fellow citizens of the senate and house of representatives, since your last at the annual assembly, another year of health and bountiful harvest has passed. while it is not pleasing the mighty to bless us with the return of peace, we can but press on, guided by the best light he gives us trusting in his own time and wise way all will yet be will. >> that's from the archives of you portraying abraham lincoln. what's the value of

understanding history through re-enactment? >> it reaches a population that may not pick up a book but they want to come and have an experience. that's what they have reported over the years. there are not readers, they are not picking up the written word but they want the experience. >> how many years have you been portraying abraham lincoln? >> 33 this year. started extremely small but i wish i could tell you there was a grand plan, and it's certainly not mine. >> how did it get started? >> i was on the board of the illinois education association. we were going to have the national convention in new orleans and one of the board members came up to this skinny, skinny man with a black beard and said, you know, if you dressed, we could all come on the floor of the convention and they would know illinois had arrived. and i was intrigued.

and i said let's try this, and that was the only thing i did in 1986. but then worked at freeport with the debate and such. >> people won't understand the reference to freeport and the debate. will you tell that story? >> the debate site in freeport, second debathe site. >> 1858 debate series. >> with stephen douglas. my whole life was a parking lot with a boulder dedicated by teddy roosevelt. long-time residentand insurance exec said we can do better. we turned that over to green space, interpretive science, and a life sized statue of lincoln and douglas in debate.

>> to set the stage for people, 1994, c-span went to all the towns in illinois and asked them if the towns put on the debates, we'll bring the cameras and televise the debates in its entirety. how many of those did you play lincoln? >> two of seven. number two and number three. >> what preparation did you need to do for a three-hour debate televised live? that gnawed and still gnaws, who were lincoln, who were douglas and why? why was that so pivotal? and you've got to get right with lincoln, according to senator paul simon, and i've done my very best. >> is portraying lincoln a full full-time job for you? >> is now. >> and was it for most of those years that you did it? >> if things could be scheduled, and that was all word of mouth. marketing and such.

that could work into other travel schedules. and that it was far enough in advance that could be scheduled handily. >> from that very first experience at the illinois education meeting, how did you inhabit lincoln? how did you learn enough to be able to be comfortable in your portrayal? >> as lincoln himself said, work, work, work. that's the thing. but literally, everything that's been published in the last 30 years, i've had good fortune to even meet the authors and to ask those critical questions. why? but also to go back to the primary source documents to understand what was happening in the times, to understand why lincoln reacted, why douglas was bringing forward his own work, and how those two met, but how lincoln, in his times, lincoln in his relationships. >> how much of his repertoire can you interpret?

>> it started small, with the lincoln/douglas debates, but then i had calls, will you come and talk about the war? will you come and talk about the indiana years? will you come and talk about the final months? and so you find that written work and you consume it. and then it comes forward. somebody said once, they said it's a gift. and someone else said if you don't share the gift in its pure form, it's not moral. and i took that very seriously. >> how did you become lincoln physically, and how do you do it today? >> the coat fits, the vest fits and that voice, what is a central illinois nasal reedy

twang. i struggled with that. but we climbed the hill and made it to the top. >> let's go back and watch a little bit more of that event and listen to the voice specifically, because i would like to have people focus on that, and then have you talk about how you captured something that wasn't captured by any devices at the time. >> we shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. other means may succeed. this could not fail. the way is plain, peaceful, generous, just. a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud and god must forever bless december 1, 1862, abraham lincoln. [applause] >> so, what did you

have to work with, to interpret his voice and how it might sound? >> i did undergrad at ball state. a number of those classmates i had came out of southern indiana, central indiana, but i was at a hotel in springfield, illinois, years back, and the waiter brought coffee. it was 6:15 in the morning. and he came to the table and he said, you want coffee? and i was stunned. and i said where are you from? and he said springfield. i said how long have you lived here? my whole life. and i thought, this is what i've waited for. and it was from the descriptions of the letter writers at the time. but when i met david donald at

gettysburg for the richard nelson current award of achievement, he wanted to hear it. and i thought what do you say to the author of a lincoln biography that was just awarded the pulitzer? i thought about that a while but i gave him the voice and he smiled that smile which is ever so david donald and he said it's as i expected. don't ever change it. >> so can you give us a full line right here in abraham lincoln's voice as you interpret it? >> if we could first know where we are and whether we're attending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. >> that's very nasal. and how, the descriptions at the time described it as being high and very nasal? >> high pitched and a nasal, ready twang. i've got to go back and find where i read that but one of the other writers in the

letters in those days, they would say, dear cousin. if you heard lincoln today, most god awful voice i ever heard, but his message was pretty good. and they said it was that falsetto voice, but when you do it in quincy, illinois, for example, on the block of washington square, you remember that? we saw no grass from the plymouth and somebody said how did that work in your day? so without microphone, we spoke to 2500 people on the square, and even the policemen on the other block could hear it. we asked him from the platform. >> because the voice rose above the crowd? >> and it carries. >> what other characteristics do you share with lincoln, height, weight, that sort of thing? >> 6'5", 174, 175 pounds. this beard doesn't do him justice today, but with a little work, as we saw in the

clip. and then i think when the hat comes on at the end and you're ready to go out the door, he's there as a channel. i've never had the experience that suddenly lincoln is among us, because it's an academic assignment. what is it that we need to do? so i'm constantly aware of that, but when we're ready and the beard is right and the other set of glasses is right, we see what it looks like. >> how long does it take you to become lincoln? >> an hour. i've tried to shave it, but -- shave the time down. i just can't do it. and there's a methodology there that it's step by step and it's got to be the same every time. >> what is the most poignant place that you've ever played lincoln?

>> i've got to say since i've been asked to do gettysburg at gettysburg now, to stand on that dias and look past the crowd you can see the stones of the cemetery, that is a consuming moment. and you contemplate the death and all that meant. and it has to be right. it's not, and i greet the crowd. i thank them to coming for the commemoration. it's not a celebration. it's not high fives and let's just have pictures taken, but the folks that want them, it's solemn and we've got to get it right every time. >> just as there have been more books published about abraham lincoln than any other

president, there's probably more people interpreting abraham lincoln than any other president. people would be surprised there are many people out in the field doing this. approximately how many? you have an association, i believe. >> there's an association and i believe there are about 100, all about the country, and that keeps that memory alive. >> and what do you -- when you gather together in your conventions, what do you talk about? >> getting it right and where the venues have been, what the next steps are, what the new publications are saying. if there are issues that have been brought up in the past, how is it handled? so it's kind of a collaboration, if you will, and everything is put on the table and hashed back and forth, and then we go out again. >> when you do a question and answer as abraham lincoln, what is the most often asked question of you? >> they want to hear gettysburg,

and think about all that that means. but i would say nearly every time in that q & a, will you give us gettysburg? >> would you say that over the course of the 30 years you've been doing this the interpretation of lincoln has changed or become more nuanced? are there any issues that we're dealing with as a society that you've had to rethink with lincoln? >> actually, it's deepened it, because in the current politics, with division, it parallels those times prior to the war. i'm not suggesting that is everything but when you talk about divided politics it's the 18 fifties all over again.

when folks say how did you do it in your time, what was that we need to work together. we must not be enemies, but friends. we wanted to spend time with you at this president's way we can't, >> in closing, as we think about abraham lincoln on his birthday week and on presidents'weekend, what is the essential lincoln? what do you think is his message of our time that you most want people to be thinking about? >> let us bind up the nation's wound s wounds and i think the anger we see and hear, and i run into it like this, not necessarily lincoln, that working together and that it's all right to reach across the aisle, as lincoln did, team of rivals, democrats in the cabinet of a republican

administration. and those lessons. have a discussion about what we agree on, work on what we don't agree on, that will take us the next step. >> george buss, we've known you at c-span since 1994 when you helped us put on the lincoln/douglas debates. we have all stayed in touch with you as you're lincoln interpretation has continued. thank you on this president's weekend for talking about abraham lincoln and how you bring him to life.