Chicago Area Local News

CHICAGO (CBS) ― President Barack Obama came back to his home state Thursday night to honor another favorite son of Illinois -- Abraham Lincoln.

Obama spoke to a crowd celebrating the 200th birthday of the 16th president. Springfield, where the event was held, was the city where both of their paths to elected office began.

With tongue in cheek, Obama indicated he may be  having second thoughts about becoming president because of the big economic crisis he faces. He recalled what Lincoln told a supporter who claimed that he had made Lincoln president.

"Lincoln asked him, 'So you think you made me president,'" Obama told the crowd. "'Yes,' the man replied. "'Under providence, I think I did.'

"'Well,' said Lincoln, 'It's a pretty mess you've gotten me into. But I forgive you.'"

The president talked about the economic stimulus plan he's offered for the 21st-century crisis the country confronts.

"It's only by rebuilding our economy and fostering the conditions of growth that willing workers can find a job," Obama said.

The powerful politicians and others in the audience remained behind to have dinner after the president departed -- and to debate Illinois' budget crisis. Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, said he could support a state income tax increase.

Asked if his membership would follow suit, Madigan replied, "That's what we'll learn in the next few weeks. (It's) not a time for the faint of heart."

Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno said a tax hike would be a mistake. She said lawmakers should "retool" state government instead.

Gov. Pat Quinn will unveil a budget plan next month.

Lincoln was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky, but came to Illinois in his 20s. On Thursday, he was honored in Chicago, Springfield and all across the state.

In Berwyn Thursday morning, first graders at Prairie Oak Elementary School, 1427 S. Oak Park Ave., counted pennies and played with 19th century toys.

Meanwhile, President Lincoln presided over an all-day celebration at the Chicago History Museum, channeled by impersonator Glenn Braun.

"Do I really look 200?" he said. "My wife says I don't look a day over 150."

The celebration at the museum, 1601 N. Clark St., also included a Civil War-era band and birthday cake. The museum also opened its "Lincoln Treasures" exhibit, which features Lincoln's actual deathbed from a Washington boarding house, and a variety of artifacts from his early adult years.

A jog farther north, the Lincoln statue at Lawrence, Western and Lincoln avenues in the Lincoln Square neighborhood was decorated with a wreath by the Ravenswood-Lake View Historical Association. It is one of five Lincoln statues in Chicago.

Lincoln Landing Park was dedicated in Lockport. The park is only one of two sites in Illinois recognized by the federal Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. The centerpiece of the park is a sculpture of Lincoln as a young educator. 

Lincoln made frequent visits to Chicago as an attorney and state legislator in the 1850s. Chicago also hosted the 1860 Republican National Convention where Lincoln was nominated, at the Wigwam, a convention center located at what is now Wacker Drive and Lake Street.

In Springfield, the party for Lincoln got started early. People gathered Wednesday night at the Lincoln Museum for an overnight vigil, with impersonators of the 16th president and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, who greeted visitors. The text copies of the Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation were on display, along with other works from President Lincoln.

Before his trip to Illinois Thursday, Obama spoke at the Lincoln Bicentennial Celebration at the U.S. Capitol rotunda in Washington.

Obama announced his candidacy for president two years ago in front of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln represented Sangamon County in the Illinois House of Representatives, and delivered his famous "house divided" speech while running for the U.S. Senate in 1858. Obama also borrowed Lincoln's Bible to take the oath of office. 

"When Obama talked so openly about Lincoln, his admiration for him, it brings Lincoln to life even more than he would have been otherwise," said historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose own Lincoln book "Team of Rivals" got the kind of publicity authors dream of when Obama started putting together his own team of rivals, referring to Cabinet secretaries who once competed with him.

Lincoln grew up in what he described as "a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up… of course, when I came of age, I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher ... but that was all."

Lincoln spent his formative years working on a farm, splitting rails for fences, and running a store in New Salem, Ill. He fought in the Black Hawk War before being elected to the Illinois General Assembly, and he was an attorney whose law partner said of him, "His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest."

Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for U.S. Senator and lost in 1858. But after winning the presidency two years later, Lincoln built up the Republican party and rallied northern Democrats against secession. He won reelection in 1864, but was assassinated by actor John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre in Washington on April 4, 1865.

Lincoln's White House biography says Booth "somehow thought he was helping the South. The opposite was the result, for with Lincoln's death, the possibility of peace with magnanimity died."

CBS 2's Mike Flannery and Joanie Lum and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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