U.S. President George W. Bush and President-elect Barack Obama both invoked Abraham Lincoln in their Thanksgiving messages Thursday.
Bush spoke of the honor he felt serving as commander-in-chief while Obama focused on the economic crisis.
"When President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, the United States was in the midst of a terrible civil war. But in that hour of trial he gave thanks -- because he believed America would weather the storm and emerge into a new era of liberty," the president said.
"On this, my last Thanksgiving as your President, I am thankful for the good will, kind words, and heartfelt prayers that so many of you have offered me during the past eight years. I have been blessed to represent such decent, brave, and caring people. For that, I will always be grateful, and I will always be honored," he said.
Obama, giving the weekly Democratic radio address, spoke about the first Thanksgiving "in one of the darkest years of our nation's history."
"Lincoln said in his first Thanksgiving decree that difficult times made it even more appropriate for our blessings to be – and I quote -- 'gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people,'" the president-elect said.
Declaring only "bold and immediate action" and the "strength of the American people" will let the nation overcome the crisis, Obama said.
"There are difficult months ahead. But we can renew our nation the same way that we have in the many years since Lincoln's first Thanksgiving: by coming together to overcome adversity; by reaching for -- and working for -- new horizons of opportunity for all Americans," the president-elect concluded.
Source:Xinhua
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