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Abraham Lincoln's Legacy

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Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States and is regarded as one of America’s greatest heroes due to both his incredible impact on the nation and his unique appeal. He rose from humble beginnings to achieve the highest office in government. Lincoln’s distinctively humane personality and historical role as savior of the Union and emancipator of the slaves created a legacy that endures. His eloquence of Democracy and insistence that the Union was worth saving embody the ideals of self-government that all nations strive to achieve.
He was born in Hardin County, Kentucky to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Lincoln and his family moved from place to place due to a land dispute in 1817 when they moved from Kentucky to Perry …show more content…
Young Abraham eventually migrated to the small community of New Salem, Illinois, where he eventually volunteered as a soldier when the Black Hawk War broke out in 1832 between the United States and Native Americans. After the war, Abraham Lincoln began his political career and was elected to the state legislature, in 1834, as a member of the Whig Party. He supported the Whig politics of government-sponsored infrastructure and protective tariffs. This political understanding led him to formulate his early views on slavery. Around 1837 he met and became involved with Anne Rutledge, and before they even had a chance to be engaged, a wave of typhoid fever came over New Salem and Anne died at age 22. Her death left Abraham Lincoln severely depressed. In 1844 Lincoln partnered with William Herndon in the practice of law, and by 1847 to 1849 he served a single term in the U.S. House of Representatives. On 22 December 1847 Lincoln introduced "spot resolutions" calling for information on the exact "spot of soil" on which Mexicans shed American blood to start the war, implying that this spot was actually Mexican soil. Lincoln also voted several times for the Wilmot Proviso, declaring that slavery should be …show more content…
Lincoln was not happy with the slavery situation and when the Kansas-Nebraska Act, rammed through Congress under the leadership of Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas (an old acquaintance of Lincoln), revoked the ban on slavery in the Louisiana Purchase territory. This repeal of a crucial part of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 opened Kansas Territory to slavery, he was not going to allow slavery in his hometown. It incited several years of civil war between proslavery and antislavery forces in Kansas, which became a prelude to the national Civil War that erupted seven years later, and it gave birth to the Republican Party, whose principal plank was exclusion of slavery from the territories. In 1857, the Supreme Court issued its controversial decision Scott v. Sanford, declaring African Americans were not citizens and had no inherent rights. Abraham Lincoln felt African Americans were not equal to whites, but he believed that the American founders intended that all men were created with certain inalienable rights. He decided to challenge sitting U.S. Senator Stephen

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