02/06/2026
Abraham Lincoln understood, perhaps better than anyone, what it means to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and how personal liberty and self-reliance are at the heart of the American experience.
But Lincoln also understood something else. He recognized that while each of us must do our part, work as hard as we can, and be as responsible as we can — in the end, there are certain things we cannot do on our own. There are certain things we can only do together. There are certain things only a union can do.
That union is not simply a matter of law or accident of geography, but a moral commitment we make to our fellow citizens and to our shared future. That democracies endure not only because of constitutions or armies, but because free people choose, again and again, to bind their fates together. That only by maintaining a sense of shared sacrifice and responsibility — for ourselves and one another — can we do the work that must be done in this country. And that it is precisely when the climb is steepest that we relearn how to take the mountaintop, as one nation and one people.
I shared more in my essay for In Pursuit USA at https://inpursuit.substack.com/p/abraham-lincoln-by-barack-obama
