On February 12th, 1809, one of America’s greatest presidents was born. Thomas and Nancy Lincoln gave birth to Abraham Lincoln in a log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky. Lincoln had a difficult childhood because he was forced to move to Indian due to land disputes and he experienced deaths at a very young age. His younger brother, Thomas, died in infancy and at the age of nine, Lincoln had to deal with the death of his mother. This tragic event led Abraham to alienate himself from his dad and began to hate the manual labor that he was faced with on the small farm plot he now lived on. His father married Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow with children of her own, soon after the death of his wife. Lincoln grew fond of his step-mom very quickly and developed a tight bond with her. She wanted to him to get an education and learn to read, and he was so determined that he would travel miles just to borrow a book. His determination would prove to be an important trait in his future.
The Lincoln family moved to Macon County, Illinois in 1830, which is where Abe started to develop himself. He made a living in manual labor and became know for his skills with the axe, making money by cutting wood for fire and rail fencing. Eventually, Lincoln moved out and ended up in New Salem, Illinois in attempt to make it on his own. In New Salem, ‘over a period of years, Abe worked as a shopkeeper, postmaster, and eventually general store owner. It was here that Lincoln, working with the public, acquired social skills and honed story-telling talent that made him popular with the locals’ (Biography.com). When the Black Hawk War broke out in 1832 between the United State and Mexico, Abraham Lincoln was elected to serve as their captain by volunteers in the area. Even though he did not go to battle once during this time, he made political connections that would help set the foundation for his law and political career.
When the war ended, Abraham Lincoln’s political career began when he was elected to the Illinois state legislature in 1834 as the newest member to the Whig Party. He supported the Whig Politics because of their government- sponsored infrastructure and protective tariffs. With this political understanding, his early views on slavery developed, which caused him to see slavery not so much as morally wrong, but as an impediment to economic development. Eventually, Lincoln would serve one term in the United States House of Representatives from 1847 to 1849. He used his term in office to speak out against the Mexican American War and supported Zachary Taylor for president in 1848, but not many people supported his ideals, causing him to return to Springfield and practice law again. Lincoln would return to politics though after the passing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, repealing the Missouri Compromise, which allowed states and territories to decide if they will allow slavery or not within the area. This bloody conflict helped the Republican Party rise; their ideas that the Republicans stood by interested Abraham Lincoln, causing him to join this political party in 1856. It was because of the Kansas- Nebraska Act that Lincoln’s view of slavery changed from an impediment on the economic development towards a moral indignation.
The Scott v Sanford issued by the Supreme Court in 1857 stated that African Americans were not citizens and had no rights. Abraham Lincoln’s views on this were varied because he did believe that whites were superior to blacks, he still believed that the founding fathers believed that all men were created with equal rights. He challenged Douglas for his seat and President Buchanan declared that a house divided cannot stand. After several debates all over Illinois on a variety of topics, but mainly addressing slavery. Lincoln and Douglas did not disappoint the public, leading to immense coverage by the newspapers. Even though Douglas won the debate for the seat, Lincoln became famous and his experience gained from this debate thrust him into the world of national politics.
In 1860, political operatives in Illinois organized a campaign to support Lincoln for the presidency. ‘Lincoln’s nomination was due in part to his moderate views on slavery, his support for improving the national infrastructure, and the protective tariff’ (White. 33). Lincoln won the four way race between Stephan Douglas, John Bell and John Breckinridge. Before his inauguration in March of 1861, Abraham Lincoln was a common man on the rise who would soon be faced with some of the toughest controversies America has ever had deal with. President Lincoln is labeled as one of the best presidents to ever live because of what he did in his one term as president and played an instrumental role in the push to end slavery, but he himself did not do it.
As President, Abraham would deal with one of the nation’s most difficult situations: a divided nation and the American Civil War. Given these tasks at hand, he immediately entered office with one of the toughest jobs any president has ever had to deal with. As the sixteenth American President, his main goals were to end slavery and bring the nation back together, which is a lot easier said then done.
‘Prior to his election as President, seven southern states had seceded from the Union. In his inaugural address on March 4, 1861, Lincoln reached out to the South by telling them he had no intention of changing slavery as it existed; but he held firm to the ideal that the Union be forever preserved and indissoluble. Soon after this, the Southern states banded together in their own Confederate Union. They demanded that the North abandon its garrisons in Southern territories, specifically naming Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, since it held strategic importance at the harbor to the city. That set the stage for the attack on the fort that became the first hostile act in the Civil War.’ (SheppardSoftware.com).
This shows that Abraham Lincoln had no intention on freeing slaves when he became president of the U.S.. Although Lincoln always believed slavery was wrong, he always believed in white supremacy and would stand by that. Lincoln himself said, ‘If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong.’ When the war started, he thought of it only as a way of saving the union. Later, his opinion would change yet again.
‘In leading the Union through the Civil War, Lincoln took powers no previous President had ever assumed. He did not wait until Congress approved expenditures, and he suspended the writ of habeas corpus, which allowed that a person could not be imprisoned indefinitely before being charged with specific crimes. … The struggle for the heart and soul of a nation would weigh heavily on the shoulders of this Commander and Chief’ (sheppardsoftware.com).
Serving as the new president, Lincoln wasted no time in trying to resolve the nation’s problems by suspending the writ of Habeas Corpus so he could arrest possible suspects serving for the Confederates. He felt the State Courts in the Northwest would not convict war protesters. Among approximately 13,000 war protesters that were arrested under martial law was John Merryman, who was a state legislator from Maryland. He was arrested for trying to stop Union troops from moving from Baltimore to Washington during the Civil War and was held at Fort McHenry. His attorney looked to the writ of habeas corpus in the attempt that a federal court could examine the charges. It was after this that President Abraham Lincoln decided to suspend the right of habeas corpus and Fort McHenry refused to turn Merryman over to the authorities.
Lincoln’s primary goal at hand before having to deal with the issue of slavery was how he was going to win the war at hand. The Civil War is the most bloody and had the most deaths in all of American History. Lincoln had no previous war experience and was treading in unfamiliar territory when it came to what Congress did and did not allow about war. ‘Lincoln overstepped his boundaries when he called for seventy-five thousand troops to suppress the Southern rebellion. Virginia, Arkansas and Tennessee then seceded, refusing to fight their fellow Southerners and claiming Lincoln had overreached his authority because Congress was not in session and therefor could not authorize a war’ (Abraham Lincoln. 5). This war was simply started based on contradictions. Lincoln understood that he couldn’t save the Union without eliminating slavery.
Pressure for abolition came into the country. This is how he came up with the idea for writing the Emancipation Proclamation. This one reason why the Southerners hated having Lincoln as a president. Lincoln wrote the Emancipation, on September 22, 1862, five days after Union forces won the battle of Antietam, Lincoln issued a preliminary proclamation. This proclamation stated that if rebelling states did not return to the Union by January 1, 1863, he would declare their slaves to be ‘forever free.’ The south called Lincoln’s bluff, blowing it off and did nothing about it. He was not bluffing and he issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. This caused the southern leaders to turn against Lincoln completely. The Emancipation Proclamation finally came into effect. This would change the history of America forever. By the end of the war, more than 500,000 slaves had fled to freedom behind northern lines. Many of them joined the Union Army or Navy or worked for the armed forces as laborers. The Emancipation Procolmation allowed blacks to serve in the Army and Navy, thus helpeing solve the North’s problem of declining enlistments. Around 200, 000 black soldiers and sailors, most of them were former slaves, and now served in the armed forces. Even though the proclamation came into effect it still did not free many slaves.
”’?Very few black men were freed from the emancipation, but it caused another huge point to come forth. It showed that the civil war was not being fought to save the union, but once and for all, put an end to slavery. Finally, the civil war ended with the north victorious. With all of the blacks joining the army and Navy, the Unions power was twice as strong, which helped the Union tremendously in winning the war. Slavery was finally abolished. Now every black man was free.
”’?Abraham Lincoln has all the credit for beginning the process of freeing the slaves and creating peace on the earth between blacks and whites. Lincoln wrote the emancipation and changed almost every man’s opinion of the war. He changed the world forever. If he wouldn’t have lived we might still have slavery on the earth to this day. This proves how he was a great person, a great writer, and a savior of our country.