Andrew Morales
Mrs. Brady
Ap Lang./ Period 3
6 February 2015
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the United States. He came into office
March 4, 1861 until his assassination on April 15, 1865. He led this country throw the Civil War
which preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthen the federal government, and
modernized the economy. He also made and signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863
which freed all slaves from the Confederacy. In 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment was made
which abolished slavery forever.
On February 12, 1809 in the small town of Hodgenville, Kentucky Nancy Lincoln gave
birth to Abraham; his family later moved to southern Indiana in 1816. Lincolns formal schooling
was limited to three brief periods in local schools, as he had to work constantly to support his
family. In 1830, his family moved to Macon County in southern Illinois, and Lincoln got a job
working on a river flatboat hauling freight down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. After
settling in the town of New Salem, Illinois, where he worked as a shopkeeper and a postmaster,
Lincoln became involved in local politics as a supporter of the Whig Party, winning election to
the Illinois state legislature in 1834. Like his Whig heroes, Henry Clayland, Daniel Webster,
Lincoln opposed the spread of slavery to the territories, and had a grand vision of the expanding
United States, with a focus on commerce and cities rather than agriculture.
Lincoln taught himself law, passing the bar examination in 1836. The following year, he
moved to the newly named state capital of Springfield. For the next few years, he worked there
as a lawyer, earning a reputation as Honest Abe and serving clients ranging from individual
residents of small towns to national railroad lines. He met Mary Todd, a well-to-do Kentucky
belle with many suitors (including Lincolns future political rival, Stephen Douglas), and they
married in 1842.
Abraham Lincoln, a self-taught Illinois lawyer and legislator with a reputation as an
eloquent opponent of slavery, shocked many when he overcame several more prominent
contenders to win the Republican Partys nomination for president in 1860. His election that
November pushed several Southern states to secede by the time of his inauguration in March
1861, and the Civil War began barely a month later. Contrary to expectations, Lincoln proved to
be a shrewd military strategist and a savvy leader during what became the costliest conflict ever
fought on American soil.
His Emancipation Proclamation, issued in 1863, freed all of the slaves in the rebellious
states but left those in the Border States (loyal to the Union) in bondage. Though Lincoln once
maintained that his paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to
save or destroy slavery, he nonetheless came to regard emancipation as one of his greatest
achievements, and would argue for the passage of a constitutional amendment outlawing slavery
(eventually passed as the 13th Amendment after his death in 1865).
Slaves in the rebellious states and paved the way for slaverys eventual abolition. In
November 1863, Lincoln delivered a brief speech (just 272 words) at the dedication ceremony
for the new national cemetery at Gettysburg. Published widely, the Gettysburg Address
eloquently expressed the wars purpose, harking back to the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of
Independence and the pursuit of human equality. It became the most famous speech of Lincolns
presidency, and one of the most widely quoted speeches in history.
In April 1865, with the Union on the brink of victory, Abraham Lincoln was shot and
killed by the Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth; his untimely death made him a martyr
to the cause of liberty and Union. Over the years Lincolns mythic stature has only grown, and he
is widely regarded as one of the greatest presidents in the nations history.
Work Cited
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln
http://millercenter.org/president/lincoln
