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Constitution Day to feature Lincoln presentation

By Becca Heistad '09
August 25, 2009

Judge Frank J. Williams, who has authored and co-authored numerous books about the sixteenth president, has amassed one of the nation's largest private Lincoln archives.

On Sept. 17 of each year St. Olaf College commemorates the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. This year’s Constitution Day will be tied with the ongoing Abraham Lincoln bicentennial when Frank J. Williams, former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island and a member of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, will present a public lecture on “Lincoln and the Constitution." The program will begin Thursday, Sept. 17, at 7 p.m. in Regents Hall, room 150. The event will be streamed live and archived online.

In addition to a long career in public service — from decorated U.S. Army Vietnam veteran to Rhode Island state government to chief judge of the Court of Military Commission — Williams is one of the most renowned scholars on the life and times of Lincoln. Over the past 30 years he has served as founding chairman of the Lincoln Forum (a national assembly of Lincoln and Civil War devotees), and as president of both the Abraham Lincoln Association and the Lincoln Group of Boston. Williams is also literary editor of the Lincoln Herald, where he contributes a quarterly survey of “Lincolniana” about objects, books, letters, speeches, etc. relating to Lincoln.

Williams, a faculty member at Roger Williams University School of Law and the U.S. Naval War College, has written extensively on Lincoln and has lectured on the subject throughout the country. He is the author of Judging Lincoln and coauthor of The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views and Lincoln Lessons: Reflections on America’s Greatest Leader, among other works. Additionally, he has amassed an unsurpassed private library and archive that ranks among the nation's largest and finest Lincoln collections, and is currently at work on an annotated bibliography of Lincoln titles published since 1865.

Williams will sign books immediately after the lecture. Select titles will be available at a discount from the St. Olaf Bookstore prior to and at the lecture.

 

Contact David Gonnerman at 507-786-3315 or gonnermd@stolaf.edu.