Early career
Lincoln was born in Kentucky, USA on February 1809. His parents are uneducated farmers and belong to a church that opposes slavery. He was influenced by this emotion when he was young. Lincoln's father used his savings to buy land twice, but was forced to give up his ownership because of the failure of relevant legal proceedings, and moved to Indiana in 18 15. This experience inspired Lincoln to study land surveying and become a lawyer in the future.
Lincoln lost his mother when he was nine years old, and his family moved to Illinois on 1830. Lincoln received only 18 months of informal education and became a lawyer through diligent self-study at 1836.
Life in Lincoln's youth was not always smooth. He was fired eleven times by his employer, failed in business twice, and suffered the loss of his wife.
go into/enter politics
When Lincoln was a child, when he was studying in his room, his sister told him that there was a turkey outside the room. Lincoln immediately told his father that his father said a classic sentence, "I didn't expect to hunt at home" and asked Lincoln to get a shotgun and go hunting, which affected Lincoln's life.
1830, when Lincoln was 22 years old, he ran a grocery store with his partner Bailey. Because Bailey has been drinking, Lincoln has been reading, and he can't even buy things. Soon Bailey died quietly because of drinking all night.
1832, Lincoln began to set foot in politics at the age of 23 and was elected as a state senator. At the same time, he is the captain of the state militia company.
184 1 year, his law firm opened in Springfield, Illinois. In the 1850 s, a lawsuit broke out between the railway and river transportation companies, and Lincoln won the lawsuit in the state supreme court on behalf of the railway company. In a murder lawsuit in 1858, the prosecution witness claimed to see the defendant's face in the moonlight; As a defense lawyer, Lincoln used the way of "judicial announcement"-that is, taking common sense of life as evidence without providing other witnesses and physical evidence, and successfully proved that at the moment claimed by witnesses, according to the calendar, the moon just appeared on the horizon, and it was impossible for witnesses to distinguish people's faces by moonlight, so the prosecution evidence was overturned. This kind of defense was very rare at that time, and Lincoln was famous all over the country for this case.
Lincoln was elected as the representative of the United States. With regard to slavery, there were two systems in the United States at that time-the southern States with cotton and tobacco cultivation as their economic pillars could legally keep slaves, while the northern States prohibited slavery. Then, there are two views on the legal status of slavery in the new territory that wants to join the Federation. 1854, Stephen Douglas, a heavyweight member of the federal Senate and a Democrat from Illinois, published kansas-nebraska act, that is, people in a democratic system have the right to decide the legality of slavery independently. But Lincoln thought that the new territory must be a free state. To this end, he made a famous speech:
"A divided family cannot last, nor can a semi-slave and semi-free government last. I don't want the alliance to break up just as I don't want my family to break up, so I really hope it won't break up again. The state will adopt a system, either one or the other. "
Lincoln opposed slavery, but he was not a complete abolitionist. 186 1 the civil war that broke out in 2000 completely changed his view on slavery.
1860 presidential election
1854, the people who advocated the abolition and restriction of slavery in the northern States established the * * * and Party. 1860, Lincoln ran for president on behalf of * * * and the party, which was supported by the northern States, but his name never appeared on the votes of nine slave-holding States in the south. 1860165438+1On October 6, Lincoln defeated the Democratic candidate Stephen Douglas and was elected as the sixteenth president of the United States. His victory became the last straw to crush the south. After Douglas lost the election, he ran around the States, calling on the people to support Lincoln and safeguard the unity of the union.
the Civil War
1860 during the presidential election, with the increasing possibility of Lincoln's election, separatists in the south began to seek division. /kloc-in the winter of 0/860, seven southern cotton-producing states, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, declared the establishment of the United States (or "Confederacy"), but both President james buchanan and President-elect Lincoln refused to recognize the Confederacy. When Lincoln was sworn in, the Confederacy was a fait accompli, and the states that left the Union refused to return to the Union under any conditions.
186 1 In April, 2008, the South Carolina army attacked the Fort Santer, where the federal troops were stationed in the state, and fired the first shot of the Civil War. Lincoln immediately called a meeting of governors and sent 75,000 soldiers to retake the fortress. Subsequently, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas, which remained neutral, fell to the Confederacy.
1862 In July, Congress passed the second confiscation bill, releasing all slaves, but it did not abolish slavery from the constitution. The purpose of the bill is to crack down on rebel states controlled by slave owners. Lincoln opposed slavery as morally evil and violated the principle that all men are created equal in the Declaration of Independence. Before the Confederacy seceded from the Union, Lincoln only opposed the extension of slavery to the newly incorporated territory, which was the power of the federal legislature. However, Congress has no constitutional authority to abolish the existing slavery in the southern states. Therefore, between 186 1 and 1862, Lincoln claimed that the north was fighting for the union. The abolitionists were critical of his position.
1On September 22nd, 862, Lincoln published the The Emancipation Proclamation, which took a big step on the road of abolishing slavery and directly gave birth to the 13th Amendment to the American Constitution. This declaration clearly defined the goal of war as the abolition of slavery. He later said: "In my life, I am sure that I have never made a more correct decision than signing this declaration."
After several failures of the Union Army, Lincoln appointed hiram ulysses grant as Commander-in-Chief, thus turning the tide. 1864, Lincoln authorized Grant to take scorched-earth tactics, so as to blow the morale of the south and maintain the economic ability of the war. General William tecumseh Sherman's troops set fire to many farms and towns on their way from Atlanta to the coast of South Carolina, causing great property losses and long-term mental trauma to the people in the South.
When the war was going on, Lincoln always devoted himself to reconciliation and reunification of the country. He provided quite generous conditions for the southern region of the front line to stand for election. Radicals and party members in Congress refused to recognize the congressional seats elected by Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee during the war, but Lincoln vetoed the relevant bills. Re-elected in the presidential election of 1864. 1On April 4, 865, Lincoln, accompanied by several attendants and the French ambassador, entered Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, which had been occupied by federal troops. At the welcoming ceremony, he invited the military band to play the Confederate national anthem.
1on April 9, 865, robert lee, commander-in-chief of the confederate army, surrendered and the civil war ended.
Be attacked by an assassin
1865 On April 4th, Lincoln was assassinated by john weeks Booth, a supporter of slavery and actor, while watching a play in the theater, and died the next morning.
Physical and mental defects
Lincoln's appearance is often attacked by political opponents, and even the famous writer Hawthorne calls it ugly. Scientists scanned two plaster models of Lincoln's face with laser and found that Lincoln had symptoms of hemifacial disease. When Lincoln's left eye moves upward, his right eye will not move at all, that is, squint. Lincoln's left orbit is smaller than his right orbit, which leads to the displacement of the muscles that control the vertical movement of the eyes. Gezen Borglum, the sculptor of the Atlanta Presidential Mount, thinks Lincoln's left face is not mature enough.
Lincoln's masks, one made of bronze and the other made of plastic, are now kept in the Chicago Museum of History.
In addition, doctors and modern scientists at that time found that Lincoln suffered from smallpox, heart disease and depression.
Spiritual heritage
Lincoln was buried in his hometown of Springfield, Illinois. His wife and children were later buried here. So far, Illinois's motor vehicle license plate calls itself "Lincoln's Land".
Historians call Washington the father of the country and Lincoln the savior of the country. In the United States, the third Monday in February every year is "President's Day" to commemorate these two great leaders.
Although he did not receive a profound education, Lincoln had excellent eloquence and literary talent, which was directly reflected in the famous Gettysburg Address. The last sentence became one of the definitions of modern democratic government:
Let our country be free and immortal under God's blessing, and let this government of the people, by the people and for the people last forever.
Religious attitude
Lincoln's attitude towards Christianity: "The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my belief. I can never agree with the long and complicated statement of Christian dogma. "
"But I can't give the Vatican Pope and his followers-Catholics-freedom of conscience, as long as they tell me that through all their parliamentary, theologian and church laws and regulations, their morality orders them to burn my wife, strangle my children and cut my throat at the first opportunity."
Memorial site
1867, Lancaster County, Nebraska was renamed Lincoln City and became the state capital to commemorate one of the greatest presidents in American history.
The Lincoln Memorial in national mall, D.C., is one of the most famous memorial buildings in China.
Giant statues of four presidents in rushmore National Park, with Lincoln on the far right.