Lincoln exhibit coming to the library!

The Toms River branch of the Ocean County Library will host the traveling exhibition “Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War” from May 28th to July 11th, 2014.

Abraham Lincoln was confronted with enormous challenges when he was elected president in 1860. The nation was on the brink of Civil War, and Lincoln struggled with issues of secession, slavery and civil liberties—all questions our country’s founding charter left unanswered. President Lincoln used the Constitution to confront these three intertwined crises of war, ultimately reinventing the Constitution and the promise of American life. This exhibition develops a more complete understanding of Abraham Lincoln as president and the Civil War as the nation’s gravest constitutional crisis.

The opening reception for this exhibit will be held on Thursday, May 29th at 7pm. Dr. Clement A. Price of Rutgers University will explore Lincoln’s struggle to meet the political and constitutional challenges of the Civil War. Dr. Price is on the advisory council for the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

This program is free and open to the public. The National Constitution Center and the American Library Association Public Programs Office organized the traveling exhibition, which was made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH): great ideas brought to life. The traveling exhibition is based on an exhibition of the same name developed by the National Constitution Center.

The Toms River branch of the Ocean County Library is located at 101 Washington Street. For more information on the exhibit and other programs related to this exhibit, call 732-349-6200 or visit www.theoceancountylibrary.org.