Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth President of the United States of America ( 1,861 - 1,865 ) and first president republican . Lincoln opposed the expansion of slavery and its abolition is desirable. He had a major role in EU efforts to crystallize the American Civil Wargenerals and approve the selection of their strategies, namely the selection of senior civilian officials of the North . Thus held, on January1863 Emancipation Proclamation . He oversaw U.S. diplomatic efforts, political patronage jobs to the Republican Party , informed public opinion through messages and speeches (as was the famous Speech at Gettysburg ), initiated and managed social plans formulated essential (such as the abolition of slavery and Reconstruction of the Union ).
Abraham Lincoln was born on the Frontier on 12 February 1809. His parents Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks , a couple of farmers penniless and illiterate. Ownership of 348 acres is located on the banks of Nolin Creek in the southeastern part of Hardin County , near Hodgenville . It is named Abraham, no middle name, in memory of his grandfather, who was killed by Indians in 1786 . The myth has somewhat exaggerated the poverty of his parents at birth. In 1816, Thomas Lincoln decided to take his family in south-western Indiana . He squatted public land, a farm built half that lacks a facade. After building a more acceptable habitat, he bought land and began its cultivation. Abraham participates in the work fields and livestock but is reluctant to hunting and fishing. In 1818, when he was 9 years old he saw his mother die at age 34 years , but in the year following his father married Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow with two daughters and a son . She takes care of the house and treats Lincoln tied with his own children. Abraham and Sarah become so close that later he will remember her as his " angel mother . "
Abraham quickly developed a certain appetite for reading, a passion encouraged by his stepmother Sarah. His parents were illiterate and he himself was rarely went to school. Despite this, Lincoln could not have actually read a few books, but he kept a souvenir. Throughout his reading, he discovered the Bible, the history of England and the United States. Among the books he had read, we find Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe , or the fables of Aesop . His neighbors will report later that he was ready to go for miles to go and borrow a book.
In March 1830 , when Abraham was 21 years, Thomas Lincoln decided to join the fertile lands of Indiana, on the banks of the River Sangamon . The following year, Abraham Lincoln, not wanting to become a farmer, decides to live independently. After helping his father in clearing his new land, he becomes a sailor and a trip on the Mississippi until New Orleans . On return, he settled in the village of New Salem , Sangamon River. He became storekeeper, postmaster, supervisor. In 1832 , he joined the local militia to fight the Indian Black Hawk and was elected captain of his company. He later claimed he had never seen Indian warriors, but being involved in disputes between virulent militiamen.
Aspiring to have a public life, he comes to the State Assembly as a representative of the Whig party , but is defeated first before being elected and reelected several times. Hesitating, he prefers to eventually become a lawyer rather than a blacksmith for a living. After having studied mathematics and grammar, he begins to study law. In 1836 , he passes the bar exam.
Lincoln spent most of his time alone and did not make a big impression among his fellow politicians. He used his position to speak out against the war with Mexico , which he attributed to the desire for "military glory". When his term ended, he devoted himself mainly to earn a living as a lawyer.
At the beginning of his legal career, Lincoln turned from town to town until he settled in the town of Springfield. A Springfield immediately showed his skills as an orator, so that during the trial that he participated in the People flocked to hear him. People understood what he said because of its simple language. A case that failed to win was for a scam in the business of horse: the victory was a stroke of irony against the prosecutor who had put his shirt on the other hand, being able to deter and win the case. Lincoln became famous in the office of the 'Illinois in the mid- fifties , especially its participation in processes relating to competing interests in transport, and river and rail .
For example, he represented the Alton & Sangamon Railroad in a process of 1851 against one of its shareholders, James A. Barret: it had refused to pay due to the undertaking on the grounds that it had changed the route originally planned.
Lincoln argued that, under the law, a company is not bound by its statutes originally when this can be corrected in the public interest, that the new location was better and less expensive, and therefore the company had the right to call Mr . Barret for his non-payment. Lincoln won the case and the decision by the Supreme Court of Illinois was cited by many other courts in the United States.
Another important example of Lincoln's talents as a lawyer for the railroads was a cause for an exemption from taxes granted to the state ' Illinois Central Railroad . The McLean Countyargued that the state had no authority to grant such an exemption, however, and wanted to tax the company. In January 1856, the Illinois Supreme Court decided to confirm the tax-exempt status, agreeing with the arguments of Lincoln.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 , which opened the two mentioned territories to slavery (and therefore set aside the limits to the spread of slavery that were part of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 ), also helped Lincoln back into politics. To make it stand out compared to the other was a speech against the Kansas-Nebraska, on October 16 1854 in Peoria .
During his campaign (losing) to be elected senator in 1858 against Stephen A. Douglas , Lincoln led many debates against Douglas in a series of events that represent a national debate on issues that would soon split the nation in two. These discussions were the anticipation of the presidential elections of 1860 , when Lincoln and Douglas were again contenders. On 6 November 1860 Lincoln was elected the sixteenthPresident of the United States of America , the first Republican to reach that office.
Shortly after his election, the southern part of the United States showed unequivocally that secession was inevitable, which greatly increased tension across the nation. Lincoln survived an assassination attempt in Baltimore , and 23 February 1861 he arrived in Washington in secret and in disguise. Southerners ridiculed Lincoln for this act of cowardice, but the commitment to safety was not to be underestimated.
he establishment of Lincoln on 4 March 1861 , the Turners formed his bodyguard, was also a considerable garrison of federal troops, ready to protect the president and the invasion of the rebel capital.
Last days of Abraham Lincoln
The war was a constant source of frustration for the president, and occupied almost all his time. After repeated disappointments by General George McClellan and a string of other commanders general lack of success,
Lincoln gave the decision to appoint a confident commander of the radical and somewhat scandalous: General Ulysses S. Grant . Grant would apply his military knowledge and his talent in the conduct of men to get to the end of the war.
When
Richmond , the Confederate capital, was finally captured,
Lincoln went there to make a public gesture, sitting at the desk of Jefferson Davis , saying in a symbolic way to the nation that the U.S. President had authority throughout the territory. He was welcomed in the city as a conquering hero by freed slaves, whose sentiments were summarized by the words of an admirer, "I know that I am free because I saw the face of Father Abraham and I have heard."
The reconstruction of the
Union weighed much on the mind of the President. He was determined to embark on a path that would not permanently alienate the former Confederate states.
In 1864 ,
Lincoln was the first and only president to face a presidential election during the war. The duration of the war and the issue of emancipation appeared seriously hinder its prospects and an electoral defeat against the Democratic candidate George McClellan seemed likely. However, a series of timely Union victories shortly before election day, the situation changed substantially and
Lincoln was re-elected.
During the Civil War,
Lincoln had powers that no previous president had held, suspended the precept of ' habeas corpus and frequently imprisoned Confederate spies and sympathizers without trial. On the other hand, often canceled performances.
After the war,
Lincoln had met frequently with General Grant. The two men were planning the reconstruction of the country and was known to all their mutual esteem. During their last meeting, on 14 April 1865 (Friday),
Lincoln had invited General Grant to a social event that evening, but Grant had declined.
Without the company's general and without his bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon , whom the President had told the famous dreampremonition of his assassination, the Lincoln went to Ford's Theatre in Washington, where he was planning Our American Cousin , a play Music of the British writer Tom Taylor (1817-1880). The moment took place in the Presidential Box Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth , an actor in the Virginia Confederate sympathizer, entered the stage and fired a .44 caliber pistol to the head of the president, shouting " Sic semper tyrannis ! " ( Latin : "Thus always to tyrants!" - motto of the State of
Virginia and historically sentence uttered by Brutuskilling Cesare . According to other versions shouted "The South is avenged"), then jumping off the stage and broke his leg.
The conspirators had planned the assassination of other government officials at the same time, but
Lincoln was the only victim. Booth dragged himself to his horse and escaped, while the President was shot dead to a house across the street now called Petersen House, where she lay in a coma for a few hours before expiring. He was officially pronounced dead at 7:22 am on April 15 1865 .
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