Would President Lincoln Like President Obama?
Much has been written about President-elect Barack Obama’s fascination for Abraham Lincoln. In the build-up to the Inauguration of the nation’s 44th President (and first African American), it was no accident that Obama’s transition team concentrated on reprising Lincoln’s memory by having the new President (symbolically) arrive by train in Washington, just as had the 16th President.
But what would Lincoln have felt about Obama? It’s one of those “what if” questions that can never be satisfactorily answered. But that hasn’t prevented any number of historians from speculating just the same. The latest rumination comes from Henry Louis Gates Jr., the editor of “Lincoln on Race and Slavery” and the producer of the forthcoming PBS documentary “Looking for Lincoln,” and John Stauffer, author, most recently, of “Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.”
Their conclusion: Lincoln would have been mightily surprised that a man of color had been elected President of the United States. But if he had the opportunity to meet Obama, the two probably would have found that they had much in common, and that Lincoln would have respected Obama’s intellect, his leadership qualities, and his confident personality.
It’s fun to speculate about history’s twists and turns. What do you think would have been the conversation between Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama?
Interesting topic, I would like to think they would have talked about Lincoln’s views on preserving the union at all cost. Lincoln in his own words stated he would keep slavery where it was in order to preserve the union, and let go of slaves to preserve the union. In simple terms his ultimate goal was to preserve the union, no matter the bondage of some or freedom of few. I find this a peculiar conflicting psychalogical pridicament that he put himself in. Rather than be for the freedom for all, he makes himself very clear with the Emancipation Proclamation(freeing the enslaved people in the rebellion states while ignoring the freedom of the border states?). While I respect our ex-president Mr. Lincoln I also respect the life and work of my ancestors who toiled and helped build this great country brick by brick, lash by lash, and with the integrity and mental stability to maintain digity in thier inhuman surroundings. I also think they may have spoke about Mr. Obama’s racial back ground yes he is an African American man, however we seem to forget he is bi-racial his mother is Caucasian, what would Mr. Lincoln have to say about this? Who knows?