Abraham Lincoln

“Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it, but the tree is

the real thing.” This is a quote by Abraham Lincoln, our 16 th president. Although he came from a tough

childhood, he was a great leader in the Civil War. He was a great president.

Being a kid for Abraham Lincoln was tough he had to school himself because he was poor. His mother

died when he was 9 from sickness. He lacked money, friends, and an education. His family moved two

times, but only to non-slavery states like Indiana and Illinois. He became a lawyer, legislator for Illinois in

the 1830s, and then became a house representative in 1840 for one term. He served as a captain of the

militia in the Black Hawk War, a war created to push the Indians back to the west.

On November 6, 1860, he was finally elected as the 16 th president, being the first republican of the

United States of America. The first act to abolish slavery was to ban it from federal property. The second

part was that the court could free any slave that belonged to a person that was aiding the rebellion. He

then discussed the Emancipation Proclamation, which would free any slaves in the Confederate, or

southern States. He said that his goal as president is to preserve the Union, or northern states.

The civil war was a battle within the country, fought by the Union, or the northern states, and the

Confederacy, or the southern states. When Lincoln opposed slavery, seven slave states formed what was

called the confederacy. Later, four more states joined in. It began on April 12 th , when the Confederates

fired upon Fort Sumter, the Union’s fort held in South Carolina. Then the Unions created a naval

blockade,