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Lincoln's Legacy; Abraham Obama; The Jobs Crush; Weatherizing Homes; An Extraordinary Life

Aired February 12, 2009 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: Welcome back to our special coverage of the Abraham Lincoln bicentennial. Rail splitter, politician, and to many, a symbol of hope and determination, the man that kept the nation together. Among today's events, the wreath laying this morning at Ford Theater where Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth the night of April 14, 1865.

Just a few moments ago you were watching a congressional tribute in the rotunda of the capitol. Several members of Congress speaking along with several Lincoln researchers as well. We also had an opportunity to hear from President Obama who had a short speech. He called President Lincoln a hero. You recall Mr. Obama took a similar train ride to Washington, D.C., that Lincoln took to Washington, D.C., as both men were on their way to their first inaugural.

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is literally one of the most quoted speeches in the nation's history.

Can you recite it? I can recite part of it.

Schyler Hornbeck attends Abraham Lincoln Elementary School in Hodgenville, Kentucky, and he knows the Gettysburg Address by heart. We're going to share it with you.

SCHYLER HORNBECK, STUDENT: Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether the nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who gave their lives that this nation might live.

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men -- living and dead -- who have struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.

The world will no more long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is rather for us, the living, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here thus so nobly advanced. It is rather for us, the living, to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.

We highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, and this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

SSS: That's 8-year-old Schyler Hornbeck at Abraham Lincoln Elementary School in Hodgenville, Kentucky.

Let's go right to Actor Sam Waterston who's been hanging out with us this morning.

How did this young man do?

SAM WATERSTON, ACTOR: I thought he did a wonderful job. It really teaches you humility because you think that you worked on it and you understand the depths of it and all that stuff, but it is really the language itself and the beautiful arrangement of words.

(CROSSTALK)

SSS: Apparently, he is in third grade and he has been working on learning the speech for -- since he was 5 years old. Practiced on the school bus every day and apparently says he would like to be president of the United States.

We have a clip of you doing the same speech. No pressure. Let's run a little clip of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WWW: We are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SSS: What do you love about that speech? I mean really.

WWW: I think he did better.

SSS: No, no, no, no. Sam, it was you, far better. But he is 8 years old. He might run in your path there.

That speech is not only one of the most recited but part of the reason it is short and also because it is so important and moving.

WWW: After he sat down after he...

SSS: After he delivered it? WWW: After he delivered it, he is proposed to have said "That won't scour." Scour means plow the earth. That means won't make a fur row. That won't make a mark. Nobody's going to care.

SSS: Well, he was a little wrong on that.

WWW: He was a little wrong.

SSS: Tell me about his oratorical -- is that the word -- style and how it compares to President Obama. They both are lawyers, and again, people make these comparisons. Tall, gangly lawyers, Springfield, ew, they're exactly the same kind of guy. But a lot of their, I think, more accurate comparisons come in how they frame an argument.

WWW: Well, I think they both share a love of language. And as I said before, Lincoln was an amateur poet. I don't know whether Obama is or was.

SSS: He apparently was, actually.

WWW: But there is that appreciation of language and for balanced expression and all of that. They both share that. Then there is the lawyers, strictness of argument, which you hear everywhere, including in that addition that you were talking about, about slavery. There's a lawyer's argument that we have these debates now, for instance, the debate that's going on about the bailouts and so on, and how much money we ought to put in. Then they're done. It doesn't change when they're done. The people who won do not relinquish their assertion that they were doing the right thing when they say, "Let's go ahead together now to go to the next problem and the next problem." It's the same kind of...

SSS: The generosity of spirit as opposed to saying we did the right thing.

WWW: And conceding the argument.

SSS: Right. Interesting. What do you think people don't know about Lincoln? As a person who has studied him, as a qualified amateur, I guess, what do people not know about President Lincoln that would surprise them?

WWW: I think that because he's on the money and he's so familiar and there are banks named after him and streets and he's everywhere. But people done know how interesting he is probably more than any other thing, how pertinent he is to now. Although, you guys are talking about it a lot.

SSS: After today, darn it.

WWW: But also just how -- what a fascinating, interesting, intelligent, wise -- and certainly for anybody who is going into politics, what a lesson in how to do it. George Goodwin's (ph) books it all about that. You could take those lessons right into today.

SSS: It's amazing.

We're got Allen Guelzo, professor of history and an authority on Lincoln at Gettysburg College, he's joining us from Philadelphia this morning.

Nice to see you, Professor. Thanks for being with us. Let's talk more about the Gettysburg Address. I'm confident you feel the 8- year-old did well, but Sam's version was fabulous. Tell me a little background on what was going on at the moment that Lincoln was called upon to make the speech.

ALLEN GUELZO, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY & LINCOLN AUTHORITY, GETTYSBURG COLLEGE: The battle of Gettysburg was fought over the first three days of July in 1863. A few days after that battle was over and Lincoln knew what the results were going to be, he spoke at the White House in an informal context, beginning with words that ran something like this -- "How long ago was it? 80-odd years that the founders created this nation." In other words, he was really already thinking about the Gettysburg Address even before he knew he was going to give the Gettysburg Address.

Then several weeks before the Gettysburg Cemetery dedication takes place in November of 1863, he's at work very carefully, very fastidiously on these dedication remarks that he's going to deliver.

The famous story is that he wrote the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope on the train going to Gettysburg. There is no shred of evidence about that.

Lincoln was a very careful and caution literary craftsman. It would have been so utterly unlike Lincoln to have left something to the spur of moment. In fact when people asked him to speak on the spur of the moment, he usually refused.

So when he speaks at Gettysburg, it is the distillation of a long process of thought, about what the battle of Gettysburg has meant and what the Civil War means and what it all means for the future of democracy.

SSS: As a much nicer way to put it, "four score and seven years ago" rather than 80-some-odd years, which is sort of his line. When you look to the new president, where do you see from an outsider's perspective, where do you see overlap between the two men?

GUELZO: Well, certainly they're both very talented orators. Lincoln in his day and Obama today are both extremely skilled at communicating. They have a basic difference in that Lincoln and, as a practicing lawyer, was always geared towards persuasion, and his major speeches are always the kind of thing you would expect to hear put to a jury.

Whereas, Obama has been mostly in his law career a professor so he tends to do more in the way of stating or lecturing or creating a statement that says this is it, this is what's going to be on the test and here's the way I see things. Lincoln, as a speaker, was actually very surprising because he was not this rolling orator. He had a very high, piping, almost squeaky voice.

And Mr. Obama of course is very eloquent, has very beautiful voice to listen to.

For Lincoln, however, that high, squeaky voice was soon forgotten by the -- (AUDIO PROBLEM) -- of what he had to say. So there are differences but there are also some compensations there.

SSS: You've written a book called "Lincoln and Douglas" which is about the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas called "The Debates that Defined America." You learned a lot from those debates about Abe Lincoln, although he lost sort of the contest that he was challenging for. It ended up really defining who he was.

Do you think today people would sit for three hours through debates like they did then? It was almost like it was sport. They packed a room while they went back and forth for literally hours.

GUELZO: Well, it was a kind of entertainment. This is a day that doesn't have television. It doesn't have radio. It doesn't have any of the things we take for granted as entertainment. So oratory from politicians tended to fill a lot of that blank. The oratory you'd get from Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln was really oratory of the very highest order.

But it was really much more than political speech, much more than just oratory. It was also a debate about how we make decisions in a democracy, and whether it's just a matter of counting those as they're taking polls or whether democracy's really about deciding what the right thing to do is. That latter was really Lincoln's point.

SSS: Allen Guelzo wrote a great book called "Lincoln and Douglas, the Debates that Defined America." Thank you very much.

We'll also thank Sam Waterston for being with us this morning.

We appreciate all your time. It's been a real pleasure.

Go to CNN.com/Lincoln if they want to see your reading of some of his most famous speeches.

WWW: Thank you.

SSS: We certainly appreciate it.

Going to take a short break. Back in just a moment. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TONY HARRIS, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Tony Harris in the "CNN NEWSROOM." Here are the headlines from CNN for Thursday, February 12th. A slimmed-down stimulus bill heads for final votes on Capitol Hill. It is expected on the president's desk by Monday for his signature.

Heavy rain, wind and floods, the heartland rides out a stormy mix. Today the eastern seaboard gets whacked.

President Obama paying tribute to his political mentor. Last hour, the president took part in a Capitol Hill ceremony honoring Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Obama has often cited Lincoln's influence on his own political career.

In his remarks he said Lincoln never forgot that Americans are one nation and one people, despite the things that divide us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So even as we meet here today, in a moment when we are far less divided than in Lincoln's day, but when we are once again debating the critical issues of our time, and debating them sometimes fiercely, let us remember that we are doing so as servants of the same place, as representatives of the same people, and as stakeholders in a common future. That is the most fitting tribute we can pay, the most lasting monument we can build to that most remarkable of men, Abraham Lincoln.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Today, the president heads to his and Lincoln's home state, Illinois. He will make remarks on the economy in Peoria at 4:25 eastern. We'll bring you those remarks live.

The deal is done and the economic stimulus bill could be on president Obama's desk by Monday. The House is expected to vote tomorrow followed by the senate. The final bill totals $789 billion for spending and tax cuts.

Democratic leaders bristle at complaints about the size of the bill while critics say the legislation misses the mark.

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY, (R), IOWA: You aren't going to predict what you're going to do or not do. There's a process in place in the United States Senate that brings about substance and brings about finality. And usually when it happens, it happens by an extraordinary vote. And I hope that that's what we do in the future, that's what we shall have done this time. I could talk about the substance of this bill, but the point is, we could have had a better substance with more votes and got the job done better.

SEN. HARRY REID, (D), MAJORITY LEADER: I don't usually talk very loud and I'm not going to tonight, but no one needs to lecture me, or us, on deficits, because you invented them. Republicans invented deficits. During the eight years that President Bush was president, the deficit went up $5 trillion -- $5 trillion. When he took office, there was a $7 trillion surplus over ten years. Don't lecture us on this being deficit spending. (END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Senior Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash will have more later in this hour.

A special court ruled today families failed to prove -- failed to prove -- certain childhood vaccines caused autism. A panel of legal specialists considered three test cases involving children with autism. The parents argued the measles, bumps, rubella vaccines and thimerosol-containing vaccines their children received caused their autism. The court has yet to rule on separate claims that thimerosol- containing vaccines their children received caused autism. Previously, the CDC, the World Health Organization and the Institute of Medicine found no credible link between vaccinations and autism.

After a series of tornadoes devastates part of Oklahoma, state officials say they will request government assistance for homeowners. The hardest hit area, the town of Lone Grove, where at least eight people died and 100 homes were damaged. The town's utilities, water and electricity are expected to go back online today.

Let's check in now with Chad Myers.

Chad, I'm sort of curious, if the storm, tornadoes that devastated Lone Grove, are they having the kind of impact we're seeing in the northeast in terms of flight delays and some of the windy conditions, for example, in Washington, D.C.?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, that's just the wind behind the front. Remember yesterday you said, hey, it is a good thing these storms are moving fast?

HARRIS: Yeah.

MYERS: What did I say?

HARRIS: You said not so fast, not so fast.

MYERS: Yes. I love Google Earth. We can put things on here that you can't do anywhere else. 327 different reports of wind damage yesterday, Tony, because those storms were moving so fast. They were moving 50, 60, 70 miles per hour. You put down a wind gust of 20, or 30, all of a sudden you have 75-mile-an-hour, 85-mile-an-hour wind gusts there at the surface. That's what happened yesterday. It didn't have a single tornado yet. We had 327 different reports of damage in different towns by different wind gusts and different wind -- just blowing down things, signs and the like.

Snow across parts of Syracuse and into Buffalo. This is the wind behind the storm. No real events, except the lake effect, Tony. Today is a day in between storms. Three hour delay in New York City, and 3:45 for Newark.

More "NEWSROOM" contiues right after this break.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: In his first stat message to Congress, Abraham Lincoln laid out a core principle, and I quote, "Capital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration." It is a simple proposition.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: 24 minutes after the hour. Welcome back to the "CNN NEWSROOM." I'm Tony Harris.

It took a lot of negotiation and compromise but the final version of the stimulus deal is done. So what's in and what's out of the $789 billion spending plan?

Senior Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Most Americans will get a tax cut, $400 for individuals, $800 for families. It's less than president Obama campaigned for, but enough for Democrats.

REID: More than one-third of this bill is dedicated at providing tax relief for middle class family, cutting taxes for 95 percent of American workers.

BASH: Two popular tax breaks are still in, but scaled back. First-time home buyers now will get a tax credit of up to $8,000. And people who buy new cars, they'll get a deduction for the sales tax on their purchase. But the biggest chunk of this $789 billion bill is government spending.

The only three Republicans who signed on to this massive stimulus package demanded big bucks for job creating infrastructure projects. And they got it, $150 billion for everything from highways and light rail to water and sewer projects.

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS, (R), MAINE: That is the most powerful component in this bill, to create jobs.

BASH: States in dire economic straits are big winners in this stimulus bill, too. They'll get $90 billion to help pay for Medicaid and $54 billion for education and other services. Funding for education was the last-minute snag in the frenzy to cut a deal, and House Democrats lost their battle to create a program to build new schools, but did get more money for states to modernize existing schools in disrepair. The price of compromise.

REP. NANCY PELOSI, (D), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: What we had in the bill that we wish that was still there. But the fact is that there's plenty there to create the nearly four million jobs that the president has set as our goal. BASH (on camera): Still, a lot of house Democrats are pretty angry about compromising on education funding. In fact, one Democratic lawmaker I spoke with says he wants to read the fine print to make sure they didn't completely, quote, "sell out."

But the legislation isn't even written yet. Even so, Democratic leaders hope to get this past the Senate and the House and to the president's desk in the next couple of days.

Dana Bash, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama linked through art. We will show you the result.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It was here in Springfield where north, south, east and west come together that I was reminded of the essential decency of the American people. Where I came to believe that through this decency, we can build a more hopeful America. That is why, in the shadow of the old state capitol, where Lincoln once called on a house divided to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still live, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for president of the United States of America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: That day seems so long ago now. Just about 30 minutes ago, Barack Obama was in the Rotunda at Capitol Hill making a brief speech about Lincoln and this celebration. Then later tonight, President Obama's going to return to the place where you saw him in that videotape, where he began his White House bid just two years ago. He'll be in Springfield, Illinois, for a banquet that honors Abraham Lincoln. Kyra Phillips is there. She continues our special coverage "From Lincoln to Obama."

Hey, Kyra.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Soledad.

This is the advantage of being a hometown girl because David Blanchard (ph) here, who is the communications director here at the museum, lives in my hometown. We've been talking about all our family members and, you know, growing up together. So we get the inside scoop . . .

DAVID BLANCHETTE, ABRAHAM LINCOLN PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY & MUSEUM: Where the best people come from.

PHILLIPS: That's right.

BLANCHETTE: I mean, what can you say. PHILLIPS: And he's going to give us an inside look to the Treasurer's Gallery. It's a pretty amazing look at artifacts you guys have been able to collect from the Lincoln era. So we're going to take you right inside. And as we lead up to the cudigra (ph), I guess you could say, let's tell Soledad and our viewers what's so amazing about this collection and this gallery.

BLANCHETTE: This is a collection of original Lincoln items. Items that belonged to Lincoln. That he handled, that he wrote, that were his personally or members of his family, Mary, the kids. And this is one of the greatest things we have in the collection.

PHILLIPS: I couldn't believe this.

BLANCHETTE: This is Lincoln's iconic stove pipe hat.

PHILLIPS: It's amazing. And how do you know it's Abraham Lincoln's actual stove pipe hat?

BLANCHETTE: We know where it's been ever since he owned it. So it's a clear record of where this has been ever since he owned it. Not only that, look on the brim. There are two indentations there where his fingers would always touch the hat, where he would tip his hat to the ladies. This is wonderful. You can't get this anywhere else.

PHILLIPS: That's amazing. Well, the chilling part, I think, is over here. At least it was for me. The actual blood stained gloves from the night he was assassinated.

BLANCHETTE: This case is all about the assassination. The gloves -- he hated to wear them. Mary made him wear the gloves whenever they went out for a formal occasion. He was at Ford's Theater. He stuffed his gloves in the pocket. And as a result, when he was assassinated, they got blood on the gloves. The red stains you see on the gloves, that's Abraham Lincoln's actual blood from the night of the assassination. It is so chilling. You can see people just getting the chills when they stand here and watch -- when they look at this.

PHILLIPS: All right. So we look at these items that you have from Abraham Lincoln. But you're already looking forward to Barack Obama, who, of course, admired Abraham Lincoln in so many ways and saving things of his to kind of make this tie between the two presidents. Tell me why you're doing that and what you've asked for.

BLANCHETTE: Well, we are historians. We collect things all the time. And when Barack Obama came just a block away to the old state capital for his two presidential announcements, we talked to his people and we said, can we have the speech that he made? Can we have him sign it? Can we have certain things that are associated with these events? We are now saving those and we're creating our own Barack Obama collection, which hopefully will rival that of Abraham Lincoln's collection some day.

PHILLIPS: Wow. All right. Well, on a little bit of a lighter note, and, Soledad, I'm doing this especially for you because you know how we like to hold on to our keepsakes. You know, growing up here, back in -- and notice we use the white gloves here -- I collected a number of things from the third grade. And I thought I'd maybe run it by Dave here to see if they might be worth anything.

What about my Ab Lincoln . . .

BLANCHETTE: Can I see that?

PHILLIPS: Yes.

BLANCHETTE: Holy cow! That's from Lincoln's New Salem era. This is the rare plastic artifact from his New Salem days. This is -- I can't even put a price on this.

PHILLIPS: Fabulous! OK. So, Soledad, I guess I . . .

BLANCHETTE: Be careful. Be careful with that. Be careful with that.

PHILLIPS: OK. All right. White gloves. White gloves. Thank you very much.

Now how about my New Salem Lincoln mug?

BLANCHETTE: Oh, my gosh, this is even more rare! This is not the full-size mug. This is the miniature mug. We don't see this every day.

O'BRIEN: Got it. Thanks.

BLANCHETTE: Oh, oh, my heart is fluttering here.

PHILLIPS: Oh, you know . . .

BLANCHETTE: I can't -- I can't hold it. I'm afraid. I'm afraid I'll break that.

PHILLIPS: Now what about my plate? Because, you know, since the third grade, I've never done anything to this. But when I brought it here to show you, it broke. Do you think you might be able to restore it?

BLANCHETTE: We will have our curators lovingly restore this plate. This is a national treasure. We thank you from the bottom of our heart for preserving these wonderful mementos of Abraham Lincoln's life. You should get a metal for this.

PHILLIPS: Thank you, Dave.

Now see what happens when you grow up with the communications director from the museum.

O'BRIEN: I was going to say, he's mocking . . .

PHILLIPS: He (INAUDIBLE) special, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: He's mocking your third grade collection! That is not nice.

PHILLIPS: No. and aren't you impressed, Soledad? I've saved all of this stuff since the third grade.

O'BRIEN: I have nothing from then.

BLANCHETTE: That's a rare artifact.

PHILLIPS: I actually had to get my mom to go up into the garage, dig everything out of the box and she was pretty amazed I saved this stuff, too.

O'BRIEN: I'm (INAUDIBLE) shocked.

All right, Kyra, thank you very much. That was an excellent tour. We appreciate it.

PHILLIPS: OK.

O'BRIEN: You know, in some ways the parallels between the 16th and 44th president are really striking. We talked about some of them. We want to show you a physical parallel. In fact, so striking, really, that one artist has turned the two men into one man. He calls his work "Abraham Obama." Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RON ENGLISH, STREET ARTIST: A street artist is somebody who gets out of their studio and puts their art out where people will actually see it. That's where the eyeballs are. The Obama campaign contacted Upper Playground, which is a gallery in San Francisco who deals with street artist. My name is Ron English and I am a street artist.

They invited eight different street artists to do images. And I think I was about the fifth one that they did. What was actually going on around at that time was Hillary or Bill was accusing Obama of not really having enough experience. And it seemed to me, you know, at that moment that he had pretty much the same experience as Abraham Lincoln. And then suddenly all these other parallels started laying out. Like, you know, they're these skinny guys from Illinois. They're both intellectual, but consummate politicians. They're visionaries.

We are in my art studio in Jersey City. The image is called "Abraham Obama" and it's just kind of welding of the two men together as one. I had to find a picture, obviously, of Abraham and of Obama. Fortunately, all the featured lined up exactly.

I wasn't really saying he's Lincoln, because he hasn't really done anything yet, but I was saying, you know, it's the concept that he could fulfill that role.

Well, I probably thought a lot about Lincoln because I'm from Illinois and we always grew up in the land of Lincoln. And everything was Lincoln. We'd go see, here's where Lincoln took a whiz. Here's where Lincoln slept. So we were, you know, pretty into Lincoln. And my family swears we're related to Lincoln, although I doubt it.

When we went on the road, I made up a whole bunch of different images to put up. And then, you know, some of the people in my crew said, look, let's just stick to one image. And that's how Obama did it. He said, oh, he didn't have a big complicated message and it worked.

I also like to work on music. I work with a band called the Electric Illuminati and I write all the songs for them.

I had done the image and then I felt like when you go on a radio show you can't really show the image, so we need a song. So we did a song. The course is "and America just wants to believe in Barack Obama."

Lincoln freed the slaves and put all that into motion. It's not complete until Lincoln's been replaced by a black man. And, God, that says a lot about our country, I think.

ELECTRIC ILLUMINATI SINGING: In Barack Obama. Revelations, dharma Shariah Law and Karma and America, just wants to believe in Barack Obama.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: A street artist's view. Emmanuel Tambakakis is the photo journalist who put that piece together for us.

Now you may know several cities carry the name Lincoln. And we want to show you one of them, Lincoln, Illinois. And while many cities are named Lincoln, none can claim the legacy that this small Illinois community can. We're going to take you there and show you what exactly is so special about what's there. Stay with us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It just seems like all of us (INAUDIBLE) just come together in history for two great presidents and we hope that, in the end, that he will be a great president. President Lincoln was president at a time when there was a lot of turmoil in the union. And President Obama is president at a time when there's a lot of crisis in our economy. And, you know, President Lincoln just turned out to be a magnificent president who did what was right for the country and hopefully President Obama will do the same.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Very quickly let's check out the New York Stock Exchange. The big board. Now, as you can see, stocks are slumping today. Our friends at cnnmoney.com telling us investors are not completely sold on the massive economic stimulus package. However, stocks are off of session lows. At one point early in the trading day, stocks were down by as much as 170 points. Now down 94. And the Nasdaq, essentially flat. New economic numbers to digest today. Surprisingly, both show improvement. And 623,000 people filed for first-time jobless benefits last week. That is down a sliver, but ongoing claims remain at a record level. And retail sales shot up in January a full percentage point, halting six straight monthly declines. And here's a surprise. Automobile sales showed strong increases. General merchandise stores like Wal-Mart and Walgreens came on strong.

A job fair in Phoenix this week looked more like a flash mob scene. Here's reporter Chris Sign from CNN affiliate KNXV.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is extraordinary, all these people.

CHRIS SIGN, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): Thousands competing for a new job.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's tough. There's a lot of people here.

SIGN: To put it in perspective, an estimated 15,000 job seekers showed up to visit 150 companies. If each company had 10 open spots -- which many didn't -- that would be 15,000 people vying for 1,500 jobs.

THERESA MAHER, JOBING.COM: We were not expecting the length of the lines and, you know, the endurance of it throughout the entire event. So there were definitely more job seekers than we expected.

ROBERT BUENTELLO, JOB SEEKER: Tired. Been here since 9:30 this morning. I got laid off in December.

SIGN: He was third in line and it may have been worth the wait.

BUENTELLO: I got a couple good leads. So hopefully I got an interview tomorrow with a company here.

L'RETTA WOLLRIDGE, JOB SEEKER: I just got here, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the line.

WOLLRIDGE: In the line.

SIGN: This woman was last in the door. She came to see a company for the second time.

WOLLRIDGE: And make I can just catch somebody before they break down to see if they want to talk to me.

SIGN: Talking to a potential employer face to face was critical, but some left feeling down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, a lot of everybody what you want to do today is just go online and apply, you know.

SIGN: And when applying online, experts say you should reference your contact from the job fair.

MAURINE DILLMAN, USAA HUMAN RESOURCES: Just the best way for applicants to apply and for us to really get all their experience and capture their profile.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: Will making more homes energy efficient create new jobs in the long run? That is one of the programs debated in the stimulus plan.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: The $789 billion economic rescue plan moving forward. It should land on President Obama's desk by Monday. The compromised bill breaks down to about 35 percent tax cuts, 65 percent spending, with a few billion of that going to weatherize 1 million homes a year. So how will that kick-start the economy and create jobs? Here's CNN's Elaine Quijano.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): The president wants to spend billions of dollars to weatherize a million homes a year, an idea that doesn't exactly wow comedian Jon Stewart.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As a consequence of weatherization, their energy bills will go down and we reduce our dependence on foreign oil. What would be a more effective stimulus package than that?

JON STEWART, "THE DALY SHOW WITH JON STEWART": Yes, we . . .

QUIJANO: But the president argues weatherizing cannot only save homeowners money on their energy bills, it can also generate jobs. He bristles at critics who dismiss the idea.

OBAMA: Don't suggest that somehow that's wasteful spending. That's exactly what this country needs.

QUIJANO: According to the environmental group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, spending about $3 billion on home weatherizing would create 50,000 jobs at a cost of $60,000 each. Yet one economist asks, what happens when the stimulus money runs out?

DAVID KREUTZER, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: These are not real jobs that will be sustained after the stimulus package is over. So it's almost cruel, a mirage, to tell them, look, we're training you for -- giving you skills for jobs of the future.

QUIJANO: That debate is not academic for weatherization companies like Housewarmers in Maryland, where president Timothy Kenny hopes to greatly expand his staff of seven.

TIMOTHY KENNY, HOUSEWARMERS: Best case scenario, you know, I may hire 40 people. QUIJANO: Kenny says unemployed construction workers can retrain for weatherization jobs and return to building new houses when the economy picks up again.

KENNY: The ramp-up's going to be a tremendous challenge to get qualified technicians out in the field to produce these units. But I think we're up to that challenge.

QUIJANO: Kenny believes, on average, a skilled construction worker can be retrained as a weatherization technician in about a month.

Elaine Quijano, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: Well, a lot of towns across the country have been named after Abraham Lincoln. But there is one in Illinois that claims a special legacy.

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O'BRIEN: The Smithsonian is marking the Lincoln bicentennial with an exhibit which is called "An Extraordinary Life." CNN photojournalist Bethany Swain took a tour so you could take a look.

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BETHANY SWAIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): I have some favorite objects within the exhibit that I think really sort of illuminate Lincoln's life making this history that we read about in books become tangible. Like the iron wedge that he used in New Salem to split wood and which he then carved his own initials on.

Here is a light mask of Lincoln just at the time he would be receiving the nomination for the Republican Party presidential candidate in 1860. You can see that the right hand is swollen. And this was been (ph) swollen from shaking so many hand the day before when he won the nomination.

There is Lincoln's office suit from the 1860s. One of Mary's evening gowns worn for the winter social season of 1861-62. But here in our collection is Abraham Lincoln's gold watch from the days in which he was a lawyer in Springfield. This isn't just an every day watch. This is a fine gold watch, purchased in Springfield. It has very good English works inside. And it is the one symbol that every 19th century man would recognize as a symbol of success and says something about how Lincoln saw himself and what he was trying to portray.

There's also things of great significance, like the ink stand he used to draft the Emancipation Proclamation, or the coffee cup that was left behind the night he went to Ford's Theater on a windowsill in the White House. The servant, rather than just putting this with the rest of the dishes, preserves it and it becomes one of the treasured objects that the Lincoln family keeps until they eventually donate it to the Smithsonian Institution.

When Lincoln is assassinated, Laura Keene, the star of the play, she cuts off her sleeve and gives her sleeve, blood-stain sleeve, to her niece. This is the first item in the Lincoln collection for the Smithsonian Institution. It came in 1867. It's a silk hat. Abraham Lincoln wore it to Ford's Theater on the night of his assassination. Over time, is losing some of the silk.

Hopefully by looking at these things, it makes that mythic story become more real.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: The exhibit opened last month in time for the inauguration. It runs through January 2011.

Let's head back to Springfield, Illinois, as we continue to mark the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth. Kyra Phillips is at the Lincoln Museum for us today.

Hey, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Hey, Soledad.

You've pretty much gotten a taste for everything that's here at this museum. You know, growing up here in this area, we never had anything like this. We got to visit some of the old stuff like Lincoln's house and go over to New Salem where there was Lincoln's village. But now there's this unbelievable museum that has all these exhibits. And we're going to show you one in just a minute.

You thought, you know, we dominated the whole hologram idea during the election coverage? Well, I've got a little special something for you with regard to that.

But first, Springfield really isn't the only one that has ties to Abraham Lincoln. There's another special place actually named after him and our photojournalist Chris Davis takes us there.

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PAUL GLEASON, LINCOLN, ILLINOIS, HERITAGE MUSEUM: Lincoln, Illinois, was the only time named for Abraham Lincoln prior to his presidency.

ELIZABETH A. DAVIS-KAVELMAN, LINCOLN, ILLINOIS, MAYOR: My name's Elizabeth Davis-Kavelman. I'm mayor of the city of Lincoln. He was an attorney working for the railroad and laid out our actual town at that time.

GLEASON: When it come time for naming this new town, had he to fill in the blank. And one of them suggested that we'll name it after you, Mr. Lincoln. And he sort of probably laughed a little bit, said nothing named Lincoln ever amounted to much.

I gained my first interest in Abraham Lincoln back in 1942 at the age of four. My name is Paul E. Gleason. I'm the assistant director here at Lincoln College Museum.

DAVIS-KAVELMAN: We do have greater number of historic cal things that other communities don't have.

SUSAN HURLEY, STATE BANK OF ILLINOIS: My name is Susan Hurley and I work at the State Bank of Lincoln. We have a large collection of Llyod Austindorf (ph) pictures, as well as some statues here in the lobby. In 1853, Abraham Lincoln christened the town of Lincoln, Illinois, with the juice of a watermelon. Lincoln did not drink, so he grabbed a watermelon from a wagon, squeezed it into a cup, and poured it on the ground.

GLEN SHELTON (ph): Can't you imagine what he could do with a basketball? The same on the right hand.

I'm Glen Shelton, the pastor of the Second Baptist Church here. I have lived in Lincoln now 25 years. To see the place where he christened Lincoln, and then Lincoln growing from that, lot of people tell me "I didn't know that." I say, "yes." right here in Lincoln, Illinois. You need to stop. (END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Now from Lincoln, Illinois, back here to Springfield, Illinois, I want to take you live right now next to me in the ghost of the library exhibit, Soledad. Let's listen for just a moment and then I'll tell you what's going on.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Unbearable burden for even the strongest parents. Mary lost three of her four children. Betty, Lilly, Tad, and, of course, Mary saw her husband die, too.

PHILLIPS: All right. I'm not quite sure, Soledad, if we had audio or not because I was not able to hear. Were you able to hear, by chance?

O'BRIEN: Yes. And it sounded very ghostly.

PHILLIPS: You were.

O'BRIEN: Yes. It sounded a little creepy. Absolutely.

PHILLIPS: Good. Well, I -- well, there you go. That's the beauty of live television. So I actually couldn't hear that part. So I apologize. So you kind of got a feel for it. So basically it's role playing from big moments during Lincoln's time and they've used a hologram effect, obviously, with documents, speeches, moments. And coming up in just a little bit, there will actually be a hologram of Abraham Lincoln giving the Gettysburg Address.

So a little bit of everything here from the haunting ghost of Lincoln's time, to the White House, to a pretty riveting exhibit about slavery as well. And you can come here -- actually on display, too, they've got original documents, Soledad, just like what we're seeing at the Library of Congress. We've got the Gettysburg Address, an actual document here you can see. And also the Emancipation Proclamation. But coming up at the top of the hour, our White House correspondent, Ed Henry, is here. And we're going to talk to him about what he would have asked Abraham Lincoln if indeed he was there in the press corps -- if they even had a press corps at that time.

Ed, I'm going to have you ask you about that.

That's coming up at the top of the hour as we get ready for the president of the United States to arrive here in Springfield for his speech.

O'BRIEN: All right. Ed Henry, only 135 years or so to late to be doing question and answers with President Lincoln. Look forward to that. Thanks, Kyra.