Operation Assassination: Lincolnisms vs. Kennedyms - Part VI

We're celebrating Operation Assassination, a trivia-laden white paper I compiled 25 years ago that indirectly spawned this blog. In 2000, I combined my original paper with material I found online that I published on a GeoCities account. As part of this retrospect, I revisited what I found and republished the information.

The Politics

1. Both were a U.S. Representative
1. Lincoln was first elected in 1846
2. Kennedy was first elected in 1946
2. Both were runners-up for their party's nomination for vice president
1. In the election of 1856, Congressman Abraham Lincoln ran for the Vice-Presidential nomination on the Republican ticket and lost
2. In the election of 1956, Senator John F. Kennedy ran for Vice-Presidential nomination on the Democratic ticket and lost
3. Both were involved in public political debates
1. Prior to the 1860 election, two Presidential contenders, Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, engaged in what was known as the Great Debates (Lincoln-Douglass Debates)
2. Prior to the 1960 election, two Presidential contenders, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, for the first time in history, engaged in a series of television debates (Kennedy-Nixon Debates)
3. Oddly enough, both Douglas and Nixon were born one hundred years apart (Douglas 1813, Nixon 1913)
4. In the election of 1856, Congressman Abraham Lincoln ran for the vice-presidential nomination on the Republican ticket and lost. One hundred years later, in the election of 1956, Senator John F. Kennedy became president and ran for the vice-presidential nomination on the Democratic ticket and lost.
5. Kennedy was elected president 100 years after Lincoln
1. Lincoln in 1860
2. Kennedy in 1960
6. The first public proposal that Lincoln be the Republican candidate for president, a letter to the Cincinnati Gazette on November 6, 1858, also endorsed John P. Kennedy for vice-president, former secretary of the navy in the Filmore administration
7. Both had the legailty of their elections contested
8. Both served as Presidents during controversial US wars
1. Lincoln during the US Civil War
2. Kennedy during VietNam
9. Both were involved with Civil Rights, concerned with the problems of American blacks, and made their views known in '63
1. Lincoln told of his in the Emancipation Proclamation
2. Kennedy told of his in his report to Congress on Civil Rights.
10. In 1964, William O. Douglas and Harry Goldin published books entitled Mr. Lincoln and the Negroes and Mr. Kennedy and the Negroes
11. The Secretary of State under President Lincoln and A. Johnson: William H. Seward (served from 1861-69). The Secretary of State under Kennedy-Johnson: Dean Rusk (served 1961-69).