Abraham Lincoln: The Great Emancipator

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president and one of the most influential presidents in American history. Though today we see Lincoln as the “Great Emancipator”, and seen as being a successful president, he wasn’t always seen that way. His stance on slavery were very unpopular during his time, most wouldn’t think he would have any success. He was born February 12, 1809, and died in April 15, 1865. He was a hard working self-educated prairie lawyer, who didn’t go to school for longer than about 8 months, due to his constantly working to support his family. He was a very smart man, who was able to pass the Bar with nothing but self-taught knowledge. Lincoln got engaged to Mary Todd, yet in 1841 Lincoln broke off the engagement, then a year later …show more content…
His views were either embraced or repulsed. “Though Abraham Lincoln felt African Americans were not equal to whites, he believed the America’s founders intended that all men were created with certain inalienable rights.” Stephen A. Douglas and Lincoln went on a couple heated debates in 1858 regarding the place slavery had in the United States. Lincoln ran against Senator Douglas for his chair. Once Lincoln won the chair he became to criticize Douglas, the Supreme Court and President Buchanan in his acceptance speech for promoting slavery and declared, “ a house divided cannot stand.” Though Lincoln’s views are very controversial at this time, he never holds back, and always fights for what he believes …show more content…
Lincoln at this point had faced a lot of failure and had not yet established a name for him self. Manny only hired him because he wanted a cheap lawyer on his side that was from the same hometown as the judge. Many of the expensive lawyers Manny had already hired before Lincoln were not happy Lincoln was on their panel. One of the lawyers named Stanton said, “ The Mere sight of him might jeopardize the case, such a damned, gawky, long armed ape as that.” Through all of this Lincoln was overjoyed to be apart of such a high profile case, and attacked it with much enthusiasm. Unfortunately they ended up moving the case from Chicago to Cincinnati without informing Lincoln hoping they could just leave him behind. Lincoln was deeply hurt by all the events that transpired. He knew first hand what discrimination felt like, since he was abnormally tall for his time, and wasn’t the most handsome man, many people made fun of his physical appearance. Once Lincoln tracked down the case in Cincinnati, he headed strait there. Though he did have to spend the rest of the case in the audience since none of the panel of lawyers wanted him to jeopardize the case. Through these series of events lead to the famous president we now know. He credits this case to giving him the courage to pursue his goals, and gave him the drive to fight for what he wanted. Also oddly enough Stanton who was