Abraham Lincoln's Tale

Abraham Lincoln The greatest president in America’s history, Lincoln’s tale is more than just a tale of a President, it is a tale of hard work, achieving dreams, fighting for what is right and righteous, an inspiring tale of a self-educated, and it is a tale of a boy born to humble birth in a frontier cabin who became that great iconic paradigm for all presidents, Lincoln redefined the role of the U.S. President as Commander-in-Chief, different than any of his predecessors. Lincoln’s time witnessed a multitude of events. The Civil War that threatened to tear apart the unity of the United State, Lincoln had to face a war that evolved in the first modern total war, from a rather simpler Western warfare, without any military training or experience,
He was born on February 12 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky, his father, Thomas was a carpenter and a farmer, Lincoln as described by many “Six feet four inches tall with a lanky, rawboned look, unruly coarse black hair, a gregarious personality, and a penchant for telling humorous stories, Lincoln made many friends”( McPherson 2). As a teenager Lincoln had limited education, he helped his father Thomas with farming chores, but after moving to New Salem, he was devoted to becoming a schoolmaster, joined a debating society, and fell in love with William Shakespeare and Robert Burns. In 1832 started his politic passion, announced his candidacy for the legislature. Losing his first campaign did not stop Lincoln and when he ran again in 1834, he campaigned throughout the county and won decisively. Such persistent was inspiring to many, including current president Barack Obama, comparing the difficulties he had to face “except, perhaps, for the one that allowed a child born in the backwoods of Kentucky with less than a year of formal education to end up as Illinois’ greatest citizen and our nation’s greatest president”(Mackevich 4). And on what Lincoln means to Americans today, there is a huge amount of books about him, Mackevich wrote” there are more than 14,000 books have been written about Abraham Lincoln, placing him second only to Jesus and Napoleon as an obsession of the world’s book writers” (Mackevich 9).
Lincoln cleared his perspective on slavery countless times, Lincoln said in 1858 “I have always hated slavery as much as any abolitionist,” (Friedman 1). His relentless pursue to end slavery is a defining point in his legacy, however, he was wise in doing so, he knows it needs to be gradual as the historian said about Lincoln “a politician, a practitioner of the art of the possible, a pragmatist who subscribed to [abolitionist] principles, but recognized that they could only be achieved in gradual, step-by-step fashion through compromise and negotiation, in pace with progressive changes in public opinion and political realities.” (McPherson 1). Yet Lincoln was always aboveboard about slavery, Lincoln wrote to the southern states insuring that the slavery states had nothing to fear, he added, “I suppose, however, this does not meet the case. You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub” (McPherson 23). On September 22, 1862, Lincoln issued what became known as the Preliminary Emancipation stating that “all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free”. This was the