The 29th Annual Abraham Lincoln Institute Symposium
Saturday, March 21, 2026
Book signings will take place in the Ford’s Theatre lobby throughout the day.
Symposium Speaker Panels:
Paths to the Civil War (9:15 – 10:15 a.m.)
The conversation will feature a discussion between Edda Fields-Black of Carnegie Mellon University, the author of a 2025 Pulitzer Prize and Lincoln Prize winning book COMBEE: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War, and Richard Carwardine of Oxford University, the author of a new book Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln’s Union, which also won the 2025 Lincoln Prize from the Lincoln Forum. This panel will be moderated by Steve Inskeep of NPR News.
Lincoln and the Declaration’s Promise of Equality (10:45 – 11:15 a.m.)
This panel will feature Akhil Amar of Yale Law School, author of a new book Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920 in conversation with Lucas Morel of Washington and Lee University, author of Lincoln and the American Founding (2020) and Measuring the Man: The Writings of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln (2025). Professor Amar will also receive our 2026 book prize that day. This conversation will be moderated by Jeff Rosen, Professor of Law at The George Washington University Law School and the CEO Emeritus of the National Constitution Center.
Lincoln and Democracy in the Past, Present, and Future (1:35 – 2:35 p.m.)
The panel will feature Jane Kamensky, Trumbull Professor of American History emerita at Harvard University and President & CEO of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, in conversation with Richard Brookhiser, the author of Founder’s Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln. The conversation will be moderated by Judy Woodruff, the former host of the PBS NewsHour and now the host of a program on America at a Crossroads.
Lincoln, the Declaration, and Civic Life Today (3:25 – 4:25 p.m.)
The fourth and final panel will feature a discussion with David Rubenstein and Walter Isaacson on the subject “Abraham Lincoln, the Declaration of Independence, and the State of Civic Life Today.” Rubenstein is Co-founder and Co-Chairman of the Carlyle Group, CEO and principal owner of the Baltimore Orioles, and chairman of the National Gallery of Art, the Council on Foreign Relations, the University of Chicago and the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. Rubenstein is a long-time supporter of historic endeavors and published Abraham Lincoln: His Life in Print. Isaacson is president and CEO of the Aspen Institute and author of The Greatest Sentence Ever Written.
Musical Guests: Jay Ungar and Molly Mason (4:30 – 4:45 p.m.)
Jay Ungar and Molly Mason are masters of music and storytelling who generously share their lives and their music with audiences. They rose to international prominence when Ungar’s composition “Ashokan Farewell” became the signature theme of Ken Burns’ landmark PBS documentary The Civil War, earning Ungar an Emmy nomination and the soundtrack album a Grammy Award. Now regarded as an American folk classic, “Ashokan Farewell” has been performed and recorded around the world by artists across genres—from Mark O’Connor and Pinchas Zuckerman to James Galway, Charlie Byrd, Jerry Garcia, and Polka King Jimmy Sturr, among many others.
*Symposium Speaker Panels are subject to change.
The 29th Annual Abraham Lincoln Institute Symposium Book Award
Akhil Reed Amar
Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840–1920
Watch Previous Year’s Speeches
Sponsors
Attendees to the Abraham Lincoln Institute Symposium may stay at Riggs hotel for a discounted rate.
This symposium is also made possible by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.