Lincoln the Mystic is a bronze statue by James Earle Fraser, who also sculpted the Buffalo Nickle for the U.S. Mint. It is located at Lincoln Park in Jersey City, near the beginning of the Lincoln Highway. Frasier’s intellectual property was donated to Syracuse University and in 1972 the school used the sand mold for the statue to cast a duplicate, which is sited in front of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. According to the university, the art critic Lorado Taft described the statue as showing Lincoln “in his younger days of poetic vision, of promise rather than fulfillment.” In this seated Lincoln, he is sitting on a boulder.
The Lincoln Association of Jersey City commissioned Fraser to design and build the memorial, which cost $75,000, raised by popular subscription. The unveiling, held on Flag Day, June 14th, 1930, was attended by the governor of New Jersey, members of the Lincoln society, local politicians, a small delegation of Civil War veterans and an audience of 4,000. The Lincoln Association, still active, lays a wreath at the base of the monument every February 12, Lincoln’s birthday.
The short wall above the bench behind the sculpture bears the inscription:
WITH MALICE TOWARD NONE AND CHARITY FOR ALL.
On one side of wall:
THAT GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE
BY THE PEOPLE FOR THE PEOPLE
SHALL NOT PERISH FROM THE EARTH.
On other side of wall:
LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT
AND IN THAT FAITH LET US TO THE END
DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.
