Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 April 15, 1865), American statesman, strategist and 16th president. Lincoln was the first Republican president who led the abolition of black slavery in the United States.

In August 1834, Lincoln was elected to the Illinois Senate as a Whig. In 1856, Lincoln quit the Whig Party and joined the new Republican Party. On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected president of the United States. After the outbreak of the civil war in the United States, Lincoln signed the Homestead Act and promulgated the emancipation declaration, which laid the foundation for the north to win the civil war. On November 8, 1864, Lincoln was re elected president of the United States. On April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated by John booth and died the next morning at the age of 56.

During the outbreak of the civil war in the United States, Lincoln firmly opposed the division of the country. He abolished slavery in the rebellious states, defeated the southern separatist forces, and safeguarded the rights of all people, regardless of race, in the United States and its territory.

In 2006, Abraham Lincoln was named the first of 100 influential figures in the United States by the authoritative American Journal Atlantic Monthly. In 2008, the times ranked 43 US presidents as "the greatest presidents" according to different criteria, and Abraham Lincoln ranked first.

Life of the characters

Early experience

On February 12, 1809, Lincoln was born into a poor family in Harding County, Kentucky. Their parents are descendants of British immigrants, who live by farming and hunting. As a child, Lincoln helped his family move firewood, carry water and do farm work.

In 1816, the Lincoln family moved to the southwest of Indiana to make a living. At the age of nine, Lincoln's 36 year old mother died. A year later, my father married a kind and enlightened woman named Sally bush. The stepmother is kind and hardworking. She treats her husband's ex-wife's children like her own. She is full of love for little Lincoln. Lincoln also respects his stepmother. The family lives in harmony and happiness. Because of his poor family, Lincoln only went to primary school for four months. In order to study, he borrowed books everywhere, and often worked hard in exchange for books and newspapers. If you can't afford a book to practice calligraphy, you can write on a flat wall. He gradually accumulated a lot of knowledge including poetry, law and biography. In addition, he also taught himself geometry.

At the age of 18, Lincoln was hired by a shipowner to sail thousands of miles down the Ohio River to New Orleans. Before the age of 25, Lincoln had no fixed career, in order to maintain his family. He was a ferry worker on the Ohio River, a plantation worker, a shop assistant and a stonecutter. As an adult, because he was proficient in surveying and calculation, he became a local land surveyor and was often asked to solve boundary disputes. After hard work, Lincoln was always a young man who loved reading and often read late. In his youth, Lincoln read all the works of Shakespeare, read American history, and read many historical and literary books.

New to politics

In 1834, Lincoln made his first political speech at a political rally. Because he criticized the slavery system and put forward some suggestions beneficial to the public cause, Lincoln had an influence in the public. In August of the same year, Lincoln, 25, as a Whig, was elected as a congressman of Illinois and was re elected for three terms. At the same time, he managed the country post office and engaged in land surveying.

In 1835, Lincoln's fiancee Anne Rutledge died. Lincoln collapsed and stayed in bed for six months.

In 1836, Lincoln became a lawyer through many years of self-study, and later started a law firm in Springfield. Soon Lincoln became the Whig leader in the state legislature. After several election failures, Lincoln, 37, was elected to the U.S. House of representatives in 1846.

In 1842, Lincoln married Mary Todd.

In 1847, Lincoln, as a representative of the Whig party, participated in the election for members of Congress and won the victory. He came to Washington for the first time. Before and after that, the debate about slavery became a major event in American political life. In this debate, Lincoln gradually became an anti slavery. He believed that slavery should be eliminated in the end. First of all, slavery should be abolished in Washington. On behalf of the interests of the slave owners in the south, the slave owners madly opposed Lincoln's elimination of slavery.

In 1850, the power of American slave owners increased greatly, and Lincoln was forced to give up his status as a congressman and continue to work as a lawyer. In 1856, because of his strong opposition to the expansion of slavery, Lincoln withdrew from the Whig party, joined the newly established Republican Party against slavery, and soon became the main leader of the party.

Elected president

On June 16, 1858, Lincoln delivered the speech of "family dispute" when he ran for president with Douglas. On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected president of the United States, and the Republican Party took power for the first time. Lincoln's election posed a serious threat to the interests of Southern planters. In order to regain their long-term control of national leadership, they launched a rebellion. Eleven southern States withdrew from the union, announced the establishment of the "United States of America", formulated a new constitution and elected a new president.

On March 4, 1861, Lincoln became president of the United States.

On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces shelled Fort Sumter, a federal stronghold in Charleston harbor, South Carolina, opening the civil war. On April 15, Lincoln ordered the conscription of volunteers to fight for the unity of the union, and the civil war broke out.

After the civil war, President Lincoln made a quick decision, which not only expanded the power of the president in the war, but also ordered the suspension of the privilege of habeas corpus in some areas.

Victory in the Civil War

In May 1862, Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, stipulating that each American citizen can get 160 acres of land in the west by paying only $10 registration fee, and become the legal owner of the land after five years of continuous cultivation. This measure fundamentally eliminated the possibility of the slave owners in the South seizing the land in the west, at the same time, it also met the urgent needs of the farmers, and greatly stimulated the enthusiasm of the farmers to fight bravely. In September 1862, Lincoln personally drafted the "emancipation of black slaves declaration (Draft)".

On January 1, 1863, the "emancipation of black slaves declaration" was officially promulgated, which announced the abolition of slavery in the rebel states, and the emancipated slaves could be called to join the federal army. The announcement of the freedom of the slaves fundamentally destroyed the fighting capacity of the southern army and provided the northern army with troops.

In 1863, Lincoln put forward the programmatic slogan of "the people, by the people, and for the people", which made war a mass revolutionary struggle. In April, grant, the commander-in-chief of the federal army, carried out a new offensive plan, first destroying the strongholds around the fort, and then encircling Vicksburg. The Navy also came to assist in the battle, attacking from land and water at the same time, shelling the fortress fiercely. The deafening sound of the guns had been ringing for 47 days. From July 1 to 3, the two sides launched the largest battle since the civil war in Gettysburg, north of Washington. The two sides fought fiercely for three days and three nights. On July 4, the southern army was forced to surrender when they ran out of ammunition and food. The northern army severely damaged the southern army and lost 36000 people. From then on, the northern army began to counter attack, while the southern army had to defend.

Because of Lincoln's outstanding achievements in the American Civil War, on November 8, 1864, Lincoln was re elected president of the United States. On April 3, 1865, Richmond, the rebel capital, was captured. On April 9, the rebel commander-in-chief Robert Edward Lee led the remaining 28000 people to surrender to grant in the village of apomatox. The four-year civil war ended with the victory of the north.

be assassinated

At 10:15 p.m. on April 14, 1865, five days after the surrender of the southern army, Lincoln was watching a play in the presidential box of Ford Theater in Washington. John Wilkes Booth, an actor who sympathized with the south, shot Lincoln in the head when the presidential bodyguard left.

Although Lincoln didn't die immediately after being hit, his wife always encouraged him: "live, you must live!" But on April 15, 1865, at 7 a.m., Abraham Lincoln died at the age of 56. Lincoln was buried in Oak Ridge cemetery on May 4.

Political initiatives

Politics

In the civil war, the center of Lincoln's political strategy was to maintain the unity of the union. In his mind, "the union means a free government, a government of the people, by the people and for the people." He believed that the supreme goal of the civil war was to save the Union and restore the unity of the country. His attitude persisted until the victory of the civil war ended. At the beginning of the civil war, Lincoln avoided slavery. In the middle of the civil war, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Until the end of the civil war, he adopted a tolerant policy towards the southern rebel government and army, which was subordinated to the most fundamental purpose of federal unification. At the beginning of the civil war, the debate between the government and the opposition in the United States focused on whether to abolish slavery or maintain the union. Lincoln and the opposition (radicals and abolitionists) had very different views on this issue. The opposition believed that the slaves in the southern states should be liberated first, and then the rebellion should be put to an end. Lincoln, on the other hand, considered the overall and long-term interests of the country, and considered that maintaining the unity of the union was a primary issue. In his message to Congress on July 4, 1861, he emphasized that "the union is inseparable.". country

Chinese PinYin : Lin Ken