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Abraham Lincoln's Presidency

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Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States, is viewed by many as one of the greatest presidents in the nation’s history. Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in a one-room log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky. His parents, Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, and only sister, Sarah, played a small role in the early parts of his life. Abraham Lincoln’s father was an illiterate farmer and carpenter who moved the family from rural Kentucky to Indiana when Abraham Lincoln was seven years old. His mother, Nancy Hanks, died when he was only nine years old. Abraham’s father later remarried Sarah Bush Johnston, who provided Abraham with more affection and guidance than his birth mother or his father ever did. Most of his teenage years …show more content…
One of his most important contributions was his victory over the Confederate States in the American Civil War. The Civil War started on April 12, 1861 with a Confederate attack on Fort Sumter. As a result, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to serve in the US Army for a time of ninety days, which provoked the south's challenge to civil war. Following this, more states in the south continued to secede. Lincoln did whatever he felt was necessary to preserve the Union and as a result, he transformed the President's role as commander in chief and as chief executive into a powerful new position. The Civil War also happened to become the bloodiest war in American history. Another factor that helped Lincoln’s presidency be considered successful was his issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation. It stated that all slaves in Confederate or contested areas of the South were free, and it happened to be the most revolutionary measure to ever come from an American President up until that time. This led to his next achievement, which was the promotion of the Thirteenth Amendment, later ratified after his death in 1865. Lincoln pressed for this amendment because it would end slavery everywhere, which was a major factor that started the Civil War. Another of Lincoln’s more memorable events was his Gettysburg Address, which was expressed on the bloodstained battlefield as a ceremony for the dedication of a national cemetery. It happens to be one of the most quoted political speeches in United States history. In fewer than three hundred words, Lincoln was able to address the principles of human equality as seen in the Declaration of Independence and suggested the Civil War was not a struggle for just the Union, but that it was "a new birth of freedom" that would bring true equality to all people. Another less known factor,

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