How the monument was built, and how one obstructionist legislator tried to stop it

National Archives

In the years following his death, Lincoln became more than an ex-president. He grew into a myth -- a national deity who had saved the country from implosion. In a very short time, he joined the ranks of Washington, Jefferson, and the other heroes who built the United States from the ground up. It was only fitting that this new member of the national pantheon be memorialized in a marble temple all his own.

Where was the perfect location for such temple? Turns out, it was a swamp. Since the early days of Washington, the Potomac had narrowed greatly due to agricultural sediment. (A map of early D.C. will make you do a double take -- the site of the Washington Monument is now a mile further from the banks than it originally was.) To some, this new land seemed the perfect platform for expanding the capital's grandeur and honoring Lincoln. But others scoffed at the idea.

Congressman Joe Cannon, a notorious pocket-pinching conservative, didn't want it. He held no ill-will toward the late president -- after all, he, too, was a Republican from Illinois. Rather, he felt a Greek temple on the city's undeveloped banks was ostentatious and, from a municipal angle, a waste of resources. According to a 2008 Washington Post feature, he even vowed, "So long as I live, I'll never let a memorial to Abraham Lincoln be erected in that goddammed swamp."