a copy of Lincoln's 1863 Gettysburg Address, wife Mary Todd Lincoln's music box and Lincoln's eyeglasses and briefcase.
The museum achieves a tricky balance: appealing to students on field trips as well as to serious students of history. The visitor can get a feel for Honest Abe, as his campaigners called him (or the Baboon, a favorite slur of his opponents).
