Obama and Lincoln: A Presidential Comparison

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Obama and Lincoln: A Presidential Comparison

Posted By: Lindsey Clark 1 day ago



President-elect Barack Obama draws inspiration from the man considered one of our greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln. There are parallels, Lincoln freed the slaves, and Obama is the first African American president. Both men rose rapidly from Illinois state politics, and both did so largely on their way with words.

"I'm fired up!" says Barack Obama as he kicks off his campaign in Abraham Lincoln's hometown of Springfield, Illinois.

Capping it election night by quoting Lincoln's first inaugural, "We are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.'"

Barack Obama's never shied away from the links with Lincoln.

Harold Holzer, the author of "Lincoln: President-Elect" says, "Obama likes to say two skinny, big-eared lawyers from Illinois born in other states, made it in Illinois, limited experience."

Harold Holzer, who's written or edited 33 books about Lincoln, says it doesn't stop there.

An upcoming exhibit on Lincoln at New York's Historical Society reminds us, these two men rose to national prominence on the strength of their speeches.

In 2004, Barack Obama said, "There is not a liberal America and a conservative America, there is the United States of America!"

They are indeed woven together by history. Holzer adds, "This inauguration goes such an enormous step in completing that second half of the American Dream that was unfulfilled until the Civil War and then largely put on hold until the Civil Rights Revolution."

Barack Obama is not alone in looking to Lincoln for inspiration, Teddy Roosevelt used to wear a ring around here with a lock of Lincoln's hair in it, but as big a challenge as Barack Obama is facing, historians say, hang on a second when it comes to comparisons to Abraham Lincoln.

Douglas Brinkley, a history professor at Rice University says, "They do, when you start looking at it, have some stylistic similarities. But don't do a beam back into the Civil War era as if they're interchangeable."

Yes, Obama has two wars and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression to deal with; Lincoln lost 600,000 people in Civil War.

Douglas says, "No matter how bad or dark the hours are going to get for Barack Obama, Lincoln had it worse. I mean he's sitting there in the White House surrounded in by hostile forces in Maryland and Virginia, half the country just leaving the United States."

For now, comparing the two as presidents is speculative. Mr. Obama hasn't served a day in office. That'll all change Tuesday when Barack Obama places his hand on the bible and takes the oath. The same bible, naturally, that Abraham Lincoln used.

Barack Obama is also taking a cue from Lincoln by travelling the same route by train as Lincoln did before his inauguration.

He travelled from Philadelphia to Wilmington, Delaware Saturday.

[Malsua]

One man freed black men, the other plans to enslave the those who produce.

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In retracing part of Lincoln's journey, Obama hopes to highlight inaugural theme

03:25 PM CST on Friday, January 16, 2009

The Philadelphia Inquirer PHILADELPHIA – One fragment is a poster-size patch of discolored red-and-white cloth, the other little more than threads and fibers. Both pieces come from the same source. And both are more than what they seem.

"Relics," said Andrew Coldren, curator of the Civil War Museum of Philadelphia, "of Lincoln's epic train journey."
Inauguration Day

Both swatches were snipped from a giant U.S. flag that President-elect Abraham Lincoln raised at Independence Hall during the 1861 rail voyage that took him through Philadelphia to Washington for his inauguration. On Saturday, nearly 150 years later, another president-elect from Illinois will partly re-create that trip, traveling by train to his inauguration.

Barack Obama plans to hold an event in Philadelphia that morning, then head south through Wilmington and Baltimore, joined in those cities by Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. They are to arrive in Washington that evening.

Details of Obama's Philadelphia visit have not been released. During Lincoln's stop, the newly elected Republican strived to connect himself to the strength and wisdom of the Founders. Philadelphia was the last Northern city Lincoln saw before venturing into the South, perilous ground for a politician opposed to slavery. The only known photos of Lincoln on his inaugural trip were taken in Philadelphia. And it was in Philadelphia that Lincoln was told of a plot to kill him days later in Baltimore.

At the time, there was no Secret Service. Lincoln sneaked through Baltimore, at night, in disguise – and was ridiculed afterward for cowardice. Of course, Obama won't be sneaking anywhere. And the evidence of his inaugural journey won't be limited to a few blurry photographs and a couple of pieces of flag.

His partial retracing of Lincoln's route seeks to highlight his inaugural theme, "Renewing America's Promise," through events in Philadelphia, where the promise was realized in 1776; Baltimore, where it was defended in the War of 1812; and Washington, where it is to be renewed.

"I think it's very smart politics," said Michael J. Kline, author of "The Baltimore Plot: The First Conspiracy to Assassinate Abraham Lincoln," a new book from Westholme Publishing. "He wants to show he's appreciative of a part of the country that was strongly supportive of him, and to suggest that he wants to be inclusive, like Lincoln, even of people who didn't support him."

Lincoln's convoluted journey lasted 12 days and covered 1,600 miles, taking him north and south and east and west. Trains were slower then, requiring stops for fuel and water. River crossings, which often relied on ferries, could be major undertakings.

It's also true Lincoln wanted to see and be seen, to draw on the energy of the crowd. In the age before radio, presidents communicated through speeches, and the serpentine route allowed Lincoln to speak out before his March 4 inauguration.

He departed Springfield, Ill., on Feb. 11, 1861, moving through Indianapolis and Cincinnati. He turned north through Columbus, Ohio, east to Pittsburgh, then north again to Cleveland. His train hugged the shore of Lake Erie as it moved northeast to Buffalo, N.Y., turned east to Albany, and then due south to New York.

From there, Lincoln traveled southwest to Philadelphia, west to Harrisburg, back to Philadelphia, and finally southwest through Baltimore to Washington.

In 1865, after Lincoln was assassinated in Washington, his funeral train bore his body back to Springfield over the same circuitous route.
The president-elect arrived in Philadelphia about 3:45 p.m. on Feb. 21, his Lincoln Special train greeted by a cannon salute as it rolled into the Kensington station.

"Philadelphia welcomed Lincoln," Kline writes in "The Baltimore Plot," "like the Second Coming."

Banners, firehouse bells, bands and cheering crowds greeted Lincoln as he rode in an open carriage to the elegant Continental Hotel at Ninth and Chestnut streets.

People massed outside that evening, hoping to glimpse the president-to-be.

Fireworks lit the sky. Late that night, detective Allan Pinkerton informed an exhausted Lincoln of the plot to kill him in Maryland, a Southern-leaning slave state.

Lincoln took the news soberly. Historians would debate the true nature and threat of the plot, but there's no question that Lincoln's staff believed his life was in danger.

The next morning, Lincoln rode three blocks to Independence Hall, emotionally moved to be in the building where the Founders had labored, where the Declaration of Independence had been signed, where the Liberty Bell was housed. Outside, an estimated 30,000 people were gathering, drawn despite the cold of the morning and the chill of the times. Like much of the country, Philadelphia was suffering terrible unemployment and economic turmoil.

Talk of civil war was rife. And while Philadelphia was a staunch Union town, it was influenced by Delaware, a slave state.

At Independence Hall, Lincoln was met by Theodore Cuyler, president of the city Select Council. Cuyler lectured the president-elect about the sacrifice of the Founders and the sanctity of the hall, telling Lincoln that the Union must "be preserved by every concession short of eternal principle itself."

In the parlance of the era, "concession" was shorthand for compromise over slavery with the Southern powers.

"You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is the task of restoring peace to our distracted country," Lincoln answered. "I can say in return, sir, that all the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn ... from this hall in which we stand."

Referring to the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln went on to say, "It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance."
(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)

Lincoln was responding in kind, telling Cuyler that the Founders had guaranteed freedom to all people, regardless of race or religion.

He continued: "If this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle – I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it."

The group of dignitaries moved outside to a wooden platform erected at the front of the hall. The huge new flag on the dais bore 34 stars, Kansas having joined the Union less than a month earlier.

The photos of Lincoln were taken at this point. One shows him bareheaded, holding his familiar black stovepipe hat, which he had removed for a prayer.

Across from Lincoln stands his youngest son, 7-year-old Tad. The boy is not watching his father. He gazes instead at the soldiers arrayed in formation.

The flag fragments would be unremarkable except for their connection to the man who raised the banner intact.

In the 1860s, it was common for politicians to take part in ceremonial flag-raisings, and it was just as common for those flags to be cut up afterward, the pieces given away as souvenirs.

The Philadelphia Civil War Museum, closed but planning to reopen next year at new quarters near Independence Hall, was fortunate to acquire two pieces, particularly since Lincoln's assassination elevated him to nearly martyr status in the public mind.

"Anything he touched became almost religious iconography," Coldren said, looking over the pieces. "Lincoln's hand might have touched this, so there's great reverence.

An American Shroud of Turin, almost."

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Abraham Delano Messiah Obama?

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

The political Left (which includes almost all journalists in America) just can’t make up its mind over whether Barack Obama most resembles Lincoln, FDR, Jesus Christ – or some combination thereof. All during his campaign many of his supporters kept referring to him as "The Messiah"; there is much talk of how he will immediately propose the re-adoption of many of FDR’s government interventions (that only made the Great Depression worse); and we are told (constantly) that he intends to make use of Lincoln’s rhetoric, especially in his first inaugural address. He has been studying Lincoln’s speeches, we are told by his handlers. If so, we are in for a lot of doubletalk and lies bordering on the psychotic.

There has been so much "spin" attached to Lincoln’s speeches by the Lincoln Cult, which often produces entire books instructing us all on how to "properly" interpret a single short speech, that it is almost impossible for the average person to understand what was actually said. (The speeches are all online, so all interested parties are able to read them for themselves without the spin.)

Lincoln’s White Supremacy Speech
The May 25, 2004 edition of the Washington Post included a story about how Hillary Clinton joined a number of neo-conservatives at the home of the Heritage Foundation’s James Swanson to "celebrate" a new book by Hillary pal Harold Holzer entitled "Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech that Made Abraham Lincoln President." I agree with these left-wing and right-wing neoconservatives that it did indeed provide a big boost to Lincoln’s candidacy. In order to understand why, one must understand that in the speech Lincoln promised to do all that he could, if elected, to keep black people out of the new territories and isolated in the Southern states. He pledged to keep them as far away as possible from the Northern population, in other words, which was very pervasively racist. That’s why the speech was so well received in New York City, which had just ended slavery in 1853 (see the book Slavery in New York). A key paragraph of the Cooper Union speech is one where Lincoln refers to the founding fathers:

As those fathers marked it [slavery], so let it be again marked, as an evil not to be tolerated and protected only because of and so far as its actual presence among us makes that toleration and protection a necessity. Let all the guarantees those fathers gave it, be, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly maintained. For this Republicans contend, and with this, so far as I know or believe, they will be content.

Speaking to a New York City audience, Lincoln stated here that the federal government’s protections of Southern slavery should be "fully" maintained. The reason for this, he said, was that, well, slavery exists! The audience reaction was reportedly quite enthusiastic, for most Northerners wanted slavery – and black people – to remain in the South.

In his October 16, 1854 speech in Peoria, Illinois, Lincoln first explained his (and the Republican Party’s) position on the extension of slavery into the new territories. "The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these territories. We want them for the homes of free white people" (emphasis added). Lincoln’s secretary of state, William Seward, explained that "the motive of those who protested against the extension of slavery had always really been concern for the welfare of the white man, and not an unnatural sympathy for the Negro" (James McPherson, The Struggle for Equality, p. 24). Illinois Senator and Lincoln confidant Lyman Trumbull declared that "we, the Republican Party, are the white man’s party" (Eugene Berwanger, The Frontier Against Slavery, p. 133). Historian Eugene Berwanger noted in The Frontier Against Slavery (p. 154) that "Republicans [in 1860] made no pretense of being concerned with the fate of the Negro and insisted that theirs was a party of white labor. By introducing a note of white supremacy, they hoped to win the votes of the Negrophobes and the anti-abolitionists who were opposed to the extension of slavery." And Lincoln was the man they chose to accomplish this task.

The "spin" that the Lincoln Cult has put on Lincoln’s (and the Republican Party’s) opposition to the extension of slavery into the new territories is that that would somehow magically lead eventually to the destruction of slavery everywhere. They were "picking the low-hanging fruit" is how it is often explained. This of course is complete nonsense.

Lincoln’s Slavery Forever Speech
Lincoln’s first inaugural address may be considered his "slavery forever" speech because in it he goes to extremes to promise his everlasting support for Southern slavery. Quoting himself, he declared that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." He then quoted the Republican Party platform of 1860 which made the exact same pledge. In what was the first Big Lie of his administration, which was barely one hour old, he repeated the statement from the Republican Party platform that said: "[W]e denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes." Within a month he would prove himself, and his party, to be liars.

Lincoln then strongly supported the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution, reminding his audience that every member of Congress had taken an oath to support this, and all other parts of the Constitution. All members of Congress, Lincoln assured his audience, agreed that runaway slaves "shall be delivered up" to their owners.

Near the end of the Slavery Forever speech Lincoln pledges his support for a constitutional amendment (the "Corwin Amendment") that would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering with Southern slavery. In his words:

I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution – which amendment, however, I have not seen – has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid minsconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.

The Corwin Amendment had just passed the House and Senate and, as Doris Kearns-Goodwin details in her book Team of Rivals, it was Lincoln who orchestrated the passing of the amendment by instructing William Seward to see to it that it made its way through the Senate. (This would suggest that Lincoln lied when he said "I have not seen" the amendment.)

Lincoln literally fabricated his own personal version of American history in the Slavery Forever speech when he argued that the states were never sovereign, that the "union" preceded them, and that no state, therefore, could withdraw from the union. This was not the understanding of the founding fathers. All one needs to do to understand this is to read Article 1 of the Treaty of Paris which ended the Revolutionary War (and was negotiated by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay.) It says this:

His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and independent states, that he treats them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.

Thus, King George III recognized each state as being an independent and sovereign nation, just as Great Britain and France were independent nations. They were part of a union of "free sovereign and independent states" that had joined together for a common purpose. This of course is also how Adams, Franklin and Jay, and all the other founders, viewed it.

Moreover, Article 7 of the U.S. Constitution explains that the citizens of the sovereign states are to ratify (or not) the Constitution. They created the union, not the other way around as Lincoln’s theory proclaimed.

In the Slavery Forever speech Lincoln gets down to very ugly business when he threatens his fellow citizens with "bloodshed." He did not threaten a foreign power that might contemplate invading his country, but his fellow countrymen. "[T]here needs to be no bloodshed, and there shall be none unless it is forced upon the national authority," he said. What on earth was he talking about? What could cause of the "national authority" to murder its own citizens? Failure to collect taxes, said Dishonest Abe. It was his duty "to collect the duties and imposts," he said in the next sentence, and as long as the citizens of all states continued to pay these taxes, the most important of which, the tariff, had just been doubled, "there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere." (At the time, tariff revenues accounted for over 90 percent of all federal tax revenues.)

Of course, the Southern states that had already seceded had no intention of paying any more taxes to the government in Washington. Lincoln kept his promise and delivered "bloodshed" in the form of killing some 350,000 Southerners, including about 50,000 civilians.

Lincoln’s "Blame-It-All-On-God" Speech
Lincoln cultists have been very busy recently urging Barack Obama to emulate Lincoln’s second inaugural address where he uses Biblical language to "justify" his armies’ killing of hundreds of thousands of their own fellow citizens, the burning down and ransacking of entire cities, the mass murder of civilians, and the plundering of the Southern population. There is no record of Lincoln ever having become a Christian; he never joined a church and rarely set foot in one; he was famous for ridiculing and lampooning the religious; but he was very knowledgeable about the Bible, which he skillfully used to dupe the Northern public.

By March of 1865 Lincoln’s war had resulted in the death of more than half a million Americans on both sides and unbelievable destruction of Southern cities and towns. Like the master politician that he was, Lincoln found a scapegoat for the war that he had started with his invasion of his own country (no one was even hurt, let alone killed at Fort Sumter). The scapegoat was God. The war was God’s punishment of America for the sin of slavery, he said, pretending to know what was in the mind of God. He failed to explain, however, why God did not punish Great Britain, Spain, France, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and other countries that were responsible for 96 percent of all the slaves that were brought to the Western Hemisphere from Africa. Only 4 percent ended up in the U.S. (Not to mention the fact that the Holy Scriptures make no mention of punishment for slavery).

The war just "came," said Dishonest Abe, as though he and his political party had nothing whatsoever to do with it. As Charles Adams wrote in When in the Course of Human Events (p. 205), "Not even the maddest of religious fanatics ever uttered words to equal Lincoln’s second inaugural address." Adams’s interpretation of the speech is that "Lincoln had to shift the blame and remove his own guilt, and he was quite willing to resort to reasoning more characteristic of a psychotic mind than a healthy mind . . . . Lincoln was guilt ridden and was close to being mentally ill at this time."



The Lincoln Cult does not even deny that Lincoln did in fact suffer from mental illness. In his very favorably-received book, Lincoln’s Melancholy, which was made into a History Channel documentary, Joshua Wolf Shenk described in detail how Lincoln suffered from manic depression his entire life; was so obsessed with suicide that his friends once removed all knives and razors from his home; wrote poems about suicide with titles like "The Suicide’s Soliloquy"; had several nervous breakdowns; took a primitive anti-depression drug that contained a heavy dose of mercury; brooded in misery his entire adult life worrying that he would die before becoming famous; and his friends claimed that he had "gone crazy."

The "spin" that Shenk and other Lincoln cultists put on Lincoln’s mental illnesses is that it proves him to be even greater than we believed he was, for he achieved what he did despite the fact that he was mentally ill. They always have numerous excuses for everything. That’s what it means to be a "Lincoln scholar."

Lincoln’s Lying-About-American-History Speech



The great H.L. Mencken was right when he wrote that the Gettysburg Address was good poetry but bad logic. It was Lincoln’s attempt to rewrite American history in a way that would serve the purposes of the Hamiltonian nationalists, who by his time had morphed into Republicans. Nearly every claim in the speech is false. The united states were not created by the Declaration of Independence "four score and seven years" before Gettysburg; the Constitution was ratified by the sovereign states in 1789. Our forefathers did not bring forth "a new nation" but a confederacy of free, independent, and sovereign states.

Americans were not "engaged in a great civil war," for a civil war is a contest for the takeover of a nation’s central government. Jefferson Davis did not want to be president of the United States any more than George Washington wanted to become King of Great Britain. It was a war to prevent Southern independence.

The U.S. government would have "endured" had the South prevailed, contrary to Lincoln’s rhetoric. It had managed to field the largest army in the history of the world despite Southern secession. The dead at Gettysburg did not give their lives "that the nation might live." The U.S. government was never in danger of disappearing. And as Mencken pointed out, it was the South that was fighting for the principle of consent of the governed. Through numerous popular votes, Southerners decided they no longer wanted to be ruled by Washington, D.C. Government "by the people . . ." would not have "perished from the earth" had the Republican Party lost its war. Democracy was alive and well in Europe and elsewhere, and would also have existed in the Confederate States of America as well as the United States of America.

Barack Obama will have a very long way to go indeed if he is ever to imitate the tongue-twisting, logic-attacking, a-historical, and sometimes psychotic rhetoric of Dishonest Abe. Let’s hope that he never tries.

[Ryan Ruck]

Abraham Delano Messiah Obama?

Is that anything like President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho?



(Bonus points to those who get that! )

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Ford's Theatre packs in stars, and Obamas, for reopening

By Arienne Thompson,
USA TODAY

CBS anchor Katie Couric gets a kick out of President Obama shaking hands with an
actor playing Abraham Lincoln at the reopening of Ford's Theater in Washington.

WASHINGTON — Presidential present and past intersected again Wednesday night when President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama joined stars in honoring one of his inspirations: Abraham Lincoln.

The Ford's Theatre Society held a star-studded reopening to celebrate the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth and award film greats George Lucas and Sidney Poitier with Lincoln Medals. The invitation-only ceremony was held at Ford's Theatre, where Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.

CBS News anchor Katie Couric and actors Kelsey Grammer, James Earl Jones, Ben Vereen, Jeffrey Wright and Audra McDonald gave a presentation of Birth and Rebirth, a tribute to Lincoln. David Selby (Falcon Crest's Richard Channing) portrayed Lincoln. Jessye Norman performed the Battle Hymn of the Republic with McDonald and violinist Joshua Bell. Richard Thomas (The Waltons' John Boy) was the evening's host.


First lady Michelle Obama joins Waltons
alumnus Richard Thomas and Emmy winner
Jeffrey Wright onstage.

"There's a lot of history in this building," said director Lucas, 64. Lincoln "was a great man, and he served our country in a very difficult time." As for Obama's first weeks, "it's nice that he started off on the right foot. Things are actually happening."

Poitier, 81, was still moved by the election of a black president. "I never thought I would live long enough (to see one), which is an example of how far we've come," the Oscar-winning Lilies of the Field actor said.

Grammer, a Republican, expressed support for Obama. "I support all presidents," he said. "They have a very difficult job." And, he said, "it brings a tear to my eye every time I see him on camera." As for Lincoln, "he gave his life so that a president like Obama could come along."

Jones, the Great White Hope star and voice of Darth Vader, talked about missing Obama's inauguration, but added, "I figured I'd meet up with him somewhere along the way."

Jones was right. At the end of the tribute, Obama spoke to the audience about Lincoln. "He had an unyielding belief that at heart we are one nation and one people. … That is what we remain."

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[Toad]

Is that anything like President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho?



(Bonus points to those who get that! )

Idiocracy, 2006.

My Google-Foo skillz are tight.

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The Winds Of Civil War: Illinois-Driven Marxist Attempt To Conquer Union

Pat Dollard ^ | Feb 20, 2009 | Pat Dollard
Posted on Friday, February 20, 2009 10:49:17 AM by Islander7



New Hampshire fired the first shot. Although 7 other states have similar pending resolutions and bills, Oklahoma is the first to actually pass one. Another 27 states are expected to make similar moves in the coming months. That’ll leave the country split 71-29.

Now, before you get too excited, bear in mind that all of this was likely Obama’s goal. Boiled down, all of these state measures are threats of secession. Recall, if you will, Obama’s obsession to be the 21st Century Abraham Lincoln, and his ominous calls to recreate and rebuild America. Who was Lincoln? Why, he was the man who “preserved” the Union by way of implementing military force against states that had seceded. Lincoln knew full well that he would not be preserving the Union, but that he would be conquering sovereign nations, and that he would then have to destroy their cultures and ideologies, remaking both in the image of the North’s. And that is precisely what happened in the aftermath of Lincoln’s war of aggression. He didn’t preserve the Union, he changed it forever and handed unprecedented powers to the Federal Government.

Okay, so now I’m going to run with a theory.

(Excerpt) Read more at patdollard.com ...