Abraham Lincoln was the greatest of our presidents. He saved the Union, which made it possible for him to free the slaves. But he did more than this; without him we probably would have had no reason to celebrate the bicentennial first of the Declaration of Independence and then of the Constitution. It is therefore altogether fitting that we mark the bicentennial of his birth.

Walter Berns is a resident scholar at AEI and a professor emeritus at Georgetown University. Mr. Berns studies political philosophy, constitutional law, and legal issues. He has taught at the University of Toronto, the University of Chicago, Cornell University, and Yale University. His government service includes membership on the National Council on the Humanities, the Council of Scholars in the Library of Congress, the Judicial Fellows Commission, and in 1983 he was the alternate United States representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. He has been a Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Fulbright Fellow. He is the author of many books and articles on American government and politics, including Democracy and the Constitution (AEI Press, 2006) and Making Patriots (University of Chicago Press, 2001).