Illinois-owned Abe Lincoln library and museum resorting to GoFundMe to pay off massive loan

Lincoln statue, Chicago's
North Side

"This conduct would make [Abraham] Lincoln roll over in his grave."
US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, December 9, 2008, after the arrest of Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.

Unfortunately Illinois is spending more irresponsibly than Lincoln's troubled wife did.

The Land of Lincoln has one of the worst-funded public worker pension systems in the nation. And ILL-inois has the lowest credit rating for any state--ever.

And the state-owned Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is struggling to pay off a huge loan it used to purchase some Lincoln relics, including a stovepipe hat that he may not have ever owned.

Now it's resorting to crowdsourcing to pay off that loan. Already the foundation that runs the library and museum is selling a dress once worn by Marilyn Monroe, who of course once had an affair with Lincoln.

Just kidding--that was John F. Kennedy who slept with the movie star.

From AP:

Abraham Lincoln once said, "Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way."

So it’s not improbable that the 16th president would endorse a modern fundraising method to ensure that priceless artifacts belonging to him stay in his hometown.

The crowdsourcing site GoFundMe — currently featuring requests of $800 to finance a boy’s Eagle Scout project, $5,000 to send a terminally ill little boy to Disneyland and $55,000 for a school playground — was enlisted last week for a new goal: $9.7 million to save from auction thousands of items, including bloody gloves carried the night of his assassination and a stovepipe hat purportedly belonging to Lincoln.

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation in Springfield must pay the debt by October 2019 or sell off parts of the well-known Taper Collection acquired in 2007 for $25 million with a $23 million loan.

When will Illinois try GoFundMe to bolster its meager general revenue fund?