Slavery is unheard of in the U.S. today, but during our nation’s earliest days, it was a huge issue. Slavery was completely abolished in the United States after the Civil War on December 6, 1865. This was all thanks to one of our nation’s greatest presidents and leaders, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was a great president that believed in what was right and did everything he could to get rid of slavery. After he led the North to victory in the Civil War, he put the Emancipation Proclamation into place that set all the slaves being held in the United States free. We need to remember Abraham Lincoln for all the great things he did for our country especially fighting to end all slavery in our nation and wanting equality among all people.
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in Hardon County, Kentucky. When Abraham was two, Thomas Lincoln, Abraham’s father, moved his family to a bigger farm in Knob Creek, Kentucky. Since the Lincolns lived in a slave state, Abraham was exposed to slavery at a very young age. This was also due to the fact that some of Abraham’s closest relatives on his mother’s side owned slaves. Unfortunately when Abraham was two, his family lost both their farms in Kentucky due to poor record keeping of the land grants in Kentucky, so Thomas Lincoln decided to secure land in Indiana to move his family. There Abraham spent the majority of his childhood in a smaller Pigeon Creek community right on the Ohio River.
Even though Abraham was considered a farm boy, he didn’t show it. Instead of not getting much of an education and staying on the farm all day, Abraham tried to find anything he could to educate himself on. Abraham didn’t want to do what his father did. He had dreams of doing something big, and he knew he must have an education to get there. Abraham’s stepmother supported these dreams and did everything she could to help him. As Abraham grew up he started taking on various jobs such as chopping wood, taking supplies down to New Orleans on a flatboat, and becoming a store clerk. After these jobs all died out he decided to move to New Salem, Illinois to pursue becoming a lawyer due to his deep interest in law.
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Abraham’s political career started off by him announcing he was going to run for political office by becoming a candidate for the Illinois House of Representatives. Lincoln sold himself to the voters by talking about his humble upbringing and asking for support. Although Lincoln was pursuing a career in politics, he ran into financial trouble after he finally lost his job as a store clerk. Soon after, he knew he had to find a way to make money somehow to support himself and his career, so he decided to join the Illinois militia to fight in the Black Hawk War. Even though this was a very important time for Lincoln and it taught him many things, it caused him to miss out on his campaigning time and he ended up losing the election.
Lincoln still had confidence in himself to run to win office, but in the meantime he had to find a way to make a living. After going through a few jobs, Lincoln ran for the state legislature for the second time and came in second out of thirteen. This gave him one of the four seats on the board. During this time Lincoln also joined a very successful law firm that was run by John Stuart. One of Lincoln’s biggest accomplishments on the state legislature was getting the capital of Illinois moved from Vandalia to Springfield. Lincoln had the opportunity to run for state governor twice but he turned it down.
For a few years Lincoln continued to be very successful as a lawyer, but grew tired of politics and didn’t run for any major political positions due to him spending time with his wife, Mary Todd, and his four children Thomas “Tad”, Robert, William, and Edward.
Finally on May 30, 1854, the passage of the Kansas Nebraska Act brought Lincoln back into the political scene. In 1856, Lincoln continued to help expand the new political party he took part in, the Republican party, and they held the first ever Republican National Convention in Chicago. In 1858, Lincoln’s big political breakthrough came while he was running for senate against Douglas. Douglas was the previous senator before and was well known, so Lincoln knew he would have to get his name out there and have more people get to know him for any chance at winning the race. He did this by challenging Douglas to go on a debate tour about slavery around seven cities in Illinois. The seven meetings became very popular back then and were known as the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. Although in the end Lincoln ended up losing the race and he was disappointed, this gave Lincoln lots of publicity and many more supporters that would end up playing a huge advantage in his presidency a few years later.
As a year went by, in 1858, people of the Republican party saw Lincoln as a potential candidate for vice president or even president. Lincoln did not see himself as having enough national publicity to take on this big task. In 1860 this all changed when he was given the chance to speak at Cooper Union, which was a very prestigious school in New York City. Lincoln took full advantage of this opportunity and left the crowd stunned with how good his speech was. This gave Lincoln lots of national prominence and he went on to win the 1860 presidential election. On March 4, 1861 Lincoln took the oath of office and he knew he must get started right away. Shortly into Lincoln’s presidential term on April 9th, 1861 the Civil War had officially started.
Once Lincoln and the Union army had the upper hand in the war, Lincoln released his draft of the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22nd, 1862 and officially signed it on January 1st, 1863. Lincoln knew in order for the Emancipation Proclamation to have any power and effect on the slave states he must win the war to regain those southern states so this raised the stakes of the war a lot. On July 1st, 1863 what was supposed to be a small battle at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania turned into a huge battle that ended up being the turning point of the war. On November 4th, 1864 Lincoln was elected as president for his second term. Finally on April 9th, 1865 the Confederates surrendered ending the war and the Union was saved.
Five days after winning the war, Lincoln had a few celebratory events for him and his wife to attend. This included a breakfast at the White House, a carriage ride, and going to Ford’s Theatre to see a play. Lincoln knew the danger of going to public places, but vowed to never let that affect how he lived his life. As he and his wife were watching the play, a man by the name of John Wilkes Booth was let into the presidential box and snuck up on Lincolns. Around 10:15 pm, ,Booth shot Abraham in the head. After he was shot, people rushed Abraham to a boarding house across the street where he could receive care. The next morning, on April 16th, 1864, Abraham died at the age of 56.
On April 19th, 1864 Abraham’s funeral was held in the White house and shortly after the family took him to Springfield Illinois for burial.
Lincoln was a noble man that did many great things for this country always doing what he believed was right. His biggest accomplishment was winning back the Confederate states in the Civil War and abolishing all slavery in the United States. This paved the way for equality among all people in our nation, and without Abraham Lincoln, our country would be a very different place. Lincoln’s belief in doing what is right is ultimately what got him killed, and we have much to thank him for. Lincoln has been remembered ever since and will continue to be remembered forever.
