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President Obama Celebrates President Lincoln's 200th Birthday; Lawmakers Complete a Deal on the Stimulus Plan

Aired February 12, 2009 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN HOST: And good morning and welcome back, everybody. I'm Soledad O'Brien in New York. We're continuing our special coverage of the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth. This morning from Capitol Hill to the Lincoln Memorial, the president and Congress, too, paying tribute to the president who held the nation together at its most difficult hour. Abraham Lincoln continues to inspire today, you don't have to look any further than the White House and Barack Obama who mentions Lincoln all of the time.

The congressional tribute will begin in just about 30 minutes in the capitol rotunda. Several speakers, we'll hear from, including the president himself, about ten to 15 minutes after the ceremonies begin. And we'll bring it to you live when it happens.

Another big tribute to the 16th president taking place at an exhibit in Federal Hall right here in New York City. In fact, if it hadn't been for New York City, there may not have been a President Lincoln in the White House. We had a chance to tour the exhibit with the curator, Jonathan Mann.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: This is a gorgeous venue.

JONATHAN MANN, CURATOR, "LINCOLN IN NEW YORK": It's a gorgeous venue. The National Park Service has been generous in allowing us to share Lincoln with the world.

O'BRIEN: But here in New York, you don't think of Lincoln in New York City.

MANN: Abraham Lincoln would not have become president, had it not been for New York.

O'BRIEN: So Lincoln came to Cooper Union to make a giant speech, and it was really well-attended.

MANN: Lincoln gave his famous "Right Makes Might" address at the Cooper Institute. This, by the way, is the only known ticket to remain extent from that event.

O'BRIEN: Was it sold out?

MANN: There were records of people actually overflowing into the street. It was an event that put Lincoln on the national stage. These are parade torches, and...

O'BRIEN: So you would literally walk through a parade holding a torch.

MANN: You would literally walk, but it wasn't exactly without danger. These were filled with oil. The wicks were lit. Can you imagine not just a few people on the corner, but 40,000 people marching down Broadway carrying these?

O'BRIEN: Each one carrying one of those.

MANN: Not each, but certainly a good number. And President Obama, by the way, went so far as to journey to Washington.

O'BRIEN: On his train.

MANN: On his special Lincoln train that retraced the route Lincoln took from Springfield to Washington.

Interestingly, we have an exhibit here, a special train pass that was issued to a friend or a VIP to get on the Lincoln inaugural train for one leg of that journey.

O'BRIEN: So these look like coins.

MANN: These are the buttons and badges of the 19th century, the pins that would adorn your lapel. Some of these were worn as charms. My personal favorite is marketing at its best. This is a small ax pin, with two slowing slogans, "Honest Abe" and "Rail Splitter."

O'BRIEN: Was he a brilliant marketer?

MANN: Lincoln was keenly aware of the need to create image and myth. And that's why all of this reflects how he was packaged.

O'BRIEN: So they recreated the train ride in a way after his death. They brought the body back through New York.

MANN: The same route Lincoln traveled for his inauguration from Springfield was retraced back with funeral ceremonies in every major city. The funeral at New York City was visited and attended by hundreds of thousands of people.

O'BRIEN: Why are people so passionate about Lincoln, even today?

MANN: There are so many stories to tell in the Lincoln story, but he is the quintessential American. This is a guy who is completely self-made -- rose above the most humble beginnings to change the world. And if we can get one kid to come through this exhibit, and be inspired 40 years from now, who knows what that child can accomplish?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: One person who was inspired, certainly it was Barack Obama. But you've got to say, Actor Sam Waterston was also very inspired, because the words of Abraham Lincoln echo across the ages.

Now, actor Waterston is best known for bringing those words in life, as in this excerpt, which comes from Lincoln's second inaugural address. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAM WATERSTON, ACTOR: Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Just go to CNN.com, if you want to hear Sam Waterston reading several of these famous addresses. And they're really remarkable.

Thank you for being with us. Always a pleasure.

WATERSTON: A pleasure.

O'BRIEN: How many times would you estimate you have played or read Lincoln?

WATERSTON: Lots and lots of times. Harold Holzer who is a big Lincoln expert and author, and I have done a thing called Lincoln, seen and heard, probably a dozen times now. If you count them all as separate productions, it gets to be quite a lot.

O'BRIEN: In 2004, you actually went and recreated that Cooper Union address, that famous address. You stacked it with real people come in. How did that go? You didn't wear the top hat?

WATERSTON: It was Harold's idea and kind of on a dare. He said, would you come and read some excerpts, and I want, I don't want to read excerpts, but I'll read the whole thing, if you dare ask people to listen. And so I did.

O'BRIEN: It's not a short speech.

WATERSTON: It's not a short speech. It takes about an hour. And what was news, even to Harold, I think, was that it's funny. It uses that kind of repetition that is in Antony's speech when Julius Caesar is killed. Brutus is an honorable man, and on and on. And so it starts to be funny and then infuriating. So that's the same deal.

O'BRIEN: You see a lot of pictures of Lincoln, and he is never smiling and I think a lot of people didn't realize he had a sense of humor, and the way would hold that in.

WATERSTON: Who didn't realize?

O'BRIEN: You're a scholar. I didn't realize.

WATERSTON: I'm no scholar.

O'BRIEN: Yes, you're being modest. You are a Lincoln scholar in your own right. I've heard many historians call you that.

WATERSTON: In my own mind.

O'BRIEN: In your own mind -- good enough. I'm curious to know how he articulated his argument. I mean, an actor, looking and reading his words, I know I know he looked back to Shakespeare a lot and got a lot of inspiration, but he really wove it like a lawyer.

WATERSTON: That's exactly right. That's exactly what I was about to say. He was a poet and a lawyer.

And I think is probably less well-known that he was a poet than that he had a sense of humor. But he was. And when, you know, George Wilbur wrote a whole book about the construction of the Gettysburg Address, it's -- it's literature. It's very, very dense. And it's communicative, like poetry is communicative. And then there is the thing that you just said, this business about being a lawyer and kind of the solidarity of the arguments.

O'BRIEN: It always goes back to sort of the original text, the first document, things like that. But he was a...

WATERSTON: Yeah. And also the arguments themselves within what he said. They are -- you know, people interpret him all over the -- every which way that he was depressive, that he was -- you know, there are theories, this kind of theory and that kind of theory. But the words themselves and the intent of the words is so plain.

O'BRIEN: No interpretation.

WATERSTON: That it really shakes off interpretation.

O'BRIEN: We don't have a ton of time, but this part is critical, and I want to get to it.

WATERSTON: Go for it.

O'BRIEN: Thank you. That was for my producers and not for you.

(LAUGHER)

He was so conflicted on race. I mean, he is quoted as saying things that are really horrible about black people in the country. And everyone knew, in a lot of ways, his positions about equality. He did not believe in equality for blacks, and he got there eventually, but he was -- he was a reluctant emancipator. Really, he -- Frederick Douglas helped shove him down that path. How do you capture that when you're as an actor reading his words?

WATERSTON: Again, I think the words speak for themselves. You know, his whole argument about slavery was based on the Declaration of Independence, and the founding words that all men are created equal. There's no escaping what that implies about race. Then as a politician, there's what was possible, and...

O'BRIEN: And there is a big gap between those two things.

WATERSTON: And people tend to judge him by the Constitution as it exists today. But the Constitution that he inherited guaranteed the right to hold slaves.

So from his belief in all men being created equal about which there was no equivocation, and his commitment to defending the Constitution, you know, there's -- there was room -- there was a lot of space to fill.

I don't think there's -- you know, he was a man of his time. He had the prejudices of the time. He had the crazy idea that it would be -- that black people -- would be better off if they went to Africa.

O'BRIEN: Haiti, Africa.

WATERSTON: They would be happier.

O'BRIEN: And turned down the black soldiers who came to volunteer until they needed them.

WATERSTON: But I think it says a lot that Frederick Douglas was able to explain to him and he was able to hear that this wasn't necessarily the people, who had not come here by choice, did not necessarily want to...

O'BRIEN: Go.

WATERSTON: Go somewhere else also without their own choice.

O'BRIEN: We're going to ask you to stick around with us, if you will. You say you're not a Lincoln scholar, but you are. So we'll also talk about and listen to some of the speeches, as well.

Sam Waterston, thank you very much, we appreciate it.

And also we take you to the Lincoln Memorial and Don Lemon as our coverage continues. Don is with our Pentagon Correspondent Chris Lawrence. They're going to take a look at the president at war, both President Lincoln and President Obama.

First, though, a look at the day's news from Tony Harris in Atlanta -- Tony?

TONY HARRIS, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: Soledad, appreciate it. Thank you.

Here are the top stories in the "CNN NEWSROOM."

Let the billions flow. Congress heads toward final votes on a compromised stimulus package. Gusty winds, and driving rain, storms hammer the heartland and make a move on the north east today. And a special court rules in a landmark autism case. Families fail to prove vaccines caused the disorder. Good morning, everyone, I'm Tony Harris. And you are in the "CNN NEWSROOM."

"Issue Number One," and here are the day's money-moving headlines.

Retail sales jumped a full 1 percent in January. That's a bit of a surprise, reversing a six-month slide. 623,000 people filed for first time jobless benefits last week. That's down a tad, but ongoing claims remain at a record level. Foreclosures dropped in January, down 10 percent from December, but RealtyTrac say they are up over 18 percent from January 2008. Most world markets sagged today on doubts of the U.S. stimulus plan. Stocks in Asia and Europe are off anywhere from 1 to 3 percent. Only Australia picked up ground on this Thursday.

The deal is done. The final price tag on the economic stimulus plan, $789 billion. Lawmakers hope to have the bill on the president's desk by Monday.

Congressional Correspondent, Brianna Keilar, live from Capitol Hill.

And Brianna, to get the bill on the president's desk by Monday, votes need to be scheduled. What are you hearing?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: We're hearing there is going to be a vote in the House tomorrow, Tony.

And taking a look at this bill, it's tax cuts for individuals and is businesses. Almost all Americans will get a tax cut under this plan, $400 for individuals, $800 for families.

There is also a couple of popular tax cuts that have been pared down a little. But they're still there. For first time home buyers, up to $8,000, and for folks who are buying a new car, you can take the sales tax you paid for that purchase and deduct that from your taxes.

Now, House Democrats, though, still a little -- some of them very unhappy with the limits on spending that those few Senate Republicans were able to secure, limits to school, new school construction, and keeping just the overall education spending down to $54 billion. That's one of the reasons we're seeing this vote in the House tomorrow and not today, because those House Democrats, they want to see this bill, and Tony, it's not ready yet. So they don't have a chance to look at it. They want to go over it, as closely as possible before they vote.

HARRIS: Yeah, absolutely. makes sense.

All right, Brianna Keilar on Capitol Hill. Thank you.

Today the president heads to his and Lincoln's home state, Illinois. He will make remarks on the economy in Peoria at 4:25 eastern time, and we will bring you the remarks live, of course, right here on CNN. And they are cleaning up the mess left behind in three states hit hard by spring-like thunderstorms. Fierce winds forced power outages in Kentucky, a state that is still dealing with blackouts from a crippling ice storm two weeks ago. The national weather service teams are reporting tornado-strength and straight-lined wind damage. In central Texas, power lines, trees and street signs were knocked down. And in Oklahoma, officials say the twister that killed at least nine people Tuesday was an EF-4 tornado, between 100 and 150 homes were destroyed. Rescuers are searching for more possible victims today.

Let's check in with Rob Marciano in the Severe Weather Center.

Rob, the flight delays, are they related to the storm system that caused the damage we just talked about and showed pictures of?

ROB MARCIANO, CNN NEWS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, absolutely. From the Oklahoma twister you mentioned to the power outages in Kentucky and Ohio, not related to the ice storm, but the winds and now the winds across the northeast. Not a whole lot of precip, most across parts of upstate. But the wind is definitely cranking. We have got high-wind warnings for the next few hours until this winds down. Look at all of the delays at LaGuardia. We had three-hour delays earlier today. We have a ground stop, 3: 40ality Newark. Pack your patience, and if you're watching this from the airport, enjoy, and things will get better.

HARRIS: We say that all of the time, pack your patience.

Rob Marciano, thank you.

"Legacy and Lessons," war-time Presidents, Lincoln and Obama, analyzing the similarities and differences.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I always remember Abraham Lincoln when -- during the Civil War he said, we shouldn't be asking whose side God is on, but whether we're on his side. And I think that's the -- that's the question that all of us have to ask ourselves during any battle that's taking place, whether it's political or military.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Don Lemon is at the Lincoln Memorial for us this morning. It is one of the most visited monuments in the nation's capitol.

Hey, Don, good morning.

DON LEMON, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: Hey, good morning to you, Soledad. It is one of the most visited monuments, and it's a very beautiful monument. I'm standing here, looking at the reflecting pool, and the national monument here. And then I can see the capitol in the background. It's just a very beautiful day in Washington, D.C., to celebrate this bicentennial, but also a very windy day.

We have been talking about a lot of firsts since the president has been elected president, Barack Obama, the first African-American president, who has this connection and really love for Lincoln and Lincoln's legacy.

I actually had the chance to sit down to talk to the first African-American secretary of state about -- we talked about President Barack Obama. We also talked about Abraham Lincoln's legacy, and whether or not he thought it was romanticized. And whether he had any comparisons to Lincoln and President Obama stepping into a time of war. Of course, Lincoln, the Civil War, and now with two wars going on overseas.

Here is what Colin Powell had to say about Lincoln's legacy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. COLIN POWER, FORMER JOINT CHIEF OF STAFF: Oh, there's no question he was one of our greatest presidents, and not just a great emancipator. He had a more important role than just to emancipate the slaves. He had to keep the country together. And that was his first goal, to preserve the union.

In the process of doing that, he emancipated the slaves as part of his efforts to preserve the union. And we should thank him for preserving the union, and emancipating the slaves.

It's unfortunate that we lost President Lincoln, because I think the whole Reconstruction period would have been entirely different. And one of the great tragedies of our country is that, after that war that preserved the union and ended slavery, was able to slip back into a position of racism, Jim Crowe, segregation and all of the other terrible things that happened for the next 100 years, until we had this second Civil War, more peaceful civil war, led by Dr. Martin Luther King.

So I think Lincoln will always be seen as a great president. I regret that we lost him too soon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: My talk with former secretary of state, Colin Powell, just yesterday.

And interestingly enough, I asked him about -- I said shall, you know, Barack Obama -- president Barack Obama is stepping in at an interesting time, especially economically for the country, two wars going on overseas, and maybe just as much of a tumultuous time as President Abraham Lincoln. And he said, you know what, a lot of presidents do that, and he reminded me of President Ford when he stepped in and Watergate and Vietnam and what have you. And he said, this is not unprecedented. Many presidents have stepped in at times of turmoil in the country.

More -- a person who can talk to us much more about that and is going to delve even more into that is our Pentagon correspondent, Chris Lawrence, who has been looking at, you know, the sort of war connection between Abraham Lincoln and between President Barack Obama.

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Don. What a lot of people don't remember about Lincoln is that he served one term in Congress that he opposed the Mexican War on the grounds that it was started under false pretenses. And he took a lot of hits for that. People questioned his patriotism. But he defended himself and said that he still supported supplying the troops in the field. So you can see some of the parallels to our current commander in chief.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAWRENCE (voice-over): One president fought his war on American soil, with cannons, muskets and revolvers; the other with missiles, jets and unmanned drones, half a world away.

There's 150 years between them. But some historians say, these commanders in chief have a lot in common.

(on camera): What are the knocks on candidate Obama was his lack of military experience. How did some of the generals view president Lincoln?

ED CLARK, MANASSAS NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD PARK: Some of the Civil War generals, especially in their letters home to their wives and families, were questioning, who is this man? Who is this civilian to question how we're pursuing the war?

LAWRENCE (voice-over): Historians say both men are known to carefully think through problems. Like Lincoln, Obama has been denied that luxury.

OBAMA: We're going to have some difficult decisions that we're going to have to make surrounding Iraq and Afghanistan most immediately.

RON WHITE, AUTHOR, "A. LINCOLN": I think President Obama is faced with very quick decisions that he probably wishes he did not have to make.

LAWRENCE: Author Ron White says as soon as Lincoln took office, he received an urgent memo from his commander at Fort Sumter. The troops were almost out of supplies. But Antietam is no al Anbar, and there are some differences in the wars. More than 4,000 Americans have been killed in the Iraq war. About the same as the two battles of bull run. Nearly six years of fighting versus four days of civil war.

RAY BROWN, MANASSAS PARK HISTORIAN: We lost over 600,000 dead during the war. That amounts to about 2 percent of the population of that time. The equivalent today would be about five million.

LAWRENCE: Park Historian Ray Brown also says President Obama inherits one of the most well-trained battle-tested armies ever. President Lincoln often fielded men straight off their farms. BROWN: They had never been in a military unit before. They had -- had very, very little training.

LAWRENCE: Historians say Obama should emulate Lincoln, a quick study, who immersed himself in warfare, and eventually earned the respect of his military.

WHITE: His challenge will be to learn enough himself that he is able to question, perhaps overrule, come to his own decision.

LAWRENCE: In other words, judge the general's advice, but study enough to chart his own way.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAWRENCE: And historians say that Lincoln had a way of explaining even complicated policy to the average person. And Don, he used his gift with language to help sell that war. And they say once President Obama actually articulates his policy, he too may be better able to rally the American people around his plans for Afghanistan.

LEMON: CNN Pentagon Correspondent Chris Lawrence. You can see the similarities there.

And, of course, Barack Obama is a big fan, obviously, Soledad, of President Abraham Lincoln. Chris and I are going to go hang on to a tree so we don't blow away, and we're going to toss this back to you -- a big tree.

O'BRIEN: I know. I heard that the wind gusts are up to 55 miles per hour in Washington, D.C. today. I'm inside, actually. It's fine in here in the studio.

Thank you, guys. In all seriousness, thank you.

LEMON: Literally, things are blowing over, Soledad. We have to hold on to lights and cameras.

O'BRIEN: Well, thank you guys. We appreciate you hanging in there, literally, hanging in there with us.

We're just a couple minutes away from your event on this bicentennial celebration. Going to take you live to the rotunda, the nation's capitol. President Obama and members of Congress will be holding a celebration there. And you're looking at live pictures. We're going to bring that to you as soon as we take this short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: And good morning again, everyone, I'm Tony Harris from CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. We will rejoin our special coverage "From Lincoln to Obama" in just a moment. But first, a quick check of the day's headlines.

For the first time, Pakistani officials are formally acknowledging that Islamic militants trained in Pakistan were behind the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. Pakistani authorities have arrested six people in connection with the attacks last November. A total of eight people have been charged. The series of coordinated attacks on hotels, hospitals and railway stations killed more than 160 people, including six Americans.

Police in Australia say two men arrested in connection with those devastating wildfires have been released without charges. Australia's prime minister says a national day of mourning and memorial will be held for the victims. At least 181 11 people died in the wild fires. More than 500 were injured and nearly 100,000 homes destroyed.

It looks like the House and Senate have a deal on the president's economic stimulus plan, but not everyone is cheering.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When you're troops go into battle, they serve no faction, they serve no party. They represent no race or region. Instead, each and every one of them serves together, and fights together, and bleeds together for our highest ideals. The ideals summed up here in Pennsylvania by President Lincoln. Government of the people, by the people and for the people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: That's our new president, Barack Obama, talking about his hero, Abraham Lincoln. And you're looking at live pictures now inside the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. In just a few minutes, the 44th president will honor the 16th president on this, the 200th anniversary of President Lincoln's birth. President Obama is taking part in the congressional tribute to Abraham Lincoln. It actually has kind of a long name. It's called, "The Bicameral Celebration of Abraham Lincoln's Birthday, A Congressional Tribute." And it's getting underway in just a few moments.

If we have a chance, should we listen in? Are they getting started? Let's dip in for a moment and see and watch what is happening.

The Rotunda is such a beautiful location. I'm going to invite my guests to chat with me while we watch what is happening in the rotunda. What a beautiful space to hold this. But I should mention, Philip Kunhardt is joining us, and also actor and activist Sam Waterston, who was talking to us just a few moments ago, who has portrayed Lincoln on stage and TV.

So Kunhardt comes from a long family of people who really love Lincoln. Who have documented and looked into Lincoln's history. So we thank you for joining us. And this book, "Looking for Lincoln," which must weigh 55 pounds, is just a fabulous treasure trove of your family's collection. It's amazing.

PHILIP KUNHARDT III, LINCOLN AUTHOR AND HISTORIAN: Yes. And if you get tired of it, you can use it to prop your door open with.

O'BRIEN: Or conk someone over the head, if I ever need to.

What a fabulous location for this celebration.

KUNHARDT: You know, what just struck me as I was looking at it? I was remembering that Abraham Lincoln was almost to be buried underneath that rotunda, in a special crypt that was built originally built for George Washington.

O'BRIEN: And why was he not?

KUNHARDT: Well, Illinois claimed him. And the long plan was to bury him in Illinois, but Mary Lincoln got into an argument with the town city fathers in Springfield, Illinois, and she vowed that if they didn't follow her wishes, she would bring him back to Washington and have him buried right there.

O'BRIEN: Why did people love Lincoln so much? I understand fully, from both of you, that there is an element of an African- American president on the 200th anniversary of his birth that is part of it. But that's only part of it. Your family has been crazy about Lincoln for a long time, and you also have been very inspired, and not only as a thespian about Lincoln. Why?

SAM WATERSTON, ACTOR & ACTIVIST: You can go first.

KUNHARDT: I go first?

O'BRIEN: No one wants to tackle that one.

KUNHARDT: My friend Sam.

I was born into it, really. I couldn't escape it. My father and his mother and her father before her were deeply immersed in this study. My great-grandfather was the first great collector of Lincoln- era photography, he became a scholar of the portraiture of Abraham Lincoln, and the family has remained interested ever since. We've published books through many generations and continuing to this time.

O'BRIEN: And as an actor, and you portray so many different kinds of people, why Lincoln? What's special about Lincoln?

WATERSTON: Well, I've been acting while playing all of my political - my theatrical career, and I thought that, I was looking for a great part and it seemed the most famous, plain man in American politics was fair game. And so it started out just wanting a great part. But then he was a great politician, a great - a great writer. And a great man of principle in the most trying circumstances that the country has ever experienced. So - and so many people died, and there was so much loss, and so much division, and so much conflict. So, it's - it's like a vacuum. You - or you pick up a thread, and it just leads on forever and ever and you're stuck.

O'BRIEN: He was a man who didn't talk a lot about his childhood. I know people tried to make it very romantic, but poverty. KUNHARDT: He said there wasn't much to say about it.

O'BRIEN: Yes. And it's - I mean, he was very...

KUNHARDT: (INAUDIBLE) and simple annals of the poor.

O'BRIEN: And he was very poor, desperately poor. And that - affected him sort of in how he felt about America, and the opportunities provided to Americans.

KUNHARDT: When he got away from his family farm and got off on his own, he never really looked back. I mean, he was - he was very pleased not to end up in the life of his father, who was a laborer. And he had intellectual ambitions, he had ambitions to improve his life. And very different man than his father or his relatives, who decide behind.

O'BRIEN: Is it hard as an actor when you - you know, how do you had to flesh out a portrait of someone, when they basically had one line about their childhood, I was poor, and won't sort of sell it and romanticize it. It seemed to me there was this pull between marketing him as president and a guy who didn't want to market himself.

WATERSTON: There is still quite a lot that's known that he didn't tell. Quite a lot that's known about what it was like to be poor in his kinds of circumstances. And quite a lot that's known about his young life. So without him having told it.

KUNHARDT: That's absolutely right.

WATERSTON: It's knowable.

KUNHARDT: You know, his law partner, William Herndon, after the assassination, dedicated the rest of his life to a massive oral history project in which he interviews everybody who had ever known Lincoln, including his stepmother and his cousins and all his neighbors. And from that oral history, we know most of what we know about his young years.

O'BRIEN: And the photographs that accompany what we know are truly remarkable. Tell me a little bit about how you got the photographs. I mean, did people discover, when your great-grandfather started collecting them, did they start sending him what they had or did he go and purchase them? How did it work?

KUNHARDT: He was an - early on in the field, there wasn't a lot of competition. But he would haunt old bookstores, and he would go to auctions and he would go to sales and he would write magazines to their boards and get old pictures from them. And then he stumbled into some huge fines in the early 20th century, and he bought 11,000 glass negatives from Matthew Brady's collection that he discovered languishing in a warehouse in Hoboken. And he amassed over 200,000 images of the 19th century.

O'BRIEN: Matthew Brady is an interesting person to start with, because he was supposed to be preparing for his Cooper Union speech, which we spoke about earlier, and he kind of runs off to the photographer's studio and takes what is really a remarkable picture. Let's throw that up so people can see it while you tell me about it.

KUNHARDT: That's right. He - that actually, the one I'm looking at is a later picture.

O'BRIEN: I was going to say, that's not the - the Matthew Brady picture is almost full bodied, he's got his hands on the law book.

KUNHARDT: And no beard. No beard.

O'BRIEN: Why is he never smiling in these pictures?

KUNHARDT: Well, it was hard. You had to freeze your expression for these long camera exposures. And you really - in a few of the pictures, he's smiling. But generally he has to - he is told not to move a muscle. And he didn't. And this - in this way, the camera never really captured the animation of his face that his contemporaries described. But at Cooper Union, he said that picture helped elect him president.

O'BRIEN: Why?

KUNHARDT: Because it was carried in newspapers across the country. He became a household face.

O'BRIEN: Where was photography at this time? In the late, 1850s?

WATERSTON: Not brand new, but new.

O'BRIEN: But he would be the first presidential candidate who would sort of have his image...

KUNHARDT: Well, widely disseminated. I think going back to James K. Polk, you had photography in the White House. He was the first president to be photographed on numerous occasions and who was the first to use that image to help him politically.

O'BRIEN: You have a picture called the "Cracked Plate Lincoln." Well, I know it's not officially called - it's what I call it, the "Cracked Plate Lincoln." Tell me a little bit about this picture. We had it up just a moment ago.

KUNHARDT: We had it up a minute ago.

O'BRIEN: And it's got a crack across it.

KUNHARDT: This is one of the last pictures ever taken of Lincoln in the White House with - at the very end of the - toward the end of the Civil War in February, 1865, and Alexander Gardener took it. Unfortunately, the great negative that he used for this close-up was cracked. He pieced it together for a single print that he made and then discarded the glass. And that single print came down in our family. It's now in the National Portrait Gallery, one of their great treasures. I think that picture communicates so much about Lincoln's - the suffering that he underwent, the country underwent, and as the relief as the war was coming to a close.

O'BRIEN: We are watching Nancy Pelosi, who has just walked on to the Rotunda. And with her is President Barack Obama. So, you can see in our live shot here, as this ceremony is supposed to get underway. We now that Nancy Pelosi will be speaking; we saw Jesse Jackson Jr. also, who is clearly taking part in the ceremony. I know Doris Kearns Goodwin is there, as well.

Let's dip in for a moment and listen to this packed room in the Rotunda, the appropriate place for this to be taking place today.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER: Mr. President and guests, welcome to the Capitol Rotunda, as we observe the bicentennial of the birth of our great president, Abraham Lincoln. We are honored to be joined today by the president of the United States, President Barack Obama.

(APPLAUSE)

Please remain standing for the opening ceremonies.

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, please remain standing for the presentation of the colors by United States Armed Forces Color Guard, and the singing of our national anthem by the United States Army Chorus.

(UNITED STATES ARMY CHORUS SINGING NATIONAL ANTHEM)

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, please remain standing as Reverend Barry Black gives the invocation.

BARRY C. BLACK, CHAPLAIN, U.S. SENATE: Let us pray.

Sovereign Lord of History, we invoke your gracious presence at this commemoration of the life and legacy of our 16th president during the bicentennial celebration of his birth. We acknowledge that you gave our nation the gift of Abraham Lincoln. Lord, you brought him from humble beginnings, to become one who would transcend the flawed thinking of his time, and eventually conclude that injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere. You helped him grow, to embrace the promise of the Declaration of Independence, that all people are created equal, so that the fragile experiment of democracy could endure. You strengthened him with the moral courage to keep liberty's lamp burning during a time of national peril.

Lord, inspire us to follow his footsteps until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. We pray, in your merciful name.

Amen.

ANNOUNCER: Please be seated. Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States. (APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: Thank you. Thank you. Please, be seated. Thank you, very much.

Madam Speaker, Leader Reid, members of Congress, dear friends, former colleagues, it is a great honor to be here. A place where Lincoln served, was inaugurated, and where the nation he saved bid him a last farewell.

As we mark the bicentennial of our 16th president's birth, I cannot claim to know as much about his life and works as many who are also speaking today. But I can say that I feel a special gratitude to this singular figure who, in so many ways, made my own story possible. And in so many ways, made America's story possible.

It is fitting that we are holding the celebration here at the Capitol. For the life of this building is bound ever so closely to the times of this immortal president. Built by artisans and craftsmen, but also immigrants and slaves, it was here in the Rotunda that Union soldiers received help from a make-shift hospital. It was downstairs in the basement that they were baked bread to give them strength. And it was in the Senate and House chambers where they slept at night and spent some of their days.

What those soldiers saw when they looked on this building was a very different sight than the one we see today. For it remained unfinished until the end of the war. The laborers who built the dome came to work wondering each day whether that would be their last, whether the metal they were using for its frame would be requisitioned for the war and melted down into bullets. But each day went by without any orders to halt construction, and so they kept on working and kept on building.

When President Lincoln was finally told of all of the metal being used here, his response was short and clear, "That is as it should be." The American people needed to be reminded, he believed, that even in a time of war, the work would go on, the people's business would continue. That even when the nation itself was in doubt, its future was being secured and that on that distant day when the guns fell silent, the national Capitol would stand with a statue of freedom at its peak as a symbol of unity in a land still mending its divisions.

It is this sense of unity, this ability to plan for a shared future, even in a moment where our nation was torn apart, that I reflect on today. While there are any number of moments that reveal that particular side of this extraordinary man, Abraham Lincoln, that particular aspect of his leadership, there's one that I would like to share with you today.

In the war's final weeks, aboard Grant's flagship, "The River Queen," President Lincoln was asked what was to be done with the rebel army once general lee surrendered. With victory at hand, Lincoln could have sought revenge. He could have forced the South to pay a steep price for their rebellion. But despite all the bloodshed and all the misery that each side had exacted upon the other, and despite his absolute certainty in the rightness of the cause of ending slavery, no Confederate soldier was to be punished, Lincoln ordered. They were to be treated, as he put it, liberally all round.

What Lincoln wanted was for Confederate troops to go back home and return to work on their farms and in their shops. He was even willing, he said, to let them have their horses to plow and their guns to shoot crows with. That was the only way Lincoln knew to repair the rifts that had torn this country apart. It was the only way of healing what our nation so desperately needed. What Lincoln never forget, even in the midst of Civil War, that despite all that divides us, north and south, black and white, we were at heart one nation and one people sharing a bond as Americans that could bend but would not break.

So even as we meet here today, in a moment when we are far less divided than in Lincoln's day, but when we are once again debating the critical issues of our time, debating them sometimes fiercely, let us remember that we are doing so as servants of the same place, as representatives of the same people, and as stake holders in the common future. That is the most fitting tribute we can paint, the most lasting monument we can build to that most remarkable of men, Abraham Lincoln.

Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

O'BRIEN: President Barack Obama as he delivers a short speech on President Lincoln at this celebration, a bicameral celebration, on the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birthday. They're having a celebration in this magnificent room, the Rotunda. And you see Nancy Pelosi, she was greeting the president as he was making his way off the stage.

Quite a remarkable speech, I thought. And one, you know, they send us copies of the speech ahead time, but there was one big change, one noticeable change in the copy where he talked about, sort of, the forgiveness aspect, what he said was the most important legacy from Abraham Lincoln.

Philip, why don't explain for me what he said.

KUNHARDT: Well, he's talking about Lincoln's living out the words of his second inaugural, "with malice towards none, with charity for all." He did not want to seek vengeance at the end of the Civil War. He wanted to heal the breech between the North and South. He wanted to have a liberal terms to the rebel army.

WATERSTON: He said let them up easy.

KUNHARDT: Let them up easy. But the new line that we heard him add tonight to the address - or this morning - was, but that - I can't remember the exact word.

O'BRIEN: I'll do it in my best President Obama voice, "In spite of the absolute certainty in the cause of ending slavery," and then he goes on to say, "no Confederate soldier would be punished." Sort of even though this - he was consistent on this one issue, they weren't going to retaliate.

KUNHARDT: That's right. And I think it was a very important addition.

O'BRIEN: Why?

KUNHARDT: Because we're not going to go back to the way things were before the Civil War. Everything's changed now. Slavery is over, it's doomed. And the South is not going to be part of this Union again until it embraces that new reality. Very, very important part of his liberalism had a backbone to it.

O'BRIEN: I thought it was interesting in the speech, he talked about a plan for a shared future even at a moment when everybody's not even sure actually we're going to make it through today, but we're going to go ahead and build the Capitol for 200 years from today. But we're not even sure what's going to happen by nightfall. I mean, that's a really interesting metaphor and he uses it as a metaphor for our own circumstances in the economic crisis, which truly pales in comparison to what they were seeing.

KUNHARDT: Absolutely.

WATERSTON: Yes, but it was a metaphor and understood as a metaphor at the time. So it was political speech at the time.

O'BRIEN: What do you think is the -the role of slavery in all of this? I mean President Obama kind of skipped over it a little bit. Because there is this debate about the mindset of President Lincoln and did he really want to free the slaves or was he really more passionate about keeping the Union together and kind of would have done what it would take to keep the Union - that that was clearly his first goal.

WATERSTON: Union was first. And he said so. So there was no discussion. If I could save the Union by ending slavery, I would do it. If I could save the Union by continuing slavery, I would do it. If I could save the Union by freeing some of the slaves and not others, I would do that.

O'BRIEN: How did he get to black people actually - I mean, was it Frederic Frederick Douglas specifically who led him there?

WATERSTON: He knew this way before. Way before he said what I just said, he said he thought the United States was well on its way to deep, deep corruption when it was saying that some men were created equal and others are not. And he mentioned Catholics and immigrants.

O'BRIAN: You can't have half the country OK with slavery and the other half of the country not OK with slavery. That's going to cause this massive rift.

WATERSTON: And he said, I'd rather live in Russia where those kinds of distinctions are clearly stated rather than live in hypocrisy.

So, what he wanted was very, very clear. And what he had to deal with was another matter.

O'BRIEN: And they were here...

WATERSTON: And he put Union first, because for the very good reason that I'm sure President Obama would like us to be thinking about today, that it's sort of sine qua non of everything else. You can't...

O'BRIEN: With no Union, the rest of it is a moot point.

WATERSTON: Yes. We all hang together.

O'BRIEN: We're going to continue our conversation on the other side. This is such a fascinating discussion, because it's - I think it is what makes everybody so passionate about Lincoln is this. This nuance is amazing. So, gentlemen, I'm going to ask you to stick around with me.

The Smithsonian is marking the Lincoln bicentennial. They have an exhibit which is called, "An Extraordinary Life," and CNN photojournalist took a tour. We're going to show that to you in a little bit. First we've got to take a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)