Celebrating the legend of Lincoln

By Kayleigh Harvey – Talk Radio News Service

All around the country Americans are celebrating the birthday of one of the most historical American political figures, Abraham Lincoln.

The Capitol held its own Lincoln Bicentennial Celebration, today, with President Barack Obama making an appearance to pay his respects to a man he said “made America’s story possible.”

President Obama said: “What Lincoln never forgot, not even in the midst of civil war, was that despite all that divides us – north and south, black and white – we were, at the heart, one nation and one people, sharing a bond as Americans that could bend but would not break…I feel great gratitude to this singular figure who in so many ways made my own story possible, and in so many ways made America’s story possible.”

Other politicians who spoke at the ceremony were Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev), House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), Senate Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin (D-Ill), Senator Jim Bunning (R-Ky), Representative Jesse Jackson Jnr. (D-Ill) and Representative Donald Manzullo (R-Ill).

The large audience, that filled the Rotunda in the U.S. Captiol, also heard tributes to the former President from Harold Holzer Co-chair of the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, Richard Norton Smith, Former Executive Director of the Lincoln Presidential Library and Presidential historian and author Doris Kearns Goodwin.

In the closing statement, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said: “Let us take our lead from Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln knew that the preservation of the union was a fight for the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. As he said ‘At stake was not just the future of our nation, but the future of people throughout the world’.”