Lincoln Memorial

Surpassing 8 million guests last year, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, welcomes more visitors annually than any other site in America.1 In all likelihood, you have either made your trek to the memorial that honors America’s 16th president — or you will someday.

No matter the occasion for your visit — an eighth-grade adventure, a family vacation, or an evening diversion on a business trip — you should ascend the “four score and seven” (87) steps from the western end of the National Mall to pay tribute to the president who preserved the Union. When you descend those steps, seeds of understanding will have been planted in your heart.

Designed for Discovery

If you make the journey, you’ll grasp a little more about the leadership qualities that sculptor Daniel Chester French embodied in Lincoln’s hands:

One … is clenched, representing his strength and determination to see the war through to a successful conclusion. The other hand is a more open, slightly more relaxed hand representing his compassionate, warm nature.2

You’ll understand why the designers, mirroring that strength and compassion, inscribed Lincoln’s second inaugural address on the north wall:

… With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds … to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.3

“Do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace.”

You’ll notice that the 36 Doric columns that hold up this American re-creation of the Parthenon stand for the 36 states at the time of Lincoln’s assassination on April 14, 1865. Each does its part. Their collective strength makes it possible to bear the weight of the entire edifice.

You’ll realize what our nation’s unifier meant when he spoke the words of the Gettysburg Address, inscribed on the south wall:

It is for us the living … to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought [and] here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is … for us to be … dedicated to the great task remaining before us … that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.4

“The unfinished work.” “The great task remaining before us.” “A new birth of freedom.” Lincoln understood that, like most great epics, the epic that unfolded during his presidency — during the Civil War — began in medias res, in the middle of things. For the Union to emerge from the war between brothers, she would have to summon the old strength that flowed to her from the united Founding generation and make that strength new.

Our “Great Task”

“The great task” Lincoln fought for remains before us as an “unfinished work.” It calls on every American to walk away from the memorial with one hand clenched in determination and one relaxed in compassion and warmth. To leave on the altar the malice that divides us. To pick up the charity that unites our citizens, regardless of race, creed, or color. To recognize that all leaders must shoulder their share of the weight of America’s greatness.

We sojourn to the Lincoln Memorial to understand justice and mercy, strength and compassion, that we might lead the future “with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right.”

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1 “Number of Recreational Visitors to the Lincoln Memorial in the United States from 2008 to 2024,” Statista, August 18, 2025, https://www.statista.com/statistics/254029/number-of-visitors-to-the-lincoln-memorial/.

2 “Lincoln Statue,” National Park Service, last updated March 19, 2021, https://www.nps.gov/linc/learn/historyculture/statue.htm.

3 “Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address,” National Park Service, last updated April 18, 2020, https://www.nps.gov/linc/learn/historyculture/lincoln-second-inaugural.htm.

4 “Gettysburg Address,” National Park Service, last updated January 22, 2025, https://www.nps.gov/linc/learn/historyculture/gettysburgaddress.htm.