Obama chooses Lincoln's Bible For Swearing In Ceremony

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama plans to take the oath of office with his right hand on the same Bible used to swear in Abraham Lincoln, the Presidential Inaugural Committee announced Tuesday.

Obama, who like Lincoln won the presidency after a stint as a state lawmaker and then a member of Congress from Illinois, has sometimes compared himself to the 16th president. He invoked Lincoln by announcing his presidential candidacy from the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., as Lincoln did. And, like Lincoln, he plans to travel to his inauguration in Washington by train.

"Not only is Lincoln one of my political heroes," Obama told USA TODAY last year, "but, like Lincoln, I served for seven years in Springfield in the state Senate, and it's there I learned how to legislate; it's there that I developed many of my political ideas."