2015
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION 15-024
       
       
       BY SENATOR(S) Holbert and Heath, Aguilar, Balmer, Baumgardner, Carroll,
       Cooke, Crowder, Donovan, Garcia, Grantham, Guzman, Hill, Hodge, Jahn,
       Johnston, Jones, Kefalas, Kerr, Lambert, Lundberg, Marble, Martinez Humenik,
       Merrifield, Neville T., Newell, Roberts, Scheffel, Scott, Sonnenberg, Steadman,
       Todd, Ulibarri, Woods, Cadman;
       also REPRESENTATIVE(S) Ransom and Rosenthal, Arndt, Becker J., Becker
       K., Brown, Buck, Carver, Conti, Coram, Court, Danielson, DelGrosso, Duran,
       Esgar, Everett, Fields, Foote, Garnett, Ginal, Hamner, Humphrey, Joshi, Kagan,
       Keyser, Klingenschmitt, Kraft-Tharp, Landgraf, Lawrence, Lebsock, Lee,
       Lontine, Lundeen, McCann, Melton, Mitsch Bush, Moreno, Navarro, Neville
       P., Nordberg, Pabon, Pettersen, Primavera, Priola, Rankin, Roupe, Ryden,
       Saine, Salazar, Sias, Singer, Tate, Thurlow, Tyler, Van Winkle, Vigil, Willett,
       Williams, Wilson, Windholz, Winter, Young, Hullinghorst.
       
       
          COMMEMORATING THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE
       DEATH OF PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
       
       
          WHEREAS, Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in
       Kentucky and eventually moved with his family to Indiana and Illinois;
       and
       
          WHEREAS, Though Abraham Lincoln only received about a year of
       formal education, he made extraordinary efforts to obtain knowledge
       throughout his life and eventually became a lawyer; and
       
          WHEREAS, Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1834 to his first of four
       terms in the Illinois state legislature and in 1846 to one term in the United
       States House of Representatives; and
       
          WHEREAS, In 1861, Abraham Lincoln began his first term as the
       first Republican and 16th President of the United States, and on April 12
       of that year, the Civil War began; and
       
          WHEREAS, That same year, Colorado became a territory of the
       United States and sent the highest percentage of its population compared
       to other states to fight in the war; and
       
          WHEREAS, President Lincoln bravely led the nation through its
       greatest conflict, the Civil War; and
       
          WHEREAS, As the nation approached the third year of the war,
       President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1,
       1863, which declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the
       rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free"; and
       
          WHEREAS, On April 3, 1865, President Lincoln entered Richmond,
       Virginia, which he found was relatively free from the war, and he was
       heralded as "Father Abraham" by freed men and women; and
       
          WHEREAS, On April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee
       surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at the Wilmer McLean
       home near the Appomattox Court House in Appomattox, Virginia; and
       
          WHEREAS, Only a few days later, on April 14, President Lincoln
       went with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, to see the play "Our American
       Cousin" at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C.; and
       
          WHEREAS, John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer, learned
       that President Lincoln would be attending the play and hatched a plan to
       assassinate President Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and
       Secretary of State William H. Seward; and
       
          WHEREAS, On the evening of April 14, a conspirator of John Wilkes
       Booth broke into Secretary Seward's home and seriously wounded him,
       while another conspirator who was to attack Vice President Johnson lost
       his nerve; and
       
          WHEREAS, Just after 10 p.m., John Wilkes Booth entered President
       Lincoln's private theater box and shot the president in the head with a
       single bullet; and 
       
          WHEREAS, The mortally wounded president was taken across the
       street to a first-floor bedroom in William Petersen's boarding house,
       known today as the Petersen House; and
       
          WHEREAS, At 7:22 a.m., on April 15, 1865, President Abraham
       Lincoln, 56 years old, died; and
       
          WHEREAS, Upon his death, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton
       remarked, "Now he belongs to the ages."; and
       
          WHEREAS, His death was a blow and a shock to the nation, who had
       only just begun to feel relief at the end of the Civil War; and
       
          WHEREAS, The Lincoln Memorial, in Washington, D.C., was
       completed in 1922 and built with materials from across the country,
       including Yule Marble from Colorado, to show how a nation torn apart
       by war can come together; now, therefore,
       
          Be It Resolved by the Senate of the Seventieth General Assembly of the
       State of Colorado, the House of Representatives concurring herein:
       
          That the General Assembly pauses on April 15, 2015, to acknowledge
       the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's death, pays its
       respects to a man from the West who led the nation through its greatest
       conflict, and recognizes that his life, legacy, and impression are inherent
       in the capitol complex design, with Lincoln Street to our West, Grant
       Street to our East, and Sherman Street intersecting the complex.
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
          Be It Further Resolved, That copies of this Joint Resolution be sent to
       President Barack Obama, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and
       Museum in Springfield, Illinois, the Petersen House in Washington, D.C.,
       and each member of Colorado's congressional delegation.
       
       
       
       
       
       ____________________________  ____________________________
       Bill L. Cadman               Dickey Lee Hullinghorst
       PRESIDENT OF                    SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE
       THE SENATE                        OF REPRESENTATIVES
       
       
       
       
       
       
       ____________________________  ____________________________
       Cindi L. Markwell                     Marilyn Eddins
       SECRETARY OF                CHIEF CLERK OF THE HOUSE
       THE SENATE                        OF REPRESENTATIVES