Many people know when the first man flew into space or the Second World War began. Do readers know when they abolished slavery in the United States and, most importantly, whose merit is it? Who became the person who claimed this responsibility? Abraham Lincoln is considered one of the greatest heroes of America due to its uniqueness and incredible impact on the masses.
Children's years of the future liberator
Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky. His parents were Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln. The father of the future president was a strong and decisive pioneer who earned a good fortune and became quite respected in society. Abraham also had an older sister, Sarah, and a younger brother, Thomas, who died in infancy. Due to a land dispute, the family was forced to move from Kentucky to Perry, Indiana, in 1817.
Here they lived due to hunting, as well as farming, and in the end were able to afford to buy a plot of land for themselves. When the future president, who abolished slavery in the USA, was at the age of nine, his mother died. This was a severe shock for the child. Abraham Lincoln grew up very alienated from his father and quietly resented, performing the hard work that was entrusted to him from early childhood.
Education by young Abraham
A few months after the death of his wife, Thomas Lincoln married Sarah, a Kentucky widow with three children of her own. She was a strong and affectionate woman with whom Abraham quickly found a common language. Although both of the boy’s parents were probably illiterate, Sarah insisted that Abraham Lincoln learn to read. Books were a huge shortage in the Indiana desert.
And the neighbors subsequently recalled how the future president Abraham walked many kilometers to borrow a book. He often read the family Bible and other popular literature at that time, such as Robinson Crusoe or Aesop's Fables.
The beginning of an independent life
When Abraham Lincoln was twenty-two years old, he believes that he has reached the age at which it is time to start an independent life. He was a lanky, but physically very strong young man and was well versed in an ax. Young Lincoln migrated to the small community of New Salem, Illinois, where he worked as a merchant for a year.
It is here, among the public, that he acquires social skills and hones the talent of the narrator, which made him popular among local residents. In 1832, war broke out between the United States and Native Americans, and Abraham volunteered. He did not participate in military battles, but he was able to acquire some important political acquaintances.
How did your political career begin?
After the war, Lincoln began his political career and was elected to the Legislative Assembly in Illinois in 1834 as a member of the Whig Party. Even then, his negative views on slavery began to take shape. And not only from a moral point of view, but also as a significant obstacle to economic development.
Around the same time, Abraham decided to become a lawyer, he moved to Springfield and began to practice at a law firm. In 1846, Lincoln was elected to the United States House of Representatives, where he served one term. At this time, Abraham shows the full strength of his party.
Lincoln speaks out against the US-Mexican war, and also writes a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia with compensation for the owners, but refuses the bill because he could not gather enough supporters. Unfortunately, the time has not yet come when the abolition of slavery in the United States. And there were very few supporters of such a policy. For a second term, Abraham Lincoln does not run and resumes his legal practice in the city of Springfield.
When the US abolished slavery. The year the most costly conflict began
By 1850, slavery was still legal in the southern United States. But overall, it was illegal in the northern states, including Illinois, whose original 1818 Constitution prohibited slavery, as required by the Northwest Ordinance. So when did they abolish slavery in the USA? And what does Lincoln have to do with this?
In 1854, Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which overturned the Missouri compromise. He forbade slavery in the Mississippi River. And now individual territories could decide for themselves whether slavery should be allowed or not. The law provoked violent opposition in Kansas and Illinois. This awakened the political zeal of Abraham Lincoln, who wants the United States to finally abolish slavery. In 1856, he joined the Republican Party.
In 1857, the Supreme Court issued a controversial decision stating that African-Americans were not citizens and did not have any inherent rights. But Lincoln believes that absolutely all people are created with certain inalienable rights. He even challenges Stephen Douglas to become a US Senator. But the state legislature elected Douglas.
And already in 1860, politicians in Illinois organized a campaign in support of Lincoln as president. In the general election, Abraham received forty percent of the vote. Before the inauguration of the new, sixteenth president, Lincoln, in March 1861, seven states of the south separated from the union. America’s most expensive and deadliest conflict has begun. But it was precisely this period that preceded the time when slavery in the USA was abolished.
The outbreak of war and the publication of a new law
Abraham Lincoln reacted to the crisis, as no other president would have decided before him. Taking from the treasury two million dollars without Congress approval, he spent them on military materials and called for seventy-five thousand volunteers for military service without declaring war. Despite the first defeats, he manages to maintain the fighting spirit of the Union Army, and on January 1, 1863, he passed a law stating that all persons who were held as slaves should now be released. This was the year when slavery in the USA was abolished.
Gradually, military battles came to an end. Victories were held, and on April 9, 1865, General Robert Lee surrendered his strength. The war was over. Unfortunately, Abraham had not only many supporters, but no fewer enemies who did not support his political views, which had a solid development in protecting the rights and freedoms of the individual. And on April 14, 1865, the one who abolished slavery in the United States was killed by the famous actor and spy of the Confederation John Wilkes Booth. So suddenly the life and political career of the sixteenth president of the United States was interrupted.