Lincoln's Train Trip

There has been much comparison between today's Lincoln throwback train trip that Barack Obama is taking, and the original trip made by Abraham Lincoln during his trip to Washington for his inauguration in 1861. There really isn't much in common except for the routing:

Abraham Lincoln's first inaugual trip was not his finest hour. It started on Feb. 11, 1861, when he boarded an eastbound train in Springfield, Ill., en route to his inauguration in Washington, D. C. The whistle-stop tour of 70 towns and cities included Baltimore on Feb. 23.

The southern states were already talking of secession and threats had been made against Lincoln.

Allan Pinkerton, founder of the eponymous detective agency who had been hired by railway officials to investigate suspicious activities and acts of destruction of railway property along Lincoln's route through Baltimore, became convinced there was a plot to ambush him between the Calvert Street Station of the Northern Central and the Camden Street Station of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.

According to Pinkerton, the plan was to have several assassins, armed with knives, interspersed throughout the crowd greeting Lincoln at the President Street station.
When he emerged from the car, which he must do to change trains, at least one of the assassins would be able to get close enough to kill him.

In the event, Lincoln and his family left the train earlier at an unscheduled stop.

Once the president-elect had safely passed through Baltimore, Pinkerton sent a one-line telegram to the president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad: "Plums delivered nuts safely."

Critics never forgot the event and used it to brand Lincoln a coward.

You have to remember that Maryland was all but a Southern state and was full of Southern sympathizers who wanted Lincoln dead. Lincoln did not stop for huge public rallies - he couldn't because it was too dangerous. The route covered by Obama today was covered by Lincoln mostly at night to avoid detection.

I think the Lincoln comparisons are way overblown, and this train trip probably more than many of the others. And does anyone else think it's kind of silly that Obama moved to D.C. two weeks ago, moved into Blair House two days ago, but had to go to Philadelphia yesterday so he could ride a train back to Blair House today?

The Drudge headline pokes fun at all that:

OBAMA [RE]TRAVELS TO WASHINGTON