Our 44th president Barack Obama has portrayed careful, bold confidence throughout his first inaugural speech while Abraham Lincoln compares to portrays fair, empathetic compassion throughout his 2nd Inaugural address. Both former and current president made history while both expressing different ways to come across their upcoming challenges as president.
"Yes we can" was the popular chant and theme throughout Barack Obama's campaign trail. "Change" was the confidence he used to describe his plans to turn our troubled country around. Throughout Barack Obama's Inauguration address on January 20, 2009, he described our nation as a whole, and how we have to look forward into the future if we are going to fix the damage that has been done. His carefully thought out promises for the economic challenges we face are known to be met.
"They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met." This attitude towards moving forward and having strong confidence to make a change shows that the process to come to this conclusion was well thought out and careful. Barack Obama promises to take "Bold and Swift" action throughout this inaugural address which contributes to the "Yes we can" confidence he seems to have. "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America."
Along with the change and confidence of our first black president, Abraham Lincoln shocked all with one of the most famous speeches of all time. March 4, 1865 was the start of Mr. Lincolns 2nd term as president which just so happened to be during the end of the Civil War. While Abram Lincoln guided America through the civil war, his inaugural address spoke of something rather different then choosing sides between the north or the south.
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." He describes through this quote how hatred towards none, and doing good things for everyone, God lets us see the right and wrong for what really matters between war in one nation, and to achieve and cherish and peace amongst ourselves as well as other nations. He brings in God from a different standpoint and describes how "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other." I see this as fair as well as empathetic because he was taking the war into a whole pointing out the truth of what was right for the country and what needed to happen.
Throughout both of these inaugurations Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln express different ways to introduce their new terms as president. From being careful and bold to fair and empathetic both presidents realize the challenges America faces and expresses the compromise of what needs to take place.
" Abraham Lincoln ." Supercomputing '94. http://sc94.ameslab.gov/TOUR/alincoln.html (accessed January 21, 2009).
"Abraham Lincoln: Second Inaugural Address. U.S. Inaugural Addresses. 1989." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Encyclopedia, Dictionary, Thesaurus and hundreds more. http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres32.html (accessed January 25, 2009).
"Obama Is Sworn In as the 44th President - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/us/politics/20web-inaug2.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=obama%20sworn%20in%20as%20our%2044th%20president&st=cse (accessed January 21, 2009).
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