The world has had many leaders throughout history but not many fought for the people themselves. It’s a very common question that gets asked often: Who’s the greatest leader of all time? And almost each time the answer remain the same-
The 16th US president, Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln’s early life :
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12th,1809. He spent his early years in a log cabin in rural Kentucky. He was only 9 years old when his mother died. This affected him greatly and put more tension on his already strained relationship with his father. Throughout all these hardships in his life, he decided to make himself a better man. He was self educated. As he grew up he decided to learn law after a term in the Illinois state legislature and passed the bar exam in 1837.
Later he moved to Springfield where he met Merry Todd and they got married in November 1842. He spent his next years practicing law.
His journey to become President:
In 1858,Lincoln decided to run against Stephen Douglas for his seat in the US Senate. He lost the election but gained the nationwide reputation and the attention of the national Republican Party. He later won the party’s nomination for president in 1860.
That time Stephen Douglas was saying that democracy is compatible with slavery. In order to successfully challenge these beliefs he had to undo this idea. Lincoln finally won the election, becoming the 16th US president on March 7, 1861. In his inauguration he spoke against slavery which wasn’t well received by the South. Seven southern states had seceded from the union by then.
Lincoln and the Civil War:
Lincoln’s original goal as president was to hold the country together. After he took office in March, the Confederacy threatened the federal held Fort Sumter in southern Carolina. Lincoln ordered a fleet to resupply the fort, but the Confederates started firing the first shots of the civil war. During the war the US was divided between The Union and the Confederacy. The union or the North was the federal government with the president, Lincoln, as their commander in chief and included 20 free states and 5 border states. The free states prohibited slavery and while slave states allowed slavery, which were the border states, but they did not leave the Union.
In this crisis, Lincoln proved to be a capable leader during the war. On top of everything, his beloved son, William died at the age of 11. He never fully recovered from losing another child. After several Union losses, Confederate General Robert Lee made an attempt to invade the North and then came the bloodiest single battle in American history in 62’.
Emancipation proclamation:
The Union’s victory gave Lincoln the perfect opportunity to announce the Emancipation Proclamation which declared freedom for all slaves in the rebellious states. Thousands of former slaves went on to join the Union army. The battle of Gettysburg, which followed in July 1863, once again ended the Confederacy’s attempts of invading the North. Though slavery didn’t end with the emancipation proclamation. There were still enslaved people in Kentucky, Delaware and Juneteenth.
Re-elected as a president for the 2nd time:
Lincoln was re-elected and in his 2nd inauguration, Lincoln expressed the need to reconstruct the South and rebuild the Union. He later submitted a proposal amendment to the constitution that would abolish slavery for the entire US. This became the 13th Amendment and was passed in January, 1865. After 4 years of continuous fighting, Confederate General Robert Lee surrendered to Union General on April 9, 1965 and thus ended the American Civil War.
The assassination of Abraham Lincoln :
After a couple days, Lincoln with some of his companions was watching a show at Ford’s theater.
There John Wilkes Booth and his partner came up behind Lincoln, who was laughing historically in reaction to the show, and shot him in the head, at point blank range. After going into a coma for 8 hours, Lincoln died the next morning. The world lost a great leader and he was only 56.
The 44th US president Barack Obama said – “He was not just ahead of his time in terms of vision, but he helped to drag the country in a new direction.”
Lincoln had hoped that he could accomplish something worthy so that he would be remembered after he died. But Lincoln did not live through to see his story being told to generations after generations. The world will forever be grateful to this wonderful human being, the greatest inspiration to all the leaders to come.
To read more blogs click here.
Writer
Farzana Binte Rahman Meem
Intern
Content Writing Department
YSSE.