The unjust assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was a key player in the reason that we no longer have slavery today. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by the well-known stage actor John Wilkes booth on April 14,1865 while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln was unjust because he ended salary and gave blacks the right to serve in both army and navy of the union,however some people thought that he was the cause of the nation’s dividing.
The first reason Abraham Lincoln assassination was unjust because he ended slavery.Lincoln believed in universal justice and believed problems could be solved differently( Forneri 147). This supports the reason why he shouldn’t be killed because he didn’t like they way that black people was treated and he wanted blacks to be equal. Because he wanted blacks to be equal, he shouldn’t have been killed. Abraham cared about the blacks and he did everything he could.
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“Abraham issued that in the Emancipation Proclamation if that colors are freed, they are able to join the U.S. Army and a part of the colored troops” (Smith 1). This supports the reason why he shouldn’t be killed because not only whites can be in the army, but color can too and Abraham puts that in emancipation proclamation. Also accepting black men into the military would cause border states like Maryland. Emancipation Proclamation opened the door for Africans Americans to enlist in the union
This clearly shows that Lincoln was not out for the Negro but just to preserve the union. He says in many other debates that he thought the Negro had a physical difference from the white man as well as an intellectual difference (Lincoln-Douglas, n. pag.). Lincoln was considered by many in the south to be a bigot, a white supremacist who wanted segregation and opposed civil and political rights for blacks (Oates 21). Stephen B. Oates talks of many of the theories in his book, like that many southerners concluded that Lincoln was with them in the matters of race (22). Many of these examples show that Lincoln was a hypocrite of some sorts. He would appeal to the southerners by making statements that led them to believe that he was against the Negro. Yet he was writing the emancipation proclamation that was supposed to free all of the slaves. This also is debatable that the proclamation freed any slaves at all. The emancipation proclamation is looked at by some as one of the most far-reaching pronouncements ever issued in the United States (Oates 25). Also it is said that the proclamation freed few if any bondsman (Oates 26).
Even though he naively believed that white men were the supreme race, he was staunchly against slavery as an institution and felt that the Declaration of Independence included black persons. In the same debate, Lincoln goes on to state that he “[does] not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the Negro should be denied every thing” (Lincoln). He believed that ‘the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,’ as outlined in the Declaration of Independence, applies to all men, regardless of their color, ethnicity, or culture. This may be attributed to the fact that he had not had many encounters with Black slaves until when he was in his late teens, where it had a profound impact on him (Foner 8).
President Lincoln was always determined to abolish slavery but not for a moral reason. During the civil war, Abraham Lincoln demonstrated his opposing view on slavery through his ideas. As the civil war progressed, Lincoln didn’t show moral reasons for the fact that he wanted to abolish slavery, instead he used antislavery to preserve the union, he states that he never wanted to free all slaves, and he publicly announced his real concern to preserve the union. To end the war and free slaves, Lincoln publically shows how he uses military reasons to achieve both.
Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president, and served during an incredibly fragile and monumental age in America’s growth. As president during the civil war, and creator of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, he was controversially viewed as either an innovator or a wrongdoer. In any light, his presidency and murder created shockwaves throughout America during their time of post-war healing and grief, and sparked change that led the U.S to be the country it is today. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln was unjust because he was an influential leader and active abolitionist who made great changes for equality in America, but he completely disregarded the needs of the confederate movement during their time in the Civil War.
Some use this opportunity to point out Lincoln’s deceptive character, dethrone the illusion of honest Abe, or that he was, as some have said, the best president the Unites States has ever had. I do not see the importance of this argument, whether true or false and do not pretend to hold Lincoln accountable to a god-like standard of perfection or positively pure political and personal passions. In his letter to James Conkling, Lincoln himself states that he emphatically wishes the Negro to be free (Perman and Taylor 289). By issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, some say Lincoln used his political office to satisfy a personal vendetta against slavery and those who supported it, falling back on his promises in his inauguration. However, that promise was not broken when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Once the war commenced, he was the head of the Union army. There are no campaign
As Bennett states in his article, Lincoln was opposed to the extension of slavery not out of compassion for suffering black people, but out of devotion to the interests of white people. In his Charlston speech, Lincoln stated, “I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black race, . . . I will say there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.” The speech itself shows that Lincoln was opposed to every aspect of the Emancipation Proclamation that he himself issued. Not only that, but Lincoln felt pressured to issue the Emancipation Proclamation by Radical Republicans who were pushing for it to be passed. Furthermore, if Lincoln had not issued the Proclamation, the congress would have done it. Lincoln did not want to give up his power as a president, and signed the document himself. In response to the proclamation, Bennett writes, Lincoln “freed” slaves where he had no power and left them in chains where he had power (page 137). In Lincoln and Colonization, by Richard Blackett, a historian of the abolition movement, The pressures of war forced his hand. As a result, the proclamation contained so many restrictions that observers questioned its effectiveness (page 20).
Abraham Lincoln’s death was unjust because the next few presidents didn’t necessarily bring the South back into the Union. They basically had no control over the South. Although Mr. Lincoln “ended slavery”, the south continued slavery and just gave it another name. The next few other presidents never really supported the black community. Basically all the hard work Mr. Lincoln
In his debate with Stephen Douglas, Douglas said Lincoln wanted “negro equality” and Lincoln explained that he never wanted that. He said he did not want them to be able to vote, marry white people or serve in juries. He thought slavery should end because African Americans blacks should be able to have a better position in society and benefit from the what they had to go through for the past years. He thought that made black people the same as white people, and that slavery was unjust because of that. In his years as president, his views about black people changed. On April 11th, he said that black people that fought in the Civil War need the right to
In conclusion, Fredrick Douglass was for the most part justified. He, his mother and father all suffered the same immense disrespect and suffering. This is one of the most disturbing histories of the United States of America. Having said that, Abraham Lincoln did what he could and in the end demolished slavery. Fredrick Douglass was right, and
Abraham Lincoln once said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, if you want to test a man’s character, give him power”. What he is saying is that if you want to know what type of person someone is, give him power and observe what he does with it. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was assassinated April 15, 1865 while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre. John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer and a famous actor at the time, assassinated Abraham Lincoln. The attack occurred only five days after Robert E. Lee, a confederate general, surrendered his fairly large army in Virginia. Abraham Lincoln’s assassination was unjust because he was the man who brought the abolishment of slavery but was rewarded with death; however, some thought that he was going to destroy the South.
Lincoln understood that bondage of the African race was inherently wrong, "a vast moral evil," one that he could not help but hate, but that it was indeed protected by the Constitution and in several national and state laws. In fact, Lincoln held no ethnic prejudices. Before the Civil War commenced, Lincoln was a strong advocate of the colonization of the blacks back in Africa after they were freed, not because he himself was racist, but because he was afraid that the white Americans were simply too discriminate to live peacefully along blacks. In the creating of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln was careful to ensure that the four slave states that had stayed in the Union Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri would not be offended and so join the Confederacy. Instead, he freed slaves only in the states that had rebelled, which
Lincoln believed that he had “no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists.” Lincoln continues and says, “I believe that I have not lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so” (Majewaki, pg. 70). Lincoln was a humble politician. He in no way wanted to endanger the unity of the nation.
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States of America. He was elected into presidency on November 6, 1860. Many of the southern states were unsupportive of Lincoln becoming president because he had run on an anti-slavery platform. Lincoln being elected into presidency caused states such as South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas to split from the Union. In his inaugural address Lincoln proclaimed it was his duty to maintain the Union; a month later the Civil War began. Although Lincoln did many great things for our country, his vital role in the Civil War is what most likely lead to his assassination.
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on 14th April 1865 and was serving as 16th President of the United States from 1861. Lincoln was killed by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate spy, who was not happy with how the president supported the African Americans
Douglas after losing to him in run for Senator in 1865 (“Abraham Lincoln Biography. P 4”). While president, he longed for building the Republican Party into a strong national organization. One of the ways he did so was by creating the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 stating all slaves should be free forever under those within confederacy. Lincoln won re-election in 1864. There was also a since of shift and change in the war that president Abraham Lincoln out of generosity and kindness he convinced the Southerners to put down their weapons and firearms to come together in endless people (“Abraham Lincoln Biography. P 6”).On February 14, 1865 he was assassinated by an actor named John Wilkes Brooks, who falsely believed Lincoln was working with the Southerners. To commemorate the occasion, we invite everyone to consider some surprising facts about Lincoln's views on slavery, and the complex process that led him to issue the document he later called "the central act of my administration, and the greatest event of the 19th century. (Hubbard, Charles M.