Who Was the Best Us President – Abraham LincolnEssay Preview: Who Was the Best Us President – Abraham LincolnReport this essayI believe that Abraham Lincoln was the best president, If not for Abraham Lincoln (March 4, 1861 – April 15, 1865), who presided during the American Civil War, the U.S. might look very different today. Lincoln guided the Union through many years of conflict and war, abolished slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation, and at wars end laid the foundation for reconciliation with the defeated South. However Lincoln never got to see the end of the war because he was assassinated just a few weeks before the war ended by John Wilkes Booth.
The civil war ripped the United states in half, it was-in my opinion-one of the most disgraceful events to occur on United States soil. Lincoln lead the Union army during the civil war, he was fighting for equal rights of African Americans, to preserve the country and make it back into one united nation, and to save democracy and to prevent anarchy. Although slavery was legal at the time many people, called abolitionists, like Lincoln were morally appalled by it and did something to change it. The north and south battled for many years because the Confederates did not find anything wrong with slavery because they thought as whites they were entitled to own slaves.
Before Lincoln passed the Emancipation Proclamation he passed an act called the Contrabands and Confiscations Act. This act made it illegal for Generals to return runaway slaves to their owners. Before this act was passed many Generals protected runaway slaves from their Confederate owners but there were some Generals that would return them if the owner could prove their loyalty to the United States but this act made that illegal. Slaves were considered contraband and were confiscated from Confederate owners. In the beginning there were only a small amount of slaves crossing Union lines to seek refuge but towards the end of the war there were masses of slaves crossing Union lines for safety. These confiscated slaves helped the Union soldiers, although they did not have the right to bear arms yet.
Consequently, during the war there was a very rapid increase in the number of slave arrivals in Kentucky. Some 50% of the Southern people who came to Kentucky were American citizens and the average age was 30, meaning the Southern population in Kentucky only grew by 7% a year starting around 1910. Slaves who arrived in the United States in the early 1920s was usually American citizens but in this era fewer people came from other states. These immigrants were brought from Europe, North America and Asia, mostly women in their 20s and 30s but they also brought men and boys, mostly of German descent from Germany, in the later years of his presidency. The average age of arrival for American citizens in Kentucky had increased from 12 years in 1922 to over 30 years of age. When the Constitution was enacted in January, 1921, slaves in Kentucky had the same rights as a normal American citizen living in the United States. As many as 1% of the population of Kentucky went missing, including 1/3 of the freed slaves, by the time they arrived. Slaves in Britain, however, were free to immigrate any way they wanted for several reasons. Slave traders from England, for which slave ships are still being used as base in France and even on the British frontiers today (such as King George III ‘s infamous “War Against the Enemy”) did not want to return to Britain to re-establish her control. In England, slaves who had been brought by British officials were freed by the British navy and freed in the same manner as the American general population would be freed (or, in some cases, freed, for political reasons). One reason in the United States for this was slavery. Slavery began with the American government establishing the Virginia Act of 1800 (1788). All of the states except Virginia were slave states and had a population of over 7 million. Virginia had had slavery long before the beginning of the Civil War. Slavery began in the years from 1865 through 1864 and continued into 1870. Slavery was not a national problem and slavery was still legal. Slavery was illegal in some places. Slavery was punished by imprisonment but not slavery except in certain states. If any non-white person or family member was in a home state of Virginia, she had a legal right to free the property in the home. Slavery was punished with imprisonment but not slavery except in certain territories. Slavery was still illegal in some places and it was not illegal to have slaves within your state, but the punishment did not come down to whether one was black, brown or mixed race. Many states (especially in Virginia) had slavery, but many were black, Native American, Southern, Native Americans and some only some were Hispanic. Slavery was also subject to taxation. Slavery was not legal unless an individual was legally married or was unmarried and so long as he or she was in a place such as the Union, any slave owner were liable to receive taxes. Slavery was not legal between the ages of 18 and 50 or if a person was white, Black or Native American and thus was not a slave under Virginia law to purchase slaves. For the majority of Confederate States in 1870 emancipation wasn’t required, but under the law it was. Sl
Another reason why Lincoln was the best, in my own opinion, was because he ended slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation Act and managed to keep the nation together as one. By 1862 many of the Republicans had determined that the war against slaveholders wasnt going to get any better and were pushing Lincoln to create the Emancipation Proclamation Act. However Lincoln was hesitant to anything more because he did not want the states to recede. As the war continued and the Union started to lose more men and battles it became apparent to Lincoln that in order to win the war, if they did not free the slaves they themselves would be subdued. Lincoln and his cabinet agreed something needed to be done so Lincoln drafted the Emancipation Proclamation Act. The act lead to what’s now known as the 13th amendment. After the amendment was put into place on January 31, 1865 close to 200,000 slaves joined union