One of Lincoln’s most famous quotes is “A House divided against itself cannot stand.” This describes his presidency well- focusing on maintaining the Union. In the beginning, Lincoln tried to stay out of sensitive affairs involving the North and South in an attempt to keep them together, promising the South little interference. Despite this, he played a key role in passing the Thirteenth Amendment, doing whatever it takes to end slavery for good and ending the Civil War. Reading Lincoln’s first Inaugural Address, one wouldn’t think he would be the president to end slavery.Speaking on outlawing slavery, he says,“I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” At the time, Lincoln wasn’t worried about slavery, …show more content…
He had just beaten out George B. McClellan for president. McClellan wanted the country split into two- one slave-holding and one free. However, the country had chosen Lincoln, they wanted the country to stay together. People wanted too much of Lincoln. He would have enemies no matter what choice he made. So now, instead of staying passive like he did in his first Inaugural Address, he took a stand in his second. He told the country that God sent the slaves to them early in this country, but now He wanted them gone. The war was a punishment from God for all slaveholders. Lincoln made this a rallying cry for all northerners, telling them that they would fight “until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword.” This war would be bloody, but if they could only keep fighting a little more, there would be success at the …show more content…
As said above, the Thirteenth Amendment had failed to pass in its first vote in Congress, but Lincoln was looking forwards. He knew that ¾ of all states would have to ratify the amendment if it was going to become part of the Constitution. However, there weren’t enough states were in favor of the amendment. Only one more was necessary. This lead to the proposition on Nevada as a state. Many people against passing the amendment didn’t believe Nevada was necessary to ending slavery. Lincoln even compared it to having another army of a million men, and found its statehood crucial. Therefore he contacted Charles A. Dana, letting him know of his worries that it wouldn’t not pass. Dana agreed to help Lincoln and found men that he could convince to vote for the statehood of Nevada. Three of these men wanted highly appointed, highly paying jobs. Dana, doing whatever it took to get the votes, promised them this. They questioned him, but he reassured them that he was doing this “on the authority of the
Lincoln was a very smart lawyer and politician. During his “House Divided” speech he asked the question, “Can we, as a nation, continue together permanently, forever, half slave, and half free?" When he first asked this question, America was slowly gaining the knowledge and realizing that as a nation, it could not possibly exist as half-slave and half-free. It was either one way or the other. “Slavery was unconstitutional and immoral, but not simply on a practical level.” (Greenfield, 2009) Slave states and free states had significantly different and incompatible interests. In 1858, when Lincoln made his “House Divided” speech, he made people think about this question with views if what the end result in America must be.
Lincoln would began by warning that the subject of slavery will not go away until there is a crisis that either abolishes slavery...
Disapproval, the Confederacy, and slavery were amongst the many crises Abraham Lincoln faced when addressing his First Inaugural speech (Lincoln, First Inaugural, p.37). Above all, Lincoln’s speech was stepping on the boundaries of the southern slave states. Once states began to secede, new territories formed and the disapproval of Lincoln grew. Despite Lincoln’s attempts of unifying the antislavery and confederate views, many whites refused to follow his untraditional beliefs. Lincoln encountered hostile and admirable emotions from the people of the Union and the Confederacy. However, despite his representation of the Union, not everyone agreed with his views.
Lincoln above all solely wanted to save the Union. It was his philosophy that he did not want to rid the country of or promote the institution of slavery, but to prevent the introduction of slavery into new territories and the preserving of the Union. Lincoln, very evidently, stood neutral on the issue of slavery, saying he wouldn't agree with both 1) men who wouldn't save the Union unless they could save slavery at the same time and 2) men who wouldn't save the Union unless they could destroy slavery also (276). This most likely proved to be a huge factor in the war because Lincoln was not choosing sides, but he was more being the mediator. Lincoln...
President Abraham Lincoln used many rhetorical devices to explain the effects of the civil war. Lincoln wanted the north and south to put their differences behind them and unite, to become a single unified country. Many people were surprised by Lincoln’s second inaugural speech, it was shorter than his first. He didn’t take very long to get his point a crossed about how the war would make him feel. Lincoln had hope that the country would turn around. That it would unify against all evils or troubles.
Abraham Lincoln's position on slavery was the belief that the expansion of it to Free states and new territories should be ceased and that it eventually be abolished completely throughout the country. He believed simply that slavery was morally wrong, along with socially and politically wrong in the eyes of a Republican. Lincoln felt that this was a very important issue during the time period because there was starting to be much controversy between the Republicans and the Democrats regarding this issue. There was also a separation between the north and the south in the union, the north harboring the Free states and the south harboring the slave states. Lincoln refers many times to the Constitution and its relations to slavery. He was convinced that when our founding fathers wrote the Constitution their intentions were to be quite vague surrounding the topic of slavery and African-Americans, for the reason that he believes was because the fathers intended for slavery to come to an end in the distant future, in which Lincoln refers to the "ultimate extinction" of slavery. He also states that the men who wrote the constitution were wiser men, but obviously did not have the experience or technological advances that the men of his day did, hence the reasons of the measures taken by our founding fathers.
Abraham Lincoln wrote one of the greatest speeches in American history known as the Gettysburg Address. It was not only used as a dedication to the fallen troops of the North and South, but as a speech to give the Union a reason to fight and attempt to unite the divided nation. The sixteenth president’s handling of his speech at Gettysburg demonstrated how the effectiveness of juxtaposition, repetition, and parallelism, could bring unity to a nation deeply divided on beliefs. His speech touched the hearts of many and indirectly put an end to the Civil War. Lincoln may have been considered a tyrant at the time but he was a great leader of a nation, a war, and a democracy.
In JFK’s inaugural address he said that the world should work together in peace, America will help people that need to be helped, and that we need our weapons to show that we are strong, so we won’t need to use them. He said America will help those who need to be helped when he said, “To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves…” He also stated that we need our weapons to show we are strong and that countries should work together in peace when he said, “For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed” and when he said, “Finally to those nations who would make
President Lincoln was elected into presidency at a horrible time for the country but he still fought to do the best he could. After the civil war the main focus of Lincoln was to rebuild the North but still keep the South happy. His plans consisted of making the North's reconstruction a main focal point and distributing 10% of the damages done to the south to aid their reconstruction. President Lincoln thought that the states that seceded last should be given less guilt than the ones who seceded first. He gave more money to Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Virginia and he treated them better because they were the last to secede. Along with his plans for reconstruction came the Radical Republicans who were a small minority in congress. They were very strict on giving all rights to African Americans and wanted to punish the south. All of these ideas and plans for Lincoln were all good ideas and could have been successful but they came to an abrupt end when Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in 1865.
By the time of his speech South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas had already seceded from the Union. In his speech Lincoln had three main points: “to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government,” secession was impossible because the Union was unbreakable, and that any use of arms against the United States would be met with force but he would never be first to attack (Grafton 80). Lincoln aspired to increase his support in the North without alienating the South where most disliked him in fear of the end of slavery. In his speech however, Lincoln made it clear that his intention was not to interfere with slavery quoting “I have no purpose, directly, or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so” (Grafton 81). In hope to make amends with the South Lincoln closed by saying “We are not enemies, but friends. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature” (Grafton 81). Although meant to unify the North and South, this address had a larger impact on another
While Abraham Lincoln detested slavery and personally believed that the coloured people of America deserved full legal status, he was a politician and his priority was always keeping America unified. Lincoln abhorred slavery, and thought it a great evil both morally and from the standpoint of what it had done to the country; he considered it the biggest problem with America. While he did believe that African Americans were an inferior race and did not want to grant them full equality, he was absolutely determined that the constitution should apply to them just as much as any white citizen of America. In his time as a senator and Presidential nominee, and for a while after becoming President, his priority was simply to stop the spread of slavery and keep it in its current boundaries. Over the long term Lincoln did not believe the two races could live together and as a Senator considered shipping African Americans to Liberia, which he abandoned after realizing it was extremely impractical and a death sentence to those it was supposed to free. After becoming President Lincoln considered the much closer, safer, and economically viable Central America, but eventually dropped it as freed slaves were unresponsive. While starting his first term as President he attempted to stop the secession of the southern states and ameliorate the citizens by insisting slavery would be allowed to remain as it had been before, prioritizing the Union over the slaves. Later in his first term, and into his early second, Lincoln proposed a compensated emancipation system , believing that if the states that had seceded realized others would not join the Confederacy they would be more inclined to rejoin the Union. After all other solutions failed to gain a...
Abraham Lincoln’s original views on slavery were formed through the way he was raised and the American customs of the period. Throughout Lincoln’s influential years, slavery was a recognized and a legal institution in the United States of America. Even though Lincoln began his career by declaring that he was “anti-slavery,” he was not likely to agree to instant emancipation. However, although Lincoln did not begin as a radical anti-slavery Republican, he eventually issued his Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves and in his last speech, even recommended extending voting to blacks. Although Lincoln’s feeling about blacks and slavery was quite constant over time, the evidence found between his debate with Stephen A. Douglas and his Gettysburg Address, proves that his political position and actions towards slavery have changed profoundly.
Contrary to what today’s society believes about Lincoln, he was not a popular man with the South at this period in time. The South wanted to expand towards the West but Lincoln created a geographical containment rule keeping slavery in the states it currently resided in. Despite his trying to rationalize with the South, Lincoln actually believed something different ”Lincoln claimed that he, like the Founding Fathers, saw slavery in the Old South as regrettable reality whose expansion could and should be arrested, thereby putting it on the long and gradual road ”ultimate extinction” (216). He believed it to be “evil” thus “implying that free southerners were evil for defending it”(275). Lincoln wanted to wipe out slavery for good and the South could sense his secret motives. By trying to trick them, the South rebelled as soon as Lincoln became president and launched what is today known as the Civil war.
Abraham Lincoln, a great leader, was dedicated to the American people and to solving the issues faced by the United States. He demonstrated his leadership through his actions as President. Lincoln was truly committed to preserving the Union. His wartime leadership proved valuable during the hard years of the Civil War. Lastly, Lincoln’s actions to end slavery, through the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment, showed that he had the best interest of all Americans in mind. Abraham Lincoln’s hard work and perseverance ensured that the Civil War would come to an end and a that the states would reunite.
The First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln was given on Monday March 4, 1861 to his fellow citizens of the United States. In order to preserve the Union, President Lincoln needed the support from both the North and the South. The Southerners despised Lincoln because they believed he wanted to ban slavery. President Lincoln assured in his address that he would not interfere with slavery in the South and implored with the Confederate states to reconcile with the North. President Lincoln used logos, ethos, and pathos to appeal to his audience throughout his address. President Lincoln appealed to his audience using logos by providing the logical reasoning behind the slavery conflict, which was addressed primarily to the South. President Lincoln made it known to his audience that being a president you can only enforce laws that are already in place, so the issue of whether or not he was going to ban slavery had already been settled in the Constitution. President Lincoln referred back to the Constitution throughout his speech using logical appeal to explain to his people the reasoning, laws, and logic to why they could not secede. President Lincoln continues to primarily address the South and talk about slavery, adding an ethical appeal to his speech. President Lincoln says, “I have no purpose directly or indirectly, to ...