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 regard he has written or cowritten 12 number one bestselling nonfiction books, more than any other contemporary american author. A native of where else illinois, and a graduate of yale college who spent five years in the navy, mr. Woodward has won virtually every major american journalism award. I am particularly thrilled that he is our leadoff lecturer, because one of the first major works to expose the supreme courts inner operations to outside view, figured significantly if my decision and a handful of years earlier in the decision of my older brother, also a law professor, to attend law school. I have reread the brethren at least half dozen times over the last 25 years, including during the term i worked for justice blackmon. Like mr. Lincoln, it continues to be powerfully relevant to modern, legal and political disputes even though it was penned almost 40 years ago now. All of this brings me to the last question which is the only one that seems hard. How did we get mr. Woodward to come share his thoughts with us this evening . The answer to that also turns out to be quite simple. We asked. I have heard that long before people knew who he was, mr. Woodward would assiduously determine whom he wanted or needed to talk to for a project he was working on, approach them forthrightly and say, im bob woodward from the washington and i need your help. When we at the university of illinois reached out to mr. Woodward and explained to him straightforwardly why we needed his help on this project, he graciously obliged. For it turns out, that above and beyond all of his accomplishments and talents, mr. Woodward is a generous and kind man to whom it is now my privilege to turn over the podium. Thanks. Thanks. Its great to be here, and i do not have a coat and tie on because i got stranded out of waington for a week because of the snow. And the dean generously offered his best suit, and i declined. Because my daughter, whos a freshman in college, said, now you look like a real professor. Underdressed. Its really genuine pleasure for me to come to a law school or talk to lawyers, which ive had the opportunity to do for many decades. My father was a lawyer here in illinois. Wheaton, illinois, outside of chicago. A circuit judge, then became an appellate judge. So i was raised in a household where he drummed in to me the following. He said always carefully Pay Attention to the lawyers, because they have the most profound and meaningful and lasting things to say, unless you listen carefully. Great advice for a journalist. I want to tell one lawyer story that actually connects to lincoln in a way. This was the 1980s. We were doing a lot of stories about the cia covert operations in the and the Reagan Administration was trying to prevent us from publishing these stories. There was a big debate, a lot of handwringing. At one point on a saturday morning, i went to see Edward Bennett williams, the very famous criminal lawyer. Ed was my personal attorney and represented the post. So i went into his office. I need your advice. I want to talk about these tough decisions about whether to publish National Security secrets. And he said, just a minute. I need to tell you something. What is that . He said, well, i also i represent you, i represent the post, i represent the cia director, bill casey also, personally. And i am general counsel interest president reagans foreign intelligence advisory board. I said, ed, now wait a minute. You represent me, the post, the cia director, the president , isnt there a conflict somewhere in this . And he smiled and looked at me and said, id like to represent the situation. A lawyers dream. And if you look at lincoln and the way he used his power during the civil war, in so many ways he, as a lawyer and as president , represented the situation. I want to identify some of the characteristics i think lincoln had, and then let me go through the list. First of all, lincoln accepted himself and who he was. He was a pragmatist. He had a moral center. He had a sense of strategy. And of course, strategy is trying to plan what you want to do in a year or six months, and not just crisis manage. He also had a strategic patience. He was not in a hurry, even on the most vital matters. He was persistent. He was ruthless as commander in chief in war. He understood deeply the importance of morale for the troops and the generals, and he understood the importance of human relations and carrying out his office. He also he was a big ego. A giant ego. Had a giant ego. Probably had no real friends. He was probably the most activist president. He almost believed in executive supremacy. He suspended habeas corpus in various regions. He said in justifying, defending what he was doing, that it made no sense to lose the nation and yet preserve the constitution. In reading a number of books and doing some research about lincoln, theres a book by joshua schenky, which is called lincolns melancholy. The thesis is that and there a he some truth to this i think that lincoln had melancholy. I think if you examine the deeper, maybe that melancholy was really a habit of introspection. But in his book, lincolns melancholy, he said the following which i found quite striking. What primarily accounted for lincolns increasing success and his vital relevance was not his own growth to a place where he could speak to the countrys needs, but the countrys regression to a place where lincoln was needed. An assistant who works for me looked through all of this and said, you know, lincoln was in many ways like the batman of Christopher Nolans movie trilogy. Not the hero we deserved, but the hero we needed. I think thats true. Lincoln certainly was the most modern of the president s. Now in 2016 i think if you look at the politics of this country, we are at a pivot point in history, and it is vital that the next president , whoever that might be, gets some things right and get the important things right, or at least comprehend the dimensions, impact and meaning of failure to get those important things right. Over 40 years of writing about president s and trying to understand them, i have asked is myself the question whats the job of the president . And my answer is that the job of the president is to figure out what the next stage of good is for a majority of people in the country. Then develop a plan and carry out that plan. And it must be the next stage of good for a real majority. Not one party or one interest group. One i did not realize that this notion i had been using for a long time was one of the points lincoln made in one of his speeches. And it was february, 1860, as president elect. Lincoln said the following. I hold that, while man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind. And therefore, without entering upon the details of the question now, i will say that i am for those means which will leave the greatest good to the greatest number. Yes, it is true, america is the last great hope, as lincoln said. But i think lincoln realized that failure was possible. The country was young when he was president and not yet powerful. America was an experiment. And, in truth, now in 2016, the experiment is not over. What id like to do is review the eight president s ive worked on, and extract try to distill out, as i said, what they may have learned from lincoln, or maybe should have learned from lincoln. One of the scholars, jacques barzoun, said the following. This is about lincoln. What gave lincoln his enormous strength in relation to others was that he had learned early in life to accept himself. He knew that he was ugly, ungainly, awkward in society, untaught, except by himself. And as a congressman for one term, unsuccessful. The great point was that he did not resent those deficiencies. He neither tried to cover them up, nor referred to them continuously from embarrassment. They were part of him, and he accepted all of himself as inevitable, as a fact of nature. That realization freed him from some of the demons that have plagued other president s. I think specifically, of richard nixon, which i will get to and dwell on probably too long. Lincoln was a pragmatist in an important way. One of the things he said, our government rests in Public Opinion. Whoever can change Public Opinion can change the government. And this is what he did as identify the essential element of democracy. He also said, with public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts laws or pronounces decisions. A clear dig at the congress and the supreme court. Part of what he did and just how he handled the press during the civil war and harold holzers book on lincoln in the press, he makes a number of important points. What lincoln did and this again is reflective of the pragmatism. He did not initiate press suppression. He remained ambivalent about its execution. But he seldom intervened to prevent it. He let it go. He said and made it very clear that the secretary of war has my authority to exercise the executive discretion on this matter. It was his way of saying he represented the situation, and he was going to delegate it to somebody else, because it was a task that was difficult and he kept his hands off it directly. Most important part of about lincoln of course is he had a moral center. He had that sense of strategy, strategic patience, as i mentioned. The great achievement, the emancipation proclamation. If you look at the histories of this, what he did, he reeled it out over a long period of time. He just didnt declare it. He had meetings with reporters and editors. There were coordinated leaks. Imagine that. To the press to free blacks, or to religious leaders. And this went on from july to september of 1862. He knew he needed a military victory or success, and he waited until he got it. And what he did then, he announced he was going to free the slaves on january 1st if the rebellion did not end. It, of course, did not end. And the military order, which is what the emancipation was, really was an invitation to slaves to leave their masters. This pragmatism that he had and its something to measure now candidates by. But it went far and deep for lincoln. Harry williams, the historian said, lincoln would not have been able to comprehend the attempts of modern writers to classify his ideas in to an ideology. Indeed, he would have not known what an ideology was. Another quote of lincoln saying, my policy is to have no policy. Very important to the way he conducted, not just the war, but everything else. How he conducted the war is very instructive and i think important as we get as we start looking at some of the eight last president s. He supported, lincoln, the great humanitarian, supported the scorched earth Economic Strategy carried out by grant and general sherman. And agreed that brutal aggression was the only way to subdue the rebellion. Lincoln didnt like war, but it was terrible but the larger purpose and strategy to save the union was key to this. He also understood the importance of morale for everyone in the country and the military. On july 14, 1863, he wrote Union General meade a letter after meade had failed to pursue general lee following Union Victories in gettysburg and vicksburg. And so what the letter said was the following. My dear general, i do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in lees escape. He was within your easy grasp and to have closed upon him in connection with our other late successes would have ended the war. As it was, the war will be prolonged indefinitely. I am distressed immeasurably because of it. What lincoln did, didnt send the letter. He realized that it would be too graphic an attack on the general. And i sometimes have thought, if we could ever get the unsent letters or emails of president s or president ial candidates, we would learn a great deal about them, and we would also learn that it is important sometimes to write these things out and not linger on them. The other important part. And this is a poor aspect of lincoln, how he understood the importance of human relations. Kathryn graham, owner and publisher of the Washington Post for years, was working on her autobiography. I ran into her and she said, oh. The weirdest thing happened last night. I was at a reception, and jimmy carter, the former president , was there. And cart came up to her and put out his hand and said, oh, mrs. Graham, i admire you so much. I like you so much. And mrs. Graham said to me, you know what i thought . What the fuck . Sorry, were in an academic environment where we can quote people accurately. And she said, now think of this. We fought with carter and his administration for years. The whole time he was there. We couldnt find out what was going on. There was no real relationship. And then she made the larger point which is critical. She said, you know, its hard not to like someone who says they like you. True. If youre in disagreement with somebody, or youre negotiating with them, they say, you know, i like you. Not all the barriers come down, but some of them. Lincoln realized this in so many ways. When he was a private lawyer in the 1850s, it was involved in a lawsuit where edwin stanton, the countrys foremost lawyer, was involved in this case in ohio. And stanton and lincoln learned stanton would speak very negatively about lincoln and call him privately a backwoods bumpkin. Stanton was a democrat, and he later practiced law in washington, and there was still this badmouthing of lincoln the whole time. And what did lincoln do . He appointed stanton secretary of war. And it turned out that stanton was one of the best war chiefs the United States ever had. After lincoln was assassinated, it was stanton who said, as it is remembered, now he belongs to the ages. And so lincoln was able to bring people, even enemies, close to him and use them for his purpose. This sense of human relations, much is talked about in the histories about lincolns second inaugural famous address. And then if you look at it in the context of pragmatism and in the context of human relations, and read what that second inaugural said, 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 nations wounds, to care for him who shall have born and carried 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. That isnt just pragmatism. That is human understanding. Now, the eight president s ive tried to understand and write about, nixon, august 8th, 1968 accepting the republican nomination for president. Nixon said the following, the next president will face challenges which in some ways will be greater than those of washington or lincoln. Astonishing thing to say for a somebody whos been nominated to run in one party. And nixons argument was, well, were at war abroad and at home. And then he said, the long dark night for america is about to end. Let me read that again. Nixon, august 8th, 1968, the long dark night for america is about to end. It was six years to the day on august 8th, 1974, that nixon and announced his resignation. And it was gerald ford who responded to the nixon resignation and watergate by saying, our Long National nightmare is over. April 29, 1974, before nixon was he was three months away from resigning. The house impeachment inquiry had subpoenaed more secret tapes. So what nixon did is invoke lincoln in defending his argument to not comply with the subpoena. And he is he said lincoln at an equivalent time in his presidency was being subjected to unmerciful attack. A book i did in the fall called the last of the president s men about alexander butterfield, who revealed nixons taping system and Spirited Away thousands of documents from the white house, the nixon white house, that he gave to me. Now you sit and dream as a reporter about somebody spiriting thousands of documents out of the white house. And among the documents that butterfield took was and butterfields account of what happened i think it was Christmas Eve 1969, nixon was president and went for a tour of the executive staff offices in the Office Building next to the white house. And he discovered that there were about a dozen support staff who had pictures of john f. Kennedy in their offices. Nixon went bananas. He called butterfield in who was deputy chief of staff at the time. And said this is an infestation of kennedy pictures. I want them out. I want the replaced with you guessed it nixon pictures. Butterfield launched an investigation of this, was able to persuade people that it was not proper, that it was suggestively disloyal if you had pictures of other president s in your office. I was kind of skeptical of the story. And then theres the document that butterfield wrote directly to the president. And the subject was sanitization of the executive Office Building. Sanitization, as if there was some disease because staff people had pictures of another president. And think about it. What do you think lincolns response would have been if he discovered that there were staff people in the white house or the government who had portraits of George Washington or Thomas Jefferson . I think it is unthinkable and this inability and if you trace the nixon story, you see that hes not accommodated to the idea of who he is, the opposite of lincoln. When