Tag: #lincoln

THE 16TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Abraham Lincoln became the United States’ 16th President in 1861, issuing the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy in 1863.

Lincoln warned the South in his Inaugural Address: “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you…. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.”

Lincoln thought secession illegal, and was willing to use force to defend Federal law and the Union. When Confederate batteries fired on Fort Sumter and forced its surrender, he called on the states for 75,000 volunteers. Four more slave states joined the Confederacy but four remained within the Union. The Civil War had begun.

The son of a Kentucky frontiersman, Lincoln had to struggle for a living and for learning. Five months before receiving his party’s nomination for President, he sketched his life:

“I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families–second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks…. My father … removed from Kentucky to … Indiana, in my eighth year…. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up…. Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher … but that was all.”

Lincoln made extraordinary efforts to attain knowledge while working on a farm, splitting rails for fences, and keeping store at New Salem, Illinois. He was a captain in the Black Hawk War, spent eight years in the Illinois legislature, and rode the circuit of courts for many years. His law partner said of him, “His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest.”

He married Mary Todd, and they had four boys, only one of whom lived to maturity. In 1858 Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator. He lost the election, but in debating with Douglas he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in 1860.

As President, he built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. Further, he rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union cause. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy.

Lincoln never let the world forget that the Civil War involved an even larger issue. This he stated most movingly in dedicating the military cemetery at Gettysburg: “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain–that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom–and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Lincoln won re-election in 1864, as Union military triumphs heralded an end to the war. In his planning for peace, the President was flexible and generous, encouraging Southerners to lay down their arms and join speedily in reunion.

The spirit that guided him was clearly that of his Second Inaugural Address, now inscribed on one wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C.: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds…. ”

On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth, an actor, who somehow thought he was helping the South. The opposite was the result, for with Lincoln’s death, the possibility of peace with magnanimity died.

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

“When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.”

Abraham Lincoln, USA

At all of our times of crisis we’ve needed leaders who were just a little better. We have all fantasied leaders who can rise up to the occasion and probably give us some big speech , make you feel invincible (i am not reffering to Optimus Prime). But to your surprises Abraham Lincoln was one such man.

Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809 and was an American statesman and a Lawyer who served as the 16th President of United States of America. Lincoln was not only an ordinary politician but an accomplished warrior and a great anti-slavery orator. Lincoln is considered to be the greatest president ever. He accomplished great feats using his will and wisdom. He deployed the forces of swords and words together to win not only over wars but also over the hearts of true Americans.He became the president at the worst moment of American history- the American Civil war. Fought between the northern states who supported the union and the southern states who seceded from the union and formed the short lasted Confederates.

There was no great speculation during the election of Lincoln. But after Lincoln became Commander in Chief , his acts during the war was great in which He used the navy and the military very wisely, which gained him popularity among the soldiers. Above all he was not only determined in abolishing slavery but also in providing full franchise of right to vote and to participate for African Americans. Around early April 1865 the civil war was over and He had passed the “Emancipation proclamation” that abolished slavery and paved way for uprising of the Blacks. The Confederate generals surrendered and the war was won. Jubilant Lincoln gave a public speech which made everyone rejoice.

The prospect of Black voting was too much to bear for a man who was a fanatic of southern cause. John Wilkes Booth was born into a slave-holding family and grew up to become a great stage actor. He was a white supremacist and was not happy to see his causes crumbling before his eyes. And hence a group of conspirators arised and planned to assassinate three prominent figures of the union. Lincoln’s assassination was planned to happen on April 14 1865 when Lincoln was visiting the play-“Our American Cousin” at the Ford’s theater, Washington.

10 minutes to 10 pm, Booth started mounting the staircase the led to the tier 2 box where the President was seated. He walked past all the guards without any problem because he was a well known personality at that time.And at 10.15 pm he shot Lincoln 3 inches from his head. He jumped to the center of the theater and hailed “Sic Semper Tyrannis” meaning ‘Ever thus to tyrants’ and he said that the south was avenged. Lincoln died the following day and Booth was killed after 12 days of manhunt. The other killings did not happen because some of the conspirators were caught and hanged while others lost their nerves and surrendered

The surprisingly confusing part of Lincoln’s Death is that a few days before his assassination , it is said that Lincoln had a bizarre dream. In that dream he walked down the stairs and at the East room was a coffin surrounded by sobbing mourners. He asked “Who is that who lies dead in the white House?“. A man answered “Its the President.He was shot dead”