Lincoln :: essays research papers

Abraham Lincoln (pronounced linken) (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865), sometimes called Abe Lincoln and nicknamed Honest Abe, the Rail Splitter and the Great Emancipator, was the 16th President of the United States (1861–1865), and the first president from the Republican Party. Lincoln staunchly opposed the expansion of slavery into federal territories, and his victory in the 1860 presidential election further polarized the nation. Before his inauguration in March of 1861, seven Southern slave states seceded1 from the United States, formed the Confederate States of America, and took control of U.S. forts and other properties within their boundaries. These events soon led to the American Civil War. Lincoln was a master politician who emerged as a wartime leader skilled at balancing competing considerations and at getting rival groups to work together toward a common goal. He personally directed the war effort, which ultimately led the Union forces to victory over the seceding Confederacy. His leadership qualities were evident in his diplomatic handling of the border slave states at the beginning of the fighting, in his defeat of a congressional attempt to reorganize his cabinet in 1862, in his many speeches and writings which helped mobilize and inspire the North, and in his defusing of the peace issue in the 1864 presidential campaign. He is criticised by some for issuing executive orders suspending habeas corpus, imprisoning opposing government officials, and ordering the arrest of several publishers. Lincoln had a lasting influence on U.S. political and social institutions. The most important may have been setting the precedent for greater centralization of powers in the federal government and a weakening of the powers of the individual state governments, although this is disputed as the federal government reverted to its customary weakness after Reconstruction and the modern administrative state would only emerge with the New Deal some seventy years later. Lincoln was also the president who declared Thanksgiving as a national holiday, established the U.S. Department of Agriculture (though not as a Cabinet-level department), revived national banking and banks, and admitted West Virginia and Nevada as states. He also encouraged efforts to expand white settlement in western North America, signing the Homestead Act (1862).