Research Paper on "Life of Abraham Lincoln"

Research Paper 4 pages (1265 words) Sources: 5

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Abraham Lincoln

As it has been described, throughout history, America is the melting pot of the whole world, the New World, seen by the rest of the world as the land of opportunity, the land of the free, the green pastures, and the crossroads where virtually all nationalities and races meet. However, when Abraham Lincoln was alive, this was not the case because most ethnic groups were accepted. In his lifetime, this study would not have been conducted in other countries because almost all the world's countries and their people possess unifying attributes that make them distinct and unmistakable for any other nationality, race, culture and language. However, Lincoln awakened diversity in the United States by freeing slaves. "Lincoln was born on Feb. 12, 1809, in a log cabin in Hardin (now Larue) County, Ky. Indians had killed his grandfather, Lincoln wrote, "when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest" in 1786; this tragedy left his father, Thomas Lincoln, "a wandering laboring boy" who "grew up, literally without education." Thomas, nevertheless, became a skilled carpenter and purchased three farms in Kentucky before the Lincolns left the state. Little is known about Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Abraham had an older sister, Sarah, and a younger brother, Thomas, who died in infancy. In 1816 the Lincolns moved to Indiana, "partly on account of slavery," Abraham recalled, "but chiefly on account of difficulty in land titles in Kentucky." Land ownership was more secure in Indiana because the Land Ordinance of 1785 provided for surveys by the federal government; moreover, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 forbade slavery in the area. Lincoln's parents belonged to a faction of the Baptist church that disapproved of slavery, and this affiliation may account for Abraham's later statement that he was "naturally anti-slavery" and could not remember when he "did not so think, and feel" (Abraham Lincoln 2010). Therefore, Lincoln changed America forever by introducing diversity when freeing the slaves.

Abraham Lincoln

Family had a big influence on Lincoln's behavior as a man and the president of the United States. This is due to the fact when observing, other family members behavior, it is not likely that he picked up the trait but he had a trait similar to the one that they observed (Stability and change in personality types). This could have determined his adult future, which could have had led to a very productive life.

During slavery times, there were many discussions about expanding slavery, which many mixed feelings. For most slave owners, it would have been beneficial to keep slavery in tact. For example, slave owners had incentives to preserve, extend, and safeguard the legal existence of slavery. This was due to the fact that they thought that slavery could be a viable form of economic organization in other sectors. The sectors were mining and railroad building (Grasping Reality with Both Hands: Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal). However, owning a slave was considered as a racist tact, which was going against civil rights. This is one of the reasons why northern voters shifted their votes to not to expand slavery since it was against civil rights to continue it. However, when the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, Lincoln disapproved because he thought continue slavery by expanding places.

Lincoln "was losing interest in politics" when the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by Congress in 1854. This legislation opened lands previously closed to slavery to the possibility of its spread by local option (popular sovereignty); Lincoln viewed the provisions of the act as immoral. Although he was not an abolitionist and thought slavery unassailably protected by the Constitution in states where it already existed, Lincoln also thought that America's founders had put slavery on the way to "ultimate extinction" by preventing its spread to new territories. He saw this… READ MORE

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