The Last Best Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America by Mark E. Neely, Jr. Thesis Statement: Neely has simplified the multifaceted events of Lincoln's presidency into an extremely legible sequence of events. For those who desire to comprehend Lincoln's political life, no better preliminary overview exists. Neely has actually suspended a political life history. By using Lincoln's own expressions, he illustrates us the immensity, reservations, as well as pettiness of the man. Strongly patriotic, Lincoln had a well-built conviction in the foundation and an innate indulgent of our forefathers' thoughts. Neely exhibits Lincoln's clutch of military stratagem, extension of presidential influence, and limitations on public. “Neely's life history is excellent and unyielding in its analysis of Lincoln's life. It has, on the other hand, amazing of the expressiveness as well as apparition of the title and of Lincoln's words. It helps us to learn why Lincoln well thought-out the United States "the Last Best Hope of Earth" or what that can signify for our nation at present”. Wills, Garry. Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. Neely does an outstanding job of relating and explaining Lincoln's Whig viewpoint, his regard to trade and industry development through industrialization, his anti-slavery feelings as well as his move to the Republican Party in 1856. He believes Lincoln made a cognizant decision to stay in New Salem after being overwhelmed for the state government in 1832 since it gave him a foundation to work from if he could stumble on a way to make ends get together until the next election. Lincoln, by means of the third person accent, said he stayed in New Salem as ...
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...civil freedoms were not rationally reliable but formulated with a analysis to win the war. He efficiently confronts modern allege that Lincoln punished critics by locking them up prior to elections. Lots of those under arrest were associate refugees or blockade runners from England individuals who could not take part in an election. The timing of other mass arrests does not concur with elections. Neely concludes that Lincoln's internal security program was not performed for partisan political benefit. References Mark E. Neely, Jr. The Last Best Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1993 Wills, Garry. Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. Wilson, Douglas L. Honor's Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998.
Lincoln was a very smart lawyer and politician. During his “House Divided” speech he asked the question, “Can we, as a nation, continue together permanently, forever, half slave, and half free?" When he first asked this question, America was slowly gaining the knowledge and realizing that as a nation, it could not possibly exist as half-slave and half-free. It was either one way or the other. “Slavery was unconstitutional and immoral, but not simply on a practical level.” (Greenfield, 2009) Slave states and free states had significantly different and incompatible interests. In 1858, when Lincoln made his “House Divided” speech, he made people think about this question with views if what the end result in America must be.
The American Civil War not only proved to be the country’s deadliest war but also precipitated one of the greatest constitutional crises in the history of the United States. President Lincoln is revered by many Americans today as a man of great moral principle who was responsible for both preventing the Union’s dissolution as well as helping to trigger the movement to abolish slavery. In retrospect, modern historians find it difficult to question the legitimacy of Lincoln’s actions as President. A more precise review of President Lincoln’s actions during the Civil War, however, reveals that many, if not the majority, of his actions were far from legitimate on constitutional and legal grounds. Moreover, his true political motives reveal his
Jayne argues in this book that the values contained within the declaration of independence heavily influenced Lincoln and that Lincoln attempted to make these values available to African Americans. This type of thinking directly coincides with the modern pro-Lincoln school’s assertion that Lincoln was a good influence on racial thinking. Foner’s Give Me Liberty takes a nearly opposite stance on the issue. The description of emancipation in this textbook reflected Lincoln’s hesitance and actual necessity of emancipation rather than its applications to racial equality. All of the major details were included such as the Corwin amendment and issue of black military service but the book stated pressure from military losses as the cause of emancipation rather than political exchanges. Either way, Give Me Liberty fits into the anti-great emancipator school although it does recognize the positive significance of Lincoln’s actions. Richard’s Who Freed the Slaves? takes an almost identical approach to Lincoln and slavery. Although Richards argues that Lincoln did not play the biggest role in the goals of antislavery and definitely did not support racial equality, he does admit that Lincoln did play an important role in America’s development during the civil war. As a result, this book falls into the anti-great emancipator school but withholds the harsher judgements about
Lincoln's use of executive authority during the civil war is many times illegal and unjust; although his issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation may seem justified, Lincoln blatantly abused his power regarding civil rights. He did things like institute an unfair draft, suspend Constitutional rights, allocate military spending without Congress, and institute emancipation. Although some may justify these actions, they stomped on the Constitution.
. .’, concludes James Oakes’ book with the aftermath of the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination. Oakes discussed the respect Douglass gathered for Lincoln over the years and the affect his assassination had on both himself and America as a whole. Oakes even brushed over Douglass’ relationship with Andrew Johnson, the president succeeding Lincoln. Analyzing his experience with the new president, it was safe to say that Andrew Johnson had no consideration as to what Douglass and Lincoln previously fought for. Johnson did not have the same political skills as Lincoln did, and he did not retain the same view for America that Lincoln did. It was obvious that Douglass held Lincoln at a higher standard than Andrew Johnson, stating that he was a “progressive man, a humane man, an honorable man, and at heart an anti-slavery man” (p. 269). Oakes even gave his own stance on Andrew Jackson, “It was a legacy that Andrew Johnson could ever match. When all of Lincoln’s attributes were taken into consideration - his ascent from the obscurity to greatness, his congenial temperament, his moral courage - it was easy for Douglass to imagine how much better things would be ‘had Mr. Lincoln been living today’.” (p. 262). It is hard to imagine the pre-war Douglass to have said something like that as opposed to an older, much more reserved Douglass. With the abolishment of slavery, so came much discrimination. Without
...ator.’ Rather than to view Lincoln as a man who sought emancipation as a primary goal, which is misleading, we should remember him as a man who rose above the prevailing prejudices of his time to cast away a morally corrupt institution
Abraham Lincoln wrote one of the greatest speeches in American history known as the Gettysburg Address. It was not only used as a dedication to the fallen troops of the North and South, but as a speech to give the Union a reason to fight and attempt to unite the divided nation. The sixteenth president’s handling of his speech at Gettysburg demonstrated how the effectiveness of juxtaposition, repetition, and parallelism, could bring unity to a nation deeply divided on beliefs. His speech touched the hearts of many and indirectly put an end to the Civil War. Lincoln may have been considered a tyrant at the time but he was a great leader of a nation, a war, and a democracy.
...ld not protect the interest of the Southern states. Coupled with the hostilities, lack of votes for Lincoln from the South and disregard for the constitutional protection of slavery is a justifiable reason from the Southern leaders to secede from the Union.
Then, once the Civil War began, he was merely trying to preserve what was left of an unstable union. The true “Emancipators” of slavery lie in the grass roots people of that time, the abolitionists, Frederick Douglas, and the slaves themselves. The slaves earned their freedom. Lincoln was merely a man who let the events of his era determine his policy. “I claim not to have controlled events but confess plainly that events controlled me.”
He made concepts simple and communicated with an understanding of the concerns of the citizens. When the war ended and he won reelection, Lincoln did not focus on his achievements.Instead, in his second inaugural speech, Lincoln focused on bringing the country together as expressed in the following excerpt. “With malice toward none, with charity for all, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all
Abraham Lincoln’s greatest challenge during his presidency was preserving the Union during the Civil War after the Southern states seceded from the Union. There were many dividing issues in the U.S. before his election in 1860, and his presidential victory was the final straw that led to the Civil War. The North and the South were already separating due to regional differences, socially, politically, culturally, and economically. Slavery was one of the biggest factors that led to the division between the North and the South. Preserving the Union while half of the country refused to regard federal law while in secession was extremely challenging, yet Abraham Lincoln decided to fight war against the South not only for the sake of abolishing slavery, but most importantly for the sake of preserving the Union. He was dedicated to fighting for the equality of all men in the U.S., as mentioned in his famous Gettysburg Address: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." He used this to argue a basic point: if all men are created equal, then all men are free. His House Divided speech showed his determination to keep the...
Abraham Lincoln’s original views on slavery were formed through the way he was raised and the American customs of the period. Throughout Lincoln’s influential years, slavery was a recognized and a legal institution in the United States of America. Even though Lincoln began his career by declaring that he was “anti-slavery,” he was not likely to agree to instant emancipation. However, although Lincoln did not begin as a radical anti-slavery Republican, he eventually issued his Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves and in his last speech, even recommended extending voting to blacks. Although Lincoln’s feeling about blacks and slavery was quite constant over time, the evidence found between his debate with Stephen A. Douglas and his Gettysburg Address, proves that his political position and actions towards slavery have changed profoundly.
Contrary to what today’s society believes about Lincoln, he was not a popular man with the South at this time. The South wanted to expand towards the West, but Lincoln created a geographical containment rule keeping slavery in the states it currently resided in. Despite his trying to rationalize with the South, Lincoln actually believed something different ”Lincoln claimed that he, like the Founding Fathers, saw slavery in the Old South as a regrettable reality whose expansion could and should be arrested, thereby putting it on the long and gradual road ”ultimate extinction” (216). He believed it to be “evil” thus “implying that free southerners were evil for defending it”(275). Lincoln wanted to wipe out slavery for good, and the South could sense his secret motives.
Lincoln declared that “all persons held as slaves” in areas in rebellion “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” Not only liberate slaves in the border slave states, but the President has purposely made the proclamation in all places in the South where the slaves were existed. While the Emancipation Proclamation was an important turning point in the war. It transformed the fight to preserve the nation into a battle for human freedom. According the history book “A People and a Nation”, the Emancipation Proclamation was legally an ambiguous document, but as a moral and political document it had great meaning. It was a delicate balancing act because it defined the war as a war against slavery, not the war from northern and southern people, and at the same time, it protected Lincoln’s position with conservatives, and there was no turning
The use of statistics and facts are not needed to provide a stronger argument. While not directly stated in the text, it can be inferred that President Lincoln had logical reasoning in “The Emancipation Proclamation”. It can be argued that President Lincoln could infer through logical reasoning that slaves might actively sabotage the Southern war effort after the announcement of “The Emancipation Proclamation”. He could also reason that the end of slavery would weaken the South’s fragile economy by withholding their labor. In fact, thousands of slaves had already escaped to sanctuary in Union territory to places like Fort Monroe in Virginia. These refugees aided the war effort by providing information on Confederate movements and supply lines, but they were not yet eligible for protection under the law (History.com). Instead, they were classified as contraband, enemy property subject to seizure. Emancipation would offer them civil rights. Lincoln also hoped emancipation of Southern slaves would persuade African Americans in the Northern states to enlist in the Union Army. Finally, an abolitionist course might dissuade Britain and France from lending military support to Confederate States (History.com). Both nations had ended slavery in their own countries but retained economic interests in Southern goods and plantation crops. So overall, emancipation seemed not only the