Abraham Lincoln Speech

We all know Abraham Lincoln he is a major idol in history. I chose to do the cumulating activity on Abraham Lincoln and the book is Father Abraham written by Richard Striner. The book contains an in depth analysis about Lincoln the way he managed to stop slavery and how he overcame all the problems he encountered along the way. The book contained quotes from Lincoln’s original speeches, with explanations, which disclosed many things about Lincoln’s personality and mentality such as,
PAGE 223 "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me." This means he had to do what he had to do to. The book is about as the title suggests his struggle to end slavery but the word relentless makes all the difference, Richard Striner and other historians said there were others who believed slavery should end but after they failed in fighting for it they gave up. Whereas Lincoln never gave up no matter what came in front of him he never stopped fighting for his goal. The book states Lincoln as the great emancipator and that without him the abolishment of slavery would have been impossible. The book is about the whole struggle and all that happened like the civil war the battles in politics and such.
Abraham Lincoln most of us only know that he was the one that freed slaves, but what qualities did he possess that gave him the ability to do what he did. Firstly, he was fair, he wanted equality between the two races and he managed to make them equal in steps, first he made the Negros and the whites socially equal and later near his 2nd election he made them politically equal. Him making the politically equal before his 2nd election showed how intelligent he was. When the 2nd election was approaching the civil war was at its peak and there most of the voters were rebels so Lincoln knew beforehand if he didn’t do anything he would lose. Thus Lincoln made them equal and gave them the right to vote and the black people knowing that Lincoln was the only person who was fighting for them, they voted for Lincoln and he was able to claim victory once again. He was very friendly he interacted with everyone trying to make them understand and make it clearer for everyone that slavery is wrong and should be stopped; he used humor at times to convey his messages to the crowd. He was resilient, even though there were many people trying to stop him achieve his goal he kept continuing and trying hard to accomplish his goal even people from his own party discouraged him to stop fighting for slavery but he never listened to them. THIS IS SOMETHING HE SAID TO HIS AUDIENCE PAGE 106 TELLING THEM TO DO SOMETHING TO STOP SLAVERY. Let us have the faith that right makes might and that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it. Then theres another quote from page 57 that further justifies his attitude towards slavery, “if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”
This leads me on to saying his main goal was to stop slavery. But when the civil war started he also tried very hard to keep the union from not breaking.
As we already know that Lincoln didn’t have a smooth journey to reaching his goals in this book talks about many conflicts and struggles he faced. The first and I think the most difficult challenge for him to overcome was the political battle with Stephen Douglas. Stephen was also a politician who was determined to become president and reform the country the way he wants it he was very similar to Lincoln, they were both great politicians with just one difference. The ideas each of them expressed were contradictory. For example Douglas used to give speeches about how slavery is correct and white supremacy is good all this was opposite to the knowledge Lincoln was spreading. Douglas was the biggest threat to Lincoln because he was very influential and he had a lot of followers, this is the root cause to many of Lincolns struggles later on in his life. Then after Lincoln was able to become president the Douglas followers the “rebels” fought back because they didn’t want to be ruled by Lincoln. This caused the civil war to start up the civil war was a very dark time in American history many lives were lost and there were many problems going on with it for example America also had major conflicts with Britain during the time and as Abraham Lincoln was president he became the person to blame for all this menace. During the civil war many states seceded from the union and slavery started expanding. This gave another challenge for Lincoln since the union was falling apart. The civil war was great conflict because almost every other state was ruled by white rebels and they went again Abraham Lincoln and so the union army was very underpowered. Then during this time Lincoln had made a new rival Lee, he was the head of a rebel army and he was very intelligent with war tactics every time the two groups met the union army lost numerous number of soldiers. Near the end of the war was the time of the elections for presidency Lincoln knew no one was going to vote for him because of the state he brought the country to even though he stopped slavery by then, there were many others who disliked him.
Although Lincoln had to fight through so many problems in life they were all resolved through his actions or with the support of others. As I have mentioned, the first challenge was Douglas and the way Lincoln beat Douglas later on in the election was because Lincoln followed Douglas around the country and after Douglas would give a speech Lincoln would give a speech to the same crowd but expressing his ideas. As slavery started expanding Lincoln used his power to lay laws that stopped the expansion of slavery. Due to the countless numbers of losses faced by the union army there were rapid changes in the leadership. Then, came one who didn’t change, Sheppard, he created the turning point for not only the union army but also America, he made the union army victorious and he then accompanied Lincoln to go around America freeing the states that once seceded. Afterwards Lincoln won the election once again due to his intelligence as I have said, he gave the Negros the ability to vote. After reading the book and reflecting it upon the world today, I have realized that human nature hasn’t changed much. There are still civil wars happening around the world and slavery is still present in many Asian countries. We now notice that the struggles of Abraham Lincoln are still being felt maybe not in America but elsewhere in the world and now we need someone like Abraham Lincoln to stop it once again.
The book was not as enjoyable as I thought it would be because the author talked about slavery, but majority of the time the author explained the little details which weren’t needed. For example the author talked about how the union army attacked how they got attacked and everything that happened he explained it inch by inch. Me from the readers perspective only cared about who was victorious. But then again the writer was able to convey the realism of the war atmosphere very nicely and show the different sides of Lincoln furthermore the author descriptively said how Lincoln acts reflected upon what has happened. Just to show how boring and confusing the book got at times PAGE 252. The civil war approached its conclusion as congress adjourned shermens army of sixty thousand now augmented to the level of ninety thousand by some troops from the Carolina coast was storming through north Carolina. The confederates managed to assemble a force….it was no use if somehow lee could escape from Petersburg swing south join forces with Johnson beat Sherman, face grant perhaps the rebels could have a chance.