PRESIDENT OBAMA MAY BE CLOSER TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN THAN YOU THOUGHT
Gary Ater
August 10, 2009
... The 16th US President
Some weeks ago, I decided to read about the life of another junior US Senator from the State of Illinois who also became the President of the United States. That individual was the 16th US President; Abraham Lincoln.
When I decided to take on this task, I quickly learned that there were over fifty books on the life of Abraham Lincoln still in print today, all of which are currently available at Amazon.com. As I continued to do my research, it became clear that based on today´s qualified US historians, the generally accepted and the most accurate "cradle-to-grave" record on the life and times of the first Republican president of the United States was written by David Herbert Donald.
Professor D.H. Donald was the Professor Emeritus of American History and American Civilization at Harvard University. He has written two additional books on Abraham Lincoln, six books on the American Civil War, and has won two Pulitzer Prizes for his biographies.
Professor Donald´s biography of Abraham Lincoln is simply named "Lincoln". It was first published by Simon & Schuster in 1995 and for attesting to its accuracy, it lists 599 sources and notes in its Bibliography.
The first thing I noticed when I started reading the book was how easy it was to read and how Professor Donald wrote more in the style of a good story teller. The book reads more like a novel than the anticipated dry content of a classic, historical text book.
The other areas that became obvious for review were the similar comparisons between today´s president Obama and the past early days of Abraham Lincoln´s election campaign and his first months in the executive office. Not only were both Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Obama from the state of Illinois, but Abraham Lincoln was the first US president to be elected from the "West". Of course, in 1860, "the West" meant the territories and states west of the eastern Appalachian Mountain Range.
In addition, prior to Lincoln´s election, all previous US presidents had come from well-to-do American families. As with both Lincoln and Obama, they were both born of ordinary American working class families and they both had made their own way in the world. They did not spring from long time, established American families of major means or from inherited wealth.
And as Barack Obama had first come to be recognized through his excellent oratorical skills, so too did Abraham Lincoln. In Obama´s almost two years of a highly competitive primary campaign across America, mainly against fellow Democrat, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Abraham Lincoln also campaigned all around the country. Lincoln became very successful in making himself known for his ability to communicate with the American citizens within all of the various regions around the then United States.
As with the Obama-Clinton verbal battles, Lincoln also had an on-going contest with his major competitor for nomination which eventually ended with 8 key debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. This later became known as the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates.
Just as Obama had become known for his famous and up-lifting speech during the 2004 Democratic Convention, so too did Lincoln make a significant 1859 speech at the Cooper-Union Hall on Manhattan Island in New York City. This famous speech was eventually published by virtually every major American newspaper of that time which increased Lincoln´s notoriety within the country.
Even though Obama had worked his way through school and eventually did attend Harvard University, he was obviously not "self-educated" as was Lincoln. However, they both did become highly experienced lawyers. Even though both individuals came from their very humble beginnings, they both eventually became well respected and successful attorney´s in their own right.
Now, as to becoming the chief executives of these United States, neither Lincoln nor Obama had any real experience as a leader of a major organization. Upon entering their offices of the presidency, both individuals only had a small number of real relationships within Washington DC. These close associations were mainly within their own parties and through their recent short-term experience within the US Senate Chambers.
Compared with Barack Obama, Abraham Lincoln did not inherit two foreign wars. However, the American Civil War had virtually already started by the time Lincoln assumed his position as the chief US executive. Even in Lincoln´s initial train ride from Springfield, Illinois to the White House in Washington DC, there was much fear that there would be attempts on Lincoln´s life by members of the Southern Confederate States. Due to this fear and some real threats of an assassination attempt, Lincoln had to make a secret night trip while in disguise through Baltimore, Maryland, on his way to the capital city.
So, as you are reading all of this, you might be asking;
"This is all very interesting, but so what? What serious issue occurred 149 years ago that could honestly be compared to what President Obama and the US Congress are having to deal with today?"
Actually, there is one important issue that Abraham Lincoln dealt with early on that had a profound effect on all of the country. In fact, it was this one action from president Lincoln that forever thereafter seriously changed America. And it became the issue that Lincoln himself considered the single "crowning achievement of his administration".
The critical action by President Lincoln was his issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. This single, official statement from the president stated that on; "January 1, 1863, all persons held as slaves within any state, or part of a state still in rebellion, would be thenceforward, and forever, free."
Now, President Obama obviously does not have an issue regarding any freeing of American slaves. But when one considers the importance of the current health care issues for all of the citizens of the United States, there is a similarity about what the freedom from concerns for an American family´s future health could have over all Americans.
When the #1 reason for today´s large numbers of American family bankruptcies is due to the high cost of all American´s medical bills……When the cost of America´s health care has become the largest single expense in the Federal US Budget for the running of the nation. And when the nation´s health care costs are increasing to a level that is even higher than the cost of supporting the nation´s military defense, "the Successful reform of the American health care system" could easily become the "crowning achievement of the Obama Administration".
Other than immediately putting every available American worker back to work, earning a living wage, there is no single issue, currently on the horizon that would have a more positive effect on all Americans than the need for solving the current American health care crisis.
And just as the freeing the slaves was a revolutionary action in 1862, if every American family member in the future is able to know that they will never again have to be concerned about the devastating financial effects of dealing with a catastrophic illness, the removal of that potential stress will be enormous beyond belief.
With all of the issues that President Barack Obama is having to deal with today such as; job creation and economic recovery; two foreign wars; Wall Street and the mortgage crisis; global warming; education reform, national security and a national conversion to "Green Energy", successfully reforming the American health care industry could easily still become the "jewel in the crown" of the Obama Administration.
As with all the years that slavery was allowed to exist in America, the overall health of the American public has been totally ignored since the early 1900´s. It was just after the turn of the last century, when the progressive Republican President, Theodore Roosevelt, suggested that some form of health care coverage should be a constitutional right for all American citizens. Needless to say, the majority of TR´s Republican party disagreed with that concept.
Until today, the GOP has been highly successful at defeating any chance for American universal health care, going back as far as the Democratic Presidents FDR and Harry Truman. Finally, due to the massive excesses of the American health care monopoly, and with the brute force of President Obama and the new Democratic Congress, the Obama Administration is finally in a position to potentially change this issue to a future positive for the American public.
Let´s hope that the Republicans and their current and on-going "Dirty Tricks" are unable to de-rail Obama's efforts. After all these years, it's finally appearing to be the beginning for American citizens to receive what most other modern industrialized countries already provide their citizens.
Abraham Lincoln had personally decided that the time had come for addressing the most important social issue of his time. President Barack Obama needs to make that same resolve in insisting on the necessary reforming of today´s most important American social issue: the reforming of the American health care industry.
Copyright G.Ater 2009
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