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Saturday Morning News

History Provides Perspective on Bush's Election

Aired January 20, 2001 - 8:53 a.m. ET

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

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: In some ways, the election of 2000, the election of George W. Bush as the 43rd president left some in the nation a bit divided.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: But it's not the first time that's happened. In fact, some past battles for the White House produced some much deeper wounds even than what we face today.

Our Bruce Morton now takes a look at some of those and the response of the American people.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The country's probably never been as damaged as when Abraham Lincoln began his second term as president. The Civil War was ending but the enormous task of healing hadn't begun. He spoke to that: "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 do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace."

Never happened, of course. John Wilkes Booth killed Lincoln. His successors imposed an armed reconstruction which gave way to government by white supremacists and legal segregation endured in the South for another hundred years.

Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933 in the midst of the Great Depression. He spoke to that.

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT, 32ND PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The only thing we have fear is fear itself.

MORTON: His voice made a difference. Some of his legislation didn't work. Some the Supreme Court struck down. But listening to that voice, Americans somehow knew it would work out. And he led them through the Depression, led them through the second World War, and things did work out.

ROOSEVELT: We who have faith cannot afford to fall out among ourselves.

MORTON: People said you could walk down a street during one of his fireside chats and not miss a word because everyone in every house was listening.

ROOSEVELT: I doubt if there is any problem...

GERALD R. FORD, 38TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I, Gerald R. Ford, do solemnly swear that I will...

MORTON: Gerald Ford, our only unelected president. Congress approved him as vice president after Richard Nixon's original nominee, Spiro Agnew, resigned in disgrace. Ford then became president when Nixon himself resigned over the Watergate scandal leaving office to avoid impeachment. So Ford never had an inaugural but he spoke taking office words the country needed to hear: "Our long national nightmare is over," he said. And noting his reputation as an honorable, honest and unglamorous man, then the Republican leader in the House, he added, "I am a Ford and not a Lincoln."

FORD: I believe that truth is the glue that holds government together.

MORTON: And he promised truth. His actions, including the decision to pardon Richard Nixon...

FORD: A full, free and absolute pardon.

MORTON: ... didn't heal all the wounds but they certainly started the healing process.

CROWD: Bush got to go, USA.

MORTON: The country now is not that divided, not that troubled. The last president before George W. Bush who lost the popular vote but won the electoral vote was Benjamin Harrison in 1888. His inaugural address was long, about nine pages in the edition I have, but losing the popular vote troubled him so little, he never mentioned it. He did say this, "It is very gratifying to observe the general interest now being manifested in the reform of our election laws." People probably argued over what he meant by that; the laws didn't change much.

Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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