Posted on February 11th, 2006 in Commemorative, General, History
| Written by Ben | 2 Comments » Editor’s note: I have included
my most highly recommended Lincoln book selections at the end of
this post, if you care to read that far. Since the celebration
of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday was subsumed under the generic
President’s Day label, the significance of tomorrow often is
forgotten. But I would have a difficult time omitting a
commemorative mention of the significance of February 12 –
especially this year. In both the Gregorian and Western
Christian church calendars, 2006 runs the same pattern as 1865,
the closing months of Lincoln’s life – since recounted in
legendary memory. The assassination of the 16th President took
place on the night of Good Friday, April 14, the same date in
which American Christians and others will celebrate Christ’s
divine sacrifice on Mt. Calvary this year. The timing of
Lincoln’s murder established a quasi-religious mythology
surrounding the Great Emancipator. Yet in his timeles