The theme for this year’s Law Day, which is celebrated Friday, is “A Legacy of Liberty,” celebrating the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth.

Lincoln has been regarded by many as the nation’s greatest and most eloquent president. He devoted much of his adult life to the practice of law.

His background in the law informed both his actions and his oratory remarks. In his Gettysburg Address of 1863, Lincoln articulated his vision of American constitutional union, to be forged in the crucible of a great Civil War and tested by the shared anguish of national sacrifice. For Lincoln, this vision began with the Declaration of Independence.