{"id":6274,"date":"2020-11-06T02:00:33","date_gmt":"2020-11-06T07:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dotcw.com\/?p=871"},"modified":"2020-10-06T19:13:14","modified_gmt":"2020-10-07T00:13:14","slug":"lincoln-column","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/lincoln-column\/","title":{"rendered":"Lincoln Column"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The ‘Lincoln column,’ first monolith raised, Nov. 1860, Presidential election, being S. column of connecting corridor<\/em> says the caption of this image in Benjamin Brown French’s album of photographs related to the construction of the capitol and other public buildings. French was the Public Commissioner of Buildings in Washington, D.C. under Franklin Pierce but was fired in the next administration for his anti-slavery views and was reinstated to the position by Abraham Lincoln.<\/p>\n

French’s designation of this column as the “Lincoln Column” may simply derive from the date marked on the stone on the right side of the photo, Nov. 6. 1860, election day 1860, when America selected Abraham Lincoln as its next president.\u00a0 Searching online for the phrase “Lincoln column,”\u00a0 I find no references to anything other than the various copies of the photo from French’s album.\u00a0 There are no stories available of any sort of dedication or other kinds of ceremony that might honor this supposedly special column.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

A cached version of a November 6, 2010 New York Times article does show a subsequent image obtained from the library of Congress of the column being lifted into place.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Click on image for larger version<\/h5>\n

Ironically, even if the column was somehow designated as the “Lincoln Column,” all of the 1860s columns were taken down and placed in storage during a 1950s enlargement and renovation of the capitol building.\u00a0 No effort was made to track the columns and ensure they were returned to their original location.<\/p>\n

So, if there was a Lincoln Column, which specific hunk of stone it is is now unknown.<\/p>\n

Original Library of Congress image file<\/span><\/a>\u00a0of the “Lincoln Column.”<\/p>\n

\n

The “Lincoln column,” first monolith raised, Nov. 1860, Presidential election, being S. column of connecting corridorThe “Lincoln column,” first monolith raised, Nov. 1860, Presidential election, being S. column of connecting corridor<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ‘Lincoln column,’ first monolith raised, Nov. 1860, Presidential election, being S. column of connecting corridor says the caption of this image in Benjamin Brown French’s album of photographs related to the construction of the capitol and other public buildings. French was the Public Commissioner of Buildings in Washington, D.C. under Franklin Pierce but was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[34],"class_list":{"0":"post-6274","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-misc","7":"tag-library-of-congress"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}