Introduction
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12 1809 in a log cabin near Hodgenville, Kentucky. His father Thomas Lincoln was a carpenter and a farmer and his mother was Nancy Hanks who died shortly after giving birth to his sister Sarah. He was brought up in Indiana and Illinois. He was born in a very humble family that struggled to survive. Owing to the poverty that bestowed his family, Lincoln did could not get any formal education and he put a lot of effort and struggled to educate himself while working on a farm, splitting rails of fences and attending a store at Illinois. He was very sincere and his character worn him a lot of respect that led to his appointment as the captain of a volunteer company that gathered for the Black Hawk War in 1832. His sincere character earned him the nickname, “Honest Abe.” In 1936 he qualified as a lawyer and started practising in Spring Field, Illinois. He worked with the legislature until 1842. In 1846, he ran for the United States House of Representatives and he was elected to the congress to represent the wig party for a term. He became very famous because of his opposition to the US-Mexican war that occurred between 1846 and 1848 following the Mexican objection of Texas becoming a US state. This war was the first foreign war in the United States and the soldiers from all the states took part. He spoke against the war and stated that God had forgotten to defend the weak and the innocent and permitted the strong band of murderers and demons from hell to kill men, women and children and lay waste and pillage the land of the unjust. This particular speech destroyed his political career and he decided not to re-run for the post since people could not easily forget his words. Lincoln saw the war as an extension of slavery and therefore he was very disappointed with politics and decided to uphold his career in law.
Lincoln Against Slavery
In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act that allowed people to decide whether they wanted slavery to continue was passed. Stephen A. Douglas proposed a popular sovereignty as the solution to the slavery by incorporating the act. He supported the notion that in a democratic state, the people had a right to vote for or against the notion rather than adopting the decisions imposed on them by the congress. Lincoln took advantage of this act and renewed his hope in politics. He came out in public and expressed his hatred for the practice of slavery. He stated that slavery deprived the Republicans of their virtue of justice. The act itself led to violence in Kansas and President Franklin Pierce sent troops to end the fighting. Lincoln became very devoted to forming a new Republican party. In 1858, Lincoln ran for the senate position but he lost to Stephen A. Douglas. Even though he lost the seat, his debates with Douglas earned him a lot of publicity and he became very famous as an eloquent public speaker. Between 1857 and 1858, Douglas had a fight with President Buchan over the control of the Democratic Party. In 1858, Lincoln accepted the nomination for the senate position and he delivered the famous speech, ‘a house divided against it cannot stand.” He based his speech on a verse he had read from the bible. He believed that the government would not succeed when its population was partly free and partly slaves. He was involved in various debates with Douglas and Lincoln warned that the power of slavery was threatening the values of the Republicans. Douglas on the other hand insisted that democracy was the most appropriate way of deciding the fate of slavery in the United States.
Lincoln’s Presidency
In 1860, Lincoln was nominated as the Republican Presidential candidate. Throughout his campaign, he expressed his opposition against slavery. The southern states that supported slavery did not uphold his moves and upon his victory signs, seven states left the union and formed the Confederacy States of America. As four more states followed suit, Lincoln was very determined to preserve the union at any cost. He was elected as the 16th and as the first US Republican President defeating the Democratic candidate Douglas, John Bell of the new Constitutional Union Party and John C Breckinridge of the Southern Democrats.
Lincoln’s presidency was characterized by the American Civil War that commenced in 1861. This happened despite the fact that he hated war and its consequences of death and destruction of property. He had no other alternative of saving his union except by the virtue of accepting the war. He warned the South in his Inaugural Address:
“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you… You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.”
Emancipation Proclamation That Freed the Slaves
In January 1863, he issued an Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves held in the areas that were in control of the Confederate Union. This was remarkable step for Lincoln’s union in the fight to end slavery. The proclamation did not free many slaves but it changed the way the Americans viewed the black men who could now freely join the Union army and the Navy. He assumed power that had not been bestowed on any other president. To achieve his goals, he broke the laws and paid no attention to some of the constitutional provisions. He declared the martial law and suspended the legal rights. The martial law was understood as temporary to cover only the immediate field of a military commander’s needs. It was not expected to bring permanent changes to the legal status of the military property. He placed the President as the final interpreter of the law. He regarded his powers as emergency authority that had been granted to him by the people. He always maintained that as the president, he was one of the three coordinate departments of the government and therefore he was not in any way subordinate to the courts and the Congress. He also maintained that the president had a special duty that was beyond the duties of the congress and the courts. He argued that the president was the only one who was appointed to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and therefore in the times of war he held the sole duty of the welfare and the endurance of the people.
In 1864, he appointed the Ulysses S Grant as the overall commander to lead the Union armies. The armies had over 200,000 black soldiers who participated in the fight for freedom. In late 1863, President Lincoln delivered his famous speech in Gettysburg. He devoted the battlefields to the soldiers who perished there. The site later became a military cemetery. In his speech he stated:
“…we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
President Lincoln Was Re-Elected
In 1864, President Lincoln was re-elected again and he devoted himself to bring the nation together. He used the military strategy of seeking peace by discussing with the Union Armies the best way to bring peace to the alienated nation. He was very generous in giving compensation to the states that were willing to forego slavery. He urged the southerners to lay down their weapons and cooperate in the speedy re-union. In bid to seek for re-union he traveled from state to state. He waited at City Point for the news of his victory over the Confederate armies. He had boarded a ship to the River Queen where he had a dream that he was in the white house and walked in on a group of mourners. When he asked who had died, a soldier told him the president had died. After a few days of his dream, the Confederate troops under General Robert E. Lee surrendered to the General grant and this marked the end of the war in Virginia. It was very unfortunate that Lincoln did not live long to enjoy the fruits of his labour. A few weeks after his return from City Point he was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre in Washington on 14 April 1865 by John Wilkes Booth who was an actor. John was a strong supporter of the Confederate. The efforts that Lincoln had set forth to gain peace soon diminished with his death. After his death, his legacy of executive power did not last for long. For the following forty years, the congress and the courts did not recognize the power and the influence of the powers set by Lincoln.
Conclusion
Lincoln is held by the historians as the greatest United States president by every measure. He is compared to the life of Jesus Christ because of his virtue of involving God in his endeavours and also his passion to deliver the people from slavery. He was seen as a self-made – man who had given his life to liberate slaves and the saviour of the union for free. He exercised patience and planned carefully with a brave soul to end slavery. Some of his greatest achievements fondly remembered are his ability to mobilize the people even with his self-bestowed executive powers, his ability to save the union, the justification of democracy and bringing an end to slavery. He is seen as an image of honesty and integrity with honour for the individual rights and human freedom. Many organizations in America continue to celebrate his life and interests in the human welfare. He is memorized through naming of cities after him such as the capital of Nebraska.
Bibliography
- Basler, Roy P. Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Rutgers University Press, 1955, pp. 23-46
- David Brion Davis and Steven Mintz. The Boisterous Sea of Liberty. Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 16-34
- Diggings, John P. The Lost Soul of American Politics: Virtue, Self-Interest, and the Foundations of Liberalism. University of Chicago Press, 1986, pp. 32-58
- Ervin L. Jordan. Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in the Civil War. Virginia, University of Virginia Press, 1995, pp. 5-26
- Harrison, Lowell Hayes. Lincoln of Kentucky. University Press of Kentucky, 2000, pp. 3-30
- John D. Buenker and Lorman Ratner. Multiculturalism in the United States. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005, pp. 7-18
- William C. Spragens. Popular Images of American Presidents. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1988, pp. 15-25