Jonathan Den News Today

Public debates have recently focused on school history standards – what the Advanced Placement program should teach in its African-American Studies course and what the state of Florida should say about the effects of slavery. These are important questions. But I’m concerned about a longer-term problem: the danger of making American history and civics dull.

The best inaugural addresses connect to the broader American tradition, and in our moment, the new President could do much worse than following Abraham Lincoln’s lead.