--- title: State of the Union: President Obama Again Turns to Lincoln description: His favorite person to quote. canonical: https://time.com/4178331/state-union-barack-obama-abraham-lincoln/ author: Maya Rhodan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-13T01:08:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T14:04:19.667Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Obama Again Turns to Lincoln in State of the Union og:description: His favorite person to quote. og:url: https://time.com/4178331/state-union-barack-obama-abraham-lincoln/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3808e61aab771708/698878e2196cf45255039d63/barack-obama-lincoln.jpg?branch=production&width=594&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 594 og:image:height: 334 og:image:alt: U.S. President Barack Obama walks from the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Obama Again Turns to Lincoln in State of the Union twitter:description: His favorite person to quote. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3808e61aab771708/698878e2196cf45255039d63/barack-obama-lincoln.jpg?branch=production&width=594&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Obama Again Turns to Lincoln in State of the Union > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Jan 13, 2016 1:08 AM UTC  U.S. President Barack Obama walks from the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016. U.S. President Barack Obama walks from the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016. Bloomberg—Bloomberg via Getty Images by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Jan 13, 2016 1:08 AM UTC President Obama has long cited his fellow president from Illinois in defining moments of his political career. He announced his presidential candidacy in [Springfield, Ill.,](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/10/AR2007021000879.html) Abraham Lincoln’s hometown. He studied up on Lincoln’s writings shortly [after winning his first election](http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/11/20/the-comparisons-between-barack-obama-and-abraham-lincoln) in 2008\. He framed his [first inaugural address](http://www.newsweek.com/obama-looks-lincoln-85439) after that of the Great Emancipator, ripping its title from a line in the Gettysburg Address. On a number of occasions, he’s quoted (and even [misquoted](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125169095)) the 16th president to drive home a point. And on Tuesday, as the president delivers the final State of the Union address of his presidency, a speech the White House is billing as non-traditional and forward-looking, Obama will again recall the words of Honest Abe. “America has been through big changes before – wars and depression, the influx of immigrants, workers fighting for a fair deal, and movements to expand civil rights,” he will say, according to excerpts of his speech released before the address. ” Each time, there have been those who told us to fear the future; who claimed we could slam the brakes on change, promising to restore past glory if we just got some group or idea that was threatening America under control. And each time, we overcame those fears. We did not, in the words of Lincoln, adhere to the “dogmas of the quiet past.” Instead we thought anew, and acted anew. ” President Obama pulls the line “dogmas of the quiet past” from Lincoln’s [second annual address](http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29503) to Congress, which is considered among the best State of the Union addresses in the nation’s history. The president offered a rebuke of slavery as the root cause of the Civil War and mulled freeing the enslaved in order to save the Union, shortly before issuing the Emancipation Proclamation January 1863\. “The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation,” Lincoln wrote. “In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free…We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. ” **Read More:** [_Obama Seeks to Define Legacy in Final State of the Union_](http://time.com/4176658/barack-obama-final-state-union-analysis/) The quote Obama pulls appears in the [following passage](http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29503): --- > “” --- In a way, Obama’s suggesting the same thing. The excerpts provided show that Obama will call on politicians to overcome fear and disagreement to help usher the country forward for future generations. Throughout history, he’ll say, “We made change work for us, always extending America’s promise outward, to the next frontier, to more and more people. And because we did – because we saw opportunity where others saw only peril – we emerged stronger and better than before.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4178331/state-union-barack-obama-abraham-lincoln/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4178331/state-union-barack-obama-abraham-lincoln/"},"headline":"President Obama Again Turns to Lincoln in State of the Union","datePublished":"2016-01-13T01:08:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T14:04:19.667Z","description":"Here's what Lincoln was talking about","url":"https://time.com/4178331/state-union-barack-obama-abraham-lincoln/","keywords":["state of the union","Barack Obama","White House","State of the Union 2016"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3808e61aab771708/698878e2196cf45255039d63/barack-obama-lincoln.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Maya Rhodan","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3808e61aab771708/698878e2196cf45255039d63/barack-obama-lincoln.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"U.S. President Barack Obama walks from the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016.","caption":"U.S. President Barack Obama walks from the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016.","creditText":"Bloomberg—Bloomberg via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/state-of-the-union/","name":"state of the union"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4178331/state-union-barack-obama-abraham-lincoln/","name":"President Obama Again Turns to Lincoln in State of the Union"}}]}] ```