Abraham Lincoln: A democratic Republican!

Ritam Banati "We shall not fail -- if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come." And sure it did! Victory over slavery made America’s 16th President known as one of its greatest, because he began the task of abolishing slavery without being an "abolitionist" per se. Abraham Lincoln laid the groundwork for the Reconstruction process that followed the American Civil War. The 1857 ruling of the US Supreme Court infuriated Lincoln. The court had called Negro Dred Scott a movable property. When Scott was shifted to a slave free region, the court ruled against him. A clever politician and a patriot to the core, Lincoln inherited a crumbling nation. He was entrusted with the unspoken task of not letting the building fall. The building could have shattered into pieces, or permanently divided into two, but for his political astuteness. In 1858, before he became President, Lincoln gave his famous House Divided speech; the famous lines from which were, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Quite deftly, it was actually Lincoln’s mind which provoked the bombardment of Fort Sumter by the Confederates. And the fort was the first Civil War casualty, which helped Lincoln in justifying his other maneuvers that eventually led to his victory. Therefore, the house could never remain permanently divided due to Lincoln’s tactical moves. It goes to the credit of Lincoln that America got its transcontinental railroad which gave the US its first nation-wide transportation network. This was a strategic ploy to prevent foreign intervention in the Civil War. Another shrewd decision, which he took, was of letting Blacks join the Army. This was a daring move as the anti-slavery North was at war with the pro-slavery South. And the Blacks joined the Army in huge numbers after being declared free. This tactic helped in winning the war. Lincoln, being a politician, never openly called for abolishing slavery nor did he ever sing the tune in its favour. The expansion of slavery in the West, which the Crittenden Compromise allowed, was rejected in 1861. And after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 declared freedom for the slaves of the Southern states, the American Civil War got sparked off and shaped history in due course of time. Among Lincoln`s domestic policies was backing the Homestead Act, which allowed poor people in the East to obtain land in the West. Besides, he signed a law entitled the National Banking Act which established national currency. At six feet-four inches, Lincoln had a towering personality. However, he too had his own share of defeats, before the sun shone over him. He had almost no formal education and it goes to the credit of this man that he educated himself and rose to become a distinguished lawyer. Lincoln lost the first election he contested at the young age of 23. This was for the Illinois General Assembly from the Whig Party in 1832. Two years later, he won the Illinois state’s legislative election. There was no looking back after that. In 1846, he served the US House of Representatives for a term. Lincoln, in all, served four terms in the House of Representatives and one in the Congress. It is noteworthy that in 1858, Lincoln lost the Senatorial race against Stephen A Douglas. But this did not deter him and, in fact, this defeat led him later to win the Presidential nomination in 1860. Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg speech was delivered in 1863. In words that brimmed with the spirit of achieving freedom from all bondages, while paying a tribute to the Civil war martyrs, the President said, "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Lincoln was subject to much criticism in the South. An actor, John Wilkes Booth, planned his kidnapping which failed. But when Lincoln spoke of granting suffrage to Blacks, Booth seethed with rage. And on April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford`s Theatre in Washington, by Booth. Thus, the man paid the price with his life for strongly trying to implement what he had stated in his much-acclaimed Gettysburg speech- “Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people." Salutations to this man, due to whose efforts today USA proudly calls itself the world’s oldest democracy! Lincoln: Some intriguing facts Ann Rutledge may have been Lincoln`s first love whose death may have lead to a severe depression on his part. Former Kinsey sex researcher argues that Lincoln was homosexual with five intimate lovers. He once composed a poem about the marriage of two men. A book that he wrote passionate letters to a man signed ``yours forever” which he is never said to have used for his own wife. During the Civil War, telegraph wires were strung to follow the action on the battlefield. But there was no telegraph office in the White House, so Lincoln went across the street to the War Department to get the news. Lincoln, one week before his death, had a dream of someone crying in the White House, when he found the room; he looked in and asked who had passed away. The man in the room said the President. When he looked in the coffin it was his own face he saw.