mr. president, my name is bob willard. i ve been president of the abraham lincoln institute in the past. i m delighted to be at this, the 17th symposium of the abraham lincoln institute. i ve attended almost every one. but it s a little more challenging now after living in and around washington, my wife and i are now happily e sconced in california. as america said good-bye to first lady nancy reagan, two yule gists, secretary jam baker and her son ron jr. both claimed that without mrs. reagan there would have been no president reagan. i m not a fan of the counter fak churl history discussions but i realize that for as long as i remember, i expressed that same view regarding mary lincoln. and it was underscored this morning by sydney blumenthal. i ve heard many presentations on mrs. lincoln from friends and foes of this controversial first lady. love her or hate her, there s little doubt in any mind that abraham and mayry loved each other deeply and supported each other for b
about the ways in which experience transforms attitudes. so lincoln grew but so did so many other americans. in my last book i wrote about a lot of soldiers. and one of the important elements of the emancipation proclamation can is when the army becomes an army of liberation, it changes their mind. the enslaved are an abstraction for the vast majority of northerners. so what does it mean when you re marching south and you re able to humanize african americans. the soldiers that medford talked about, very important, 179,000 men serving. so in all of these ways it s not just lincoln. it s parts of a society that s trying to move ahead to solve what for them is let s pose it has a problem. the problem of freedom in the age of slavery. that s a complicated problem. and on one hand vast strides are made. on the other hand 150 years later it s a problem that the nation continues to have to address. i think for lincoln it s that basic sense of allowing individuals to rise or fall