A number of special items are now on display in the Visitor Center’s Exhibition Hall in celebration of the bicentennial of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln. These  include the telegram that President Lincoln sent to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant on August 17, 1864, agreeing with his strategy to maintain pressure on the Confederate Army at Petersburg, Virginia, rather than pull the Army north to protect Washington, DC.

Also included is President Lincoln’s Annual Message to Congress for 1862 (today known as the State of the Union address) referring to the battle of Antietam as a “fiery trial.” In this address, President Lincoln calls upon Congress to abolish slavery by Constitutional amendment.  He writes,

“In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve.  We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth . . . The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just – a way, which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.”

Also on display will be Lincoln’s draft of legislation to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia dated January 10, 1849.  The draft is actually Lincoln’s notes for a bill written while he was a House member.  The President was unable to garner enough support for the legislation, and it did not move forward.

The display of Lincoln documents will continue through September 30, 2009. For more information about the Capitol Visitor Center, go to www.visitthecapitol.gov