RasmussenReports.com, February 16th, 2007
As Presidents’ Day 2007 approaches, Americans continue to hold George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in extraordinarily high regard. Washington, the nation’s first President, is viewed favorably by 84%. Lincoln, who guided the nation through the Civil War, does even better and earns a 91% favorable rating.
Despite these fond feeling for Washington and Lincoln, a Rasmussen Reports survey of 1,000 adults found that only 13% of Americans consider the day set aside to honor these men as one of our most important holidays. That places Presidents’ Day barely ahead of Valentines’ Day in the public ranking of holidays. Thirty-three percent (33%) consider Presidents’ Day one of our least important holidays while 48% place it somewhere in the middle.
Three-out-of four Americans (76%) they won’t do anything special to commemorate the holiday. Half of all workers (54%) will do some work rather than enjoying a long weekend.
Washington led America's Continental Army to victory over Britain in the American Revolutionary War, and was later elected the first president of the United States under the U.S. Constitution. Washington was the only President to be elected unanimously by the Electoral College, a feat which he duplicated in 1792. The Father of our Country could have served until his death, but chose not to do so because he feared it would establish a bad precedent and lead to a form of elected monarchy. Instead, by stepping down after two terms, he established a precedent that lasted until Franklyn Roosevelt ran for a third term in 1940. Following Roosevelt’s death, Washington’s precedent of a two-term limit was enshrined in the Constitution as the 22nd Amendment.
A separate poll conducted around Independence Day found that 39% of adults consider Washington the greatest founding father of our country.
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was also the first Republican elected to the White House. His greatest achievement was preserving the Union, defeating the secessionist Confederacy in the Civil War. Lincoln was also the first President assassinated, murdered in Ford’s Theater by John Wilkes Booth. The date of his assassination is currently mourned for an entirely different reason. April 15 has become the day that Federal taxes are due.
The national telephone survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted by Rasmussen Reports February 12-13, 2007. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
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