Abraham Lincoln Saves the Union

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From his rough childhood to his tragic assassination, there might not be a greater president then Abraham Lincoln. His tough life helped him become the famous president we know him as today. Abraham Lincoln’s life was always full of adversity.
As a child, Abraham Lincoln and his family always struggled. He was born on February 12, 1809, in a log cabin near Hodgenville, Kentucky. He was named after his grandfather, Abraham; Lincoln did not talk much as a boy and was described as poor and backwards (Freedman 3). His family moved when he was a toddler. Then Lincoln's mother died when he was nine of milk sickness. The loss of his mother devastated him. He grew alienated from his father and resented the hard work placed on him at an early age. A few months after her death, Thomas Lincoln remarried to Sarah Bush Johnston, a Kentucky widow with three kids of her own. She was a strong affectionate woman with whom Lincoln quickly bonded (Horn 108+). Months later the Lincolns had to move again, due to a land dispute, this time to Indiana where the family “squatted” on public land to scrap out a living in a crude shelter (“Abraham Lincoln”).
Years later Lincoln began his political career. He was elected to the Illinois state legislature in 1834 as a member of the Whig Party (“Abraham Lincoln”). Around this time was when Lincoln had become a lawyer. From 1837 to 1860, he practiced law in the state of Illinois (Urquhart 115+). He joined the House of Representatives in 1847. As the lone member of the Whig Party, he found few political allies but remained loyal to his party. As a member of the House, he spoke out against the Mexican American War and supported Zachary Taylor for president in 1848. This made him unpopular in the state of Illinois....

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... to the Peterson house across the street where he lay in a coma for hours and died the next morning.
Although his life was cut short, he still has an impact in the way people live today. He was the kind of man that always had to make the hard decisions, and even though his life was full of tragedy, the struggles he endured helped him become the president we know him as today .

Works Cited

"Abraham Lincoln Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, 1996-2013. Web. 22
Feb. 2014. Freedman, Russell. Lincoln: A Photobiography, Illustrated with Photographs and Prints. New
York: Clarion, 1987. Print. Horn, Tom. "Behind the Legacy; The Persistence of Abraham Lincoln." Success Aug.-Sept.
2008: 108+. Student Resources in Context. Web. 21 Feb. 2014. Urquhart, Quentin F., Jr. "Reflecting Lincoln." Defense Counsel Journal Apr. 2013: 115+.
General OneFile. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.

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