Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County

The Lincoln Gallery

Photos courtesy of Ms. Brittany  Elkins.
Read story by Deb Husar of the Quincy Herald-Whig by clicking here.

Historical Society Opens ‘Lincoln Gallery’

Lewis Powell,
Assassination
Conspirator

Jeannie Alexander of Virden, Illinois, views hood in which Lincoln assassination conspirator Lewis Powell was hanged.

The Lincoln Gallery: “Artifacts of Assassination”

Artifacts from two of the most troubling periods in our nation’s history—the assassination of President Lincoln and the dread institution behind it—are on exhibit in the Society’s new Lincoln Gallery. 

By speech and action, Abraham Lincoln sought to remove the chain and collar of American slavery. He gave his reasons during his debate with U.S. Sen. Stephen Douglas in Quincy on October 13, 1858. Here is what Lincoln said:

“. . .There is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence—the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas that he is not my equal in many respects, certainly not in color—perhaps not in intellectual and moral endowments; but in the right to eat the bread without leave of anybody else which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every other man. [Loud cheers].” (The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The First Complete, Unexpurgated Text. Harold Holzer, ed. New York: Harpercollins, 1993.) 

Artifacts of American slavery and the hanging of Lincoln’s assassins are now on exhibition in the Historical Society’s Lincoln Gallery.