Historic Christ Church and Museum kicks off its 2023 programs at 2 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 16, with “Lincoln, the Founding and an America Worth Saving” by Dr. Lucas Morel.

The John K. Boardman, Jr. Professor of Politics and Head of the Politics Department at Washington and Lee University, Morel is a nationally recognized scholar of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and Ralph Ellison.

Morel’s presentation looks at how the leading figures and documents from the American founding provided the most important influence on Lincoln’s political thought and practice. Prominent among them is George Washington’s role as founder and the inspiration Lincoln drew from Washington as Lincoln faced the nation’s greatest crisis in the Civil War.

Morel also looks at the how the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as a means to fulfill these ideals shaped Lincoln’s political views. “I have never had a feeling politically,” Lincoln said in 1861, “that did not spring from ...