Into law by lincoln five years earlier and the only one in that original group founded in lincolns home state. Indeed one of the reasons i was drawn to come to illinois last year to take the job as law dean is the prospect that the university of illinois can build upon the legacy of, and become linked with lincoln in the way the university of virginia is associated with Thomas Jefferson. Who to my mind was not as great a president and not as great a person. This brings me to a fourth question, why bob woodward . That might be the easiest one of all. Many people consider the New York Times the countrys newspaper of record. But bob woodward of the rival Washington Post is americas reporter of record. He has been at the post for 45 years and is responsible for two of its Pulitzer Prizes for investigative coverage of water gate and also 9 11. But mr. Woodward is much more than a reporter. He has an inciteful and prolific historian of, among other things, americas president s. In this regar
Meeting. And i had the luxury of time, two fulltime assistants. We looked at all the contemporary coverage of the pardon, got all the memoirs, got the legal memos from the ford library. I kept going back to interview ford. And to try to piece together what happened. I interviewed him in colorado a number of times, where he had a home, and many times at his main home at rancho mirage, california. I remember the last interview asking him, why did you pardon nixon . He said, you keep asking that question. I said, but i dont think youve answered it. And then he said, astonishingly, ok, im going to tell you. And he then said what happened is that al haig, nixons chief of staff, came and offered me a deal. He said, if you guarantee that the president will get a pardon, he will resign and you get the presidency. And ford said, however, i rejected that deal. I knew i was going to become president. Nixon was finished. So theres no way he could work that deal in the way haig described. And passi
And obama said im sympathetic to this. He said go read my nobel prize acceptance speech. I had seen the nobel prize acceptance speech. Ever seen something and read it and not understood it . Well, it happens to me too often. So i went home and got out the speech. And there, in plain english, obama says, yeah, wars sometimes necessary, but then he said it is always an expression and manifestation of human folly. And i realized at that point he just does not like war. And the problem is, when you are involved in a war as commander in chief, youve got to really be tough. A couple of years ago, i was having breakfast with a world leader, head of government of one of our closest allies. And i asked about obama. He said, obama is so smart and i like him. But then he said, but no one is afraid of him. And my heart sank because i realized that the distaste, the disgust for war looms so large with obama that he has not conveyed the message of fear. Which is what a leader must do. What is intere
It was exactly in the tradition of my brothers book profiles in courage. And then gerald ford got up and talked about partial vindication. I remember watching this and thinking here i was convinced it was an act of maximum corruption, that the pardon was. And then it is examined many years later, dispassionately. And what looked like corruption actually is an act of courage. And that is sobering for somebody in my business. You can say, oh, yeah, this is the following this war made no sense. This was a good war and so forth. And the decades go by and it may look quite differently. Jimmy carter, as somebody using lincoln in december 1979, as he was gearing up to run for reelection, in one of his speeches, carter said, at the height of the civil war, lincoln said, i have but one task and that is to save the union. Then carter went on to compare his responsibility in getting the 50 iranian hostages out as the same problem. He said he would devote his concerted efforts to that. And you loo
He argues that majority rule is inevitable but not inevitably reasonable. A concept he believed lincoln would support. This is an hour. Host a splendid institution where i am honored to serve as dean. Im pleased to welcome you here to the auditorium where the second lecture in a series, hosted by the college of law entitled the new lincoln lectures what lincoln means to the 21st century. We are privileged to be hearing from a remarkably accomplished and ideologically diverse set of national thought leaders on lincolns legacy and his continuous relevance, 150 years after his passing. As i said when i introduced our inaugural lecturer bob woodward in january, the law school has chosen to focus these lectures on Abraham Lincoln in part because lincoln undeniably is among the greatest lawyers in americas history. The fact that he assumed many other important roles, president , legislator, military strategist, newspaper owner, merely adds to his legacy and his legend. As we know, many of th