On top of the huge Rushmore Rock in the Dakotas, in the western United States, a giant head of a man carved from granite with a high forehead and firmly compressed lips is visible from afar. So America captured the image of her great son Abraham Lincoln.
“We bow before Abraham Lincoln, the great American who raised the banner of the struggle for the liberation of African Americans … for equality among peoples, for justice,” said N. S. Khrushchev.
The life path of the sixteenth president of the United States was in many ways unusual for the statesmen of this country.
Childhood and youth
Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 to a family of a settler farmer in Kentucky. He grew up in the wilderness among harsh and courageous people.
From an early age, he helped his parents clear the land for crops, plow, build housing, hunt, did not part with a gun and an ax. The family often moved from place to place, and the boy almost failed to study. He attended school all year, but was very fond of reading. The favorite book was the novel “Robinson Crusoe”.
His youth was not easy. He changed many professions – he was a farmhand, a lumberjack, a ferryman, a surveyor, a postal clerk. And enthusiastically, persistently engaged in self-education. 22-year-old Lincoln ends up in the South, in New Orleans, and, seeing the suffering and blatant lack of rights of black slaves, he is forever imbued with hatred for slavery. “If I ever happen to strike at slavery, I will crush it,” he said then.
In 1836, Lincoln takes the bar exam. Honesty and directness earned him a reputation as a principled and incorruptible person. Lincoln is elected to the Illinois Legislature. In 1847-49. He becomes a member of the House of Representatives.
Political career
Democracy, the pursuit of justice, numerous public speeches against slavery brought Lincoln fame as a politician. In 1854, he was one of the founders of the Republican Party, which put forward, albeit with reservations, a number of progressive demands.
In 1860, Abraham Lincoln is a candidate for the US presidency.
“The American people must choose one thing: freedom or slavery,” Lincoln said.
As a result of a bitter struggle, Abraham Lincoln occupies the highest government post in the United States. This marked the success of the country’s democratic forces and dealt a serious blow to the interests and privileges of southern planters. His election was a kind of signal for the secession of the South and the creation of the Confederation.
An open confrontation was brewing.
On March 4, 1861, Lincoln swore allegiance to the US Constitution. The solemn ceremony was crowned by the roar of artillery salute. During his inauguration, Lincoln called for the reunification of the country, but, unfortunately, he failed to extinguish the flaring conflict between the North and the South.
On April 12, the first shots of the North-South Civil War rang out in South Carolina. In the initial period of hostilities, the new president avoided drastic measures, placing high hopes on mutual concessions.
However, over time, Lincoln’s views changed. Taking into account the mood of the masses and the failures of the northerners, Abraham Lincoln, from the middle of 1862, proceeds to decisive action: mobilization into the army is announced, the “homestead law” is passed, which allowed every US citizen to receive a piece of free land in the West for a small fee. And in September 1862, Lincoln, relying on the masses of workers and farmers, published a proclamation for the emancipation of the Negroes.
“From January 1, 1863 …,” she said, “all persons who were in the position of slaves are now and forever free.”
Four million black slaves found their freedom. Many of them joined the army of northerners. The President’s speeches inspired the masses and are now recognized as the heritage of the country.
In 1864, Lincoln was re-elected President of the United States. After the end of the war, he proposed a plan for the so-called moderate Reconstruction, which was associated with national consent and a complete rejection of revenge.
Lincoln happened to be a “military president”, but he strove for peace, dreamed of it.
“I want peace,” he wrote in 1863, “I want to stop this terrible extermination of people and the destruction of material values …”
During the war, Lincoln was able to keep Britain and some European countries from intervening.
Lincoln’s activities strengthened the executive branch. He included his opponents in the government and attracted them to work towards common goals. But reactionary circles hated the Democratic president. The slave owners had allies among the big financial bourgeoisie of the North. Their agents were everywhere: on the stock exchange, in the army, in Congress, even in the government. A sinister conspiracy was gathering over Lincoln.
The death of Lincoln
On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was mortally wounded in the Washington theater by a slave-owning agent, John Wilkes Booth. It was the first assassinated president in the country. The tragic death of Lincoln caused deep sorrow throughout the world. Conducted social polls, he is now one of the best and most respected US presidents. It is worth saying that while in the White House, he was repeatedly criticized quite severely.
Lincoln, whose whole life is an example of serving the people, has always experienced anxiety for the future of the country. He defeated the slave owners, but he saw how new forms of oppression were born.
The words of the great president turned out to be prophetic. Nearly 100 years after Lincoln’s death, American rabid bullets struck down the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy. The villainous murder in Dallas once again reminded the progressive forces of America of the need to intensify the struggle to lead the country onto the path of democracy, to return to those great traditions that A. Lincoln and F. Roosevelt bequeathed to it.
