In case you didn’t know already, Barack Obama is a big fan of Abraham Lincoln. The current president (No. 44) made his admiration apparent once again on Thursday, during a ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda marking his predecessor’s (No. 16) 200th birthday.

AP via Google News:

As lawmakers and guests looked on, Obama recalled Lincoln’s words in the closing days of the Civil War, when the South’s defeat was certain.

Lincoln “could have sought revenge,” Obama said, but he insisted that no Confederate troops be punished.

“All Lincoln wanted was for Confederate troops to go back home and return to work on their farms and in their shops,” Obama said. “That was the only way, Lincoln knew, to repair the rifts that had torn this country apart. It was the only way to begin the healing that our nation so desperately needed.”

A day after House and Senate leaders agreed on a costly economic stimulus plan that drew scant Republican support, Obama said, “we are far less divided than in Lincoln’s day,” but “we are once again debating the critical issues of our time.”

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