Few people have left as big a mark on a state — and a nation — as Abraham Lincoln did. From the humblest of beginnings, the largely self-taught lawyer was at the nexus of all that was political in his time. To mark the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth, The State Journal-Register, presents a book that shows the past and present links between the president and the state he loved. 

The pages of this book retrace Lincoln’s footsteps through Illinois, relive his experiences in New Salem as his interest in law is born and recapture his years in Springfield as he grows into a man of legal and political stature. The book follows Lincoln through the seven great debates in 1858 with Stephen A. Douglas as the two campaigned for the U.S. Senate and documents his sad departure from the city he came to call his own as he heads for Washington, D.C. The final chapters reveal a community’s grief with the return of Lincoln’s body and its jubilation with the construction of a world-class museum to forever honor America’s 16th president. 

Lincoln left a rich legacy for all Americans to enjoy. This book seeks to capture the world he worked and lived in.