Does the event make the man, or is the man already great? Certain instances may define a man but its his sincere motives the depict his character. If not for Abraham Lincoln’s character the outcome of his presidency could have been different. The Emancipation Proclamation was Lincoln’s major achievement, focusing on abolishing slavery and giving a high priority to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States of America (Columbia University, Press). The Union was divided upon this and it took a great man such as Abraham Lincoln to bring the nation together. The great American President, Abraham Lincoln was dedicated toward preserving the Union which led to the emancipation of slaves culminating in the Civil War.
Regardless of Lincoln’s true intentions to sustain the Union, his presidency showed he cared about all men being created equal. Abraham Lincoln had many accomplishments during his presidency. Other than his crucial role in the Civil War, he brought forth two foreign tariffs, started the first income tax, developed the Department of Agriculture and put abolitionists on the Supreme Court (10 Facts). These were just a few of the marvelous works Lincoln accomplished but it was a long road to get to them. He felt that his slavery stance would help win him votes for the Republican Party during the Presidential election (Columbia University, Press). Lincoln knew that his supporters would look to him for help. He held strong to his beliefs and would not waver. The soon to be President was not an extremist but believed slavery to be evil (Columbia University, Press). Abraham Lincoln did not claim to have revelation from God; he was able to convince Unionists that slavery was an offense God would punish. He had stated moral revol...
... middle of paper ...
... for the will of the people protecting the rights of every man. Through a defeat of the Confederates that led the way to freeing the slaves, Lincoln was now determined to issue an Emancipation Proclamation (Columbia University, Press 3). This Proclamation, although did not free any slaves, gave them a goal to fight for. Throughout the Union, slave and Confederate soldiers who fought in the bloodiest war in American history, over 600,000 men died out on the battlefield (Kelly). This devastating number shows both the Union’s dedication to the war and the Confederates who fought for what they wanted. Lincoln demanded to focus on rebuilding the country as a whole and striving for ultimate forgiveness for the devastation of the Civil War (Columbia University, Press 3). With the outlook of freedom and the cessation of the Civil War, Lincoln needed to reunify the country.
At the time, the South depended on slavery to support their way of life. In fact, “to protect slavery the Confederate States of America would challenge the peaceful, lawful, orderly means of changing governments in the United States, even by resorting to war.” (635) Lincoln believed that slavery was morally wrong and realized that slavery was bitterly dividing the country. Not only was slavery dividing the nation, but slavery was also endangering the Union, hurting both black and white people and threatening the processes of government. At first, Lincoln’s goal was to save the Union in which “he would free none, some, or all the slaves to save that Union.” (634) However, Lincoln realized that “freeing the slaves and saving the Union were linked as one goal, not two optional goals.” (634) Therefore, Lincoln’s primary goal was to save the Union and in order to save the Union, Lincoln had to free the slaves. However, Paludan states that, “slave states understood this; that is why the seceded and why the Union needed saving.” (634) Lincoln’s presidential victory was the final sign to many Southerners that their position in the Union was
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.
After the war, President Abraham Lincoln’s main goal was to reunite the nation, restore, and heal the wounds that the aftermath of the Civil war had left behind. Many northerners were against the proposal that he made, to just let the south come back as they pleased because they thought it was unfair to not receive any kind of punishment for le...
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.
In a speech that Lincoln gave prior to his presidency, we can see how ambiguous his stance on slavery truly was. This speech, known as the ‘House Divided’ speech, was given on the 16th of June, 1858, and outlined his beliefs regarding secession, but did not solidify the abolition of slavery as his main goal. Lincoln states that the nation “could not endure, permanently half slave and half free,” and that the slavery will either cease to exist, or will encompass all states lawfully (Lincoln). At this point in his life, Lincoln’s primary concern is clearly with the preservation of the nation.
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.
There is no doubt that Abraham Lincoln is widely regarded as one of the great American presidents. The general public, when asked about Lincoln, will often tell the tale of a great man. Holding their head high, they will embark on the journey of a benevolent leader, praising the man who envisioned a new America: a great country of racial equality, and the pillar of human liberty. There are some, however, who have quite the opposite view.
Abraham Lincoln’s greatest challenge during his presidency was preserving the Union during the Civil War after the Southern states seceded from the Union. There were many dividing issues in the U.S. before his election in 1860, and his presidential victory was the final straw that led to the Civil War. The North and the South were already separating due to regional differences, socially, politically, culturally, and economically. Slavery was one of the biggest factors that led to the division between the North and the South. Preserving the Union while half of the country refused to regard federal law while in secession was extremely challenging, yet Abraham Lincoln decided to fight war against the South not only for the sake of abolishing slavery, but most importantly for the sake of preserving the Union. He was dedicated to fighting for the equality of all men in the U.S., as mentioned in his famous Gettysburg Address: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." He used this to argue a basic point: if all men are created equal, then all men are free. His House Divided speech showed his determination to keep the...
Abraham Lincoln is known as the President who helped to free the slaves, lead the Union to victory over the confederates in the American Civil War, preserve the union of the United States and modernize the economy. The Emancipation Proclamation, issued through Presidential constitutional authority on January 1st, 1863, declared that all slaves in the ten remaining slave states were to be liberated and remain liberated. The Emancipation Proclamation freed between three and four million slaves, however, since it was a Presidential constitutional authority and not though congress, the Emancipation Proclamation failed to free slaves in Border States like Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri. Essentially, states that were under Federal Government and loyal to the Union did not have their slaves liberated; Lincoln even stating “When it took effect in January 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation freed 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves.” Some argue Lincoln issued this Proclamation in an attempt to satisfy the demands of Radical Republicans, members of a group within the Republican Party. Radical Republicans were a group of politicians who strongly...
Lincoln 's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, was to up the North 's support so they wouldn 't go to the confederate side. Not only a change in North war, but a change in the slavery, like granting the slaves their freedom so they wouldn 't have any more slave revolts which would cause even more chaos in other words another war. "The Emancipation Proclamation granted freedom to the slaves in the Confederate states if the states did not return to the Union by January 1,1863. In addition, under the proclamation, freedom would only come to the slaves if the Union won the war." Abraham Lincoln president at the time, the northerners also known as the Union, the south also known as the confederates, and slave states still in
...h the Confederacy. Even if the goal of the Emancipation Proclamation was to win the war, it was also a moral value because at the end of the war, Lincoln supported the 13th amendment, which ended slavery in the USA. Looking at different sources such as Eric Foner’s “emancipation proclamation” and McPherson James’s “how president Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation” , it is clear that opinions differed regarding the purpose of the emancipation proclamation, but both of them argued that it was both a military tactic but had also a moral value behind it.
The sacrifice of the lives of so many soldiers gave Lincoln a new perspective on life, liberty, and freedom and now Lincoln is no longer defending slavery. Before the Civil War, the “Union” tried to ignore slavery and the fact that blacks were actually included in the Declaration of Independence. This was now recognized by Lincoln and the rest of the nation as the essence of a democratic government. The sacrifices of the Union soldiers ensured a government geared by the people and for the people.
His personal beliefs had always been opposed to slavery. He believed that the Founding Fathers had put slavery on the road to extinction, and he wanted to continue it down that path. Lincoln acted very professional; he always put the nation before his personal perspective. It transformed the fight to preserve the nation into a battle for human freedom. According to the history book “A People and a Nation”, the Emancipation Proclamation was legally an ambiguous document, but as a moral and political document it had great meaning.
Abraham Lincoln is regarded by many Americans as the greatest president to ever hold office in the history of the United States, and his reputation is definitely well deserved. Lincoln wasn't scared to stand up and fight for what he knew was right. He was convinced that within the branches of government, the presidency alone was empowered not only to uphold the Constitution, but also to protect, and defend it. Lincoln was able to lead our country and preserve the Union, keeping the United States from splintering during the devastating times of the Civil War. As President, he built the Republican Party into a strong national organization, and he rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union cause. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that changed the war into a battle for freedom and declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy. That November, Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address, which stated how a country must be dedicated to human freedom in order to survive. He dedicated the battlefield to the soldiers who had perished, and called on the living to finish the task the dead soldiers had begun. (Donald, 1995) Lincoln believed that democracy could be a lasting form of government. He showed a nobility of character that had worldwide appeal, and he was a man of great integrity. However, Lincoln was not only the 16th president of the United States, he was an American hero. Lincoln was a well-rounded individual and he had numerous outstanding qualities. However, it is important to remember that Lincoln also led a private life, complete with close friends and family.
Over the course of the past years, there have been many presidents and debates whether or not they have been beneficial to the United States of America. Even though there have been other great presidents, people should know that Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president was unquestionably an astonishing president. He was a great president because of how he: lead the union to victory, helped slaves to freedom, and issued the Emancipation Proclamation.