[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2005, Book I)]
[February 11, 2005]
[Pages 225-226]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at the Performance of ``Lincoln Seen and Heard''
February 11, 2005

    Thank you for that wonderful performance. Laura and I welcome you all to the White House.
    I appreciate the members of my Cabinet who are here and former 
members of the Cabinet who are here. I thank Senator Bill Frist for joining us as well as Congressman Mel Watt. Thank you both for coming.
    I appreciate Michael Steele, the 
Lieutenant Governor of the great State of Maryland, for joining us. I 
want to thank Bruce Cole, the Chairman of the 
National Endowment for the Humanities. I appreciate Brian Lamb joining us today, the president and CEO of C-SPAN.
    I thank the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission members and the 
Advisory Committee for joining us today. I appreciate all the Lincoln 
scholars and authors who are here.
    I particularly appreciate Sam Waterston 
and Lynn and Graham for joining us as well as Harold Holzer and Edith and Meg. Thank you all for coming.
    Sam and Harold 
have had a good many reviews since they first took ``Lincoln Seen and 
Heard'' on the road. Perhaps the most enthusiastic review I heard came 
from two unimpeachable sources, Mother 
and Dad--[laughter]--who told how much they 
enjoyed the performance when they saw it in Houston. Tonight we've had 
the special honor of listening to Lincoln's words being read in the very 
house where so many of them were written.
    Harold Holzer has written, coauthored, or 
edited 23 books on Lincoln and the Civil War. He Cochairs the U.S. 
Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and in his spare time--[laughter]--works 
for one of Laura's favorite museums, the 
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He's an avid New York Yankee fan 
who had a miserable year last year. [Laughter] He has won many awards 
for his work, and his latest book is, ``Lincoln at Cooper Union.''
    This evening I can let you all in on a secret. Tomorrow it will be 
announced that Allen Guelzo, who is with us 
tonight, and Harold Holzer are this year's 
first and second place winners of the prestigious Lincoln Prize.
    Congratulations.
    Those of you who know Sam Waterston as 
``Jack McCoy'' should know that America's most famous assistant district 
attorney has portrayed Abraham Lincoln on stage, on television, and so 
I'm told, even in ballet. [Laughter] He didn't dance. [Laughter] But he 
did narrate a special version of Aaron Copland's ``Lincoln Portrait'' 
while ballet dancers performed around him. [Laughter] Sam has said, ``If 
I have to be typecast, I'd like to be typecast as Abraham Lincoln.'' I 
like a guy who aims high. [Laughter]
    In his readings tonight, Sam noted that it 
was on this very day back in 1861 that Abraham Lincoln said goodbye to 
his home in Springfield, Illinois, never to return. Over the next 4 
years, from this house, Lincoln would endure a bitter civil war that 
included terrible defeats as well as ringing victories; he'd sign the 
Emancipation Proclamation right upstairs; and he would live to see his 
hopes for peace and unity rewarded, before his life was taken at Ford's 
Theatre on Good Friday, 1865.
    The Civil War was decided on the battlefield; the larger fight for 
America's soul was waged with Lincoln's words. In his own day, Lincoln 
set himself squarely against a culture that held that some human beings 
were not intended by their Maker for freedom. And as President, he acted 
in the conviction that holding the Union together was the only way to 
hold America true to the founding promise of freedom and equality for 
all. And that is why, in my

[[Page 226]]

judgment, he was America's greatest President.
    We're familiar with the words of the Gettysburg Address and the 
Second Inaugural, so eloquently read by Sam. And this performance 
reminds us that Lincoln wrote his words to be spoken aloud--to persuade, 
to challenge, and to inspire. Abraham Lincoln was a master of the 
English language, but his true mother tongue was liberty.
    I hope that every American might have the experience we had here 
tonight, to hear Lincoln's words delivered with Lincoln's passion and to 
leave with a greater appreciation for what these words of freedom mean 
in our own time.
    Thank you all again. Please join us at the reception. And may God 
continue to bless our great land.

Note: The President spoke at 5:58 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Sam Waterston, actor on NBC's 
television series ``Law & Order,'' his wife, Lynn Waterston, and their 
son Graham Waterston; Harold Holzer, Cochair, Abraham Lincoln 
Bicentennial Commission, his wife, Edith Holzer, and their daughter Meg 
Holzer; and author Allen C. Guelzo.