SPRINGFIELD – Noted author and three-time Lincoln Prize winner Allen Guelzo will be the featured speaker at the Abraham Lincoln Association (ALA) Birthday Banquet on Thursday, February 12 at the President Abraham Lincoln Hotel in Springfield.
Three additional renowned Lincoln authors and historians will highlight the free Benjamin P. Thomas Symposium the following day, Friday, February 13, which will feature discussions on An America Worth Saving, the Battle for Emancipation, and Lincoln the Peacemaker.
February 12 banquet speaker Allen Guelzo’s talk is titled “Walking in the Old Paths: Abraham Lincoln and the Inheritance of the Revolution,” a topic that holds special significance as the nation prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday. One of Guelzo’s Lincoln Prize-winning books was Gettysburg: The Last Invasion, published in 2014, which spent eight weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Guelzo’s other books include Redeeming the Great Emancipator (2016); Reconstruction: A Concise History (2018); and Robert E. Lee: A Life (2021), which was named one of the Wall Street Journal’s Top Ten books of 2021. Guelzo’s most recent publications include Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment, which won the Abraham Lincoln Institute Prize for 2024; and The Political Writings of Abraham Lincoln, due in 2026.
Guelzo holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history from the University of Pennsylvania. He taught at Eastern College, at Gettysburg College, and then for a decade at Princeton University. In the Fall of 2025 he became Professor of Humanities in the Hamilton School of Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida.
The February 12 Banquet, held this year to observe the 217th birthday of Abraham Lincoln, will take place at the President Abraham Lincoln Hotel in downtown Springfield. A reception starts at 6 p.m. followed by dinner at 7 p.m. Tickets are $100 each and can be obtained online at www.abrahamlincolnassociation.org, by calling (217) 546-2656 (217-LINCOLN), or by email to KaySmith.ala@gmail.com. The banquet will feature a silent auction of a few select items donated to the ALA in order to be sold for the benefit of its educational programs. Books, artworks, photographs, and other collectibles will be displayed for written bids, and cash or checks can be accepted in payment. Delivery can be arranged for successful bidders.
The banquet is one of many activities scheduled each year to commemorate Lincoln’s birthday. The Abraham Lincoln Association’s annual Benjamin P. Thomas Symposium will be held the following day, on Friday, February 13, beginning at 10 a.m. at the President Abraham Lincoln Hotel in downtown Springfield. The free presentations begin at 10 am with “Lincoln, the Founding, and an America Worth Saving” presented by Lucas E. Morel, the John K. Boardman, Jr., Professor of Politics and head of the Politics Department at Washington and Lee University. His publications include Measuring the Man: The Writings of Frederick Douglass on Abraham Lincoln (2025, with co-author Jonathan White); Lincoln and the American Founding (2020); Lincoln and Liberty: Wisdom for the Ages (2014); and Lincoln’s Sacred Effort (2000). Morel is a founding member of the Academic Freedom Alliance; former president of the Abraham Lincoln Institute; a consultant on exhibits at the National Park Service and Library of Congress, among others; and a trustee of the Supreme Court Historical Society. He is a member of the U.S. commission planning the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration.
The next session, which begins at 10:45 a.m., will feature “Lincoln, Frémont, and the Battle for Emancipation” presented by John Bicknell, who was a journalist for 30 years as a reporter, editor, columnist, and opinion writer in Florida and Washington, D.C. Bicknell was senior editor of the 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 editions of The Almanac of American Politics. His three books are The Pathfinder and the President: John C. Frémont, Abraham Lincoln, and the Battle for Emancipation (2025); Lincoln’s Pathfinder: John C. Frémont and the Violent Election of 1856 (2017); and America 1844: Religious Fervor, Westward Expansion, and the Presidential Election That Transformed the Nation (2014). Bicknell lives in Moweaqua, Illinois.
The Thomas F. Schwartz Symposium Luncheon begins at 11:30 a.m. on February 13 at the President Abraham Lincoln Hotel. The program features a discussion on the latest Lincoln scholarship with Allen Guelzo and internationally renowned Lincoln author and University of Illinois Springfield Professor Michael Burlingame.
The final program, to follow the luncheon, will be presented at 1:30 p.m. and is titled “Lincoln the Peacemaker: How Our Greatest President Thought the Civil War Should End.” The presentation will be made by Michael Vorenberg, Professor of History at Brown University, who is the author of Lincoln’s Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War (2025),which was named by the L.A. Times one of the “10 books we’re looking forward to in 2025.” Vorenberg’s book was featured on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show and has received reviews from the New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press. Vorenberg is also the author of Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment (2004), which was a finalist for the Lincoln Prize and was used as a basis for the screenplay of Stephen Spielberg’s 2012 film Lincoln. He also wrote and compiled a short book The Emancipation Proclamation: A Brief History with Documents (2010).
A roundtable discussion will be held at 2:15 p.m. featuring banquet speaker Allen Guelzo and all three symposium speakers. The speakers will sign their books from 3 to 4 p.m., and books will be available on site.
The Symposium talks and roundtable discussion are free and open to the public. The luncheon is $45 per person and reservations can be made at www.abrahamlincolnassociation.org or by calling (217) 546-2656 (217-LINCOLN). The reservation deadline for the banquet or symposium lunch is Monday February 2nd.
The Symposium is named for Benjamin P. Thomas (1902-1956), the renowned Lincoln biographer and one-time Executive Secretary of The Abraham Lincoln Association. The symposium is supported by a generous gift of Thomas’s daughter, Sarah Thomas, and her family to The Abraham Lincoln Association Endowment Fund. For more information about the Abraham Lincoln Association, please visit www.abrahamlincolnassociation.org.