[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 41, Number 16 (Monday, April 25, 2005)]
[Pages 630-632]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
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 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

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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 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

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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 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.