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Original Land of Lincoln to honor 16th president

By TIM THORNBERRY

Kentucky Correspondent

HODGENVILLE, Ky. — It is Illinois that proudly proclaims “Land of Lincoln” on its license plates, and Indiana that lays claim to where he grew up – but it is in Kentucky where the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, was born and where the celebration of his 200th birthday has begun.
The festivities, which will take place in all three states as well in other locations all over the country commemorating the famous birthday over the next two years, got started earlier this month with ceremonies at Lincoln’s birthplace. With concerts, plays, dedications, exhibits and programs from here to Washington and New York, Abraham Lincoln lives again – but nowhere more vividly than in Kentucky.
In what was then Hardin County – now Larue County – on a farm called Sinking Springs, Lincoln was born on Feb. 12, 1809, to Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, and in that area he would spend the first seven years of life. In 1811 his family moved 10 miles away to a 230-acre farm called Knob Creek, where he would live until 1816.
His time in Kentucky was brief but the area in which he lived has become a living testament to one of the most popular political figures the nation has ever known.
Lincoln was once quoted as saying, “I remember the old home very well. Our farm was composed of three fields, which lay in a valley surrounded by high hills and deep gorges,” regarding the Knob Creek farm. That farm, privately owned until 2001, is now part of the National Park system.
Nearby is the National Birthplace site, dedicated in 1911, complete with a memorial building and museum. In neighboring Washington County is the Lincoln State Park, where Thomas and Nancy were married.
Ron Bryant, historian for Kentucky State Parks, a professor of history and the director at Waveland State Historic Site in Lexington, has written extensively on Kentucky history and said the importance of Lincoln is evident to the region, but the fact that Lincoln came from Kentucky helped to shape who he was later in life.
“All of his earliest memories and most vivid impressions can be traced to Kentucky,” said Bryant. “Being from here played a great role in his life. His Kentucky connection was so important that when he became president, he made a big deal of it to show Southerners he knew them. As a native Kentuckian, Lincoln had a great deal of respect for the state of his birth.”
Bryant also said Lincoln’s simplicity didn’t affect the leader he became or the legacy he left behind, despite the fact that Southerners would loathe his name for years after his death.
“Lincoln did not care for the formalities of life, but he understood the importance of ceremony. His self-deprecation often masked his sense of self-worth. He knew that his presidency was pivotal in the history of his country, and that his actions would have an effect on generations to come,” he said.
“The perception of Lincoln in his own time is a far cry from how he is perceived today. He may have looked the part of a country bumpkin, but in reality he was a very successful lawyer, and a very ambitious man. His folksy humor caused him to be the butt of numerous jokes regarding his uncouthness.
“However, his prowess as a political opponent became a legend in his own time,” Bryant said. “His political adversaries came to respect his abilities, and those who had called him the ‘Original Baboon’ had to admit that he had an uncanny way of getting to the heart of matter.
“In the South, Lincoln remained a villain for decades after his death. To many Southerners he was a tyrant, a usurper of the Constitution, the man who ultimately controlled the armies that devastated the South during the Civil War. Not until the late 20th century did the image of Lincoln and the Republican Party change in the minds of Southerners.”
But it was his policies during his presidency that would shape the world to come, and in many ways, said Bryant.
“Lincoln’s policies during the Civil War did indeed affect the future of America, and of the world,” he explained. “His greatest accomplishment was the preservation of the Union, followed by his efforts to end slavery. By preserving the Union, America had the opportunity to become a world power. A divided nation could not have achieved the status the United States holds today as the dominant world power.
“Without our strength as a united country, the outcome of World War II, and perhaps World War I, could have been totally different,” he said. “The emancipation of the slaves in Confederate-held territory, while not a reality until those territories came under federal control, signaled the end of the South’s ‘Peculiar Institution.’
“The Emancipation Proclamation paved the way for the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution that abolished slavery and gave citizenship and civil rights to the former slaves.
“It was no accident that Martin Luther King Jr. chose the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., to deliver his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in 1963.”
Today people can only read books and see plays or movies that give them insight to the late president. But for Jim Sayre of Lawrenceburg, Ky., the late president comes alive every time he puts on his top hat. Sayre, who bears a striking resemblance to Lincoln, has portrayed him for 25 years and has brought him to life for thousands of schoolchildren and adults.
“I started doing this in 1983, but it’s funny how it began. I was stationed in Ethiopia when I was in military and required to shave every day. When I got out, I decided to grow a beard,” he said.
“It was in the late ’70s I decided to shave it like the Lincoln beard, never intending anything, and a then friend suggested I enter a Lincoln look-alike contest. I came in third and I was pretty well content with that and to take back my rented costume, but then I got a few calls from schools, and a few more, and that got the ball rolling.”
Sayre had to do some brushing up on his history after that, buying several books about Lincoln that have now grown to a collection of more than 200. One of his most flattering occasions came when he was asked to speak at the Herbert Hoover Assoc. meeting in Iowa City where he learned such notables as Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Conner and author William F. Buckley had spoken in previous years.
“Who would have thought that an old country boy like me would have followed Sandra Day O’Conner?” he said.
But, Lincoln was a country boy as well, and Sayre has become a staunch admirer of the man.
“The thing I admire the most about him was his determination to preserve the Union at all cost. It would have been easier to go the other way, but he didn’t. It was a good thing that he did,” said Sayre.
With at least 80 engagements this year alone, he stays busy being Lincoln, but Sayre says even out of costume it never fails that people see him out driving and wave or honk their horns and others want their pictures made with him.

2/27/2008