Barack Obama’s comparisons to Abraham Lincoln

As Barack Obama gets ready to take the presidential oath of office, there have been many comparisons of him to Abraham Lincoln. But around here, it may be good if the new president’s inaugural address has a much different impact than Lincoln’s.

On March 4th, 1861, Abraham Lincoln became the 16th President of the United States amid tight security; threats to his safety common in the political turmoil of the day.

The Bible where Lincoln placed his hand to take the oath, so long a museum piece, today is again the basis of promise for a Commander-in-Chief. Barack Obama has paid much homage to the earlier gentleman from Illinois as he prepares to move into the Oval Office.

Even the new president’s inaugural lunch, pheasant, ducks and apple cinnamon sponge cake, is designed to honor Lincoln; born 200 years ago next month. But the measure of every president’s swearing in is his inaugural address.

Compared to the countless masses crowding the area in front of the West Front of the US Capitol to hear Obama, Lincoln spoke of maintaining the union to a relatively modest 25,000 on the unfinished capitol’s east side.

Lincoln ended his speech by saying, “The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

The speech was received with mixed reactions, mainly negative in the south. Two days after Lincoln took office, the New York Times reported on the reception of his address around the country, including Raleigh, where “The inaugural was favorably received by the unionists. The disunionists are dissatisfied with it.”

In Goldsboro, The Times reported, “The inaugural was received at this place and throughout this section with indignation.”

But in Wilmington, “So far as known, most of the contents are satisfactorily received.”

So why the difference in opinion in the Port City? A correction in the times on March 9th cleared things up. “The dispatch hence the 5th was incorrectly telegraphed. It should have read, so far as known most of the contents of the inaugural are unsatisfactorily received”

Some times even the paper of record makes a mistake.