The Lincoln memorial in the Western part of the National Mall is a Grand monument perpetuating the memory of the sixteenth President of the United States.

One of the major American memorials dedicated to the man who preserved the unity of the country, destroyed slavery, and who died at his post. Lincoln grew up in a poor family, became a self-taught lawyer. Having elected to Congress, he fought against slavery, sought to modernize the economy, opposed the Mexican-American war. In 1860 votes mostly industrial Northern States, where slavery was not, Lincoln was elected President.

The southern States it is brought into a state of shock: their agrarian economy was based on slave labor, there feared that the northerners are Yankees will free all blacks. South Carolina decided to secede from the Union States. It was followed by others, 11 seceded States formed their own Confederation and declared that their territory slavery would exist forever.

The President tried to avoid the collision, but it was inevitable. April 12, 1861 the South was bombarded and captured Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A war in which the North initially failed, lasted four years and ended in the defeat of the South. Slavery was prohibited 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the country received a powerful impulse for development. But the leader of the nation paid for this terrible price of victory: April 15, 1865, actor, supporter of the Confederate John Wilkes Booth shot the President at Ford's theatre in Washington.

The idea of the memorial was born in the early XX century, the first stone was laid in 1914, opened in 1922. The project of the monument, the Cathedral was designed by architect Henry bacon, the sculpture of a seated Abraham Lincoln was sculpted by Daniel Chester French. At first the statue was planning a three-meter, but it has not matched the scale of the building. The result was a huge figure height 5, 8 m high and weighs 175 tons. The legend says that the fingers of Lincoln in sign language show the initials of the President – "A" and "L".

The building is in the form of a classical Greek temple with thirty-six Doric columns – the number of States at the time of Lincoln's death. The memorial looks in the mirror surface of a huge Reflecting pool. From the water lead to the entrance of the ceremony stage. Inside rooms are separated by fifteen rows of ionic columns, the walls are carved the main fragments of the speeches of Lincoln. The frescoes painted by the painter Jules Gerin symbolically represent the principles of life of the great President: freedom, justice, unity, mercy.

The memorial holds a special place in the national Pantheon of Americans. At the foot of the monument to the President who destroyed slavery in 1963 he delivered his famous speech "I have a dream" Martin Luther king. 300 thousand people listened to his passionate appeal to racial reconciliation. This event is reminiscent of the inscription carved on the steps. Like Lincoln, king paid for his beliefs with life – he died from an assassin's bullet.

Annually to the memorial come about six million people. You can visit it for free at any time of the day.