Influential Americans

The Forty-Ninth State Fellows of the UAA Honors College would like to call the University community's attention that yesterday was the anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky.

Named last year by Atlantic Magazine as the most influential American ever, Lincoln opposed secession because he thought it would destroy American democracy, and he ended American slavery because he found it a violation of the universal natural right of equality articulated in the Declaration of Independence. In both instances he asserted the supremacy of federal power over states' rights. Lincoln was assassinated on April 15, 1865, in Washington, D.C., a month after his second inauguration and less than a week after the end of the Civil War.

Last night the Forty-Ninth State Fellows hosted a dinner in celebration of Lincoln Day.