Jon Kyl, February 18, 2008

Many constituents, especially students for school projects, ask me which President I admire most. I answer, Abraham Lincoln.

I am not alone in admiring our 16th president. Indeed, he is often the standard to which aspiring leaders are compared. "We need another Lincoln," is a frequent refrain during the presidential race. This phrase can be uttered with sincerity by individuals of vastly different political views, and that testifies to the place that Lincoln occupies in our culture today.

February marked Lincoln’s 199th birthday, so it is a good time to reflect on the role that Lincoln still plays in our country -- and a recent book does just that. In Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe’s America, Andrew Ferguson, a senior editor for the Weekly Standard, travels to Lincoln sites around the country, from his hallowed birthplace, to private homes bulging with priceless Lincoln artifacts, to a convention of Lincoln re-enactors. In the process, he finds a nation in which Lincoln has not only been revered, but many places where his name has been put to use for a number of different causes and whose story has been shaped to suit the mood of the time.

One leg of Ferguson’s trip takes him to the $150 million Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, the exhibits of which were created by the brains behind notable theme parks. The museum is meant to appeal to young people and their families; as Ferguson writes, "The museum had to be fun." As a result, the museum places far more emphasis on Lincoln’s personal life and family than it does on, for instance, his role in the Civil War. ("The Civil War was sort of a guys’ time, you know?" the exhibit’s creator told Ferguson, justifying the war’s treatment on the grounds that it may not appeal to some museum visitors.)

From the fun, human Lincoln, it’s on to business, to "Lincoln as business guru...a management consultant imported from the nineteenth century." While Lincoln’s contemporaries panned his business sense, Ferguson notes today, an industry has grown up around making Lincoln relevant to those who want to be successful and make money. Ferguson quotes from a Lincoln management seminar he witnessed: "It’s 1860. Lincoln [is] about to take office. There’s been a revolution in the company, the United States....In 1776 we had two million employees. By 1860 we’re talking 31.1 million." Soon, the seminar’s participants are drawing parallels between their company and the fracturing nation.

Lincoln has also been used as a marketing tool. As a boy, Ferguson remembered traveling the Lincoln Heritage Trail, a 960-mile road trip through Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana. The signs for the trail have now disappeared, leading Ferguson to recall the time of his childhood "when Americans really cared enough about Lincoln to mark his memory by retracing his steps" -- that is, until he called the creator of the trail. The trail’s inventor told him, "the whole thing was cooked up by the marketing guys at the American Petroleum Institute....They wanted to get people traveling....Get’em into their cars, get’em buying gasoline." What harkened to a simpler time 40 years ago for Ferguson was actually just a marketing ploy.

"Put Lincoln’s name on it, and you can sell anything," Ferguson was told along his trip. That sentiment doesn’t suggest that we hold our nation’s heroes in high regard.

Indeed, Ferguson’s book provides an insightful look at how we treat America’s heroes today. "We’re too wised-up to fall for historical or national icons," he laments. In place of icons and heroes, we have Lincoln the family man, Lincoln the businessman, and Lincoln the advertiser.

Despite all of this, Lincoln has maintained his hold on the American people. His legacy has retained the important meaning it has for our nation, and it’s critical we never lose sight of that.

Senator Jon Kyl, a Republican, represents Arizona in the U.S. Senate. He serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Finance Committee, and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.