Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln is known for freeing the slaves. But do you know the actual reason behind why he did that? He used to be my favorite president, he still is sort of, but just not the number one on my list. That’s because of some of the predicaments that happened during his presidency. What I did like about him is that he wanted to keep the country a whole. Everybody staying united. I mean that’s why it’s called the United States right? Well Lincoln was trying to keep everyone on the same page and equal. He didn’t want any war.

We think of these presidents as just presidents. But they did have a life before that. Abraham was born in 1809 in Kentucky. When he was younger he didn’t really get a schoolhouse education and was mostly self-taught. That was how it was back then. Not everyone went to school. Now today, everyone can go to school. But Lincoln did get life lessons and I think that’s the best way to learn some fundamentals for getting through life. He even taught himself law. That worked in his favor for two reasons because he got to be a state legislator and was admitted the bar in Illinois in 1836. Abraham Lincoln successfully became a great lawyer. That wasn’t the end of his success.

Lincoln later married a lady named Mary Todd in 1842. They also had four children. But he was sometimes an absent father because of all the political work he later started doing. One thing that he is known for in politics is his famous speeches. There were many that he made but one in particular was the “House Divided” speech in 1858. Lincoln was basically covering in the speech that he was in favor of keeping a Union as a whole and he worked on that through his whole presidency later on. But he figured out that there was only one way for that to happen. That one way was about the slavery debate. In order for the whole country to become united, there either has to be slavery, or no slavery at all for all the states. That wasn’t the only reason behind him making this particular speech. He also was disagreeing with Senator Stephen Douglas. Douglas supported popular sovereignty and was completely different from Lincoln. I actually agree with Abraham Lincoln’s point of view that the country had to go all slavery or none at all. It would get all the states on one page. But I would have preferred the no slavery way to go. Which that later became the way but not for the reasons you first think of. Then there was the Lincoln-Douglas debates. You can probably guess what those debates were. It was between those two senators and it was mostly about the slavery predicament. Abraham was hoping to run for Republican Senator for Illinois so that he can get rid of Stephen Douglas. Of course, the press had both of them all over the paper. But not always in a good way. If a newspaper favored Lincoln, they would fix any grammatical errors and make the speech look really intriguing while making Stephen’s speech the way it was so it didn’t look as good (and vice versa for other newspapers). Unfortunately, Lincoln lost the debate. But that didn’t just bring bad news, it also brought good. During all the debating it gave him more publicity and many people noticed him more. Because of all that recognition, he was later nominated for president in 1860. He successfully won the election and became the 16^th president of the United States. Even up to this time Lincoln still didn’t have a strong opinion on slavery or no slavery. He just wanted no conflict between all the states. But while he was president the country wasn’t exactly all united. There were states that were pro-slavery and some not. Lincoln wanted to work on reuniting the states to all be on the same page.

During his presidency the Civil War also commenced. Unlike other presidents who get frazzled by the fact that a war was beginning and anxiously started getting prepared, Lincoln welcomed the war and just started getting prepared calmly by reading up on battle tactics. That was just the type of person he was. Now this is when I decided that he wasn’t my favorite number one president. The Emancipation Proclamation was of course the famous decision that Abraham Lincoln made to abolish slavery in 1861. This sounds like a great idea and I completely agree but he didn’t exactly do it for the slaves’ best interest. Lincoln did that because it was the only way to 1, unite the country, and 2, to stop the Civil War. When I first learned about him freeing the slaves I thought that was the most amazing thing that one of our presidents did. But until I knew exactly why Abraham did it, didn’t really make it look so amazing anymore. I know that not one of our presidents are perfect. Even the president that is my number one favorite made a mistake. Of course, if you’re being watched under a microscope by the whole country, somebody is bound to find a mistake you made while being president. But, I am glad that Lincoln went the no slavery route because imagine how life would be now if that never changed?

The Gettysburg Address is another famous speech that Abraham Lincoln made but it wasn’t that long. He made it after the war and it lasted for only 3 minutes. The Union was actually in favor of the speech he made so that was one of the reasons why he was re-elected president. His second term started in March, 1865. There was also the news of the Confederacy surrendering. That led to bad news for President Lincoln. A man named John Wilkes shot Abraham Lincoln in the head because he was a Confederate sympathizer. So basically Wilkes was against Lincoln’s decisions as president. President Abraham Lincoln died on the morning April 15^th, 1865. He was buried in Springfield, Illinois.