III 
110TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. CON. RES. 281 
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 
FEBRUARY 13, 2008 
Received and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary 
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 
Celebrating the birth of Abraham Lincoln and recognizing 
the prominence the Declaration of Independence played 
in the development of Abraham Lincoln’s beliefs. 
Whereas Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United 
States, was born of humble roots on February 12, 1809, 
in Hardin County, Kentucky; 
Whereas Abraham Lincoln rose to political prominence as an 
attorney with a reputation for fairness, honesty, and a 
belief 
that 
all 
men 
are 
created 
equal 
and 
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that they are endowed by their Creator with certain 
unalienable rights; 
Whereas Abraham Lincoln was elected and served with dis-
tinction in 1832 as a captain of an Illinois militia com-
pany during the Black Hawk War; 
Whereas Abraham Lincoln was elected to the Illinois legisla-
ture in 1834 from Sangamon County and was succes-
sively reelected until 1840; 
Whereas Abraham Lincoln revered the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, forming the motivating moral and natural law 
principle for his opposition to the spread of slavery to 
new States entering the Union and to his belief in slav-
ery’s ultimate demise; 
Whereas Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1846 to serve in 
the United States House of Representatives, ably rep-
resenting central Illinois; 
Whereas Abraham Lincoln re-entered political life as a reac-
tion to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 
which he opposed; 
Whereas Abraham Lincoln expounded on his views of natural 
rights during the series of Lincoln-Douglas debates in 
1858 declaring in Charleston, Illinois that natural rights 
were ‘‘. . . enumerated in the Declaration of Independ-
ence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happi-
ness’’ and these views brought Lincoln into national 
prominence; 
Whereas Abraham Lincoln, through a legacy of courage, 
character, and patriotism, was elected to office as the 
16th President of the United States on November 6, 
1860; 
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Whereas Abraham Lincoln believed the Declaration of Inde-
pendence to be the anchor of American republicanism, 
stating on February 22, 1861, during an address in 
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at Independence Hall that, ‘‘I 
have never had a feeling politically that did not spring 
from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Inde-
pendence . . . I have often inquired of myself, what great 
principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so 
long together. It was not the mere matter of separation 
of the Colonies from the motherland; but that sentiment 
in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, 
not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to 
the world, for all future time. It was that which gave 
promise that in due time the weight would be lofted from 
the shoulders of men’’; 
Whereas, upon taking office and being thrust into the throes 
of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln wrote the 
Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in southern 
States that seceded from the Union on January 1, 1863; 
Whereas, on November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln dedicated 
the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania with the Get-
tysburg address, which would later be known as his 
greatest speech, that harkened back to the promises of 
the Declaration of Independence in the first sentence: 
‘‘Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought 
forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Lib-
erty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are 
created equal’’; 
Whereas Abraham Lincoln was reelected to the Presidency on 
November 8, 1864, by 55 percent of the popular vote; 
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