How has Obama included Lincoln – overtly or not – in his most seminal speeches of the campaign?
At the beginning and at the end of his presidential campaign, Obama invoked Lincoln. He began his presidential campaign on February 10, 2007, “in the shadow of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln once called on a divided house to stand together.” Obama went on to say that it was time for this generation of Americans to change the country they love because, “That’s what Abraham Lincoln understood. He had his doubts. He had his defeats. He had his setbacks. But through his will and words, he moved a nation and helped free a people.” On November 4, 2008, Obama concluded his campaign with an eloquent speech that again invoked Lincoln: “As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, ‘We are not enemies, but friends—though passion may have strained it must not break our affections.'” Q: What do we know about how Lincoln prepared his inaugural addresses? A: We know much more about the preparation of the First Inaugural Address. It is often not appreciated how much Lincoln edited and
