President's Day: Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln

Are we living Abraham Lincoln's reality through President Barack Obama?

Abraham Lincoln is the 16th president of the United States of America, from March of 1861 until April of 1865, when he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth while he was watching a theater performance on a Good Friday. Abraham Lincoln was a very good man and well remembered by the American people.

He is an important figure not just because he was an American president, it was because he did many great things. These things he did and initiated changed the course of many American lives and because of that, until now, America is living and breathing that freedom and liberty.

The new man in the Oval Office, President Barack Obama, the first African-American president in American history, came to office just weeks before the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, whose Emancipation Proclamation freed blacks from slavery. So many in the media, academia and political world have been drawing parallels.

In celebrations throughout this Presidents Day weekend, President Obama acknowledged that the 44th president owes something to the 16th. As Obama said Thursday night in Springfield, Ill.: "It's a humbling task, marking the bicentennial of our 16th president's birth -- humbling for me in particular, because it's fair to say that the presidency of this singular figure, who we celebrate in so many ways, made my own story possible."

There are, in fact, some parallels. Both had distant fathers and were raised in families of few means. Both had curiosity, devouring studies. Both became lawyers and settled in Illinois. Both got their start in Illinois state politics, served only a short time in Congress and upset political giants in their long-shot bids for the presidency. Lincoln narrowly bested William H. Seward and Obama, well, remember Hillary Rodham Clinton? Funny thing is, both Seward and Clinton were U.S. senators from New York.

Of course, for many,the singular comparison is that both Lincoln and Obama are marvelous orators, given to soaring rhetoric that can lift a nation at a time of war and economic hardship.

Obama repeatedly invokes Lincoln's legacy: "Abraham Lincoln...had his doubts. He had his defeats. He had his setbacks. But through his will and his words, he moved a nation and helped free a people. It is because of the millions who rallied to his cause that we are no longer divided, North and South, slave and free."

Do you believe President Obama can make Abraham Lincoln's vision a reality?

Sources: Wilkepidia.com
LAtimes.com