Transcript: Quoting Abraham Lincoln

Gates: If you’ve got Lincoln on your side, the political maxim goes, you can’t go wrong.

VOICE- OVER: REAGAN – 1992 CONVENTIONS SPEECH.

Gates: It didn’t matter to the 1992 Republican Convention if Ronald Reagan attributed words to Lincoln that he had actually never said.

Reagan: You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

George W. Bush: We still believe as Abraham Lincoln did, those who deny freedom to others do not deserve it for themselves.

Obama: Two centuries later, a government by the people for the people has not perished from the earth. This is your victory.

Gates: Now, one hundred and fifty years later, perhaps we all have finally witnessed Lincoln’s enduring legacy. Every realization of his vision for America.

Obama: As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours we are not enemies but friends, though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.