Richard LeBaron, Chargé d'Affaires a.i.

Speeches & Remarks

13 June 2009
Remarks at Opening of Exhibition on Abraham Lincoln at All Saints Church, Swanton Morley

President Lincoln in the War Department Telegraph Office, drafting the Emancipation Proclamation.

Thank you Lady Knollys for that kind introduction. Let me also single out for thanks Mr. David Stone, who was the author and producer of this fine exhibition. Thank you Councillor Carttiss for being here and I'm delighted that MP Keith Simpson has joined us. Keith is not only your member of Parliament, but also a distinguished military historian and of course a Shadow Foreign Minister.

Thank you very much, all of you here, for including me today. It is a great privilege to be visiting Swanton Morley. On this 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, I am delighted to talk to you briefly about this great American president in his ancestral homeland. In fact, Lincoln's roots came full-circle back to England as his son - Robert Todd Lincoln - served as Ambassador to the Court of St. James's from 1889 to 1893.

Your presence means you know something of this remarkable man, Abraham Lincoln. The exhibit we are privileged to see today will deepen that knowledge, and I congratulate the organizers for gathering it together so skillfully.

I thought that my role today in this bicentennial year would be to talk just for a few minutes about why the Lincoln bicentennial year is so important to us as Americans. For although we are known as a forward-looking people who neglect history, we have not, and we cannot, forget Lincoln, and what he did for us. And why do we remember him?

First, he kept our country together during the Civil War. There is no doubt that Lincoln was President during America's greatest crisis. Only a month after being inaugurated, the Civil War broke out. Four long, savage and bloody years later, the war ended with the Union preserved. Within days of the war ending, Lincoln was dead, slain by an assassin's bullet.

Second, Lincoln made the monumental decision to end slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Historians have filled volumes with how, why and when Lincoln took this decision, but for me, the crucial element is that Lincoln had the moral clarity to grasp that until slavery was ended, the American project was endangered, and he possessed the political will to seize the right moment to make this bold move in the midst of war.

Third, Lincoln gave America perhaps one of its greatest speeches ever - the Gettysburg Address. Having announced the Emancipation Proclamation a few months earlier, he then pushed his vision even further. In a mere eighty words he redefined the Civil War as a struggle not merely for the Union, but as a "new birth of freedom" that would bring true equality to all its citizens. It is a speech that rings down through the ages. Our school children still memorize it in school. If you wish, you can listen to Colin Powell read this historic document on our Embassy website.

Fourth, Lincoln has changed America through his enduring call on all Americans to stand up for the values upon which our country is founded. For Americans, Lincoln the man symbolizes frugality, honesty and integrity. He was a self-taught man who wrote some of the most beautiful prose our country has produced:

Forgiving of human nature and filled with blazing moral courage.

Shattered with grief by the death toll of the war while maintaining a steely focus on the goal of preserving the Union.

In the midst of a blood-drenched struggle that pitted brother against brother, he recast the American ideal and set us on the path that led to the election of President Barack Obama last year. Little wonder that he remains at the top of the polls as our greatest president.

As I stand here today, in this historic church perched on a hill, I cannot help but find myself reflecting on Abraham Lincoln's unwavering faith during a presidency that saw unprecedented challenges. While he did not practice as a conventional Christian of his time, President Lincoln's deep spiritual convictions played a pivotal role in his leadership of the United States. Facing the insurmountable obstacles that the Civil War carried, President Lincoln resolved to ardently believe that God's will would prevail.

Somehow, in this setting, I can easily conjure up a brief conversation, perhaps on a pleasant summer evening like today in June of 1942 when Churchill and Eisenhower were in Swanton Morley together to launch the first combined air raids on the European mainland. And perhaps at that moment and perhaps in this place, the courage and fortitude of Abraham Lincoln in some way helped them bear the burden of their decisions -- decisions that held no guarantees of success, but carried with them the dreadful foreknowledge that many thousands of lives would be lost for many years in the cause of liberation. Perhaps in some way they found solace and confidence in Lincoln's words from his second Inaugural Address, which seem timely in an era where once again men and women serving in our military -- and their families -- are asked to carry the burdens our leaders have chosen for them.

Even now, Lincoln's words echo through history…

"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 nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne 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."

Thank you for your kind attention.

Read more about the event on the website of the Eastern Daily Press.

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