    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2005, Book I)]
    [April 19, 2005]
    [Pages 625-629]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
    Dedication in Springfield, Illinois
    April 19, 2005

        Thank you all very much. Thanks for the warm welcome. Laura and I are so very grateful for your generous invitation
    to be here. Mr. Speaker, thank you for
    your incredibly warm words. I appreciate your leadership. I appreciate
    your friendship, and so do the people of Illinois.
        I am so honored to be here to dedicate a great institution honoring
    such a great American. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and
    Museum was a long time coming. But as many speakers have said, it's
    really worth the wait. Laura and I were just
    given a tour by Richard--appreciate his
    leadership, by the way. I guess the best way to describe what we saw is
    a superb collection, a superb resource for scholars, and an invitation
    for all, especially the young, to rediscover Lincoln for themselves.
        The mission of this library is essential to our country, because to
    understand the life and the sacrifice of Abraham Lincoln is to
    understand the meaning and promise

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    of America. Most of you all know the First Lady
    was a librarian. Any time she can get me into a library is a pretty good
    deal, as far as she's concerned. [Laughter]
        I want to thank your Governor and
    Patti for their hospitality. Thank you,
    Lieutenant Governor.
        I thank the two United States Senators from Illinois, Senator
    Durbin and Obama.
    I appreciate the members of the United States congressional delegation
    who are here. I particularly want to pay my respects to Ray
    LaHood, who has worked so hard on this
    project.
        I want to thank all the members of the statehouse who are here. I
    appreciate the mayor, Mayor Davlin. I
    appreciate the secretary of State and treasurer--I appreciate you all for coming.
        It's an honor to be here with our fellow citizens. I particularly
    want to say thanks to my friend Jim Edgar for
    his leadership to get this museum going. I want to thank Brian
    Lamb. C-SPAN happens to be one of my
    mother's favorite networks. [Laughter] I
    particularly want to thank Mihan Lee for standing
    up in front of us and expressing her words so eloquently about living in
    a free society. I thank Reverend McLean for
    his prayers. And I thank you all for coming.
        All of us have come here today because of our great appreciation for
    the 16th President of the United States. In a small way, I can relate to
    the railsplitter from out West because he had a way of speaking that was
    not always appreciated by the newspapers back East. [Laughter] A New
    York Times story on his first Inaugural Address reported that Mr.
    Lincoln was lucky ``it was not the constitution of the English language
    and the laws of English grammar that he was called upon to support.''
    [Laughter] I think that fellow is still writing for the Times.
    [Laughter]
        In Washington, DC, where Lincoln served America and where he was
    assassinated, we honor his influence in a great temple of democracy.
    Here in Springfield, in Illinois, where he lived along with Mary and
    where their sons were born and where the funeral train ended its journey
    140 years ago, we honor his good life in a more personal way. Here we
    can walk through his house, see his belongings, and read the Gettysburg
    Address in his own hand. And even across the mounting years, we can
    sense the power of his mind, the depth of his convictions, and the
    decency that defined his entire life.
        Abraham Lincoln started life in the last month of Thomas Jefferson's
    Presidency, with no early advantages other than curiosity and character.
    Before history took notice, he earned money as a storekeeper, a
    surveyor, and a postmaster. He taught himself the law. He established a
    successful legal practice and rose in a new political party on the power
    of his words. Those who knew him remembered his candor, his kindness,
    and his searching intellect, his combination of frontier humor with the
    cadences of Shakespeare and the Holy Bible. As a State legislator in
    Springfield, a Congressman, and a debater on the stump, Lincoln embodied
    the democratic ideal that leadership and even genius are found among the
    people themselves and sometimes in the most unlikely places.
        Young Lincoln didn't worry much about how he looked or what he wore.
    He took great care with the things he said, and Americans took notice
    beyond the borders of Illinois. In New York City, an eyewitness at his
    Cooper Union Speech in 1860 said this: ``His face lighted up as with an
    inward fire. The whole man was transfigured. I forgot his clothes, his
    personal appearance, and his individual peculiarities. Presently
    forgetting myself, I was on my feet with the rest, cheering this
    wonderful man.''
        An ambitious young Lincoln was heard to lament that the great work
    of the American Revolution was all in the past. When he departed
    Springfield as President-elect, he spoke of duties perhaps even greater
    than George Washington faced. Events proved him correct. His very
    election as

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    President was regarded as a cause for war. And as he sent legions of men
    to death and sacrifice, Lincoln's own burden began to show in a lined
    and tired face.
        Without really knowing it, the American people had chosen perhaps
    the only man who could preserve our unity and assure our future as a
    great nation. He was the relentless enemy of secession, without hatred
    or malice toward those who seceded. He grieved every day at the ruin and
    waste of war, yet he knew that even this tragedy could be redeemed by
    the renewal of American ideals. On Good Friday, 1865, Lincoln did not
    know it was his last day on Earth. But on that day, he knew that all the
    sacrifices and the sorrow across the land had meaning, and the Union had
    been saved.
        When his life was taken, Abraham Lincoln assumed a greater role in
    the story of America than man or President. Every generation has looked
    up to him as the Great Emancipator, the hero of unity, and the martyr of
    freedom. Children have learned to follow his model of integrity and
    principle. Leaders have read and quoted his words and have hoped to find
    a measure of his wisdom and strength. In all this, Lincoln has taken on
    the elements of myth. And in this case, the myth is true. In the
    character and convictions of this one man, we see all that America hopes
    to be.
        Lincoln's career and contributions were founded on a single
    argument: That there are no exceptions to the ringing promises of the
    Declaration of Independence; that all of us who share the human race are
    created equal. At a campaign stop in Chicago, Lincoln said, ``If that
    Declaration is not the truth, let us get out the statute book in which
    we find it and tear it out. Who is so bold as to do it? Let us stick to
    it then. Let us stand firmly by it then.''
        This led him over time to confront the great tension in America's
    founding between the promise of liberty and the fact of slavery. Lincoln
    was morally offended by what he called ``the monstrous injustice of
    slavery itself.'' And he believed the permanent acceptance of the
    institution of slavery would represent the end of the American ideal. He
    would not accept that our new world of hope and freedom must forever be
    a prison for millions. And so with the relentless logic and clarity of
    Lincoln, he pushed his countrymen to choose: Live up to the truth
    written into human nature by our Creator, or disavow the freedom our
    Forefathers had earned.
        President Lincoln sought every reasonable political compromise that
    might avoid war, but he did not believe America could surrender its
    founding commitments and remain the same country. As his Presidency
    unfolded, this conviction gathered force and urgency until the day he
    freed millions by signing a proclamation. And then he looked up and
    said, ``That will do.'' Days before his death in April 1865, Lincoln
    spoke from a White House window and declared that the right to vote
    should be extended to some freed men and African Americans who had
    fought for the Union. In that audience was a man named Booth, who vowed,
    this is ``the last speech he will ever make.''
        Lincoln's voice was silenced, but he, more than any other American,
    has spoken to all the ages, and his words have haunted and driven our
    history. His authority was asserted after the war as we corrected our
    Constitution and finally ended the great national sin of slavery.
    Citizens enlisted Lincoln's principles in the fight to bring the vote to
    women and to end Jim Crow laws. When Martin Luther King, Jr., called
    America to redeem the promissory note of the Declaration, he stood on
    the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and Lincoln was behind him in more
    ways than one. From the lunch counter to the schoolhouse door to the
    Army barracks, President Lincoln has continued to hold this Nation to
    its promises. And we will never relent. We will never rest until those
    promises are met.
        The convictions that have guided our history are also at issue in
    our world. We also face some questions in our time: Do

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    the promises of the Declaration apply beyond the culture that produced
    it? Are some, because of birth or background, destined to live in
    tyranny, or do all, regardless of birth or background, deserve to live
    in freedom? Americans have no right or calling to impose our own form of
    government on others. Yet American interests and values are both served
    by standing for liberty in every part of the world.
        Our interests are served when former enemies become democratic
    partners, because free governments do not support terror or seek to
    conquer their neighbors. Our interests are served by the spread of
    democratic societies because free societies reward the hopes of their
    citizens, instead of feeding the hatreds that lead to violence. Our
    deepest values are also served when we take our part in freedom's
    advance, when the chains of millions are broken and the captives are set
    free, because we are honored to serve the cause that gave us birth.
        Sometimes the progress of liberty comes gradually, like water that
    cuts through stone. Sometimes progress comes like a wildfire, kindled by
    example and courage. We see that example and courage today in
    Afghanistan and Kyrgystan, Ukraine, Georgia, and Iraq. We believe that
    people in Zimbabwe and Iran and Lebanon and beyond have the same hopes,
    the same rights, and the same future of self-government. The principles
    of the Declaration still inspire, and the words of the Declaration are
    forever true. So we will stick to it. We will stand firmly by it.
        Every generation strives to define the lessons of Abraham Lincoln,
    and that is part of our tribute to the man himself. None of us can claim
    his legacy as our own, but all of us can learn from the faith that
    guided him. He trusted in freedom and in the wisdom of the Founders,
    even in the darkest hours. That trust has helped Americans carry on,
    even after the second day of Gettysburg, even on December 8, 1941, even
    on September the 12th, 2001. Whenever freedom is challenged, the proper
    response is to go forward with confidence in freedom's power.
        Lincoln also trusted in the ways of Providence, the working of an
    unseen power. He knew the course of Providence is not always what we
    hope or ask or expect, but he trusted still. In his example, we are
    reminded to be patient and humble, knowing that God's purpose and God's
    justice will break forth in time.
        Abraham Lincoln had a streak of melancholy in him. He said our short
    lives are like ``the break of the wave.'' But the wave of his life is
    still felt in our world. The Union he saved still thanks him. The people
    he freed still honor him. And here in the place he called home,
    Springfield, Illinois, we proudly dedicate the Abraham Lincoln Library
    and Museum.
        May God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:59 a.m. in Union Square Park. In his
    remarks, he referred to Richard Norton Smith, executive director,
    Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum; Gov. Rod Blagojevich of
    Illinois and his wife, Patti; Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, Secretary of State
    Jesse White, and State Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka of Illinois; Mayor
    Timothy J. Davlin of Springfield, IL; Jim Edgar, president, Abraham
    Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation; Brian P. Lamb, chairman and
    chief executive officer, C-SPAN; Mihan Lee, grand prize winner, C-SPAN
    Lincoln Essay Contest; and Rev. Gordon McLean, First Presbyterian
    Church, Springfield, IL.

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