Middle West US
Exploring Midwest History and Culture
Abraham Lincoln, His Final Address, and the American Founding
April 8, 2026
Jacob K. Friefeld
Next week marks the 161st anniversary of the day the most famous midwesterner, Abraham Lincoln, died. Four days before his death, Lincoln stood on the White House’s north portico ready to address a celebratory crowd excited about the surrender of Robert E. Lee’s rebel army. Lincoln didn’t know this would be his last speech.
The speech isn’t impressive, but it displays important Lincoln hallmarks that held true to the end: his ability to shape public opinion and his fidelity to the founding principles of the American republic…Read More
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“Here on the prairies of Illinois and the Middle West we can see a long way in many directions…Here there are no barriers, no defenses, to ideas and aspirations. We want none; we want no shackles on the mind or the spirit, no rigid patterns of thought, no iron conformity.”
-Adlai Stevenson