PARTICIPANTE:
Alfonsina Polanco Germán
MATRICULA:
16-5572
MATERIA:
English 1
TEMA:
Producción final
FACILITADOR/a
Carlos Santos
Abraham Lincoln (Hodgenville, Kentucky, February 12, 1809-Washington DC, April 15, 1865) was an American
politician and lawyer who served as the sixteenth president of the United States of America from March 1861 until
his assassination in April 1865.1 3 Lincoln led the United States during the Civil War, the bloodiest conflict and
perhaps also the greatest moral, constitutional and political crisis that the United States has suffered. At the same
time, it preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government and modernized the economy.4
5
Born in Hodgenville, Kentucky, Lincoln grew up between the states of Kentucky and Indiana, in what was then the
Far West. He was a largely self-taught man who became a lawyer in Illinois, leader of the Whig Party and was
elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, in which he remained for eight years. Elected to the House of
Representatives of the United States in 1846, Lincoln promoted a rapid modernization of the economy through
sectors such as banking, taxes and railroads. Because he had initially agreed not to run for a second term in Congress
and that his opposition to US intervention in Mexico was unpopular with Illinois voters, Lincoln returned to
Springfield to resume his career in law. He returned to politics in 1854 and became a leader in the construction of
the new Republican Party, which had a large mass of voters in Illinois. In 1858, while participating in several well-
known debates with his rival, the Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln advocated the abolition of slavery, but lost
before it the race to access the Senate.
In 1860 Lincoln secured his candidacy for the presidency of the United States by the Republican Party. Although he
barely had support from the southern states, defenders of slavery, he swept in the north and was named president in
1860. Before even reaching the White House, his victory and lack of agreement on the essential issue of slavery
caused that seven southern states split off to create the Confederate States of America. Then, on April 12, 1861, a
confederate attack on Fort Sumter, inspired the northern states to unite to form the Union. As leader of the moderate
faction of the Republicans, Lincoln faced the most radical wing of his party, which demanded greater harshness
against the southern states, the anti-war democrats, who despised him, already irreconcilable secessionists, who
conspired to kill him. Politically, Lincoln defended himself by pitting his adversaries against each other through
carefully planned political patronage and appealing to the American people with his oratory ability. His Gettysburg
speech became an iconic defense of the principles of patriotism, republicanism, equal rights, freedom and
democracy.
Lincoln was an exceptionally astute politician, who became deeply involved in the questions of power of each state,
which earned him re-election in 1864. In anticipation of the end of the war, he promoted a moderate reconstruction
that sought to reunify the country of quickly through a generous policy of reconciliation amidst a persistent and
bitter division. On April 14, 1865, five days after the decisive surrender of the Confederate general's commander,
Robert E. Lee, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a sympathizer of the cause of the south. Since then,
Abraham Lincoln has been considered by historians and by public opinion as one of the best presidents of the United
States of America.
DE: James Buchanan.
