Sorry Abe -No National Holiday for your Birthday.

Sorry Abe, your birthday is not a national holiday!

Many Americans think February 12th is when we celebrate your accomplishments.

We all know that Lincoln was the first Republican President, ended slavery, the Civil War, and united the Nation in one Union. Lincoln's image is on our pennies and five-dollar notes. His picture stands guard over the Minnesota State House of Representatives chamber to remind each legislator that we expect honest government.

Even though he is considered one of our greatest Presidents, his birthday never became a national holiday.

Right now, you are probably picturing the Lincoln Memorial, honoring our 16th president.

But the fact remains, contrary to what many of us believe; we have no national holiday for his birthday.

Instead, his birthday is celebrated unofficially nationwide, with only four individual states, Connecticut, Illinois, Missouri, and New York honoring his birthday as a holiday. The California legislature ended Lincoln's birthday as a paid state holiday in 2009.

It was in Buffalo, N.Y that Julius E. Francis beginning in 1874, called for Congress to declare Lincoln's Birthday as a holiday.

However, the South did not want a national holiday honoring Lincoln following the Civil War. Democrats successfully blocked the attempts to promote or preserve Lincoln's memory by designating his birthday as a national holiday.

But wait, don't we celebrate Lincoln's birthday as part of Presidents Day?

Another myth.

President's Day is not a federal national holiday. When Congress moved holidays as part of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, Congress rejected proposals to honor Washington and Lincoln and retained Washington's birthday. That's right; it is officially "Washington's birthday." Nevertheless, a dozen states have renamed Washington's birthday as "Presidents' Day, and another dozen declare the day as "Washington and Lincoln Day."

So when you when you see a "President Day" sale you are seeing a marketing gimmick not an official national holiday.

Perhaps it's time for those among us to recognize a leader who understood that what makes America Great is a republican form of government that is "of the people, by the people, and for the people