"A New Birth of Freedom" was the theme for Barack Obama's inauguration today—a reference to one of Abraham Lincoln's most memorable lines from the Gettysburg Address. It was part of Obama's sustained effort to link himself with the memory of one of America's greatest leaders and to give Americans reassurance that today, as in Lincoln's time, the country would find its way through any crisis.
Obama, the first African-American president, has often emphasized his bonds with Lincoln, who waged war to preserve the Union and end slavery. Obama, the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas, was raised amid the cultural diversity of Hawaii and Indonesia, and he went out of his way to involve many different kinds of people in his inauguration. Nearly every major segment of the population seemed represented in some way—whites and blacks, men and women, straights and gays, the old, the young, the middle-aged.
Thomas Jefferson was the first president to be inaugurated in Washington, D.C., which became the capital in 1801. After his second inauguration, Jefferson rode on horseback from the Capitol to the president's house surrounded by mechanics from the Navy Yard—the forerunner of the inaugural parade.
