There are countless statues, busts, and memorials to America’s 16th President, throughout the United States, and internationally.

Gettysburg boasts six Lincoln monuments to public view in the town: In Lincoln Square by the David Wills house, the Gettysburg Address monument by the library near the intersection of Baltimore and High Streets, the Lincoln Speech Memorial in the National Cemetery, the benched Lincoln statue near the entrance to the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum and Visitor Center, the portrait statue of Lincoln on the Pennsylvania State Memorial on Cemetery Ridge, and a pensive Lincoln as the Great Emancipator at Stevens Hall, Gettysburg College.

While there are too many to mention throughout the nation, some of the more famous Lincoln monuments include the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the face of Lincoln featured at Mount Rushmore, and the grandiose pink granite Lincoln bust located at the highest point of the coast-to-coast Lincoln Highway (Interstate 80), located between Laramie and Cheyenne, Wyoming.1

During his lifetime, Abraham Lincoln was a vocal proponent of freedom – and his hopes for liberty did not end at the borders of the United States. The first international monument that featured an imposing portrait bronze statue of the 16th President was dedicated on August 21, 1893 in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The statue is located at the base of Calton Hill, a famous city landmark, in the walled and gated Old Calton Burial Ground, found at the end of the city’s Royal Mile.

The Scots have always been avid supporters of freedom, and like their many neighbors in Ireland, emigrated to North America during the difficult periods of religious persecution, wars, and famine during the decades after the English Civil War, and before the American Civil War. The monument at the old burial ground was created to commemorate the Scottish soldiers who fought in the American Civil War. Since Abraham Lincoln was, and remains, the quintessential personification of the protector of freedom, it was natural that he would be the main draw to the monument.

The enormous portrait statue of Father Abraham rests on an equally sizable pink granite base. Beneath the President’s personage in bronze, the word “Emancipation” is sculpted. At the bottom of the granite base are the words “In memory of the Scottish-American Soldiers, to preserve the jewel of liberty in the framework”.2

Astride the granite base is another bronze monument depicting a freed slave, who kneels upon two banners topped with a wreath. The newly emancipated man reaches toward the slain President in obvious gratitude.

The Scottish-American monument claims to be the only monument to the American Civil War that exists outside the United States. One of the men to be honored on the memorial is Colonel Clinton MacDougall (1839-1914), born in Glasgow, Scotland, who emigrated to New York with his parents as a child; he commanded the 111th New York at the Battle of Gettysburg. He was wounded while defending the Union position on Cemetery Ridge on July 3, 1863 against Pickett’s Charge.3

While Edinburgh was the first city outside of the United States to memorialize Lincoln, others have followed suit, most erecting monuments to Lincoln in the 20th century. Not to be outdone by their Scottish counterparts, England boasts two memorials to Lincoln. One of them stands near the Houses of Parliament in London, and a second is found in the city of Manchester to the north.

Mexico has dedicated no less than three monuments to Lincoln: in Mexico City, Juarez, and the border town of Tijuana.

There is a monument to Lincoln in Canada, on their side of the border in Niagara Falls.

A bust of Abraham Lincoln is located in Vigeland Park in Oslo, Norway. And, surprisingly, there is a memorial to Lincoln in Moscow, Russia. The full portrait statue depicts two men standing side by side: Lincoln appears to shake hands with Tsar Alexander II, who ruled Russia at the same time as the Civil War raged in the United States. The memorial was dedicated in 2011 to mark the sesquicentennial commemoration of the end of serfdom in Russia by the tsar. It is among the newest memorials to be dedicated featuring Abraham Lincoln.4

It was the Russian author and human rights advocate Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, who gave the highest, and most sincere, praise to the man whom he considered America’s greatest statesman.

In 1909, with the centennial of Lincoln’s birth approaching, Theodore Roosevelt, as the current President of the United States, had months earlier sent invitations for acclaimed statesmen, authors, and poets to offer words of commemoration for the event. Tolstoy was among them, but the aged and ailing author, who would die the following year, was too weak to write. He agreed to an interview instead. He said, “Washington was American, Napoleon was for France, but Lincoln was a humanitarian. He was bigger than his office, bigger than all the Presidents together….The glory of Washington, Caesar, or Napoleon are but moons compared to the sun of Lincoln. His appeal is universal and will last thousands of years.”5

It was praise indeed for one who had not only never met Lincoln, but lived on the other side of the world.

Lincoln’s appeal remains truly universal, as Tolstoy predicted. His quest for liberty for all began in his determination to eradicate slavery from the nation that promised human rights for all its citizens. The quest continues, and America still has a long road ahead. 

We can be grateful that we can claim Abraham Lincoln as one of our nation’s greatest gifts to the world – a world that is still watching our every move.



Sources: The 111th New York Memorial at Gettysburg, stonesentinels.com. The Lincoln Highway Memorial, Interstate 80, near Laramie, Wyoming. Loski, Diana. “Lincoln Memorials”. The Gettysburg Experience, November 2024. The Scottish-American Memorial, the Old Calton Burial Ground, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Stakelberg, Count S. “Tolstoy Holds Lincoln World’s Greatest Hero”. Originally published in 1911. Marxists.org/archive/Tolstoy.

End Notes: 

1. Loski, “Lincoln Memorials” p. 42. The Lincoln Highway Memorial, Interstate 80. 

2. The Scottish-American Memorial, Edinburgh, UK. 

3. The Scottish-American Memorial, Edinburgh, UK. The 111th New York Memorial, stonesentinels.com.

4. Loski, “Lincoln Memorials” p. 43. 

5. Stakelberg, Marxists.org/archive/Tolstoy.