COLUMBUS, Ohio — An Ohio Statehouse banner marking the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s death includes his famous words “With malice to no one, with charity for all.”
Except that’s not exactly what Lincoln said in his second inaugural address. What he said was, “With malice toward none, with charity for all.”
A spokesman for the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board tells The Columbus Dispatch officials wanted the banner to be historically faithful to the original one hung on the building on April 29, 1865. That was the day 50,000 people filed through the Statehouse rotunda to pay their respects to the slain president when his funeral train arrived in Columbus.
The current banner is displayed on the building’s west portico, just like the 1865 banner that misquoted Lincoln.
