Old Exterior

The earliest known photograph of the Capitol, attributed to John Plumbe, Jr. about 1846, shows how the building appeared when Lincoln first saw it. Lincoln's connections to the building are varied and rich, beginning on December 6, 1847, when he took his seat in the Thirtieth Congress. During his single term as the lone Whig Party representative from Illinois, he lived in a boardinghouse across the street, where the main Library of Congress building now stands.

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