Abraham Lincoln 3 Essay Research Paper History
History
Abraham Lincoln
I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished familiesβsecond families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanksβ¦. My father β¦ removed from Kentucky to β¦ Indiana, in my eighth yearβ¦. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew upβ¦. Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher β¦ but that was all.β
Lincoln made extraordinary efforts to attain knowledge while working on a farm, splitting rails for fences, and keeping store at New Salem, Illinois. He was a captain in the Black Hawk War, spent eight years in the Illinois legislature, and rode the circuit of courts for many years. His law partner said of him, βHis ambition was a little engine that knew no rest.β
He married Mary Todd, and they had four boys, only one of whom lived to maturity.
In 1858 Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator. He lost the election, but in debating with Douglas he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in 1860.
As President, he built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. Further, he rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union cause.
On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy.
Lincoln never let the world forget that the Civil War involved an even larger issue. This he stated most movingly in dedicating the military cemetery at Gettysburg: βthat we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vainβthat this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedomβand that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.β
Lincoln won re-election in 1864, as Union military triumphs heralded an end to the war. In his planning for peace, the President was flexible and generous, encouraging Southerners to lay down their arms and join speedily in reunion.
The spirit that guided him was clearly that of his Second Inaugural Address, now inscribed on one wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C.:
βWith 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 nationβs woundsβ¦. β
On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated at Fordβs Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth, an actor, who somehow thought he was helping the South. The opposite was the result, for with Lincolnβs death, the possibility of peace with magnanimity died.
- Abraham Lincoln 5 Essay Research Paper Lincoln
- Abraham Lincoln Critical Biography
- Abraham Lincoln Essay Research Paper In Abraham
- Abraham Lincoln Essay Research Paper The 16th
- Abraham Lincoln Vs John F Kennedy Essay
- Abraham Maslow Essay Research Paper Abraham Maslow
- Abraham Maslow Essay Research Paper Damian Duguid
- About The Indian Museam
- About The Indian Museam
- About The Indian Museam
- About This Book
- Abraham Essay Research Paper Abraham Lincoln was
- Abraham Lincoln
- Abraham Lincoln