As a onetime White House speechwriter, I am a proponent of the auteur theory of speechwriting, according to which the “author” of a speech is the person who “makes”—i.e., delivers—it, no matter how many people had a hand in composing its sentences. It’s a bit of a moot point when it comes to Obama’s most important prepared texts, because we’ve known from the beginning—from before the beginning, actually, from the publication of “Dreams from My Father,” in 1995, when Obama was still an unknown community organizer—that he’s a first-rate prose writer. By this time, moreover, the President and his main word man, Jon Favreau, are practically a man with two brains. Or a brain with two men.

I agree with pretty much everything that John Cassidy, Jane Mayer, Amy Davidson, and David Remnick have written about the second inaugural. It was a fine speech, beautifully delivered, and much better than the pedestrian paean to post-partisanship he trudged through four years ago.

For the moment, one small observation about the craft of it.

Quotations are a common speechwriting crutch. This speech kept them to a minimum: the only direct quote it used was the “self-evident truths” line from the Declaration of Independence, which served as a unifying frame. But the speech was full of allusions, bringing a nice historical resonance to certain passages.

Lincoln, second Inaugural Address, 1865:

Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said f[our] three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”

“House Divided” speech, 1858:

I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free.

Obama:

Through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free.

Kennedy, Inaugural Address, 1961:

With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.

Obama:

For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they have never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth.

Lincoln, annual message, 1862

As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

Obama:

[W]e have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.

King, “I Have a Dream” speech, 1963: