Knox to Host Reading of Lincoln Farewell Address

Knox College is participating in what aims to be a world-record event at 11 a.m. on Friday, February 11 with simultaneous readings, at Knox and numerous other sites, of Abraham Lincoln's 1861 "Farewell Address" in Springfield, Illinois.

The readings coincide with the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's remarks on February 11, 1861, at the train station in Springfield, as the president-elect departed for his inauguration on March 4 in Washington, D.C.

The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, and the State-Journal Register newspaper in Springfield are coordinating the events, hoping to set a record for the greatest number of simultaneous readings from a single text.

Reading Set for Historic Lincoln Site
Knox is inviting the public to join students and faculty in a reading at Old Main, a National Historic Landmark and the only original building from the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. The audience at Knox in 1858 is believed to have been the largest in the series of debates that propelled Lincoln to national prominence, culminating in his election as president in 1860.

"Everyone from Knox and the community is invited to take part," said Catherine Denial, assistant professor of history at Knox, who is coordinating the event. "No matter what the weather, we'll begin reading the address at 11 a.m. on the east side of Old Main, and we'll read continuously for at least five minutes, which is the threshold set for a Guinness World Record."

Photos: Top of page and bottom, title page and cover from Seymour Library's copy of Hannibal Hamlin's biography of Lincoln, prepared for the 1860 presidential campaign; right, one of many paintings made after the fact, of the Lincoln-Douglas Debate at Knox; below right, Library of Congress manuscript of Lincoln's Farewell address.

Persons who would like to participate in the reading should register with Denial in advance, by sending an e-mail message to . Readers are asked to come to Old Main by 10:45 a.m.

"People can read the address individually or in groups, or just come and witness the event," Denial said. Attendance and other information from participating sites will be relayed to the State Journal-Register, which will submit the totals to Guinness World Records. Guinness's rules require independent witnesses at each reading -- at Knox, retired circuit judge Harry Bulkeley and the Rev. David Parker of First Presbyterian Church will serve as witnesses.

Correcting the Record: What Lincoln Really Said, Wrote
The public reading at Knox also offers a valuable history lesson on Lincoln as a speaker and as a writer, according to Douglas Wilson, co-director of the renowned Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College.

In his award-winning book, "Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words," Wilson is the first Lincoln researcher to discover that the "official" text of the Farewell Address is not what Lincoln said to the crowd of well-wishers in Springfield, but something he wrote out for reporters afterwards.

"We don't know precisely what Lincoln said at the train station, because the accounts taken down by different reporters don't agree," Wilson said. "What is currently used is the text of a manuscript Lincoln and his secretary John Nicolay wrote out afterwards on the train."

"By comparing this text with the several versions reported, you can get a good sense of how artfully Lincoln refined and adapted the message he had delivered to a live and friendly audience of listeners, to the needs of a national audience of absent and anonymous readers," Wilson said.

In another discovery, reported for the first time in "Lincoln's Sword," Wilson shows that the current text, in which Lincoln says of Springfield, "Here I have lived a quarter of a century..." is mistaken in its transcription of Lincoln's handwriting.

"The lurching of the train made for bad writing conditions, and this in turn has led to a mis-reading of what Lincoln wrote," Wilson said. Wilson's book includes photographic enlargements of the manuscript, which show that Lincoln wrote "been" rather than "lived," so that the sentence should read, "Here I have been a quarter of a century..."

Published in 2006, "Lincoln's Sword" won the prestigious Abraham Lincoln Prize, as did Wilson's earlier book on Lincoln, "Honor's Voice." Wilson and Rodney Davis, co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center, edited the acclaimed reference book on Lincoln, "Herndon's Informants," as well as the first scholarly edition of the texts of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates.

Founded in 1837, Knox is a national liberal arts college in Galesburg, Illinois, with students from 45 states and 48 countries. Knox's "Old Main" is a National Historic Landmark and the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.