Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Many people have contributed to the prosperous country that we live in today, but only one man has brought a country, divided by slavery, back together on better morals and the idea that all men are created equal. The man that we see every day, on the five dollar bill and the penny, is the same man that said, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” Abraham Lincoln was a proud man of our country, the sixteenth president of the United States of America, and a hero who came up from a family that had no concern for his education, and became the man that we know to be inspiring and responsible for holding the Union together and freeing the slaves of the Confederacy.

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 on a small farm in Hodgenville, Kentucky. A farmer from birth, Lincoln barely had any kind of schooling because his father saw no need of a proper education. The only schooling he received as a child was minuscule. “Having received almost no formal education, Lincoln embarked on a quest for learning and self-improvement. He read incessantly, beginning as a youth with the Bible and Shakespeare.”(Foner) As if lack of education wasn’t enough, his childhood was riddled with the deaths of 3 family members. Despite all of these factors, Lincoln became one of the elite presidents of the United States through his hard work and constant perseverance to preserve the Union.

Nothing was more significant in Lincoln’s life than his childhood and lack of education. “Attending school only occasionally and with his father's assumption that the boy would become a farmer and therefore did not need much schooling, the young Lincoln spent a great deal of time out-of-doors at work in the fields.”(Presidential Administration) Although his father did not promote his education, Lincoln managed to learn the essentials of math and reading. He not only taught himself the rudiments of reading and arithmetic, he also taught himself that success can only be achieved through hard work and self determination. “The result of this ''stunning work of self-education'' was the ''intellectual power'' revealed in Lincoln's writings and speeches.”(Foner)

A Nation Divided (www.Google.com/images)

As the president during the time of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was obligated to keeping the Union together no matter what the cost. “In a letter to Horace Greeley, Lincoln stated: If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps save the Union....” (Civil War) Abraham Lincoln was devoted to keeping the country that he deeply loved together, and he believed that freeing the slaves would mark the end of the Civil War.

Abraham Lincoln was a man of priorities. As a child he was exposed to little slavery, but his parent had taught him that slavery was unconstitutional and that all men were created equal. When elected president, the states that seceded from the nation, had done so because of Lincoln's views on slavery. As the Civil War continued Lincoln realized that the only way to end this war and bring the country back together was the Emancipation Proclamation. “During the summer of 1862 Lincoln began to feel that the emancipation of the slaves would be necessary to realizing victory over the South, and on 1 January 1863 he issued the Emancipation Proclamation.”(Civil War) freeing the slaves of the United States of America was always one of the things Lincoln had wanted to do during his presidency. The fact that he did so while holding a nation together is even more heroic.

Despite having a total of a years worth of formal education, Abraham Lincoln rose above the expectations of his father, and became a national hero. He was the sixteenth president who successfully freed the slaves of America and as a result, he reunited the two halves of a divided country. He had become a national hero, a hero that has been immortalized by citizens of the United States forever.