What would Abraham Lincoln think of the FCAT? And how would he handle Cuba?

Questions like these were the fodder for a panel of academics, politicians and community leaders Sunday at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami. They gathered in front of a packed crowd to figure out how the nation's 16th president, renowned for fighting the Civil War and ending slavery, would handle the problems of the cultural hodgepodge like South Florida.

The program was a part of a multicity celebration of Lincoln's legacy 200 years after his birth in 1809. Sunday's program included an address by Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates. He gave a portrait of Lincoln drawing on his new book Lincoln on Race and Slavery, whichprovides a more complicated view of the president.

Gates was in the news this summer after a confrontation with police in Cambridge, Mass., led to a ``beer summit'' with a police sergeant and President Barack Obama.

``I think Miami today presents probably the best microcosm of our country in terms of addressing some of the issues that Lincoln dealt with,'' said Marvin Dunn, a Florida International University professor who researches local black history.

Dunn argued the president would have been ``thoroughly disappointed'' with the FCAT, which he said championed rote memory instead of problem-solving skills.

Miami-Dade Public Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvahlo, another panelist, did not necessarily disagree.

``Lincoln recognized education as a priority,'' he said, ``but I don't think he envisioned any policy that focused on core subjects at the expense of arts programs.''

The program concluded with retired Miami Heat star Alonzo Mourning reading excerpts from Lincoln's speeches.