Presidents' Day, as far as I know, exists because Congress wanted to create a three-day weekend in the dead of winter. While it seems to honor all presidents, the holiday is most closely identified with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, if only because it generally or always falls between their birthdays.
Lincoln is undoubtedly the president most closely associated with maximizing personal independence because he freed roughly four million slaves and led the effort to constitutionally abolish slavery in this nation forever. But he also signed the 1862 Homestead Act, which helped open the West to ordinary people who wanted to try to build a better life for themselves and their families. He also signed the law creating land grant colleges, which was designed to give ordinary people a chance at a college education. Lincoln started life in a log cabin on the Kentucky frontier and worked his way up to becoming a prosperous lawyer, and eventually, president. A main thrust of his political career was that other people should have the opportunity to better their lot in society just as he had.
The system dealing with helping the elderly and the otherwise challenged should always keep those bits about personal ability, opportunity, and maximum independence firmly in the forefront of what they do.
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