 If you grow up in Illinois sharing a birthday with our state’s martyred saint,
expect to be thoroughly indoctrinated in Lincoln lore.
When I was a kid, I read every Lincoln biography in the school library, had a
picture of Honest Abe tacked to my bedroom bulletin board and could rattle off
Lincoln trivia the way other boys can recite baseball statistics.
When I was 8, I wanted to go to Gettysburg — not Disney World.
Other states have nicknamed themselves after their crops, their heritages or
natural attributes.
Illinois, on the other hand, is the only one that identifies itself with a
person — thanks to state Sen. Fred Hart of Streator who in 1955 sponsored
legislation designating the state as the “Land of Lincoln.”
Here in Springfield, Lincoln has been all but deified — Preserver of the Union,
The Rail splitter, the Great Emancipator.
In many ways, Lincoln is the glue that holds together the state’s identity.
Ask a Texan where she’s from and she’ll say “Texas.”
Ask the same question of an Illinoisan and you more than likely will hear:
“Chicago,” “the suburbs” or “downstate.”
Illinois has long been a divided state with a political heritage that would make
Rod Blagojevich blush.
And culturally the divide is even greater.
Folks in the northeastern part of the state live like they are in New York City
and think down in southern Illinois it’s rural Alabama.
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 Years ago, I worked out of state with a woman from Skokie.
When she learned I was from Illinois, she wanted to know if I was
from the city or the suburbs.
When I told her I grew up on a hog farm near Galesburg, she gave me
a blank perplexed look,
It wasn’t part of her conception of Illinois.
But Lincoln has become the touchstone that joins the state. His life
reflects the contradictions of Illinois.
His most famous act — the Emancipation Proclamation — was the
classic Illinois political move.
It freed slaves only in areas controlled by the Confederacy — but
not in areas under Union control.
It looked high-minded and statesman like. But the proclamation’s
immediate value was as a ploy to keep the England and France from
supporting the Confederacy.
Secretary of State William Seward said, at the time, “We show our
sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach
them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free.”
An Illinois politician motivated by appearances rather than
idealism?
Maybe what we are seeing today in Springfield shouldn’t be so
surprising.
After all, “Honest Abe” cut his political teeth as an Illinois
legislator.
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