Obama Inspires New Market for All Things Lincoln

[FrenchieCat]

NEW YORK (Reuters) – President Barack Obama's reverence for Abraham Lincoln and the 200th anniversary of his birth have thrust the 16th U.S. president into the limelight as the subject of a new exhibit and an upcoming auction in New York.

Obama, who took the oath of office on a Bible used to swear in Lincoln in 1861, often cited him in campaign speeches and said the man who freed the slaves also helped pave the way for his own election. The connection has elicited comparisons of the language skills of the two gangly presidents from Illinois.



The New York Historical Society's exhibit "Lincoln in his own Words" begins on Lincoln's birthday on February 12. That same day Christie's auction house will put up for sale Lincoln's handwritten 1864 re-election victory speech.
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There are no sound recordings, no videotapes of those speeches that Lincoln gave, so the idea that these speeches that he carried with him on his body somewhere, in his coat or in his hat, in his handwriting, to me they are the most magic," said James Basker, president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

Basker drew comparisons between the oratory skills and language contained in the speeches of Lincoln and Obama.



"Their gifts with language are tremendous and they have abilities as orators that have to do with articulating ideas in somewhat grey language sometimes, but in phraseology that resonates with people and conveys real ideas and real values," Basker said.

Obama "repeatedly and brilliantly quotes" Lincoln, Basker said, adding that both were from modest backgrounds where "they learned to talk to real people, with big ideas."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_obama_lincoln_exhibit