Abraham Lincoln Accomplishments Essay

Andrew Huynh

September 16, 2015

History 1311

Professor David Watry

Honest Abe

Abraham Lincoln is one of the most well known of President’s of the United States. He is famous for leading the country during the American Civil War and also gained lasting recognition for the many accomplishments he had in his life.

Lincoln’s political career began in 1832 when he created a political campaign for a political party known as the Whig Party.

Lincoln’s political stardom grew greatly in 1860; this resulted in his nomination by the Republican Party to become their presidential candidate. Lincoln won the election and was inaugurated as president in March of 1861. The southern states did not agree with his policies and decided to secede from the

country. The first state to secede was South Carolina and six more followed; together they formed a country called the Confederacy. This all happened after Lincoln won the election, but before he took office. It was during Lincoln’s first term that the Civil War began. This war began in 1861 and ended up consuming a large portion of Lincoln’s time as president of America. The Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederate Army opened fire on Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, just only a month after Lincoln took office. Lincoln’s goal was to maintain the unity among the states, so he decided to set up an army in the northern states to defeat the Confederacy. The Civil War was an awful, it lasted four years and cost 600,000 American lives.
On January 1, 1863 Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

The Emancipation Proclamation consists of two executive orders. The first order, declared the freedom of all slaves in any area of the Confederate States. The second order, named the states that the first order pertained to. This announcement Lincoln made, increased the manpower of the Union army. However, the Emancipation Proclamation did not free all slaves in the United States. Rather, it declared only the slaves living in states not under Union control were free. The Proclamation also broadened the ideas and goals of the Union war effort; most importantly it made the end of slavery into the central goal of the Union, in addition to the reuniting of the country back

together.
During Lincoln’s presidency, the House of Representatives passed the Thirteenth Amendment. This amendment made slavery illegal in the United States. Although the Thirteenth Amendment may have abolished slavery, people still discriminated African Americans and gave them little rights. Still, Segregation existed for many years after the amendment was passed. The 13th amendment, however, was the first step towards equality. If the amendment had not been passed, the way people view, communicate and perceive each I believe would be very different.
President Lincoln ran for president again in 1865.

President Lincoln was sworn into his second term of office on March 4, 1865. After years of dealing with this horrendous war during his presidency, Abraham Lincoln finally saw the end to the American Civil War on April 9, 1865. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Courthouse. I believe that this is one of Abraham Lincoln’s greatest achievements of his presidency. Even though Abraham Lincoln wasn’t an army general or that he fought in the war, the actions and determination to stop it was what made him such a great president. Who knows what this country would have gone to, if Lincoln did not step up and be such a courageous leader of this

country?
On April 14, 1865, Lincoln sat in Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., watching a play when a man named John Wilkes Booth burst into the presidential box and shot the President in the back of his head. This would forever change mankind; this was the first president to ever have been assassinated. Lincoln's death left the country in shock, instead of celebrating to the end of the Civil War; America was left speechless.
The accomplishments of President Lincoln during his lifetime insure his ongoing legacy. His decisions and actions to improve the lives of slaves are still remembered to this day for their importance. Without President Lincoln I do not know what are country would’ve became. This is the United States of America and Lincoln saw that even when the people of his country didn’t. He saw equality in each and every one of the citizens of this country. No matter if you were African-American, Caucasian, Asian or Mexican he believed that everyone desired to be free and to be equal. I am Asian American, my parents moved here from Vietnam so that I can have a better opportunity than what they had. This opportunity that they came here for was shaped and molded by Abraham Lincoln, so without him I probably wouldn’t be here today sitting with people of different traditions and different backgrounds. I believe that he gave me and the people the United States a foundation, that men and women of any color are equal and that no one should be discriminated.