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sIX Barack Obama’s Lincoln W I T H T H E B I C E N T E N N IA L of Lincoln’s birth in 2009, we have witnessed yet another explosion of interest in our sixteenth president, fueled not only by the bicentennial but by the political rhetoric of Barack Obama. In February 2007, just two days before Lincoln’s birthday, Obama announced his candidacy for the U.S. presidency in Springfield, Illinois. Obama was standing in front of the old Illinois State Capitol—the site of Lincoln’s famed House Divided speech—and the power and purposefulness of this symbolism was unmistakable. Obama’s declared purpose was to answer the call to rise up, like previous generations of Americans, and to do what needed to be done, to fulfill what he sometimes identifies as the “promise” of America. Obama suggested that our unyielding faith, dating back to the founding of the nation, is that we will fulfill this promise in the face of impossible odds. This, Obama claimed, is what “Abraham Lincoln understood.” Laying out the themes of his presidential campaign, Obama offered the numerous reforms necessary to live up to this charge, as he understands it: reshaping the economy to provide for greater equality of opportunity; establishing higher standards for education and better pay for teachers; affordable college tuition; increased funding for scientific research; broadband lines in both city and countryside; better benefits and retirement plans for the nation’s workers; the abolition of poverty in the United States; universal health care; energy independence; the defeat of terrorism, an end to the Iraq war, and improved benefits for veterans; and a rebuilding of the Barack Obama’s Lincoln 155 U.S. military. If we can begin this work, Obama suggested, we might begin to live up to the promise of America, to prove our fidelity to the American creed. According to Obama, the Founders and Abraham Lincoln understood that the unique and most commendable quality of American democracy is that it can be changed.1 Obama argued that these goals can be realized only through unity and conviction. Calling to mind Lincoln’s famous words, Obama suggested that, divided, we are bound to fail. Americans must join together to fix contemporary problems. While Americans have historically been plagued by a growing cynicism about the possibilities of politics, Obama claimed that a different future is possible. We can know this, he explained, if we consider the life of a “tall, gangly, self-made Springfield lawyer.” Lincoln tells us that there is “power in words,” that there is “power in conviction,” that “beneath all the differences of race and region, faith and station, we are one people,” and that “there is power in hope.” Employing the language of Lincoln’s House Divided speech, Obama referred to Lincoln’s part in helping to organize “strange, discordant, and even hostile forces” to form the Republican Party in the fight against slavery. In similar fashion, Obama and his supporters today must stand together, united, “gathered from the four winds” to see the fight through.2 Obama argued that he had run for the presidency in order to gather with his audience to “transform a nation,” to “win the next battle for justice and opportunity.” Invoking the language of the Gettysburg Address, Obama professed his desire to “take up the unfinished business of perfecting our union, and building a better America,” to “finish the work that needs to be done, and usher in a new birth of freedom on this Earth.”3 Just shy of two years later, Obama chose “A New Birth of Freedom” as the theme for his presidential inauguration ceremonies. Upon being elected, Obama famously followed Lincoln’s train route to Washington, ate the food Lincoln had eaten at his inaugural luncheon, and took the oath of office using the Bible Lincoln had used at his inauguration. For the two years leading up to Obama’s inauguration, academics and journalists frequently made the ubiquitous Obama-Lincoln connection. The substance of that comparison ranged from the thoughtful and observant to the downright pedestrian and silly. Countless articles appeared in the press noting the similarities between Obama and Lincoln. Some focused on the substance of their ideas. Some considered their temperaments, rhetorical skill, “leadership,” or “management style.” Others noted that both are talented, self-made men from humble roots. Still others observed that both are tall, thin lawyers that [3.17.150.89] Project MUSE (2024-04-23 18...

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