Lincoln catafalk
The Lincoln Catafalk was built in 1865. The coffin of Abraham Lincoln stood on the catafalk while the president's body was laid out in the rotunda of the United States Capitol Washington, DC . The catafalque has since been used for all those laid out in the rotunda (see list below). When not in use, it is located in a small vaulted room in the United States Capitol Visitor Center . It used to be kept in the so-called Washington Crypt in the crypt of the United States Capitol , which was originally planned as the burial place for the first US President George Washington , but was never used.
Appearance
The catafalque is a simple bier that was nailed together from coarse pine boards and covered with black cloth. Both the base and the platform were changed several times in order to adapt the catafalque to the larger format of modern coffins and to make it easier for military personnel to handle. The fabric that covers the catafalk has also been renewed several times. Even if the style is still that of 1865, the Lincoln catafalk is an example of the Theseus paradox . Currently, the catafalque is 216 cm long, 76 cm wide and 61 cm high. The base is 269 cm long, 131 cm wide and 5 cm high. The platform is 338 cm long, 183 cm wide, 23.5 cm high.
use
No law, written rule or ordinance stipulates who can be laid out in the rotunda; this use must be approved by the House of Representatives and the Senate at the same time. Anyone who has done special service to the nation can be laid out in the rotunda if the family so wishes and Congress agrees. In the case of unknown soldiers, this process will be initiated by the President or the relevant division of the United States Armed Forces .
In the Capitol
The following people were laid out in the Capitol rotunda:
- Abraham Lincoln (April 19-21, 1865)
- Thaddeus Stevens (August 13-14, 1868)
- Charles Sumner (March 13, 1874)
- Henry Wilson (November 25-26, 1875)
- James A. Garfield (September 21-23, 1881)
- John Alexander Logan (December 30-31, 1886)
- William McKinley (September 17, 1901)
- Pierre Charles L'Enfant (April 28, 1909) His body was exhumed and, after being laid out, buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
- George Dewey (January 20, 1917)
- Unknown soldier of the First World War (November 9-11, 1921)
- Warren G. Harding (August 8, 1923)
- William Howard Taft (March 11, 1930)
- John Joseph Pershing (July 18-19, 1948)
- Robert A. Taft (August 2-3, 1953)
- Unidentified Soldiers from World War II and the Korean War (May 28-30, 1958)
- John F. Kennedy (November 24-25, 1963)
- Douglas MacArthur (April 8-9, 1964)
- Herbert Hoover (October 23-25, 1964)
- Dwight D. Eisenhower (March 30-31, 1969)
- Everett McKinley Dirksen (September 9-11, 1969)
- J. Edgar Hoover (May 3-4, 1972)
- Lyndon B. Johnson (January 24-25, 1973)
- Hubert Humphrey (January 14-15, 1978)
- Unidentified Soldier of the Vietnam War (May 25-28, 1984)
- Claude Denson Pepper (June 1-2, 1989)
- Ronald Reagan (June 9-11, 2004)
- Gerald Ford (December 30, 2006 to January 2, 2007)
- John McCain (August 27, 2018)
- George HW Bush (December 3, 2018 to December 5, 2018)
Senators and representatives are laid out elsewhere in the Capitol on the catafalk.
In the Supreme Court building
The catafalque was used 6 times in the Supreme Court building to lay out the following people:
- former Chief Justice Earl Warren on July 11 and 12, 1974
- former Judge Thurgood Marshall on January 27, 1993
- former Chief Justice Warren Earl Burger on July 28, 1995
- former Judge William J. Brennan, Jr. on July 28, 1997
- Judge Harry A. Blackmun on March 8, 1999
- the Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist on September 6th and 7th, 2005
More places
In addition, on April 9 and 10, 1996, Secretary of Commerce Ronald H. Brown was laid out on the Lincoln Catafalk in the United States Department of Commerce building .