Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky but spent most of his youth in southern Indiana. His family moved to Illinois in 1830, when the Great Emancipator-to-be was 21 years old. They lived in a small town called New Salem. There he worked as postmaster, volunteered in the Black Hawk War and got started in politics. Lincoln moved to Springfield in 1837, though his law practice and political work took him all over the state. It was in Chicago, in 1860, that the upstart Republican Party nominated him for the presidency. The rest, as they say, is history.
This brief Lincoln travelogue is presented for the benefit of Congressman Ray LaHood, the Republican of Peoria. One of Illinois’ more thoughtful and productive lawmakers, LaHood inexplicably is leading a campaign to stop the new veterans’ cemetery at the site of the old Joliet Arsenal from being called the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery.
Why?
Because LaHood, whose district includes parts of Springfield, thinks the public will believe that Lincoln is buried outside Joliet instead of at Oak Ridge Cemetery in the state capital. He talks about the “investment” Springfield has made in Lincoln-related tourism and declares that “Springfield is Abraham Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln is Springfield.”
Two months ago, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Togo West Jr. overruled LaHood and, acceding to the wishes of Illinois veterans’ groups, ordered the cemetery named after Lincoln. So LaHood pulled a fast one, inserting into unrelated legislation a new protocol to be followed in the naming of cemeteries. The measure, now before the Senate, was back-dated to Jan. 1 so as to invalidate Secretary West’s order.
This silliness has gone far enough. When it opens next Memorial Day, the 982-acre facility in Will County will be among the largest and finest veterans’ cemeteries in America. It also will be, like Gettysburg and Arlington, hallowed ground . . . no place for political backbiting born of local boosterism.
Springfield always will be known as Lincoln’s home and final resting place. But Rep. LaHood must understand that in the prophetic words spoken over his deathbed, Abraham Lincoln “belongs to the ages.”
