The following two articles on Abraham Lincoln give us an insight into the great man and president that he was.   The second article is a quote from his Second Annual Message of December 1, 1862.    

• February 13, 2013

A Lincolnian Economic Primer

for Obama

Abe’s approach was to provide rules of the road for the private sector and let entrepreneurs compete.

By KEVIN BRADY And LEWIS E. LEHRMAN

Mr. Brady, a Republican congressman from Texas, is the incoming chairman of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress. Mr. Lehrman is chairman of the Lehrman Institute and author of “Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point” (Stackpole Books, 2008).

EXCERPT FROM THIS ARTICLE:  Lincoln saw the government’s job to provide the private sector with rules of the road and public works through which entrepreneurs could both compete with one another and expand jobs. Unlike President Obama, President Lincoln saw creators of wealth not as “robber barons” to be maligned by the federal government but as job generators that should be encouraged.

 

President Obama chose to deliver his State of the Union address this year on the 204th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. It was a good selection of a significant date. As Steven Spielberg makes clear in his epic film “Lincoln,” Americans of all backgrounds and political persuasions can learn much from the character and presidency of the 16th president.

With regard to human rights and economic liberty, Lincoln adhered to two fundamental principles. First, that every person was entitled to the fruits of his or her labors, and no one had an unrequited claim (i.e., slavery) to the fruits of the labors of others. What so troubled Lincoln about slavery was that it was theft—pure and simple. Lincoln ran for president on a platform to stop slavery’s spread. As president and commander in chief, he struck against slavery in the rebellious states through the Emancipation Proclamation. Then he pressed for slavery’s permanent abolition by constitutional amendment—in both rebellious and loyal border states—because no man may steal the fruits of the labor of others.

The second principle that guided the Republican president was that every person, regardless of the circumstances of his birth, should be able to climb as far up the economic ladder as his talents may take him. Historian Richard Hofstadter called Lincoln the “greatest dramatist” for upward mobility the nation ever produced, and for good reason.

Corbis

Under Lincoln’s watchful eye and skillful leadership, the 37th Congress enacted more economically significant legislation than had any of its predecessors. The underlying theme of Lincoln’s economic initiatives was that by providing ordinary people with incentives to use their own skills and labor, the entire nation would prosper. Very little of what Lincoln signed into law could be declared, in the present-day idiom, “entitlements” or “redistribution.” (more…)

NETANYAHU SPEECH AT THE U.N. SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

FROM THE RONALD REAGAN PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

THIS IS THE COMPLETE SPEECH THAT WAS DELIVERED BY RONALD REAGAN DURING THE BARRY GOLDWATER PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN ON OCTOBER 27, 1964.