Abraham Lincoln 's Legacy Essay Sample

Born in Kentucky on February 12, 1806, and raised on the prairie, young Abraham Lincoln was self-educated and later on became a lawyer. Lincoln’s father, Thomas, was a devoted father and hard worker who farmed and worked on carpentry. Nancy Hanks, Lincoln’s mother, died when he was just nine. When Abraham was seventeen, he found himself working at a job on a ferry boat. He built himself a flatboat just two years later in order to carry farm produce down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, Louisiana. He moved to Louisiana with his family when he was twenty-one. Lincoln built another flatboat, except this time as an independent operator. Before he knew it, he was living by himself in New Salem, Louisiana, and had a job working as a clerk at a general store. Six months after his arrival in town, he declared his candidacy for a spot in the Illinois state legislature. After declaring himself as an independent candidate, he volunteered to fight the Indians after the Black Hawk War broke out. When he went home, he resumed his campaign, however he got back later than expected, and he did not have a lot of time to introduce himself in the area. He did win 277 out of 300 votes, but actually lost because he came in eighth out of thirteen in the field.

After that, he decided to train as a lawyer. He was arguing cases before passing the state bar exam in 1836 and getting his licenses in 1837. Trying his luck again, Abraham ran for state legislature, and resulted in a win. He made no promises and gave very few speeches. He tried again in 1836, 1838, and 1840 and successfully won. After four terms in the state legislature, Lincoln left his office in 1841, but came back in 1846 to win the Whig nomination for a seat from the Illinois seventh congressional district to the U.S. House of Representatives. America and Mexico began a war just ten days after the nomination. 

Lincoln spoke nothing of the American-Mexican War, which gave him the chance to win the district. Lincoln did inform his opinion of the war once in office. Lincoln strongly challenged President James Polk’s opinion that the Mexicans attacked American soldiers on American soil and that started the war. While giving a speech on the House floor, Lincoln fiercely criticized the Polk administration for starting the war by misrepresenting the situation, claiming that the conflict had begun on territory contested by the two sides. Lincoln’s friends were surprised at his position. 

He met Mary Todd, and they later married in 1842. They went on to have four children: Robert Todd Lincoln (1843–1926), Edward Baker Lincoln (1846–1850), William Wallace Lincoln (1850–1862), and Thomas “Tad” Lincoln (1853-1871). Only one of their children, Robert, lived to be an adult. 

On October 16, 1854, Lincoln debated the merits of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in Peoria, criticizing slavery and discussing the many roles of the Declaration of Independence. Lincoln became President when James Buchanan stepped down in 1861. By the time Lincoln became President in March 1861, replacing the ineffective James Buchanan, seven southern states had left the Union — all before Lincoln’s election was certified on February 15, 1861, in Congress. So he would send supply ships to Fort Sumter to see how the Confederates would react. He tried to prevent fighting and thought that the idea of sending supplies was a precautionary action. On April 12, after Lincoln ordered a fleet to resupply Sumter, Confederate artillery fired the first shots of the Civil War. The Civil War was fought because of the moral issue of slavery. The Southern states wanted their authority over the federal authorities, so they could abolish federal legal guidelines they failed to aid, in particular legal guidelines interfering with the South’s right to keep and do whatever they wanted. The Unions’ objective was to abolish slavery and the Confederates’ objective was to preserve the institution of slavery. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin widened the chasm between the North and the South, greatly strengthened by Northern abolitionism, and weakened British sympathy for the Southern cause. It was the most influential novel ever written by an American. It was one of the contributing causes of the Civil War. The first military action in the Civil War was the bombardment of Fort Sumter in North Carolina and just thirty-four hours later the federals surrendered and put an end to the first battle of the Civil War with no casualties on either side. There were a bunch of battles in the Civil War, but the most significant was the Battle of Gettysburg, which was a turning point for the war. The last battle in the Civil War was the Battle of Appomattox Court House, which was fought on April 9, 1865. After the Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to the Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, the Civil War was finally over. Abraham Lincoln said after the Civil War that “we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”  

Shortly after the Civil War, John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln at Ford’s Theater. Booth’s reason for killing Lincoln was that it angered him that Lincoln ended slavery. Abraham Lincoln was no doubt the greatest president of all time. Lincoln’s legacy is based on his momentous achievements: he waged a political warfare and civil battle that preserved the Union, ended slavery, and created the possibility of civil and social freedom for African-people.

Works Cited

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Douds, D. (n.d.). How Lincoln changed the world in Two Minutes. American Battlefield Trust. Retrieved June 11, 2022, from https://www.battlefields.org/learn/videos/how-lincoln-changed-world-two-minutes

History.com Editors. (2009, October 29). Abraham Lincoln. History.com. Retrieved June 2, 2022, from https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/abraham-lincoln.

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Why Lincoln Matters: As a leader. Ford’s Theatre. (n.d.). Retrieved June 10, 2022, from https://www.fords.org/blog/post/why-lincoln-matters-as-a-leader

YouTube. (2022). The Civil War Animated Battle Map: April 12, 1861-May, 1865. YouTube. Retrieved June 10, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTLXVnr6%C3%9730.