Talk:Lincoln's Birthday

Darwin

I removed the Darwin material, it has little to do with Abraham Lincoln or the holiday. If someone wants to add it to the Darwin Day information that would seem more appropriate. Don't know the right terms for wikipedia in general, but it doesn't seem very encyclopedic. ColinBlair 05:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I deleted it, too, along with the other notables who share that birthdate. Maybe it could on some kind of astrology page? I can't see any significance in two people having the same birthday that didn't involve a heavy reliance on astrology. If someone wants to include, they should at least include some kind of "why do we care" rationale.208.68.128.53 (talk) 20:30, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

If it falls on a weekend

I deleted the comment "If the day falls on Saturday or Sunday, it is transferred to the nearest weekday." Is there a reference for that? Is that in Illinois?

Removed description of Lincoln as the "instigator of the Civil War"

I changed "the emancipatory achievements of the instigator of the Civil War" in the discussion of the song "Abraham" in the movie HOLIDAY INN to "Lincoln's emancipatory achievements." I think it's historically inaccurate, but more to the point, use of "instigator" in this context is argumentative. I also removed "In a small but curiously significant aside," from the first sentence of that paragraph, because it is just the opinion of the editor who wrote the paragraph -- myself, I don't find it to be particularly significant. I created a separate "In Popular Culture" section for this paragraph, and cleaned up a couple of typos at the start of the article. Jrcchicago (talk) 17:04, 16 December 2012 (UTC)jrcchicago

Image

Why does the image contain the caption, "A patriotic display in Toronto, Ontario, honoring Lincoln's Birthday." What does Toronto being patriotic have anything to do with Lincoln and why would they possibly hang American flags? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.41.148.131 (talk) 06:30, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Florida

It is a state holiday in Florida. So is Jefferson Davis’ birthday. Is this unique? Anyway, the list of observant states should be changed. 2A00:23C7:E284:CF00:B1B8:8809:542E:E6D3 (talk) 18:44, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

???

“New Jersey stopped observing the holiday on May 23, 2005 with the enactment of the Public Employee Pension and Benefits Reform Act of 2008”

Time travel? 2A00:23C7:E284:CF00:B1B8:8809:542E:E6D3 (talk) 18:45, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

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Lincoln Born Exactly 19 Years After Benjamin Franklin Submitted Bill To Congress To Abolish Slavery

Benjamin Franklin believed in reincarnation. He was the Founding Father who was most antislavery. On February 12, 1790 - just two months before his death - he submitted a bill to the United States Congress to abolish slavery. Of course, it didn't pass and it pissed off all the Southerners including President George Washington. Exactly 19 years to the day - the Metonic cycle - Abraham Lincoln was born. In Franklin's Autobiography, he did not include the Committee of Five, July 4, 1776, his ambassadorship to France, his Articles of Confederation, or his involvement in the Constitution. Dr. Franklin said, "I wrote it as a manual for my son William to grow up with (paraphrased)", yet William was already an adult when it was written. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was one of five books the young Lincoln had access to for awhile on the Indiana frontier. 73.1.207.100 (talk) 15:15, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

It is certainly interesting that Lincoln was born 19 years after an anti-slavery document, signed by Franklin was was presented to Congress. However, that document was a petition, not a bill. It did indeed provoke a firestorm of opposition from the South, and George Washington was not a fan. Franklin's Autobiography was unfinished, and it only covered his life up to some point in around the 1760s, so it didn't cover the events of the Revolution or afterwards. Franklin's autobiography did begin as a letter to his his son—however, I can find no reference to Benjamin Franklin meaning for his son William to grow up with it; William was governor of New Jersey at the time. Benjamin Franklin did have a grandson, also named William, who would have been about 11 years old when Benjamin started writing it. The only evidence I've seen for Franklin's belief in reincarnation consists of vague, equivocal quotes that could also support a belief in an afterlife as depicted in Christianity. And although Franklin did advocate against slavery near the end of his life, it's somehwat subjective to describe him as the most antislavery founding father. Notably, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton helped bring about the end of slavery in New York state, with Jay perhaps deserving particular credit for being the New York Manumission Society's first president and for being the governor who signed the relevant legislation—although he owned several enslaved people when the society was founded, as Franklin had earlier in life. Arguably the anti-slavery zeal of the Founders proper was outshone by John Laurens (well known to fans of the musical Hamilton) and the Marquis de Lafayette, who went so far as to purchase an enslaved labor farm in Cayenne for the purpose of freeing the slaves there. His execution of the plan is perhaps open to criticism, but it's hard to fault his intentions or his willingness to sink large amounts of money into a project intended to show a way to the end of slavery.

Lincoln's access to books while he lived in Indiana (from 1816 to 1830) was certainly somewhat limited, but he had access to more than five books. People who knew Lincoln in that part of his life largely recalled that he devoted a considerable amount of time to reading on a daily basis, mostly reading out loud, as he was taught to do in school, with on acquaintance recalling of Parson Weems' biography of Washington that Lincoln "would read [it] through consecutively; Robinson Crusoe he would not read by rote, but would select chapters to suit his fancy, and, ultimately, perhaps, read all; 'Aesop’s Fables' and Bunyan's Pilgrim’s Progress he would read in patches." [1] Lincoln's biographer Michael Burlingame also writes that in these years, Lincoln also had access to Euclid, Lindley Murray's English Reader, Thomas Dilworth's New Guide to the English Tongue, Noah Webster's American Spelling Book, Asa Rhoads's American Spelling Book, a family Bible, Arabian Nights, The Kentucky Preceptor, a dictionary, James Riley's Authentic Narrative of the Loss of American Brig Commerce, Grimshaw's History of the United States, a biography of Henry Clay, and William Scott's Lessons in Elocution ([2], p. 124–125). Burlingame also suggests that Lincoln may not have read the Franklin autobiography, citing a 1997 book by Daniel Walker Howe, apparently on the topic of the American ideal of the self-made man.

I didn't realize that Lincoln's birthday was one of the anniversaries of Franklin's petition, which is fascinating! However, aside from the inaccuracies, most of this passage did not strike me as particularly relevant to Lincoln's Birthday. I hope this explains why I deleted it. —71.174.239.214 (talk) 05:43, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

The Photo of the movie theater.

There doesn't seem to be anything in the photo captioned Confederate Flags flying on Lincoln's birthday". to indicate it was Lincoln's birthday. Since the theater is playing Gone with the Wind. It is more likely the Confederate flags are publicity materials for the movie. 137.229.78.121 (talk) 19:13, 9 January 2024 (UTC)