Road to the WSOP, Part 4: Land of Lincoln

Tuesday morning came on bright and sunny, with barely a cloud in sight. Even the ground wasn’t as wet as we expected – it was almost as though the storm had simply been a bad dream. Drying off the tent required a little extra time, but still we packed up efficiently and were on the road.

Not that we had far to go. The plan was to spend the day and night in nearby Springfield, checking another state capitol off of Emily’s list and visiting some of the Lincoln sites around town.

Our first stop was the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, which, unlike the more recent presidential libraries in whose curation the presidents themselves are involved, is largely a tourist attraction geared towards children. This became abundantly clear when we learned that the orientation video was in one of those 4-D theaters where the seats shake and whatnot. Somehow the whole room shrieked at the loud gunshot when Lincoln was assassinated, even though it was abundantly obvious that some sort of dramatic effect was going to accompany that.

There were only two things about the place that I found truly interesting. The first was a museum employee in period costume who made a long-winded case for why Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in the way that he did, which is to say freeing only those slaves in the south where his authority wasn’t recognized. According to this argument, Lincoln had the authority to take this action because the slaves were property being used in armed conflict against the United States and consequently were subsequent to seizure. Had he tried to free slaves via Executive Order in any of the border states which were still part of the Union, such action could easily have been ruled unconstitutional.

More interestingly, freeing southern slaves in this way would create a conundrum for a post-war Congress. Technically the slaves would have to be returned to their owners after the war was over, since they were legally seized only for the duration of the conflict. Of course this would prove logistically impossible, so it essentially forced Congress’ hand in passing the 13th Amendment.

I don’t know enough to evaluate the merits of this argument, but it’s the best explanation I’ve heard for why the Emancipation Proclamation was written the way it was.

The other was an exhibit that, in stark contrast to the rest of the museum, featured little in the way of bells and whistles. It was a silent, four-minute video displaying a map of the United States of America. Each second represented one day in the Civil War. The map showed the territory controlled by both the Union and the Confederacy and the way it changed over the course of the war. A small explosion marked the site of each battle at the time that it took place, which illustrated the significance of each in a way I’d never appreciated before. Throughout, a number on the bottom right of the screen kept a running count of the number of dead on both sides, a number that quickly rose into the hundreds of thousands.

All of the attractions closed at five, so the statehouse would have to wait for tomorrow. We had a lot of time back at the hotel, which, though we were only there for one night, was one of those extended stay hotels where you get a full kitchen.

The alternating between camping and hotels has really worked out nicely for us, because it enables us to get the best of both worlds. Knowing that you’ll be in a hotel the next night minimizes a lot of the hassles of camping, and the camping is virtually free compared to the cost of the hotels, so it cuts our costs by something like 70% relative to staying in hotels exclusively.

On this particular evening, we really took full advantage of the room. Our wet camping gear was hung around the room drying, dishes were in the dishwasher, our ice packs were in the freezer so they’d be ready for our cooler, food for the next night of camping was prepped in advance, and I was plowing through a backlog of emails and updating this very blog!