By Ernest Sumelong
When Barack Obama, America's 44th President, leaves office in either 2012 or 2016, he would leave his legacy.
But already, the African-American President started his inaugural walk to the White House on Abraham Lincoln's path.The newly sworn in President replicated most of what his now confessed mentor did when he took over office 148 years ago.
In spite of the blurred differences between the two men - Lincoln being a Republican and Obama a Democrat - both men seem to have been born of the same umbilical cord. Obama does not just seem to be walking in Lincoln's path but both men actually share undeniable political, character and historical traits.
Even though Lincoln was officially known to be white, he reportedly had black ancestry, linking him and Obama by ancestral blood.Most of Obama's inaugural ritual - from his trip to Washington DC to his Inaugural Luncheon - was a remake of Lincoln's.
He followed Lincoln's Inaugural Day train from Philadelphia to Washington DC to retrace the steps taken by one of America's greatest Presidents to the White House. Obama also took his Inaugural oath on the same Burgundy velvet Bible Lincoln used in his swearing in.
Obama thus became the first incoming President to use the Bible in his swearing-in after Lincoln.Also, Obama's Inaugural Day Luncheon meal featured Lincoln's favourite seafood, served on replicas of Lincoln's wife, Mary Todd's china.
Some of the themes of Obama's inaugural address were inspired by Lincoln's immortal Gettysburg address: "A New Birth of Freedom". Lincoln's Gettysburg address became the theme of Obama's Inaugural Luncheon.
Both Obama and Lincoln were lawyers and politicians from Illinois but where not born there. They also shared a common path in their rise to prominence; both men who were raised by women other than their mothers rose to prominence from low birth through hard work and oratory.
Also, when both men ran for the presidency, they were considered too inexperienced. Before Obama became a household name, Lincoln's biographer, David Herbert Donald, pointed out a key similarity between the two; the emphasis on hope.
Three years before Obama was chosen for the presidency race, he wrote this about Abraham Lincoln: "In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat - in all this, he reminded me not just of my struggles.
He also reminded me of a larger, fundamental element of American life - the enduring belief that we can constantly remake ourselves to fit our larger dreams." Though a Republican, Lincoln united even Democrats for the Union cause during the American civil war, a critical time in the history of the then young country.
Obama, on his part, rallied Democrats and Republicans, blacks and whites in the face of the economic crisis currently hitting America. According to Princeton University presidential historian, Julian Zelizer, "The comparisons to Lincoln, which he has not run away from, set up a high standard, particularly for Americans who don't really follow politics."
"I think his goals are threefold: first to connect himself with a great leader; second, to place himself in a broader narrative about the nation overcoming its racial past; and third, about being a leader who can heal divisions in difficult times," he said.
The uneasy part of Obama wearing Lincoln's shoes is the way Lincoln ended up. On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated in Washington at the age of 56.
In spite of the blurred differences between the two men - Lincoln being a Republican and Obama a Democrat - both men seem to have been born of the same umbilical cord. Obama does not just seem to be walking in Lincoln's path but both men actually share undeniable political, character and historical traits.
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