“A fundamental element of the American character: a belief that we can constantly remake ourselves to fit our larger dreams.”
That’s part of what Barack Obama had to say in Lincoln, Illinois to commemorate the opening of the Abraham Lincoln Library andMuseum in Springfield, Ill. Barack Obama was compared to Lincoln in an article discussing the similarities between the Keyes-Obama and Lincoln-Douglas oppositions.
President Bush was present and used his speech to compare the civil war and the tension of slavery to the modern war on terrorism and the tension of Iraq. Obama countered this with an expression of the hesitant nature of many of Lincoln’s executive judgements and the slow and conservative way that he went to war:
“Lincoln was not a perfect man nor a perfect president. By modern standards, his condemnation of slavery might be considered tentative, his Emancipation Proclamation more a military document than a clarion call for justice. He wasn’t immune to political considerations. His temperament could be indecisive and morose.”
Sources: Associated Press