Abramo Lincoln
| Ordine: | Sedicesimo Presidente |
| Termine Ufficio: | 4 marzo 1861 - 15 aprile 1865 |
| Predecessore: | James Buchanan |
| Successore: | Andrew Johnson |
| Data di nascita: | 12 febbraio 1809 |
| Luogo di nascita: | LaRue County (Kentucky) (Poi Hardin County) |
| First Lady: | Mary Ann Todd |
| Professione: | Avvocato |
| Partito Politico: | Partito Repubblicano degli Stati Uniti |
| Vice Presidente: | |
Lincoln è ampiamente considerato come uno dei migliori presidenti della storia degli Stati Uniti, sia dagli storici che dall'opinione pubblica. Viene spesso lodato per essere riuscito a ripristinare l'unità federale della nazione, sconfiggendo gli Stati Confederati d'America secessionisti nella Guerra civile americana e al tempo stesso, per aver giocato un ruolo importante nel porre fine alla schiavitù negli USA.
Comunque, diversi sostenitori dei "diritti degli stati" (in particolare quelli che hanno in simpatia la causa dei Confederati), continuano a vedere Lincoln come un tiranno, che sospese le libertà civili e la segretezza della votazione, fece giustiziare i dimostranti contro la guerra (comprese donne e bambini), e soppresse il diritto legittino di secessione, per il quale lo stesso Lincoln aveva discusso nel 1848. Altri critici enfatizzano il credo di Lincoln nella supremazia bianca (si veda il Dibattito Lincoln-Douglas del 1858) e l'iniziale appoggiò alla schiavitù.
Lincoln nacque il 12 Febbraio del 1809 in un podere a LaRue County nel Kentucky (poi Hardin County, Kentucky) tre miglia a sud della citta' di Hodgenville), figlio di Thomas Lincoln e Nancy Hanks. Lincoln in giovane età si trasferì nell' Indiana, e successivamente a New Salem nell' Illinois. Prestò servizio come capitano nell'esercito degli Stati Uniti durante la Black Hawk War.
In seguito si cimentò in alcune imprese politiche e commerciali. Venne altamente considerato nella pratica di avvocato. In breve tempo venne eletto al congresso (1846), ed ebbe un ottimo tirocinio nell'Illinois, sia prima che dopo il suo mandato singolo alla Camera dei Rappresentanti. È opinione comune che Lincoln soffri di disordine bipolare, che si attenuò molto dopo il suo matrimonio con Mary Ann Todd nel 1842. Alcuni studiosi hanno suggerito che Lincoln intrattenne una relazione romantica con il suo compagno di stanza e amico di lunga data, il commerciante, Joshua Speed.
Eletto all'inizio presso la House of Representatives, Lincoln passò la maggior parte del suo tempo da solo a Washington, DC, e non fece una grande impressione presso i suoi colleghi politici. Usò la propria posizione per poter parlare contro la guerra con il Messico, che attruibuì al desiderio di "gloria militare - quell'attraente arcobaleno, che risplende in cascate di sangue" del presidente Polk.
Quando il suo mandato finì, l'amministrazione entrante di Taylor gli offrì il governagorato dell'Oregon. Egli rifiutò, tornando a Springfield, Illinois dove, anche se rimase attivo negli affari dello stato, si dedicò principalmente a guadagnarsi da vivere come avvocato.
Lincoln divenne famoso nell'ambiente legale dell'Illinois alla metà degli anni 1850, specialmente per la sua partecipazione a processi riguardanti interessi in competizione nel campo dei trasporti, sia fluviali che ferrovieri.
Per esempio, egli rappresentò la Alton & Sangamon Railroad in un processo del 1851 con uno dei suoi azionisti, James A. Barret. Quest'ultimo aveva rifiutato di pagare il dovuto all'impresa con la motivazione che essa aveva cambiato il percorso progettato all'origine.
Lincoln sostenne che, secondo la legge, una corporazione non è legata dal suo statuto originario quando questo può essere corretto nell'interesse del pubblico, che il nuovo percorso era migliore e meno costoso, e che di conseguenza la corporazione aveva il diritto di citare Mr. Barret per il suo mancato pagamento. Lincoln vinse il caso, e la decisione da parte della Corte Suprema dell'Illinois fu citata da moltre altre corti in tutti gli Stati Uniti.
Un altro importante esempio della bravura di Lincoln come avvocato per le ferrovie fu una causa su un'esenzione dalle tasse che lo stato concesse all'Illinois Central Railroad. La contea di McLean sostenne che lo stato non aveva l'autorità per concedere una simile esenzione, e voleva tassare comunquela compagnia. Nel gennaio del 1856, la Corte Suprema dell'Illinois decise di confermare l'esenzione dalle tasse, dichiarandosi d'accordo con gli argomenti di Lincoln.
Il Kansas-Nebraska Act del 1854, che aprì i due citati territori alla schiavitù (quindi annullando i limiti alla diffusione della schiavitù che erano parte del Compromesso del Missouri del 1820), aiutò inoltre Lincoln a tornare nella politica. A farlo risaltare rispetto agli altri fu un discorso contro il Kansas_Nebraska, il 16 ottobre 1854 a Peoria.
Durante la sua campagna (perdente) per essere eletto senatore nel 1858 contro Stephen A. Douglas, Licoln condusse una serie di dibattiti contro Douglas in una serie di eventi che rappresentarono una discussione a livello nazionale su problemi che avrebbero presto diviso la nazione in due. Tali dibattiti furono l'anticipazione delle elezioni presidenziali del 1860, in cui Douglas e Lincoln erano di nuovo pretendenti. Il 6 novembre 1860 Lincoln venne eletto sedicesimo Presidente degli Stati Uniti d'America, il primo repubblicano ad esserlo.
Poco dopo la sua elezione, la parte Sud degli Stati Uniti fece vedere inequivocabilmente che la secessione era inevitabile, il che aumentò notevolmente la tensione che attraversava la nazione. Lincoln sopravvisse ad un tentativo di assassinio a Baltimora, e il 23 febbraio 1861 arrivò a Washington in segreto e sotto mentite spoglie. I sudisti ridicolizzarono Lincoln per questo atto di codardia, ma l'impegno nella sicurezza non era da sottovalutare.
At Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, 1861, the Turners formed Lincoln's bodyguard; and a sizable garrison of federal troops was always present, ready to protect the president and the capital from rebel invasion.
Also revealing was his letter a year later to James Conkling of August 26, 1863, which included the following excerpt:
Lincoln is often credited with freeing enslaved African-Americans with the Emancipation Proclamation, though this only freed the slaves in areas of the Confederacy not yet controlled by the Union; in occupied and northern territories, slaves were not freed. However, the proclamation made abolishing slavery in the rebel states an official war goal and it did become the impetus for the enactment of the 13th and 14th Amendments of the United States Constitution which respectively abolished slavery and established the federal enforcement of civil rights.
He showed tremendous leadership to the Union populace during the war as evidenced by the Gettysburg Address, a speech dedicating a cemetery of Union soldiers from the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. While most of the speakers—e.g. Edward Everett—at the event spoke at length, some for hours, Lincoln's few choice words resonated across the nation and across history, defying Lincoln's own prediction that "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." While there is little documentation of the other speeches of the day, Lincoln's address is regarded as one of the great speeches in history.
The war was a source of constant frustration for the president, and it occupied nearly all of his time. After repeated frustrations with General George McClellan and a string of other unsuccessful commanding generals, Lincoln made the fateful decision to appoint a radical and somewhat scandalous army commander: General Ulysses S. Grant. Grant would apply his military knowledge and leadership talents to bring about the close of the Civil War.
When Richmond, the Confederate capital, was at long last captured, Lincoln went there to make a public gesture of sitting at Jefferson Davis's own desk, symbolically saying to the nation that the President of the United States held authority over the entire land. He was greeted at the city as a conquering hero by freed slaves whose sentiments were epitomized by one admirer's quote, "I know I am free for I have seen the face of Father Abraham and have felt him."
The reconstruction of the Union weighed heavy on the President's mind. He was determined to take a course that would not permanently alienate the former Confederate states.
In 1864, Lincoln was the first and only President to face a presidential election during a civil war. The long war and the issue of emancipation appeared to be severely hampering his prospects and an electoral defeat appeared likely against the Democratic nominee, George McClellan. However, a series of timely Union victories shortly before election day changed the situation dramatically and Lincoln was reelected.
During the Civil War, Lincoln held powers no previous president had wielded; he suspended the writ of habeas corpus and frequently imprisoned Southern spies and sympathizers without trial. On the other hand, he often commuted executions.
Lincoln met frequently with Grant as the war ended. The two men planned matters of reconstruction, and it was evident to all that the two men held one another in high regard. During their last meeting, on April 14, 1865 (Good Friday), Lincoln invited General Grant to a social engagement for that evening. Grant declined (his wife was not eager to spend time with Mary Todd Lincoln).
Without the General and his wife, or his bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon, to whom he related his famous dream of his own assassination, the Lincolns left to attend a play at Ford's Theater. The play was Our American Cousin, a musical comedy by the British writer Tom Taylor (1817-1880). As Lincoln sat in the balcony, John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Southern sympathizer from Virginia, crept up behind Lincoln in his State Box and aimed a single-shot, round-slug .44 caliber derringer at the President's head, firing at point-blank range. He shouted "Sic semper tyrannis!" (Latin: "Thus always to tyrants," and Virginia's state motto; some versions say he said "The south is avenged!") and jumped from the balcony to the stage below, breaking his leg in the fall.
The conspirators had planned to kill a number of other government officials at the same time, but for various reasons Lincoln's was the only assassination actually carried out. Booth managed to limp to his horse and escape, and the mortally wounded president was taken to a house across the street, now called the Petersen House, where he lay in a coma for some time before he quietly expired. Abraham Lincoln was officially pronounced dead at 7:21 AM, in April 15, 1865.
Booth and several of his companions were eventually captured and either hanged or imprisoned. Booth himself was shot when discovered holed up in a barn. Four people were tried by military tribunal and hanged for the assassination (David Herold, George Atzerodt, Lewis Powell (aka Lewis Payne), and Mary Surratt, the first woman ever executed in the United States.) Three people were sentenced to life imprisonment (Michael O'Laughlin, Samuel Arnold, and Samuel Mudd). Edman Spangler was sentenced to six years imprisonment. John Surratt, tried later by a civilian court, was acquitted. The fairness of the convictions, particularly of Mary Surratt, have been called into question, and there are doubts as to the exact degree of her involvement, if any, in the conspiracy.
Lincoln's body was carried by train in a grand funeral procession through several states on its way back to Illinois. The nation mourned a man who many viewed as the savior of the United States, and protector and defender of what Lincoln himself called "the government of the people, by the people, and for the people." Critics say that in fact the Confederates were the ones defending the right to self-governance and Lincoln was suppressing that right. They further insist that Lincoln only preserved the union in a geographical sense while destroying its voluntary nature.
President Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln had four sons. Only one survived into adulthood.
Lincoln was buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield where a 177-foot tall granite tomb surmounted with several bronze statues of Lincoln was constructed by 1874. Lincoln's wife and three of his four sons are also buried there (Robert is buried in Arlington National Cemetery). In the years following his death, attempts were made to steal Lincoln's body and hold it for ransom. Around 1900, Robert Todd Lincoln decided that, in order to prevent body theft, it was necessary to build a permanent crypt for his father. Lincoln's coffin would be encased in concrete several feet thick, surrounded by a cage, and buried beneath a rock slab. On September 26, 1901, Lincoln's body was exhumed so that it could be reinterred in the newly built crypt. However, those present (there were 23 of them, including Robert Lincoln) feared that his body might have been stolen in the intervening years. They decided to open the coffin and check.
When they did, they were amazed at the sight. Lincoln's body was almost perfectly preserved. It had been embalmed so many times following his death that his body had not decayed. In fact, he was perfectly recognizable, even more than thirty years after his death. On his chest, they could see red, white, and blue specs — remnants of the American flag with which he was buried, which had by then disintegrated.
Lincoln has been memorialized in many city names, notably the capital of Nebraska; with the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC; on the U.S. $5 bill and the 1 cent coin; and as part of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Lincoln's Tomb, Lincoln's Home in Springfield, New Salem, Illinois (a reconstruction of Lincoln's early adult hometown), Ford's Theater and Petersen House are all preserved as museums.
On February 12, 1892 Abraham Lincoln's birthday was declared to be a federal holiday in the United States, though it was later combined with Washington's birthday in the form of President's Day. (They are still celebrated separately in Illinois.)
The ballistic missile submarine Abraham Lincoln (SSBN-602) and the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) were named in his honor.
Gioventù
Inizi della carriera politica
Avvocato famoso
Verso la presidenza
Lincoln As President
Lincoln on Slavery
Lincoln's actual position on freeing enslaved African-Americans is controversial today, despite the frequency and clarity with which he stated it both before his election to president (i.e. Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858) and after (see Lincoln's First Inaugural) He stated his position forcefully and succinctly in a letter to Horace Greeley of August 22, 1862.
However, at the time of the writing this letter, Lincoln was already leaning towards emancipation, which would lead to the Emancipation Proclamation.Emancipation Proclamation
Gettysburg Address
The Civil War
Assassination
Lincoln family
Lincoln has no living descendants.Lincoln Exhumed
Lincoln memorialized
Cabinet
Supreme Court appointments
Quotes
Related articles
Further reading
External links
| Preceded by: James Buchanan | Presidents of the United States | Succeeded by: Andrew Johnson |
