Henry Horner, a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln, sits at his desk surrounded
by his considerable library of Lincoln-related books and artifacts.

Governor Henry Horner's Admiration for Abraham Lincoln

Daniel Feder
Ogden School, Chicago

Henry Horner, governor of Illinois from 1933 until his death in 1940, was a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln. Horner did many important things as governor, including abolishing property tax, building a vast system of secondary roads, and significantly lowering utility bills for Illinois citizens. But "always some phase of his life will hold interest, his lifelong and devoted study of Abraham Lincoln," concluded Carl Sandburg, Lincoln biographer and poet.

Horner once said that "we honor [Abraham Lincoln] because of the man he was. He had both gentleness and strength. He was wise but in him there was no arrogance. His sympathy extended even unto those to whom a harsh fate made it his duty to oppose .... In his life he gave the world its best example of human nobility."

To that end, Henry Horner collected and assembled most likely the largest collection of memorabilia concerning Lincoln ever privately owned by a single person to that point. Horner's library contained 1,996 books, 3,717 pamphlets, 185 programs from Abraham Lincoln's dinners and meetings, 165 dealers catalogs, 343 addresses presented at Lincoln's funeral, and 410 other significant items. To keep an accurate record of his holdings, Horner created a 13,000-card file of cross-references.

In Horner's speech "The Universality of Lincoln," he said that "no man can know Lincoln too well and no man can know him at all without becoming better for that knowledge." Perhaps this is the reason for the creation of such a large and unique Lincoln Library, which, before his death, he gave to the Illinois State Historical Library.

Henry Horner took an interest in Lincoln that affected everything he did, politically and socially. Horner introduced into government and administration a Lincolnian sense of responsibility, and a Lincolnian standard in honesty, as Senator James Slattery eulogized after Horner's death. Horner seemed to believe that the Lincoln administration was a golden time and that Lincoln's plain, simple, right-to-the-point attitude did and would get things done.

Henry Horner had a driving passion to find out all he could about Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, and he succeeded. The names Abraham Lincoln and Henry Horner, of course, are not synonymous but certainly the former inspired the latter.— [From Thomas B. Littlewood, Horner of Illinois.]

ILLINOIS HISTORY / APRIL 1994

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