Lincoln Memorial: 100 Years after Dedication

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial. It is altogether fitting and proper, as Abraham Lincoln would say, that we mark this date on Memorial Day. The holiday is itself a legacy of the Civil War. Local commemorations began in 1866, and in 1868, the head of the Grand Army of the Republic (the organization of Union Army veterans) declared that May 30 be Decoration Day, a day to decorate the graves of the war dead with springtime flowers.

The Lincoln Memorial’s dedication was a grand occasion drawing a crowd of 50,000 people. The dais was dominated by the leaders of Lincoln’s own party, which was newly ascendant in the 1920s. President Warren G. Harding, inaugurated the previous year after a landslide election victory, was the featured speaker, and two future Republican presidents were in attendance as well (Vice President Calvin Coolidge and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover), plus one former president (Chief Justice William Howard Taft) and the 1916 Republican presidential nominee (Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes).

About the Author

Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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Today marks the 100th anniversary of the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial. It is altogether fitting and proper, as Abraham Lincoln would say, that we mark this date on Memorial Day. The holiday is itself a legacy of the Civil War. Local commemorations began in 1866, and in 1868, the head of the Grand Army of the Republic (the organization of Union Army veterans) declared that May 30 be Decoration Day, a day to decorate the graves of the war dead with springtime flowers.

The Lincoln Memorial’s dedication was a grand occasion drawing a crowd of 50,000 people. The dais was dominated by the leaders of Lincoln’s own party, which was newly ascendant in the 1920s. President Warren G. Harding, inaugurated the previous year after a landslide election victory, was the featured speaker, and two future Republican presidents were in attendance as well (Vice President Calvin Coolidge and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover), plus one former president (Chief Justice William Howard Taft) and the 1916 Republican presidential nominee (Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes).