Obama Honors Lincoln’s 200th Birthday, Draws Parallels

JUDY WOODRUFF:

Now, honoring Abraham Lincoln on his 200th birthday. Earlier today in the Capitol Building's Rotunda, President Obama spoke at a ceremony marking Lincoln's bicentennial.

Mr. Obama compared the crises of Lincoln's age to the struggles of today.

U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:

With victory at hand, Lincoln could have sought revenge. He could have forced the South to pay a steep price for their rebellion.

But despite all the bloodshed and all the misery that each side had exacted upon the other, and despite his absolute certainty in the rightness of the cause of ending slavery, no Confederate soldier was to be punished, Lincoln ordered.

That was the only way, Lincoln knew, to repair the rifts that had torn this country apart. It was the only way to begin the healing that our nation so desperately needed.

What Lincoln never forgot — not even in the midst of Civil War — was that, despite all that divides us — North and South, black and white — we were, at heart, one nation and one people, sharing a bond as Americans that could bend but would not break.

And so, even as we meet here today, at a moment when we are far less divided than in Lincoln's day, but when we are once again debating the critical issues of our time, and debating them sometimes fiercely, let us remember that we are doing so as servants of the same flag, as representatives of the same people, and as stakeholders in a common future.

That is the most fitting tribute we can pay, the most lasting monument we can build to that most remarkable of men, Abraham Lincoln.

JUDY WOODRUFF:

Jeffrey Brown has more on Lincoln's life and legacy.