To encourage debate, Minnesota State University, Mankato relocates Abraham Lincoln statue

Minnesota State University, Mankato is hoping a new location for its Abraham Lincoln statue and an allied exhibit will be the place for public discourse surrounding Lincoln’s complicated legacy in Mankato.

Alumni presented the statue to the university in 1926. After standing in a number of campus locations over the years it became a fixture in the Centennial Student Union building in 1978.

Now, it stands on the Memorial Library’s second floor beside a temporary exhibit detailing Lincoln’s connection to events in Mankato following the US Dakota War of 1862. It is open to the public during regular library hours. 

University President Edward Inch said Tuesday afternoon the statue’s previous location wasn’t promoting dialogue about Lincoln’s historic ties to Mankato and didn’t offer educational opportunities for the public to learn more about local history. He said the new location is designed to encourage conversation about difficult and controversial topics.

Mankato is the site of the largest mass execution in U.S. history. On Dec. 26, 1862, the US Government hanged 38 Dakota men following the U.S. Dakota-War. The war started after the U.S. government failed to honor its treaty and withheld food and supplies from the Dakota people. Lincoln signed the death warrants. 

Inch said that the statue’s proximity to the university’s archives, Minnesota History Collection and the Lincoln History Collection was intentional. 

“There are people who don’t know that there was any controversy associated with [Abraham] Lincoln, and there are others that believe Lincoln, best president ever there was,” Inch said.

“He’s a very complicated person with pieces that are to be celebrated and pieces they might regret. All those pieces come together and make them who they are. If we’re going to have debates or arguments about what Lincoln did or did not do, it’s best to do that from an informed position and many people aren’t informed.”

The exhibit includes six temporary panels peer-reviewed by historians and indigenous scholars from universities across the country. The panels were also reviewed by current and former Minnesota State Mankato faculty historians.

There are plans to further develop the exhibit in the future. Current and future students will be mentored in research and contribute their ideas for expanding the display. 

University administrators said removing the statues from campus would not align with the school’s mission to educate history. Timothy Berry, associate vice president for faculty affairs and equity initiatives, said while there is a national movement to remove statues of controversial figures from history from public viewing, this was different. 

“As educators, as an educational institution, for higher learning, it's important to be critical,” Berry said. “This allows us to be even more critical than we used to be. We can only know that if we confront it, not like try to put it in some place and never talk about it, we can only be more critical, because we have it and are open to have that open debate and discourse.”

Planning to move the statue has been underway for more than a year following a school-wide self assessment of its named campus buildings and spaces.

Administrators said they weren’t sure why alumni chose to donate the Lincoln statue back in the 1920s. However some believe it coincided with construction of the Lincoln Memorial construction in Washington D.C. a few years before. 

Chris Corley, interim dean of library and learning, said that the library was the best home for the exhibit. He said it allows visitors access to materials and sources to help flesh out perspectives involving Lincoln’s complicated and controversial ties to the Mankato area, in a space which offers room for critical conversations about the former president. 

“It’s about fostering that critical inquiry, which at its root, asks questions. And then looks for facts and interpretations to help understand different perspectives,” Corley said.

“The past is not going to change, but history and historical interpretations do change and so we’re trying to teach our students here that they can learn more about those interpretations. That’s what we should be teaching here at the university is to teach students how to ask questions, how to find resources, so they can come to their own understanding about the complexities of the past.”