The statue is 12.5 feet (3.8 m) tall and sits atop a pedestal designed by architect Benjamin Wistar Morris and a granite base.

Manship also sculpted four bronze allegorical bas reliefs, one for each side of the pedestal, to represent traits associated with Lincoln: Charity, Fortitude, Justice and Patriotism.

[5] Lincoln wears a homemade linsey-woolsey shirt, buckskin trousers, and boots to emphasize his frontier background.

[8][9] Manship's bronze statue rests on a pedestal designed by Benjamin Wistar Morris, the architect for the Lincoln National building who was also a sculptor.

The company's officers wanted "an outstanding creation of art which would be one of the recognized monuments of the world and which, as such, would attract universal admiration"[11] Benjamin Wistar Morris, the architect for Lincoln National's headquarters in Fort Wayne, recommended Manship for the project.

[5][8] Manship's preliminary sketch was completed and approved in 1929 and he worked on the plaster model in his studios in Paris and New York in 1931.

[15] A picture of the statue is featured on the dust jacket and the inside front cover of Marks of Lincoln on Our Land.