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Essay on Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was America's most popular President ever. He had played the most important role in putting an end to slavery in America, and in the entire world. Abraham Lincoln's childhood was spent in such poverty that his family had to struggle for a house. His father did not even have enough money to send him to school. Abraham studied from the old books of others. He started earning his wages from his childhood to feed himself.

Once a friend of Abraham Lincoln wanted to know his religious views, he said that he felt good when did something good, and felt bad when he did something bad, that was his religion. Abraham Lincoln was the 16th and greatest President of America. Today it has been more than 200 years since the birth of Abraham Lincoln, but whenever we talk about the Presidents of America, the name of Abraham Lincoln comes on top. Abraham Lincoln almost gave his life to save America from being dismembered in the civil war and for the unity of the country.

About Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was born on 12 February 1809 in a wooden house in Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky. His father's name was Thomas Lincoln and his mother's name was Nancy Lincoln. His parents came from England and later moved to New Jersey. Abraham Lincoln's family was very poor and he earned his livelihood by farming. Lincoln’s family was evicted from their land due to a land dispute and they were forced to leave the city.

In 1811, their family moved to Knob Creek Farm, they made that land fit for farming and started cultivating it. In 1816, the Abraham family settled in Indiana, where they cleared up forests and started farming. Even today, his form has been kept as a memorial. When Abraham was 9, his mother, Nancy, died. After this, his father married another woman named Sara. Abraham grew up, he wanted employment that yielded more profits through less work. He built a boat and started working as a boatman, which gave him good profits. After this, Abraham Lincoln started working as a manager in a store.

Education and Politics

Abraham Lincoln completed his law studies while working in this store. After some time he became the postmaster in the village, due to which people started knowing him and started respecting him. Then he thought of going into politics, keeping in view the troubles of the local people because at that time slavery was at its peak. 

Abraham Lincoln hated the atrocities on slaves since the beginning and wanted to abolish slavery. With this idea, he entered politics and contested the MLA, but he faced defeat in that election. On the other hand, while contesting elections, he had also left the post master's job, due to which he had a shortage of money. Everything in Abraham Lincoln's life was going against him. There was a time in his life when he was so depressed that he used to stay away from knives because he was afraid that he might kill himself. 

A friend of his at that time boosted his morale and drove him out of depression. Abraham Lincoln contested again with the help of his friend and this time he won the election. After this victory, he was counted amongst the youngest MLAs. He then inspired the youth and they became his ardent followers. Abraham Lincoln was now licensed to become a lawyer and then he met a famous lawyer. Both of them started working together but after some time his friend left him. Abraham Lincoln was also failing in advocacy because he did not take money to fight the cases of the poor. He practised for 20 years.

Struggles and Death

In 1860, Abraham Lincoln contested for the Presidency of the United States of America and eventually achieved the greatest success of his life by becoming the 16th President of the United States. After becoming the 16th President of America on November 6, 1860, Abraham did a lot of important works that have not only national but international importance as well. Abraham Lincoln's greatest achievement was the emergence of America from the Civil War. 

The credit for the abolition of slavery by amending the Constitution of America also goes to Abraham Lincoln. On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln and his wife were in Washington DC to watch a play in the Ford’s Theatre, where he was shot by a famous actor John Wilkes Booth and on the next day, on April 15, 1865, Abraham died.

FAQs on Abraham Lincoln Essay

1. Who was Abraham Lincoln?

We know Abraham Lincoln was America's most popular President ever. Abraham Lincoln was born on 12 February 1809 in a wooden house in Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky. His father's name was Thomas Lincoln and his mother's name was Nancy Lincoln. He had played the most important role in ending slavery in America. He was the 16th and greatest President of America. Today it has been over 200 years since the birth of Abraham Lincoln, but whenever we talk about the President of America, the name of Abraham Lincoln comes on top.

2. How Did Abraham Lincoln Die?

On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln and his wife were in Washington DC to watch a play in Ford’s theatre. There he was shot by a famous actor John Wilkes Booth and on the next day, on 15 April 1865, Abraham died.

Abraham Lincoln Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on abraham lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln , the name in itself speaks volumes. He is considered the greatest president of the United States of America. Historians and Political Scientists consistently rank him as the best American president ever. Above all, the man is renowned for ending slavery in his country. This certainly created a world-wide awareness against the evil of slavery. In the realm of social reform, he is holding a lofty status.

Historical Reputation

Many surveys of the Presidents of the United States have taken place. Many scholars and experts of the United States took part in such surveys. Most noteworthy, Lincoln is always ranked in the top 3 in such surveys. Furthermore, there has been an organization of Presidential ranking polls since 1948. Abraham Lincoln certainly has the top rating in most of such polls.

Probably the most famous survey was by Chicago Tribune in 1982. There was a participation of 49 Historians and Political Scientists in that survey. These experts were to rate all the United States Presidents in five categories. The categories were: leadership , crisis management, political skills , appointments, and character/integrity. As was probably the prediction of most people, Lincoln got top place. Most noteworthy, Lincoln got top place in all the categories. This shows his magnificent historical reputation.

Many social reformers view him as a champion of liberty. He has the description of a classic liberal by historians. He is a role model to liberal intellectuals and human rights organizations. Some of his avid supporters even compare his life to Jesus Christ.

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Memory and Memorials

Abraham Lincoln appears on many postage stamps in the United States. His image also appears on two United States currency denominations. His sculpture on Mount Rushmore is certainly a world-class memorial. Furthermore, his other memorials include Ford’s theatre, Peterson House, and Lincoln Memorial.

The United States military greatly honors Lincoln. Many believe him to a symbol of national unity and pride. Two United States navy ships bear his name.

Abraham Lincoln was certainly a legendary American president. Probably everyone believes him to be a global icon of peace. His legacy is a powerful symbol against oppression. Above all, his greatest contribution to mankind is the emancipation of slaves. The forces of evil tried to stop him. However, his legacy became more glorious because of such attempts. Finally, his assassination took place at the hands of evil forces. However, this assassination left him as a national martyr. The name of Abraham Lincoln certainly belongs in the pages of greatness.

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Abraham Lincoln: Life in Brief

When Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860, seven slave states left the Union to form the Confederate States of America, and four more joined when hostilities began between the North and South. A bloody civil war then engulfed the nation as Lincoln vowed to preserve the Union, enforce the laws of the United States, and end the secession. The war lasted for more than four years with a staggering loss of more than 600,000 Americans dead. Midway through the war, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves within the Confederacy and changed the war from a battle to preserve the Union into a battle for freedom. He was the first Republican President, and Union victory ended forever the claim that state sovereignty superseded federal authority. Killed by an assassin's bullet less than a week after the surrender of Confederate forces, Lincoln left the nation a more perfect Union and thereby earned the admiration of most Americans as the country's greatest President.

Born dirt-poor in a log cabin in Kentucky in 1809, Lincoln grew up in frontier Kentucky and Indiana, where he was largely self-educated, with a taste for jokes, hard work, and books. He served for a time as a soldier in the Black Hawk War, taught himself law, and held a seat in the Illinois state legislature as a Whig politician in the 1830s and 1840s. From state politics, he moved to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1847, where he voiced his opposition to the U.S. war with Mexico. In the mid-1850s, Lincoln left the Whig Party to join the new Republican Party. In 1858, he went up against one of the most popular politicians in the nation, Senator Stephen Douglas, in a contest for the U.S. Senate. Lincoln lost that election, but his spectacular performance against Douglas in a series of nationally covered debates made him a contender for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination.

Fighting for Unity and Freedom

In the 1860 campaign for President, Lincoln firmly expressed his opposition to slavery and his determination to limit the expansion of slavery westward into the new territories acquired from Mexico in 1850. His election victory created a crisis for the nation, as many Southern Democrats feared that it would just be a matter of time before Lincoln would move to kill slavery in the South. Rather than face a future in which black people might become free citizens, much of the white South supported secession. This reasoning was based upon the doctrine of states' rights, which placed ultimate sovereignty with the states.

Lincoln vowed to preserve the Union even if it meant war. He eventually raised an army and navy of nearly three million Northern men to face a Southern army of more than two million soldiers. In battles fought from Virginia to California (but mainly in Virginia, in the Mississippi River Valley, and along the border states) a great civil war tore the United States apart. In pursuing victory, Lincoln assumed extralegal powers over the press, declared martial law in areas where no military action justified it, quelled draft riots with armed soldiers, and drafted soldiers to fight for the Union cause. No President in history had ever exerted so much executive authority, but he did so not for personal power but in order to preserve the Union. In 1864, as an example of his limited personal ambitions, Lincoln refused to call off national elections, preferring to hold the election even if he lost the vote rather than destroy the democratic basis upon which he rested his authority. With the electoral support of Union soldiers, many of whom were given short leaves to return home to vote, and thanks to the spectacular victory of Union troops in General Sherman's capture of Atlanta, Lincoln was decisively reelected.

What started as a war to preserve the Union and vindicate democracy became a battle for freedom and a war to end slavery when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January of 1863. Although the Proclamation did not free all slaves in the nation—indeed, no slaves outside of the Confederacy were affected by the Proclamation—it was an important symbolic gesture that identified the Union with freedom and the death of slavery. As part of the Proclamation, Lincoln also urged black males to join the Union forces as soldiers and sailors. By the end of the war, nearly two hundred thousand African Americans had fought for the Union cause, and Lincoln referred to them as indispensable in ensuring Union victory.

Personal Tragedies and Triumphs

While the war raged, Lincoln also suffered great personal anguish over the death of his beloved son and the depressed mental condition of his wife, Mary. The pain of war and personal loss affected him deeply, and he often expressed his anguish by turning to humor and by speaking eloquently about the meaning of the great war which raged across the land. His Gettysburg Address, delivered after the Battle of Gettysburg, as well as his second inaugural in 1865, are acknowledged to be among the great orations in American history.

Almost all historians judge Lincoln as the greatest President in American history because of the way he exercised leadership during the war and because of the impact of that leadership on the moral and political character of the nation. He conceived of his presidential role as unique under the Constitution in times of crisis. Lincoln was convinced that within the branches of government, the presidency alone was empowered not only to uphold the Constitution, but also to preserve, protect, and defend it. In the end, however, Lincoln is measured by his most lasting accomplishments: the preservation of the Union, the vindication of democracy, and the death of slavery—accomplishments achieved by acting "with malice towards none" in the pursuit of a more perfect and equal union.

Michael Burlingame

Professor Emeritus of History Connecticut College

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He had no pretensions whatsoever. He allowed what he believed and the way he said it to be convincing on the evidence. —Lewis Lehrman

For a general introduction to Lincoln, read the first essay, “Lincoln.”

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"In the end you are sure to succeed": Lincoln on Perseverance

By harold holzer.

Politically, this meant opposing slavery and advocating full opportunity: the hope, as he put it once, that “the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance.” [3] Personally, it meant urging friends and relatives to pursue the unfettered path toward upward mobility. “Free labor,” he insisted, “has the inspiration of hope.” [4]

Lincoln occasionally provided such inspiration himself. When a school teacher from Pleasant Plains, Illinois, wrote in 1860 to inquire how best to transform himself into a lawyer, Lincoln’s advice was simple and straightforward: “Work, work, work is the main thing.” [5] Later, as US president, supervising the vast federal bureaucracy, Lincoln discovered that not everyone in government shared his enthusiasm for tireless labor. When asked by a needy mother in October 1861 to supply army jobs for her eager boys, the new president was barely able to contain a newfound cynicism when he obliged with a letter of referral. “Set them at it,” he instructed an army major. “Wanting to work is so rare a merit, that it should be encouraged.” [6]

Lincoln may have been thinking back to the period, ten years earlier, when his own shiftless stepbrother had proposed selling the family’s Illinois homestead and relocating to Missouri. John D. Johnston was guilty of one sin that Lincoln could not pardon: laziness. “If you intend to go to work, there is no better place than right where you are,” he wrote scathingly. “If you do not intend to work, you can not get along any where. Squirming & crawling about from place to place can do no good. . . . you are destitute because you have idled away all your time. . . . Go to work is the only cure for your case.” [7]

Such was precisely the case with—and advice for—George Clayton Latham of Springfield, Illinois, a young man whose aching disappointments and unique relationship with the Lincoln family inspired one of the most rousing personal letters in the entire Lincoln canon. Young Latham was the son of Ohio native Catherine Rue Taber Latham and Kentucky-born Philip C. Latham, one of Springfield’s early settlers. The elder Latham joined the county clerk’s office in 1827, and within eleven years had built a new home in town. His name later appeared as a co-signatory on a notice for the April 1840 election of Springfield Town Trustees, further suggesting his emergence as an important citizen of the new state capital. Son George was born on May 16, 1842.

But then tragedy struck. On May 25, 1844, the elder Latham was hit and killed by lightning near the village of Shawneetown. George and his four brothers and sisters were left fatherless. But not friendless. The Latham house stood only a few blocks from the Lincolns’ Jackson Street dwelling, and George grew close to the Lincolns’ eldest son, Robert. Together, they attended the local Estabrook Academy, then, beginning in 1854, the preparatory school of the new Illinois State University, which held classes in a onetime Presbyterian Church called the Mechanics’ Union.

Robert, who was a year younger than George, took the Harvard University entrance exams in 1859—and failed miserably. To prepare him to take the tests anew his parents sent him off that September to Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire (annual tuition: $24). George Latham joined Robert at Exeter as a fellow student, and the two were soon rooming together at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel B. Clarke (at an additional cost of $2.25 per week). They were allowed to live off campus and study on their own (a reform only recently introduced by the strict faculty) as long as they were securely in their rooms by 7 p.m. It is not known how successful the two boys were at honoring their curfew, but Abraham Lincoln certainly found them as inseparable as ever when he arrived for a visit at the end of February 1860.

Lincoln had been invited east to speak at the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, an appearance that instead blossomed into his celebrated appearance at the Cooper Union in Manhattan. His stunning New York oratorical debut transformed him almost overnight from a western politician into a formidable candidate for the White House. With his round-trip fare already paid by his hosts, Lincoln decided to extend his publicity-generating stay in the East. He headed into New England to deliver additional speeches, and also to visit his son.

At Exeter, Lincoln was re-united on February 29 not only with Robert, but with George Latham. The two teenagers then accompanied Lincoln to Concord and Manchester, where the presidential contender delivered two well-received speeches. The boys were doubtless on the scene as well on March 3 when Lincoln returned to Exeter and spoke at the local Young Men’s Working Club. The next morning, the three worshipped together at a local church. The boys may not have realized it, but they were bearing witness to a political and historical transformation. Within months, Lincoln would win the Republican nomination for President. Meanwhile, Robert would enjoy a triumph of his own: on his second attempt, he passed the rigorous entrance tests and entered Harvard.

Unfortunately, George Latham did not fare as well. He failed the Harvard entrance exams. The younger Lincoln reported the bad news to his father, prompting Lincoln on July 22 to compose the magnificent letter of encouragement that is reproduced here. The mere fact that the busy and preoccupied candidate took time to do so in the midst of his campaign gives the effort particular poignancy. True to tradition, Lincoln did not actively electioneer on his own behalf that summer. He remained in Springfield, but his days were devoted to answering voluminous correspondence and conferring with aides and supporters. At the very time Robert informed his father of George’s bitter disappointment, Lincoln was working to arrange meetings with his onetime rival William H. Seward of New York and his current running mate, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine. Simultaneously, the nominee was struggling to quell a small crisis of false allegations that he had once visited a retrograde “Know-Nothing” lodge in nearby Quincy.

At just this time Lincoln was also under siege by artists who had been sent to Springfield to paint portraits that could be adapted into popular prints. The candidate invariably cooperated with such requests, requiring only that the painters work while he scribbled away at his correspondence. As it happened, on the very day he sat down to write to George Clayton Latham, Lincoln was also posing for Boston artist Thomas M. Johnston. In fact, Johnston was likely observing him at the precise moment Lincoln penned the Latham letter. That same day, Johnston reported home: “I believe no man’s personal appearance has been so variously misrepresented as the Hon. Abraham Lincoln’s. . . . Mr. Lincoln has a fine head and face the expression of which indicates an amiable disposition combined with great force of character.” That “force of character” was much in evidence in Lincoln’s letter to George Latham.

He began it by confiding that he had “scarcely felt greater pain” than on learning of George’s disappointment, but hastened to insist that the young man “allow no feeling of discouragement to seize, and prey upon you.” Surely George would have another opportunity, and when he did, Lincoln declared, “you can not fail, if you resolutely determine that you will not.” Above all, the nominee advised, “having made the attempt, you must succeed in it. ‘ Must ’ is the word.”​​​​​​​ [8] Echoing throughout the letter was that Lincolnian ethic: “Work, work, work is the main thing.” For George, it likely made all the difference.

That fall, Abraham Lincoln won the Presidential election. In February 1861 he left Springfield forever to make the long journey to Washington accompanied by his family—and by George Latham. Robert’s friend traveled all the way to the capital with the Lincolns, and stayed in the White House for a week following the inauguration, before heading back to prep school at Exeter.

Eventually, Latham returned to live in Springfield, where he was reunited with Robert in May 1865 for a heartbreaking event: the martyred President’s funeral and burial. Two years later, Latham married Olive Priest and entered his father-in-law’s shoe business. The Lathams went on to raise three children of their own.

George Latham died in his old hometown on February 1, 1921, at the age of 78, and was buried in the same cemetery where Abraham Lincoln had been interred more than fifty years earlier. Saddened by the loss of his old companion, Robert Lincoln confessed: “With the death of . . . Mr. George Latham, there is not now in Springfield, I feel quite sure, a single one of my old men friends or even acquaintances who might write to me.”

But Robert’s father had written—famously and inspiringly—to George Latham, motivating him beyond a potentially crushing early failure. One of Lincoln’s most accomplished personal letters, this gem of optimistic correspondence testifies as eloquently to Lincoln’s own perseverance, discipline, and uncompromising work ethic as it does to his extraordinary ability to inspire others.

One thing is certain: Lincoln’s words had not been lost on George Latham. The young man took Lincoln’s advice to heart, studied hard, and went on to pass his college entrance exams and enter one of the great American universities. But not Harvard; George Clayton Latham went to Yale.

[1] See Gabor S. Boritt, Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream (Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1978).

[2] Abraham Lincoln, Recommendation, Aug. 15, 1864, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, 9 vols. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953-55), 7: 495.

[3] Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Independence Hall, Life of Abraham Lincoln, by Joseph H. Barret (Cincinnati: Moore, Wilstach & Baldwin, 1865), 838.

[4] Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Free Labor, Sept. 17, 1859, Collected Works , 3: 462.

[5] Abraham Lincoln to John M. Brockman, Sep. 25, 1860, Collected Works , 4: 121.

[6] Abraham Lincoln to George D. Ramsay, Oct. 17, 1861, Collected Works , 4: 556.

[7] Abraham Lincoln to John D. Johnston, Nov. 4, 1851, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, by Ward Hill Lamon (Boston: J.R. Osgood, 1872), 338.

[8] Abraham Lincoln to George C. Latham, July 22, 1860, The Gilder Lehrman Collection, on deposit at the New-York Historical Society, GLC03876; also published in Collected Works, 4: 87.

Harold Holzer is the Jonathan F. Fanton Director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, CUNY. Author of many books on Abraham Lincoln, he received the Lincoln Prize in 2015 for Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion (2014).

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Abraham Lincoln Essay

Abraham Lincoln was an important leader in United States’ history. He was the 16th President of the United States. Born in 1809 in a small log cabin in Kentucky, he grew up helping on his family’s farm. His parents were of low social standing and had little education. Still, Lincoln learned to read and write and became a lawyer, passing the bar exam in 1837. He got married to Mary Todd in 1842. This essay on Abraham Lincoln will help students know about this legendary man. Students can also go through the list of CBSE Essays on different topics to improve their writing skills.

500+ Words Abraham Lincoln Essay

Abraham Lincoln was a tolerant, self-reliant and canny politician. Lincoln was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1846 and moved to Washington to serve his term. He won the Republican nomination and was elected as President of the United States in 1860. He transformed the president’s role as commander in chief and as chief executive into a powerful new position, making the president supreme over both Congress and the courts. Lincoln managed in saving the Union and destroy slavery to define the creation of a more perfect Union in terms of liberty and economic equality.

Abraham Lincoln’s belief in the preservation of the Union strongly influenced the development of the United States of America. He announced his supreme goal of maintaining and perfecting a perpetual Union in his inaugural speech as president. His unyielding position on the preservation of the Union can be seen today as the nation, which is now known as the United States of America and includes the Southern regions that attempted to secede in the 1860s.

Preserving the Union was only one of the accomplishments of Lincoln. In the 1820s, with the rise of expansion and agriculture in the South, slavery increased in America. By the 1860s, Lincoln called for the immediate abolition of slavery. He announced his decision to abolish slavery in the states and formally signed the Emancipation Proclamation. With this law, all slaves in the Confederacy were freed, and later those in the Border States and the Union States were also freed with the institution of the 13th Amendment.

Today, the effects of Lincoln’s work to free slaves are still felt as there is no more slavery in the United States of America. Also, African Americans have worked their way up the ladder and today are seen as equals in American society. Not only have African Americans successfully assimilated, but they also have held important governmental positions, such as President Barack Obama.

Lincoln died at the age of 56 years. He was portrayed to a worshipping public as a self-made man, the liberator of the slaves, and the saviour of the Union. President Lincoln became Father Abraham, a near mythological hero, a “lawgiver” to African Americans, and a “Masterpiece of God” sent to save the Union. His humour was presented as an example of his humanity; his numerous pardons demonstrated his “great soul”; and his sorrowful demeanour reflected the burdens of his lonely journey as the leader of a “blundering and sinful” people.

The Lincoln story is ever fresh. His incredible efforts to preserve the Union, his confrontation with slavery, and his natural leadership still have a lasting impact on the nation today. Lincoln devoted his presidency to preserving the Union and inspiring others with his speeches. He took a strong stance against slavery and succeeded in stopping the expansion of slavery. He took one step forward in the advancement of freedom and rights for African Americans. As Lincoln once said, “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.”

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The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln

By abraham lincoln introduction by allan nevins edited by philip van doren stern, part of modern library classics, category: 19th century u.s. history | classic nonfiction | political figure biographies & memoirs | essays & literary collections.

Jun 13, 2012 | ISBN 9780307816818 | ISBN 9780307816818 --> Buy

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About The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln, the greatest of all American presidents, left us a vast legacy of writings, some of which are among the most famous in our history. Lincoln was a marvelous writer—from the humblest letter to his great speeches, including his inaugural addresses, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Gettysburg Address. His sentences were so memorably crafted that many resonate across the years. “Fourscore and seven years ago,” begins the Gettysburg Address, “our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” In 1940, the prolific author and historian Philip Van Doren Stern produced this volume as a guide to Lincoln’s life through his writings. Stern’s “Life of Abraham Lincoln” is a full biography of the man and includes a detailed chronology. Stern has collected all the essential texts of Lincoln’s public life, from his first public address—a stump speech in New Salem, Illinois, in 1832 for an election he went on to lose—to his last piece of public writing, a pass to a congressman who was to visit the president the day after Lincoln went to Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1865. Some 275 such documents are collected and placed in their historical context. Together with the “Life” and the Introduction, “Lincoln in His Writings,” by noted historian Allan Nevins, they give a full and vivid picture of Abraham Lincoln.

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About Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) was the 16th president of the United States and is regarded as one of America’s greatest heroes. He is best known for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation (1863), which declared slaves free, and for preserving the Union during… More about Abraham Lincoln

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The Modern Library of the World’s Best Books "There was a time when Americans were too near Lincoln to comprehend his full greatness. To a traveler standing near a mountain range many eminences seem to have approximately the same altitude; it is difficult to disengage Everest from his lofty neighbors. But as the range recedes in the distance, the highest peak lifts more and more above its fellows, until it alone fills the horizon. So it has been with Lincoln."–Allan Nevins Includes: "Lincoln in His Writings" by Allan Nevins "The Life of Abraham Lincoln" by Philip Van Doren Stern Chronology of Lincoln’s life 275 original documents, addresses, speeches, letters, and telegrams, placed in their historical context

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Review Essay: How Great Was Lincoln? Two New Biographies

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James M. McPherson. Abraham Lincoln . New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. 88.

Allen C. Guelzo. Lincoln, A Very Short Introduction . New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. 160.

At hand are two small biographies, both by giants of Lincoln scholarship, and from the same publisher in the bicentennial year of Lincoln’s birth. Allen Guelzo’s is subtitled “A Very Short Introduction,” yet it is more than twice the length of James McPherson’s, which could have used a subtitle like “Much Shorter than Guelzo’s.” McPherson, even more than Guelzo, had to grapple with the demon of compression. But for whom should they write? A small book for more advanced readers will differ from one for the beginner in both its inclusions and its exclusions. And it is important to know on what basis the exclusions are made.

McPherson’s book is closer to one intended for the beginner, and its genre is that of traditional political biography. Its narrative is clear, interesting, accurate and, in its judgments, replete with the wisdom of one who has pondered the issues over many years. Lincoln is often criticized for suspending the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War, but McPherson cites the constitutional provision on which he relied and adds Lincoln’s own argument that in a time of rebellion or invasion—by armed force to put down one and repel the other—it is the commander in chief rather than Congress on whom the responsibility for saving the country must rest. In his letter of June 12, 1863, to Erastus Corning, Lincoln explored the issue as thoroughly as it has ever been, asking, “Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert?” Lincoln suspended the writ, detained the wily agitator, and saved the soldier boy for battle (42–44).

Perhaps McPherson’s best chapter deals with the Emancipation Proclamation (unfortunately, the chapters are not numbered) and Lincoln’s strict adherence to the Constitution as he approached that momentous decision (45 ff.). Even while declaring to Horace Greeley that everything he did was to save the Union and that the slavery issue was entirely subservient to that end, Lincoln had decided on emancipation as a military necessity and was already planning the Proclamation. For he did tell Greeley, rather pertly, that he would in fact free all the slaves, or some, or none if it would help save the Union. And from the letter to James C.Conkling afterward (August 26, 1863), where Lincoln takes to task those northern Unionists who opposed the Emancipation, McPherson cites the wonderful passage describing the black Unionist soldier, after victory, when “there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, thay have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while, I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, they have strove to hinder it” (50). And this from Lincoln, the supposed racist!

In treating the Lincoln-Douglas debates, McPherson adds a passage from Lincoln waiving the whole question of racial superiority and inferiority as inconsequential, thereby suggesting that Lincoln’s seeming racism in the debates was in fact a defensive measure necessitated by the violence of Douglas’s demagoguery (20, 21). He is right. Here is the picture he had just painted: Douglas shouts one question after the other to the audience, asking whether they want Negro social equality, intermarriage, citizenship, etc.—views he attributed to Lincoln—and in unison the audience shouts back, No, never! Douglas’s “Black Republican” taunts continued, and only a strong denial of the charges could save Lincoln politically. So what would a politic man do? He must dissimulate. He had to pattern his expressed views on those of the audience. So Lincoln’s responses seem entirely racist and are usually taken that way. But if we read them with care and a modicum of political understanding, we can see that he usually tried to give some indication of his true views, using a little qualification here, a little qualification there, to indicate the possible equality of the races at the very moment that he most flagrantly proclaims their inequality. (A prominent example of this occurs in the first debate, right after Lincoln quotes from his own Peoria address of four years before. Note, among other things, the words “probably” and “perhaps.”) This is a point of some importance and will arise again in connection with Guelzo’s book. It shows how devious the politic Lincoln could be for the sake of ultimate justice, and it helps rebut the crude denigration of the Great Emancipator as a racist, a charge that has poisoned the minds of so many Americans, not least those who once thought they owed their freedom to him.

Throughout, McPherson describes Lincoln’s political situation as he faces one issue after another, while keeping before us his never-changing bedrock principle that slavery is wrong. In his fine conclusion, McPherson credits Union victory with two great accomplishments (62–65): It proved our republican experiment could survive, and by abolishing slavery it brought the country into consistency with the equality of all men asserted and promised by the Declaration of Independence. The case of our republic, we might add, is a special one, since its innovation consisted in establishing a federal union over a very extensive territory, and such a union, combined with the republican spirit of liberty and equality, might readily fall into disunion. For there is a centrifugal force inherent in liberty and equality: Individuals and states want to go their own ways and cannot easily be curbed. It had occurred over the tariff question, and Lincoln saw it himself in the mob violence of his own day. It is what he had in mind at Gettysburg when he asked whether a nation “so conceived and so dedicated” could long endure. The issue of slavery wrenched it apart, and only the North’s superior force on the field of battle, together with the Emancipation, could make any future dissolution of the Union much less likely.

While McPherson might have given more attention to the abolitionists (quite surprisingly, neither volume mentions Frederick Douglass), his sympathetic portrayal of Lincoln’s approach to the problem of slavery suggests a criticism of those who, for the sake of abolishing slavery, were willing to defy the Constitution. Most abolitionists fervently supported John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, but in his Cooper Institute address of February 27, 1860, Lincoln had very harsh words for it. Dissociating himself and the Republican Party from Brown’s effort to “get up a revolt among slaves,” Lincoln said: “That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with the many attempts, related in history, at the assassination of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own execution.”

Lincoln insisted (27, 45) that the right way had to be constitutional, and that meant first stopping slavery’s expansion and then grimly putting up with it until its underpinnings weakened and were legally removed. Since the South would not accept the result of the 1860 election and defend its institutions politically within the Union, the great Civil War commenced. Nor could secession be tolerated, for that would mortally weaken the Union, ensuring, at the same time, that slavery would persist indefinitely within the separated South. McPherson summarizes the First Inaugural address (30, 31), but oddly enough omits its beginning, where Lincoln presents the crucial arguments against secession. As for the conduct of the war, McPherson gives considerable attention to its ups and downs and to Grant’s victorious strategy—independently conceived by Lincoln as moving “at once upon the enemy’s whole line so as to bring into action our great superiority in numbers” (42).

A few quibbles: I wonder about omitting the quarrel in the Illinois legislature over banking that Lincoln, in his Sub-Treasury speech of December 26, 1839, shows he took very seriously. It ends with a peroration expressing a devotion to liberty on his part so limitless, and in words so strong, that many dismiss it as merely hyperbolical, yet this passage affords a priceless, never-to-be-repeated glimpse of his extraordinary soul. McPherson mentions the birth of Lincoln’s four sons (11) while omitting the premature deaths of Eddie and Willie that so afflicted their parents. And when the Reverend Peter Cartright, Lincoln’s rival for Congress, raised a cry against Lincoln in 1846, was it about his failure to join a church, or, much more seriously, about his supposed flat-out infidelity (13)? On the same page, in connection with the Mexican War, the reference to Lincoln’s opposition as a standard Whig stance falls short of conveying the daring vehemence of this freshman congressman’s January 12, 1848, attack on President Polk. Finally, the story of the ghastly assassination that left the country without its peerless pilot would be a bit more complete with some indication of how John Wilkes Booth was able to get so close to the president in the first place and what became of the assassin soon afterward.

Now we turn to a much larger issue. McPherson tells us at the outset (xi) that his object is to capture “the essential events and meaning of Lincoln’s life, without oversimplification or overgeneralization.” And this he does, with one notable exception: He leaves the reader almost completely ignorant of the depth and scope of Lincoln’s intellectual interests and accomplishments. Granted, he could not convey this in detail, but some indication was necessary to avoid the oversimplification he wanted to avoid. What other president, or American, for that matter, has given us such reflections on mob action (the Lyceum speech, 1838), drink (the Temperance speech, 1842), religion and the human mind (the Handbill on Infidelity, 1846), statesmanship (Eulogy of Henry Clay, 1852), human progress (Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions, 1859) and agriculture (Address to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, 1859)?

Lincoln had a mind that probed into the nature of things, a philosophical temperament twin-born with the same rational faculty that made him a great statesman and politician. Testimonials to his intellectual interests and talents, as well as the details of his readings, abound and are presented at length by Guelzo. By all accounts, Lincoln was a most voracious reader. He was studious—McPherson mentions his lifelong love of Shakespeare and Burns (7). He was curious, analytical, and had a fantastic memory. He was a loner, given to solitude (as well as a most convivial companion, when he wanted to be). Much of the research that went into his most important political speeches is strikingly original to this day. His interests included literature, philosophy, mathematics, history, law, political economy, science, and religion, and he produced these extraordinary speeches on many subjects that still, in my judgment, have not lost their philosophical depth or the rhetorical power that was uniquely his. If you agree with this assessment—and not everybody does—if you think the same powers of thought and expression culminating in the Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural were already present in the Cooper Institute, Dred Scott, and Peoria speeches, then the same genius must have been present as well in these other addresses (some contemporaneous with these, some quite early), particularly since their composition was less hurried by political urgency. Join together the fullness of his thought with his deeds and one has to admit that we are talking not only about perhaps the greatest American but about human excellence of the highest order. From this excellence as their source came “the essential events and meaning of Lincoln’s life” that McPherson was intent on capturing.

Guelzo’s book is part of an Oxford University collection of more than two hundred similar volumes on diverse individuals and subjects. Its format makes it much easier to refer to than McPherson’s. It is divided into numerical chapters with titles. It has an index as well as a more extensive bibliography than others in the collection. While physically smaller, its print and page total make it considerably longer than McPherson’s. No one is more knowledgeable about Lincoln and nineteenth-century America than Allen Guelzo, and not many can add to this a comparable knowledge of England and continental Europe. And there is no aspect of life beyond his ken. He is equally at home in describing political, economic, military, and intellectual matters. He writes well, with vivid and memorable turns of phrase. Quite often, new facts are sprinkled in among old standbys. We begin by learning much about Lincoln’s family background and early years, and get a sweeping introduction to the great elements and issues of politics and the significant economic developments of the 1820s and 30s. We meet the main figures and ideas. Like McPherson, Guelzo excels at indicating the difficulties Lincoln had to overcome and not only the principles but the political considerations that shaped his decisions. I particularly liked Guelzo’s treatment of Lincoln’s affiliation with the Whigs in the Illinois legislature (33–37), the details of his law practice (chapter 3), the ramifications of secession (99), and the steps leading up to the Emancipation Proclamation (101). With respect to this last point, Guelzo tells us, in a fine passage, that “. . . restoring the Union was the ultimate means of ending slavery. The Confederates had seceded precisely to avoid being coerced into emancipation, and bringing them back into the Union was the only way to restore the federal jurisdiction that could provide coercion. Without a restored Union, Lincoln had no more power to emancipate the South’s slaves than he had for emancipating Spanish Cuba’s.”

So, the book can serve well as a somewhat more advanced introduction to Lincoln. But it is especially notable for its emphasis on Lincoln’s ideas and the new importance of religion to him during the Civil War. We learn from the introduction that Guelzo’s object is to uncover the real Lincoln, “the man as he really was,” and the real Lincoln was a “man of ideas.” What shaped his “thinking and values?” His friends knew him to be “reticent,” “secretive,” “difficult to understand.” They said he had “intellectual curiosity, “a mind of a metaphysical and philosophical order.” They said he was “always studying into the nature of things” and was “a lover of many philosophical books.” But it is his love and mastery of political economy, Guelzo tells us, that point to “the intellectual and literary axis of English-speaking liberal democracy,” and it is this axis that supplies “a key to understanding Lincoln as he understood himself.” Guelzo mentions particularly works by John Stuart Mill, Henry Carey, Herbert Spencer, and Francis Wayland. The context, therefore, is liberalism, and “liberalism was the political application of the Enlightenment.” It was the philosophy of the rights of man and republican self-rule and begot a new confidence in human progress. It had great spokesmen not only in England but in France and Germany as well. Lincoln comes on the scene in this country to “defend the idea of liberal democracy from its own American despisers.” In short, this book will be “a biography of his ideas.”

Guelzo’s emphasis on Lincoln’s intellectual side certainly distinguishes his book from McPherson’s, as does his viewing of Lincoln as part of a trans-oceanic liberal tide. The intellectual emphasis is most welcome, and it is entirely fitting for an historian to link together movements in different countries that have a similar intellectual background, especially if they interact with each other. But it goes one step beyond this to assert, or give the impression, that Lincoln was conscious of being part of this international movement, and not only thought of himself in terms of it but derived his ideas from nineteenth-century liberal sources, some English, some American, that were part of the “intellectual and literary axis of English-speaking liberal democracy.” In a biography of Lincoln and not just an intellectual history of the period, that additional connection must be established.

We need also to clarify what Guelzo means by calling Lincoln a “man of ideas”—a phrase he uses in the title to another book, Abraham Lincoln as a Man of Ideas . What is a man of ideas? Is he an intellectual—a term Guelzo does not apply to Lincoln here—though he does in that book (13)? Is he a philosopher? Despite all the testimony of contemporaries leaning in that direction, Guelzo never calls him a philosopher. In the same book Guelzo uses Lincoln’s friend, law partner, and biographer, William Herndon as an authority for a different assessment: “Lincoln, for all his intellectual hobbies, ‘was not a speculative man,’ admitted Herndon, and ‘never ran in advance of his age’” (23). In fact, later in the same work Guelzo explicitly denies Lincoln was a philosopher, saying, “He was, after all, a man of practical intellectual application” (83). This hardly seems decisive. We know that some great men—Cicero, Thomas More, Francis Bacon, and Edmund Burke, for example—have combined high-level political activity with philosophical activity. In addition, we know from Lincoln’s own Handbill of 1846 that, contrary to Herndon, he was in fact a speculative man. What other kind of man would have defended something called the “Doctrine of Necessity?” Herndon’s judgment in matters of this kind is hardly to be trusted. And Guelzo’s own reference to Lincoln’s “intellectual hobbies” gives the impression of a certain condescension, as if they are not to be taken seriously and don’t deserve much attention.

At any rate, if we can presume that Guelzo would agree in considering a philosopher someone who thinks deeply, systematically, and independently about the nature of things, he must have concluded that Lincoln fell short of the mark. In fact, Guelzo’s words suggest one way in which he did fall short. If Lincoln defended “the idea of liberal democracy from its own American despisers,” that idea preceded him and was created by others. Those—liberalism’s great (unnamed) pioneers—must be the ones who merit the name philosophers , and Lincoln was not one of them. He inherited their ideas, argued for those ideas, fought for those ideas, but he did not originate them. He may have had the interest, and even the talent, of a philosopher in some respects, but in the American political system in which he was called upon to act, his ideas were those of others. And this may be what Guelzo had in mind by the phrase “practical intellectual application.” He put those ideas into effect.

This may not be the only or best measure of Lincoln’s philosophical accomplishments. After all, he could not help but apply the political philosophy prevailing in his own country, since he thoroughly believed in its principles. But did he do so mechanically or with significant modifications? Was he aware of its shortcomings as well as its virtues? Were there other areas in which his philosophical genius could show itself? And there’s another complication: I have the impression that Lincoln, who Guelzo says defended “the idea of liberal democracy,” never used that term. I don’t remember seeing “liberal democracy” in McPherson’s book either. Lincoln did speak of democracy, republican government, popular government, free government, and constitutional republic, but not of liberal democracy. Through that term, Guelzo unites Lincoln with the European liberalism and Enlightenment to which he traces Lincoln’s ideas. But does Lincoln himself speak of liberalism and its importance to him? Is this the way to understand Lincoln “as he understood himself?” (5). Isn’t it possible that Lincoln understood—or thought it important to regard—American political ideas as American and home-grown? This seems to be the case with a man who once remarked that “he never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence” (Independence Hall speech, February 22, 1861), and who Guelzo himself tells us derived his fundamental political principles from Washington, the founding fathers, and Henry Clay (36).

Just how was Lincoln’s “liberalism” related to the liberalism of England and the continent? Guelzo makes numerous references to European liberalism, but in only a few does it figure as a source of Lincoln’s ideas (5, 48, 98). Nor do any of the references to liberalism come from Lincoln himself. Guelzo traces Lincoln’s vigorous support for the rule of law in his Lyceum speech (1838) to works stressing the need for law by two nineteenth-century thinkers—an Englishman, Herbert Spencer, and an American, Francis Wayland (48). I doubt Lincoln had to learn this from them. Guelzo himself tells us that, preparatory to entering the Illinois bar in 1836, Lincoln had studied the work of an eighteenth-century Englishman, Sir William Blackstone (39), and that work, despite dealing with the laws of England—with its aristocratic monarchy and an established church—had long remained an authority for American lawyers. But even before those studies, Lincoln probably imbibed his belief in the rule of law from the founding fathers, the Constitution, and the republican civic spirit they encouraged. It was in the air Americans breathed. Nor should we forget that the immediate incentives for Lincoln’s Lyceum speech were widespread ravagings and lynchings, which all by themselves have a way of making anyone who isn’t doing them think of the need for law-abidingness. Unfortunately, Guelzo’s adverting to Spencer and Wayland and their latter-day thoughts about law also has the effect of making the Lyceum speech seem much more ordinary than it is. Guelzo introduces the speech well (46–47) and quotes without comment its sensational prescription for promoting the rule of law (the passage is given below), but he stops there. The rest of Lincoln’s thought about the fading memory of the Revolution, the varying grounds for attachment to democracy, the nature of men of the greatest ambition, the demands of lawfulness, and the several things most needed by the republic are omitted. I should add that, so far as I can tell, this reference to Spencer and Wayland is the only one that builds on Guelzo’s initial reference to them, along with Mill and Carey, as parts of “the intellectual and literary axis of English-speaking liberal democracy” that he takes to be the key to “understanding Lincoln as he understood himself” (5). At that point Guelzo had led us to expect from them thoughts not so much about the rule of law as about political economy, which he said was their special link to Lincoln. Unfortunately, I cannot find this link explored further in the book.

A second example of liberalism’s influence on Lincoln occurs in connection with the Union loss at Bull Run (98). Guelzo reports that Lincoln remained calm partly because “he was possessed of liberalism’s secular confidence that the arc of history pointed toward liberty and democracy.” Unless it can be shown that Lincoln actually expressed such confidence, this is mere surmise. The same “secular confidence” might have led him to be sure the Union would win the war, but was he? Did he remain confident and calm as general after general failed him and things got so bad that an emboldened Lee invaded Pennsylvania? Even in the immediate aftermath of the Union victory at Gettysburg, Lincoln expressed no confidence that the war was won or would be won. He ended his great address by asking that “we here highly resolve” that government of, by, and for the people “shall not perish from the earth.” This means that it may in fact perish, perish utterly—that the Union might lose. Moreover, our motivation would be entirely different if we did not think our own efforts were needed to keep it from perishing, and that motivation is crucial to winning. Go into battle thinking you cannot lose and you end up with the French at Agincourt—as Lincoln knew from his Shakespeare.

But the clinchers about whether Lincoln shared the liberal belief in a necessary progress toward liberty and democracy can be found in two other of his speeches. In one of his two lectures on Discoveries and Inventions, just before the Civil War, Lincoln actually makes a study of human inventiveness and human progress in general, culminating in democracy, and shows that his own optimism is qualified and hardly limitless. There are reasons for pessimism, starting with the picture he paints of “Young America,” at the height of technological achievement, as a spoiled selfish adolescent with a penchant for acquiring territory, and including his quaint reference to black slavery as an invention stuck in among other inventions. Much technological and political progress, yes. Inevitable progress, no.

And Lincoln raises the general question of progress more directly in the conclusion to his speech at the Wisconsin State Fair. To encourage the losers in the competitions, he cites the Eastern monarch’s wise men who, asked for a sentiment that was always true, said, “And this too, shall pass away.” After a few reflections in support of this sentiment, Lincoln adds the hope that it isn’t “ quite true” and that “by the best cultivation of the physical world, beneath and around us, and the intellectual and moral worlds within us,” we shall secure a happiness “whose course shall be onward and upward, and which, while the earth endures, shall not pass away.” Note that the vaulting optimism with which he concludes is at best a hopeful qualifier to the pessimism of the wise men, not a sure thing, that it depends on our cultivating the intellectual and moral as well as physical world, and that there is an absolute limit—“while the earth endures”—a portentous phrase that sounds more scientific than religious. From Lincoln’s own speeches this is what we can infer concerning any liberal confidence he had in the “arc of history,” although there may be other places in his writings where he expresses himself more “liberally.”

These criticisms may strike some as merely peripheral, but they go to the heart of Guelzo’s claim for his approach to Lincoln as a “man of ideas” and illustrate a deep difficulty often besetting historians of ideas. Guelzo has attributed to Lincoln ideas from his liberal environment, but, as we have seen, there is some doubt as to whether this attribution is correct. If we want to understand “what shaped Lincoln’s thinking and values,” do we look mainly at external influences, at historical surroundings? Do the times make the man? That it is very difficult to elude the opinions of our own time and place was also Plato’s view: hence the metaphor of the cave, in which we all begin as prisoners. But some can and do escape to see the light, and some are helped to escape by others who already have. These are the philosophers, male and female. So the biographer of a great man, particularly a “man of ideas,” must first try to discover what those ideas are and only then their source, asking how much is original with him and what he owes to others, to books, to travel, etc. But first of all—for which nothing must be allowed to substitute—what are his ideas? In Lincoln’s case, this means studying his speeches and other writings carefully, which is the only way to determine ultimately whether “intellectual” or “philosopher” is the better description. Otherwise, if we look solely or mainly to his time, we can easily attribute to him ideas that are not his and miss those that are.

Yet with the exception of the Lyceum speech, Guelzo ignores most of the same speeches McPherson omits and even some of the better-known political speeches. These are all important embodiments of Lincoln’s thought. The speech Lincoln gave to the Springfield Washingtonian Temperance Society in 1842, the year of his marriage, weighs the idea of temperance as total abstinence, showing its connections with Christianity and drawing parallels between the temperance revolution and the revolution of 1776. It is a marvel of rhetorical irony. The Handbill that Lincoln issued in connection with his campaign for Congress discusses the charge of infidelity levelled against him and shows how cautious he was in his public utterances, particularly on the subject of religion. He tells us he once argued for the Doctrine of Necessity, defined as the view that “the human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest, by some power, over which the mind itself has no control.” How mysterious! Reminds us of Newton’s laws in physics! What is that power? Guelzo mentions Lincoln’s eulogy of Henry Clay, his “beau ideal of a statesman,” but says nothing more about that beautiful tribute (36, 56). Think how rarely the eulogy of a very great man is given by an even greater! That speech allows us to learn Lincoln’s own standard for measuring great statesmanship and great oratory, and indicates not only the things in Clay he admired but also their possible points of difference. Lincoln quotes at length from Clay’s splendid defense of the American Colonization Society in 1827 and its supporting of blacks’ equal right to freedom. Among other things the critics must do to have their way, Clay said: “They must blow out the moral lights around us, and extinguish that greatest torch of all which America represents to a benighted world. . . . They must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the light of reason and the love of liberty. Then, and not till then, when universal darkness and despair prevail, can you perpetuate slavery, and repress all sympathy, and all humane, and benevolent efforts among free men, in behalf of the unhappy portion of our race doomed to bondage.”

The speech on Discoveries and Inventions starts with the Bible and makes a highly original study of speech and writing, considered as inventions, of the democratizing effect of printing, and of the unique role of America. The speech at the Wisconsin State Fair is full of reflections on the civilizing function of fairs, the advantage of intense cultivation of small plots of land, the relationship between labor and capital, and the pleasures of thought that accompany farming. All in all, a most impressive body of work. These speeches of Lincoln are a gold mine, a diamond mine of original thought, ready to be explored to draw an accurate picture of this “man of ideas.” Individual speeches have been subjected to careful study and only rarely, a number of them taken together, as in Lincoln’s Speeches Reconsidered , by John C. Briggs. [1]

Here are two additional examples of vital speeches—very prominent political speeches—Guelzo ignored, and two more where the omissions were much more of a word or a sentence rather than a whole speech, yet still consequential. After giving an excellent summary of the Dred Scott case (73), Guelzo does almost nothing to present Lincoln’s systematic reasoning opposing that decision (June 26, 1857), including his reflection on the kind of deference owed to Supreme Court decisions generally and his analysis of the original meaning of the Declaration of Independence with respect to the black race. The speech includes these famous lines: “Now I protest against that counterfeit logic which concludes that, because I do not want a black woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. I need not have her for either. I can just leave her alone. In some respects she is certainly not my equal; but in her right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands without asking leave of any one else, she is my equal, and the equal of all others.” (Note, in passing, that Lincoln assumes the black woman is living in this country, not Africa, and that her freedom entitles her to have an income and own property.) Another startling omission occurs in connection with Lincoln’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus )—the greatest civil liberties issue posed by the Civil War. Guelzo says much that is relevant and sensible (117) but without providing the constitutional arguments by which Lincoln defended himself against widespread criticism, as in his June 12, 1863, letter to Corning and summarized by McPherson (42–43).

An omission of much more limited scope occurs in connection with the sensitive issue of racism. Having himself raised the question whether Lincoln was a racist, Guelzo makes a very serious admission—that Lincoln harbored “not full-blown white racism” but white racism in a lesser form (59). In evidence of this he cites the following passage (I think from the first debate, but its source is not given): The “physical difference between the white and black races will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.” Now this passage is not quite the same as the one found in the debate. There Lincoln places the word “probably” before the word “forever”—a very minor omission (if I have the right speech), it seems, and I’m sure inadvertent, but it isn’t minor at all. That’s because the word “probably” is one of the little qualifiers Lincoln uses to indicate his true position. Here “probably” means that racial separation may not be forever: it may be temporary, it’s not inevitable—as a strict racist would maintain. Moreover, we must realize that when Lincoln points only to “physical difference” he makes a crucial concession to the equality of the races! The phrase itself—the “physical difference between the white and black races”—draws our attention to the color difference but silently excludes and distracts us from the more significant kind of inequality, that of mind and soul. Racism, fundamentally, presupposes the superiority in these of the white race and the inferiority of the black, not just differences of looks, and that inequality Lincoln drops entirely. So only in appearance, and on the surface, is the passage in question racist. But appearance is not enough to go on when we know Lincoln is addressing a racially prejudiced white audience whose votes he desperately needs. Guelzo makes the point himself when he says that Lincoln was “alarmed whenever his advocacy of natural equality looked like it might be used as a bogeyman to wrap ‘nigger equality’ around him” (59). The alarm did not come from the prospect of that equality but from the fear of having his political hopes dashed by Douglas’s appeals to white racism.

Another curious omission is in Guelzo’s uncited summary (59, 60) of a crucial passage in the Peoria speech, part of a section so important that Lincoln repeated it verbatim in the first debate. (I will skip over the other racially denigrating ideas Guelzo attributes to Lincoln on the same page.) We’ll start with Lincoln himself. This part of the Peoria passage is one of the most instructive in all of Lincoln, but it must be followed step by step, from beginning to end. Lincoln starts by admitting that if “all earthly power” were his, he still would not know what to do with the slaves. He then lists several possibilities. His “first impulse” would be to free all the slaves and send them to Africa, an idea, he says, which has long-run prospects but must fail in the short run. The second is to free them all and “keep them among us as underlings,” but this is hardly better for them. The third is to free them “and make them politically and socially, our equals.” He says his own feelings and those of “the great mass of white people” will not allow this, but he immediately distinguishes between “feelings” and “justice and sound judgment” and thereby calls the feelings into question (Guelzo makes this point on page 60), which still, if they are “universal,” “can not be safely disregarded.” Remember, the option envisaged here is sudden universal emancipation (even though what happened later historically was close to it and hence very difficult to achieve). So this won’t work either. Lincoln adds a fourth and very daring option: “It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the south.” Think about it. Lincoln never rejects this possibility, and he does not couple it with either deportation to Africa or keeping the ex-slaves as “underlings.” In short, the only option left standing at the end is gradual emancipation, with the ultimate prospect of making blacks the political and social equals of whites! The underlying assumption here seems to be that gradually the races can and will get used to each other. So Lincoln begins by saying he has no solution himself and ends by pointing the way to the only possible solution. This doesn’t sound like white racism. Guelzo does mention that Lincoln, along with fellow Whigs, favored a combination of “gradual emancipation” and “colonization,” but that isn’t the option Lincoln presents at the end. And so it isn’t true to say that after considering the third option “Lincoln simply closed his mind to any further speculation and contented himself with regretting the existence of slavery in America in the first place” (60). Not only has Guelzo completely omitted the fourth and most important alternative, he has, by his concluding line, in effect added the charge of intellectual fecklessness to the charge of racism, both quite mistaken. Finally, if Lincoln had any racism in him at all, how are we to explain the friendly, uncondescending equality with which he treated Frederick Douglass, or the tribute to the black soldier in his Conkling letter, or his striving to get Louisiana to make concessions to black suffrage and education in its new constitution? Is it not time to clear this great man of the vile prejudice from which his mind had long before cleared him? Is it not time for the Great Emancipator to make a second and lasting appearance?

Guelzo’s epilogue is somewhat more difficult to understand than McPherson’s conclusion. Referring to Lincoln as the Great American Man, the first achievement with which Guelzo credits him is saving the Union and thereby saving the “single largest incarnation” of liberal democracy itself. He quotes a rather florid passage from Richard Cobden, the British liberal, exulting in the rational and secular basis of American popular government, after which Guelzo adds: “All that might have been lost, in America and everywhere else, had the Confederate secession proved that, in fact, human beings could not cooperate by reason.” But that’s exactly what the Confederate secession did prove: reason was not enough, and the difference in perceived interests was so great that the Union was torn apart and could only be restored by brute force. That was the whole point of the Gettysburg Address. We are engaged in a great war to keep a nation “so conceived and so dedicated” together and to make sure it could endure.

Guelzo couches Lincoln’s second achievement in general terms. By linking liberal politics to free labor, “Lincoln made economic mobility and political equality the joint standard by which democratic government was to be measured in the future.” So the simple greatness of freeing the slaves is not celebrated in and of itself—no doubt because Guelzo had celebrated it so well at the point of its occurrence, saying “it was the greatest act of emancipation in that remarkable century of liberal emancipation, towering over the Reform Bill of 1832 and the repeal of the Corn Laws, over the emancipation of Jews in Prussia, Catholics in Britain, and serfs in Russia” (106).

The third and last achievement with which Guelzo credits Lincoln may be the most interesting of all. It is Lincoln’s correction of the all-out rationalism—the view that human life can be based on reason alone—that Guelzo attributes to liberalism and the Enlightenment. The picture is complicated. Guelzo is certainly correct in saying that Lincoln held the wrongness of slavery to be an absolute transcendent truth, but did he also issue the Emancipation Proclamation as “a humble suppliant of the Divine Will” (106–7)? In his epilogue, Guelzo calls Lincoln a “consistently secular man” (127) who came to discover “by a long and battlesmoke-stained path” that reason was not enough and that liberalism needed a belief in transcendence. This may, he thinks, have been Lincoln’s “most long-lasting achievement”—the realization that “the future of liberal democracy had to conform itself, whether it liked it or not, to the dictates of the justice of God” (128).

As for the insufficiency of reason in meeting the exigencies of political life, that was already a theme of Lincoln’s earliest great speech at the Lyceum. Guelzo himself quotes (without comment) the passage where, for the purpose of avoiding mob violence, Lincoln urges not strengthening reason or appealing to Christian virtue but inculcating reverence for the constitution and the laws (47). Here are his words: “Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap—let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs; —let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly on its altars.” This is undoubtedly the most remarkable passage in American political literature. How seriously Lincoln meant it as a practical matter is hard to say. He calls this reverence a “political religion.” It is to be breathed, taught, written, preached, proclaimed, and enforced. It involves thoroughgoing habituation and inculcation. It must become more active in every facet of life than the old religions then were—in fact, it must become like the old religions used to be, even to the point of being proclaimed and enforced by the state. In many respects it rivals those religions themselves.

This passage proves several things. It shows that the young Lincoln (aged twenty-nine) did not believe reason sufficed politically to prevent lawlessness. It shows his philosophical independence of mind in calling for something the founding fathers had not anticipated. And it shows, as Guelzo says, that he was a “secular man”—a man of reason rather than revelation. In fact, later in the speech, Lincoln tells us that, with the passing of the revolutionary generation, those old “pillars of the temple of liberty,” as he calls them, must be replaced by new pillars, “hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason. Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future defence.—Let those materials be moulded into general intelligence, sound morality, and, in particular, a reverence for the constitution and the laws . . . .”

Paradoxical! We can no longer rely on the passions, not even on individual self-interest. We need a political religion, but the political religion is devised by reason—by “cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason.” This reason must be the kind Lincoln himself possesses, the reason of the philosophical statesman, who can think his way to obeying the laws but realizes that for most people thinking would not be enough to vouchsafe that obedience. For them, habituation from the earliest age is needed to make the reverence and obedience automatic, no doubt supplemented and strengthened in later stages of education by the rational appeal demanded by “general intelligence,” that other new pillar of the “temple of liberty.” So Lincoln not only defies liberalism’s contention that man as such can live on the basis of enlightened reason, but, in this paragraph at least, allows us to infer a drastic inequality between the philosophical statesman and the rest of us—an idea that must be left to inference because such a statesman would immediately recognize that for the sake of democracy itself it is best kept out of sight. Democracy needs superior friends, but they must not proclaim their superiority. That describes Lincoln to a T: the superior friend who always acts as an equal and whose devotion to liberty never ends. It is a type he mentions in the Lyceum speech, where, when liberty is threatened by rampant disorder, its friends may be “too few, and those few too weak, to make their friendship effectual.” [2] Lincoln made his friendship effectual.

The more difficult part of Guelzo’s claim is that Lincoln saw the public need for the belief in divine justice after a long struggle led him to that belief himself. There is no question about Lincoln’s appealing to and encouraging the public belief in God’s justice and bounty, particularly after assuming the presidency. A beautiful example of this occurs in his Thanksgiving Proclamation of October 20, 1864, Yet even here Lincoln does not, as you might expect, make this public expression of gratitude specifically Christian; in fact it sounds more Old Testament than New.

What about his own belief? Guelzo adduces much evidence (105–7, 110, 120–21) from utterances reported by others, Lincoln’s private musings, and above all the Second Inaugural, for his having expressed or developed such a personal belief. And Guelzo knows as well as anyone that Lincoln was not religious for most of his life, which is why he calls him a “consistently secular man.” Even in the Handbill of 1846, in which Lincoln had defended himself against the charge of infidelity, he admitted he was not a member of a Christian church (without saying why), never plainly said he was a believer, and never plainly renounced the presumably anti-religious Doctrine of Necessity for which he had previously argued. For Lincoln to have become a believer during the Civil War—the war itself and the death of his son, Willie, have been given as reasons—he would have had to overcome all the arguments, whatever they were, to which he had once subscribed. It is certainly possible that Lincoln changed, but we would first have to be sure just what it was he changed to and why. None of the statements Guelzo cites would indicate that he embraced Christianity, and the others would have to be examined one by one.

Meanwhile, we must not forget that Lincoln had spent a lifetime concealing his disbelief from all but those closest to him: He was an unbeliever in a sea of believers. And, as the war wore on, it might have become increasingly necessary for political reasons to appeal to Americans in their capacity as believers. Because of such considerations (and prior to undertaking further inquiry), I still put a question mark next to the question of Lincoln’s own final religious beliefs. Guelzo is correct in drawing attention to the new emphasis and voice President Lincoln gave to elements of religion that had the effect of elevating, inspiring, and strengthening American political life. In my judgment Guelzo is also sound in thinking this a good and necessary thing. Yet he might agree that Lincoln’s fundamental political framework remained essentially rational or philosophical rather than religious, even after adding this new emphasis.

Within that rational framework, the Declaration of Independence, with its four references to God, had already supplied a form of transcendence that in the eyes of Americans connects with the Bible, merging “nature’s God”—the Creator and source of equal rights—with the God of miracles and duties. Both parts of that transcendence have been weakened by a corrosive relativism and materialism, and Guelzo’s sense that it requires strengthening is surely right. It is hard to know whether Lincoln ended as a believer or not, but in either case it is apparent that he regarded the religion of the American people not as an evil to be destroyed but as a potential source of strength upon which the wise statesman would draw as needed. All the better for us, perhaps, were he not a believer—to show that appreciating the importance of religion to American democracy is hardly the preserve of believers alone.

Today, conscious of the deep strains among us and the foes we face abroad, our problems seem greater than ever. We have been blessed with one Lincoln: Dare we hope for another?

U.S. Presidents

Abraham lincoln.

16th president of the United States

Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Kentucky on February 12, 1809, to parents who could neither read nor write. He went to school on and off for a total of about a year, but he educated himself by reading borrowed books. When Lincoln was nine years old, his mother died. His father—a carpenter and farmer—remarried and moved his family farther west, eventually settling in Illinois .

As a young adult, Lincoln worked as a flatboat navigator, storekeeper, soldier, surveyor, and postmaster. At age 25 he was elected to the local government in Springfield, Illinois. Once there, he taught himself law, opened a law practice, and earned the nickname "Honest Abe."

He served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives but lost two U.S. Senate races. But the debates he had about the enslavement of people with his 1858 senatorial opponent, Stephen Douglas, helped him win the presidential nomination two years later. (Lincoln opposed the spread of slavery in the United States .) In the four-way presidential race of 1860, Lincoln got more votes than any other candidate.

A NATION DIVIDED

When Lincoln first took office in 1861, the United States was not truly united. The nation had been arguing for years about enslaving people and each state’s right to allow it. Now Northerners and Southerners were close to war. When he became president, Lincoln allowed the enslavement of people to continue in southern states but he outlawed its spread to other existing states and states that might later join the Union.

Southern leaders didn’t agree with this plan and decided to secede, or withdraw, from the nation. Eventually, 11 southern states formed the Confederate States of America to oppose the 23 northern states that remained in the Union. The Civil War officially began on April 12, 1861, at Fort Sumter, South Carolina , when troops from the Confederacy attacked the U.S. fort.

WARTIME PRESIDENCY

Lincoln’s primary goal as president was to hold the country together. For a long time, it didn’t look as if he would succeed. During the early years, the South was winning the war. It wasn’t until the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania during July 1863 that the war turned in favor of the Union.

Through speeches such as the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln encouraged Northerners to keep fighting. In this famous dedication of the battlefield cemetery, he urged citizens to ensure "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." Earlier that same year Lincoln called for the end of the enslavement of people in his Emancipation Proclamation speech.

When the war was nearly over, Lincoln was re-elected in 1864. Civil War victory came on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. Some 750,000 soldiers had died during the four-year conflict.

OTHER ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Seeing the Union successfully through the Civil War was Lincoln’s greatest responsibility, but it wasn’t his only triumph during his presidential years. Together with Congress, he established the Department of Agriculture; supported the development of a transcontinental railroad; enacted the Homestead Act, which opened up land to settlers; and crafted the 13th Amendment, which ended the enslavement of people.

TRAGIC FATE

Less than a week after people celebrated the end the Civil War, the country was mourning yet again. Lincoln became the first president to be assassinated when he was shot on April 14, 1865.

The night he was shot, he and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, were watching a play in Washington, D.C. The entrance to their box seats was poorly guarded, allowing actor John Wilkes Booth to enter. Booth hoped to revive the Confederate cause by killing Lincoln. He shot Lincoln in the back of the head, then fled the theater. He wasn’t caught until two weeks later. He was shot during his eventual capture and died from his wounds.

The wounded and unconscious president was carried to a boardinghouse across the street, where he died the next morning, April 15, 1865. Lincoln’s presidency was tragically cut short, but his contributions to the United States ensured that he would be remembered as one of its most influential presidents.

• The Lincoln family ate at the White House dinner table with their cat.

• Lincoln sometimes kept important documents under the tall black hats he wore.

• Lincoln was taller (at six feet four inches) than any other president.

From the Nat Geo Kids books Our Country's Presidents by Ann Bausum and Weird But True Know-It-All: U.S. Presidents by Brianna Dumont, revised for digital by Avery Hurt 

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Essay on Abraham Lincoln

A person, whose whole life is an inspiration, starting from his education nothing was easy for him, still his belief and his strong determination made things easy for him. A person, who was elected as the President of America, abolished slavery and gave new birth to America.

Short and Long Essays on Abraham Lincoln in English

Read some essays given here and create your own to complete your assignments on the related topic.

Abraham Lincoln Essay 10 Lines (100 – 150 Words)

1) Abraham Lincoln served as the 16 th president of America.

2) It was 12 February 1809 Sunday, when this great leader was born.

3) Nancy Lincoln and Thomas Lincoln were his parents.

4) Being born in a poor family, he faced many difficulties.

5) He faced many failures but never gave up hope.

6) He never went to school but worked hard to educate himself.

7) In 1832, he started his career in politics and faced failure.

8) He worked hard and brought the federal government in America by ending slavery.

9) The life of Abraham Lincoln set inspiration and motivation for everyone.

10) This great leader was killed on 15 April 1865 Saturday.

Essay 1 (250 Words) – Facts about Abraham Lincoln

It was 12 February 1809 when a President was born and his name was Abraham Lincoln. He was the 16th President of America. He ended the American civil war and made people free from slavery. He was a unique person and there is a lot to learn about his life.

Some Facts about His Life

• Abraham was born in a poor family and he also faced many problems but he never complained and always learned from them.
• His father was Thomas Lincoln and mother Nancy Lincoln and both were illiterate.
• He was not only a lawyer he was also a legislator of the State of Illinois and also a member of the US House of Representatives
• He was the first member of the Republican Party to become the President of the United States.
• Lincoln lost many elections and his first election was also a failure but his failures never stopped him.
• It was 1860 when he was elected as the President of the United Nations of America.
• It was his first love Ann Rutledge, but she died of typhoid fever, again he met another woman Owens but she left him. Still, he never lost his hope and finally married Mary Todd and had 4 sons.
• He was killed on 15 April 1865 and slept forever but he will be always alive within us in the form of these thoughts.

“Life is hard but so very beautiful” – Abraham Lincoln

Life is not always unfair it will definitely give you a chance and it is up to you how you take it. So, always be prepared and focus on your skills because a person with strong skills can never be defeated. “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln

Essay 2 (400 Words) – Abraham Lincoln: Life & Carrier

Introduction

A person with lots of courage and knowledge, he changed the world and brought some remarkable changes and he is still alive in our hearts. He was born on 12 February 1809 at Hardin County, Kentucky. His parents were Nancy Lincoln and Thomas Lincoln, he was their second child. It was his grandfather who named him Abraham.

His Early Life

Abraham had two siblings but one of them died just after his birth. Her elder sister Sarah was 2 years older than him. When he was 9 his mother left him, she died due to milk sickness. Then his father married a widow, Sarah Bush Johnston and had 3 children with her. Sarah was a nice lady and she always encouraged Abraham to do what he liked.

Abraham loved to spend his time reading, writing, and other literary works. He was not from a very good background; his father was a poor farmer. He visited school only for a few months and he focused on self-education. He believed in learning and gaining knowledge.

His Carrier

He started helping his father in his teens, he joined two jobs at a time to earn more and help his family. They hardly use to manage their needs so he stepped out for earning. In the year 1930, he with his family moved to Illinois, due to an epidemic. Although he moved with his family, he went alone and built his own house in New Salem, Illinois.

In 1839 he met Mary Todd she was the daughter of Robert Smith Todd a renowned as well as a rich lawyer. He married her and got an inspiration to become a lawyer like his father. Later he took part in the elections and was badly defeated; lack of money, lack of good friends, and lack of proper education were the main reasons behind his defeat.

Later he worked as a caption in Black Hawk War and during his speech he saw his popularity. He won 277 votes out of 300 seats which were not a bad score. He served as a postmaster of New Salem and never stopped his learning. He started reading and writing, simultaneously he wanted to study law. He completed his studies and studied Law. After this, he started his political carrier.

It is not everyone who born with a silver spoon, people struggle, and then they earn either name or wealth. Many famous people had a very tragic and struggling life story but, in the end, they win and their struggles work an inspiration for others. Really Lincoln was an amazing person with strong determination. Although he had a tragic past, we never found him demoralized. There was a time when he lost his children and then he was scattered but his poverty never affected him. His story inspires us and taught us how to deal with our problems.

Essay 3 (500 – 600 Words) – Why Abraham Lincoln is Still Alive Among Us

His name itself carries a positive vibe and does not needs and introduction. A hardworking man with true determination and a curious urge to reform society.

Who Was Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln was the 16th President of America, also ended slavery, and promoted the federal government. Because of these changes, he is still believed to be one of the best presidents of America.

His Birth and Family

Abraham Lincoln was born on 12 February 1809 and his parents were Nancy Lincoln and Thomas Lincoln. They were from an average family and use to manage their food by farming. Abraham was their second child and there was an elder sister Sarah. He also had a younger brother but he died just after his birth.

In the year 1818 Abraham’s mother died due to milk sickness and as a result, they scattered. He was just 9 at that time so, his father married a widow and she had 3 children. All of them started living together and she treated Abraham like his own child.

His Education and Carrier

Abraham never visited the school, once he started and it continued only for a couple of months. But he was fond of studies and decided to educate himself. He used to read books, write poems, books were his all-time favorite. His step-mother always encouraged him for acquiring knowledge. He used to walk miles to get a book and it was his determination and his neighbours also admired him.

He wanted to start his carrier in politics; he also faced slavery many times in his life and was a strong opposer. It was 1832 when for the first time he entered politics and took part in the Illinois General Assembly but he failed and noticed that his education, lack of money and friends were the main reason behind his failure.

Soon in the Black Hawk War he won 277 seats out of 300 and served as New Salem’s postmaster. He never stopped reading and educating himself and his education continued. Soon he became a lawyer and served his best services.

He helped people with no money and use to handle a case in such a way that he soon got famous. He never asked for more money for any of this case. Once a man gave him extra money but he took the required amount and returned the extra money. He was really a great man and it is not a post that makes a person great, it is his personality that makes a post great.

How Lincoln Abolished Slavery?

It was 1860 when entire America was struggling; he was elected as the President of America. Some were in support of slavery and were ready to form another state whereas some opposed it. Whites were the owners of big lands in southern states and they use to bring black people from Africa to work in their farms and use to continue them as their slaves. Whereas people in the northern states were against this and they wanted to abolish slavery.

America was about to part into two parts but Abraham never wanted to do so and he was also strongly against slavery. But his decision could affect a lot of people.

Soon there was a split among people in the North and in South and Abraham was also a part of this war and stated “A Nation cannot exist half free and half slave”. He tried his best to convince people and he won the war. He also stated that the American constitution also based on equality. As a result, the nation united and slavery was no more a part of America. Although, it took many years to digest this fact, but was stated illegal.

It is not so easy to be successful; you have to struggle like an iron in the fire to get a shape. Lincoln faced many problems but he always learned from them. Apart from his son’s death, none of the other problems affected him. He struggled for his studies, for his carrier, for love, for the country, for everything. Still, he never complained to anyone and it really inspires us. Although he was shot dead, he is still alive among us. We can kill a person not his thoughts and words.

FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions

Ans . The birthplace of Abraham Lincoln is the Kentucky state of the USA.

Ans . Abraham Lincoln was practicing as a lawyer before he became the President of the USA.

Ans . Abraham Lincoln was regarded as a hero because he stood up for the injustice against African Americans.

Ans . The cause of the death of Abraham Lincoln was an assassination.

Ans . The last words uttered by Abraham Lincoln were ‘She won’t think anything about it’.

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Inaugural Speech of Abraham Lincoln Essay

Introduction.

In his first inaugural speech, Abraham Lincoln expressed his need to end slavery in most parts of the United States. He declared that he was naturally against slavery. And in his own words he added that if slavery was not being in the wrong then all that they say that is wrong isn’t. Therefore he realized that the fact that he was president, he had power s conferred upon him to act and stop that shameful practice of slavery. He mentioned this both in his emancipation proclamation and in his first inauguration speech in the firs paragraph 1 .

Mr. Lincoln’s inaugural speeches, showed the fact that he had a good way of understanding the general population by comprehending the things in the American relations 2 . From his first inaugural address, in the last paragraph, he told Americans that they are not enemies, but should treat each other as friends. He also added that though their passion may have been damaged by the things that they have been through, that should not be the reason to it split them.

In addition in his second inauguration speech, he talked of what different people thought the civil way would be and its consequences. In the second paragraph, he talked of how all people dreaded the thought of the civil war 3 . He added that while the inauguration address was being given during his first swearing in, most Americans devoted their efforts to save the Union without a war; he described how groups of urgent agents were brought into the city with a mission of destroying the same city, to split the Union and stop the negotiation processes. Even though both sides criticized the war, one side was so determined to go to war than see things go back to normal, while the other opted to accept the war instead of having to watch the Union fall.

Abraham Lincoln was an inspirational leader who aimed at taking advantage of people’s differences to unite them rather than divide them and who wanted people to forgive each other rather than seek revenge. In his second inaugural address, while concluding his speech, he proposed that even though people were still hurting as a result of the effects of the civil war, they should endeavor to work to unify the nation by caring for those who were affected by the war such as orphans and widows. He asked the people to at their best to achieve and treasure a lasting period of peace among themselves and between them and other nations 4 .

In addition he was a selfless leader who values the needs of the people he represented rather those that would gain him. In his first inauguration address in the thirty second paragraph, he reminded the citizens that the way the government was composed and formed people required little derailment of issues and could not stand any leader who used his power for personal gains. In addition he reminded those in power that the people were still watching their actions and any act of wickedness or mischief by those in power would lead to unforgivable by the people while causing a great deal damage to the government structure.

He also said in the thirtieth paragraph of his first inaugural address that the power that the Chief Magistrate possessed came from the people 5 . Therefore he should be the person to act strictly in the basic interest of the people he represented as the people can do this in a way they preferred if they wanted to but because someone was in the position he should as he was required as if he were the people. This should be the norm even for those who come after him.

• Lincoln, A. The Emancipation Speech . USA: 1863.
• Lincoln, A. First Inaugural Address ; Web.
• Lincoln, A. Second Inaugural Address ; Web.
• Lincoln, A. Second Inaugural Address; Web.
• Lincoln, A. First Inaugural Address; Web.
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Inaugural Speech of Abraham Lincoln." March 16, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/inaugural-speech-of-abraham-lincoln/.

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