Compare and Contrast Lincoln And Jfk

Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin on February 12, 1809 in Hardin County, Kentucky. Much of his childhood was a struggle; his mother dying when he was just ten years old, and with his father being a frontiersman, money was scarce. He had to strive for a comfortable living, and he spent his days working on a farm and keeping a store. Education was also something of limited resources, but because of his hunger for knowledge, he was able to read, write, and cipher.

Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846 where he played part of the Illinois legislature for eight years, and for many years he also rode the circuit of courts. "His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest," stated one of his law partners. He ran for the position of senator in 1858, his competitor being Stephen A. Douglas. Though he lost the election, his debates against Douglas gave him national recognition. In one debate he expressed his opinion that the nation would either be all slavery or all free, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." In 1860, Lincoln ran for president against Northern Democrat Douglas, Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, and Constitutional Union candidate John Bell. He defeated the three, declaring him the sixteenth president of the United States of America.

Lincoln was a Republican who was directly concerned with Civil Rights. He was not an abolitionist, but was determined to prevent slavery from spreading to states in which it previously didn't exist. He built a strong national party out of the Republicans and brought many northern democrats to the Union. However, South Carolina was particularly against Lincoln as a leader, and because he was elected and because of their stubborn pride, they seceded from the Union...

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...coln's assassinator was a southerner named John Wilkes Booth, and Kennedy's was a southerner named Lee Harvey Oswald. The assassinators both went by all three names, and all three names both comprise of fifteen letters. They were also born exactly one hundred years apart; Booth in 1839, and Oswald in 1939. Also, both Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials. Lincoln and Kennedy were both succeeded by southerners named Johnson, and they were both born one hundred years apart.

One of the most obvious coincidences however, was that both were unarguably a few of the best presidents to ever govern our country. Their deaths were extremely depressing to American citizens, and were considered the biggest lifetime tragedies for many. Even though many years have passed since their assassinations, their legacy still lives on, and continues to define our nation.