Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln he was the 16th president of the United States, taking office in 1861. His government was marked by the American Civil War, a conflict between the northern and southern states of the United States over the issue of the expansion of slavery. He proclaimed the abolition of slave labor in his country and was assassinated in 1865 by a former Confederate.

Access also :March to the West:US Territorial Expansion

Youth

Abraham Lincoln was born on a farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky, United States, on February 12, 1809 . He was the second child of the couple formed by Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hawks Lincoln. The couple also had two other children, Sarah and Thomas.

Lincoln's family owned about 81 hectares of land in Kentucky, where they made their living, but a legal imbroglio caused Thomas Lincoln, Abraham's father, to lose all his land. For that reason, Lincoln's familys and changed for the state of Indiana , in 1816, where Abraham's father exercised different trades to support the family.

Another important factor in Abraham's childhood was the death of his mother , in 1818, in the place where they resided, the Little Pigeon Creek Community. Lincoln's mother is believed to have died of "milk sickness", a disease that is caused by consuming milk or beef contaminated with a toxin.

After the death of his wife, Lincoln's father married Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow with three children from his first marriage. Abraham and Sarah's relationship was very good and she encouraged the young man to read. Throughout his youth, Abraham had very limited access to formal education.

Adult life

Accounts of Abraham Lincoln's life say that he did not appreciate the manual labor of the farm and preferred to read and study. Still, he helped his father in the fields and his first formal job was on a ferry. In 1831 he decided to move to the city of New Salem, where he worked as a shopkeeper, postal agent and even surveyor.

In 1832, he voluntarily enlisted in the army to participate in the Black Hawk War , a war between Native Americans and American citizens for control of land. He led a company of soldiers, but he never saw combat. For his services, he received a land guarantee from the government.

Political career

Before enlisting, Lincoln expressed a desire to enter politics, while trying to become a representative at the Illinois General Assembly. To be elected, he needed to be in the top four (out of a total of 13 candidates), but he came in eighth.

In 1834, he sought to run for office in the Illinois House of Representatives (Illinois House of Representatives, in a free translation). Lincoln ran for the Whig Party, was elected, and remained a representative in that political institution from 1834 to 1842. During this period, he also devoted his time to law school.

In the 1840s, Lincoln sought a seat in the United States House of Representatives , located in Washington, the capital. He served a two-year term, from 1847 to 1849. During his term, he expressed his opposition to the country's involvement in a war against Mexico, the Mexican-American War.

Login also :Do you know how the president of the United States is elected?

Lincoln in presidency

After his term in the House, Lincoln devoted himself to the law for much of the 1850s. That decade was also marked by escalating tensions in the United States. in reason of question abolitionist . The big debate was about the expansion of slavery into new territories conquered and purchased by the United States.

Lincoln, like many, was contrary to expansion of slavery to the new territories and argued that, if not abolished, slavery should remain confined to the southern states. In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed and determined that colonists would have the right to decide whether or not to use slaves in the new territories.

The passage of this law intensified the tempers between slaveholders and abolitionists and split the Whig, the party of which Lincoln was a part. A new party emerged from this rift:the Republican Party. In this context, Lincoln was one of the great names for that party, being nominated to run for a seat in the Senate against Stephen Douglas, one of his most notorious political opponents.

Lincoln's contest against Douglas, which was for the state seat of Illinois, took place between 1858 and 1859, and Lincoln was defeated. The following year, 1860, Lincoln and Douglas again found themselves in a political dispute, but what was at stake this time was the position of President of the United States.

In addition to Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln faced John Breckinridge and John Bell. The issue of slavery was a central issue in the dispute by presidency — remembering that, in this context, the North was abolitionist and the South was a slaveholder. Both were racist, but the Northerners defended the right to freedom of African Americans.

The Democrats' votes were split between John Breckinridge and Stephen Douglas, which allowed Abraham Lincoln to win. He obtained 40% of votes , being the most voted, and conquered 180 of the 303 votes of C olégio E reader , the criterion that determines the winner in the US presidential election.

Lincoln's victory displeased a the southerners , who saw him as a radical abolitionist. However, Lincoln's position was ambiguous, according to historians Luiz Estevam Fernandes and Marcus Vinícius de Morais, as he did not advocate actions to propose the end of slavery in the southern United States. For this reason, they claim that Lincoln was an anti-slavery but not an abolitionist|1| .

Lincoln's election sparked a major conflict, for the southerners would not accept his victory. This is because Lincoln was against the expansion of slavery into new territories (the new lands of the United States). Southerners argued that, without the expansion of slavery, they would opt for secession, that is, to abandon the Union that formed the United States, while Lincoln guaranteed to respond militarily to anyone who decided to secede.

American Civil War

The southern states didn't back down and in 1861, South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas nullified the United States Constitution, declared their secession (separation) and formed the Confederate States of America, electing a new president. In April 1861, a fort occupied by Union troops was attacked on North Caroline.

This act marked the beginning of the American Civil War , also known as War from Secession , a conflict that lasted from 1861 to 1865, causing the death of 600,000 people. Lincoln's response to the North Carolina attack was to send 80,000 troops to the southern United States.

The conflict was much longer than the northerners imagined, but the lack of resources weakened the southerners and limited their strength in the war. Lincoln even established a siege in the southern United States, contributing to the region's shortage. Slave escapes in the south also contributed greatly to the success of the northerners.

In order to further weaken Southerners and ensure more popularity, Lincoln enacted, on January 1, 1863, the Slave Emancipation Act . The victory of the Northerners in 1865 sealed the abolition of slave labor in the United States, when the Thirteenth Constitutional Amendment was enacted. .

One of the most defining moments in Lincoln's career was the speech he gave just before the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. In that speech, Lincoln put the civil war as a dispute in defense of democracy in the United States.

Login also :Ku Klux Klan — the terrorist organization that emerged after the end of the American Civil War

Last years

With the victory in the war, Lincoln tried to reunite the North American territory . At that time, the US president was already in his second term, won by the electoral victory of 1864, when he defeated the Democrat George B. McClellan. Lincoln's stance was to promote reunification in a conciliatory manner.

The southern states' reintegration proposals caused some friction between Lincoln and the US Congress, since the president had moderate proposals, while congressmen had tough demands to reinstate the political rights of southern states. This process of reintegrating southerners into the Union became known as “Reconstruction”.

The United States was still divided, and the great sign of that was the assassination of Abraham Lincoln . On April 14, 1865 , the American president was watching a play in Washington, when his cabin was invaded by a man, who shot the president in the head. Abraham Lincoln died the next day, April 15, from gunshot wounds.

The President Killer North American was John Wilkes Booth , an actor and Confederate supporter who even acted as a spy during the war. In 1864, he had conceived a plan to kidnap the president, but the plan was abandoned. In 1865, he was part of a plot to kill Lincoln and was successful.

Booth was found days later on a farm in the state of Virginia. He resisted arrest and, as a result, was shot, dying on the spot. Eight people were arrested in connection with the president's death :four were hanged; three, sentenced to life imprisonment, and one, to six years in prison. Even today Abraham Lincoln is considered one of the great presidents of the United States.

Notes

|1| FERNANDES, Luiz Estevam and MORAIS, Marcus Vinícius de. The USA in the 19th century. In.:KARNAL, Leandro (org.). United States History. São Paulo:Context, 2018, p. 130-132.

Image credits