Opinion: On Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln
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In this new media world of cursory observation, quick postings and even quicker reactions (see any blog comments section), it’s refreshing to take a look at the biweekly New York Review of Books for a new piece by author Garry Wills in which he took time to digest Barack Obama‘s race speech at Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center last month.
Wills, who also teaches history at Northwestern University, found some telling parallels between Obama’s speech and one in 1860 by a noted Republican -- Abraham Lincoln -- at New York’s Cooper Union.
Wills points out that both men were relatively young, inexperienced legislators from Illinois (Obama in the statehouse, Lincoln in Congress) when they began their quests to lead the nation. And both had potentially embarrassing political and personal associations. As Wills writes:
‘The most damaging charge against each was an alleged connection with unpatriotic and potentially violent radicals. Lincoln’s Republican Party was accused of supporting abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison, who burned the Constitution, or John Brown, who took arms against United States troops, or those who rejected the Supreme Court because of its Dred Scott decision. Obama was suspected of Muslim associations and of following the teachings of an inflammatory preacher who damned the United States. How to face such charges? Each decided to address them openly in a prominent national venue, well before their parties’ nominating conventions...’
Wills goes on to match the speeches up, finding that each man turned to the Constitution for a guiding framework, and each used eloquent turns of phrase to deliver the argument at hand, though Obama ‘lagged far behind the resplendent Lincoln.’ Still, both men used a divisive political issue -- slavery, and racism -- ‘to rise to a higher vision of America’s future.’
Links to the original speeches are at the New York Review of Books site, and they make for interesting reading, Lincoln first, then Obama. As Wills writes: ‘what is of lasting interest is their similar strategy for meeting the charge of extremism. Both argued against the politics of fear. Neither denied the darker aspects of our history, yet they held out hope for what Lincoln called here the better ‘lights of current experience.’ ... Each looked for larger patterns under the surface bitternesses of their day. Each forged a moral position that rose above the occasions for their speaking.’
In reading the piece, it’s easy to infer that Wills is an Obama supporter, though he doesn’t state it. But no matter. The broader point -- the admonition to rise above contemporary partisanship -- resonates regardless of political affiliation. And as Wills evidences, it’s useful to take an occasional step back from the moment and look at the broader sweep of the times in which we live, how we got here, and what lessons the future might find in our present.
-- Scott Martelle
