Abraham Lincoln Research Paper

Abraham Lincoln is a role model in American culture and history. He is the reason why the Union was saved and he also abolished slavery. Many Americans looked up to him. In fact, Henry Bacon, an architect, designed Abraham Lincoln’s memorial in Greek Temple. Bacon engraved the Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address in Lincoln’s memorial. These speeches indicate America’s revival in terms of the country becoming united. The speeches also contradict how Lincoln’s words were once divisive. The House Divided speech was to unite the North and South. Lincoln was against Popular Sovereignty, a policy that allows residents of territories to decide whether to legalize slavery. Popular Sovereignty was only causing more disputes when the Union

Some people argue that Lincoln still causes conflict as president. Many analysts pointed it out when Lincoln said, “Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish...” By putting Southern aggression and Northern defense side by side, people saw him to cause problems. However, David Herbert Donald believes Lincoln’s treatment of the North and South was actually unifying because Lincoln avoids specifically blaming the South by not referring to the South or Confederacy . For example, in his Second Inaugural Speech, Lincoln never explicitly refers to the Confederacy. Moreover, Lincoln uses various indirect words such as “party” and “insurgents”. Lincoln’s indirect use of words changed the significance away from blaming the southern slaveholders as a whole, and places it on the revolutionaries who happen to be southern. Also, in Gettysburg Address, Lincoln kept on uniting people by mentioning neither the South nor the North. Instead, Lincoln uses euphemisms such as “brave men” and “honored dead”. In addition, Lincoln used collective expressions such as “nation” and “people” to refer to both the Union and the Confederacy. Lincoln’s use of general expressions was in contrary to what Lincoln demonstrated in House Divided, which he blames

Lincoln used God to explain death in Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural. When Abraham Lincoln delivered the speech, he was dedicating a cemetery for the fallen soldiers of the Battle of Gettysburg. Lincoln discussed the dead when he said, “We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that the nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this”. Some people debate that Lincoln’s words were clichéd, Lincoln is sincere in his exaltation of the dead because his skill in persuasive speaking raises the dead to the importance of the nation when he says “who...gave their lives that nation might live”. The word “might” is also relevant because it indicates unpredictability or faith. This faith is written in the Bible or the Declaration of Independence. For those whose faith arose from the Bible, faith meant in trusting in God’s support of the action. While, for those whose faith depends from the Declaration, faith meant that the Union was perpetual and “that all men are created equal”. Later in Gettysburg Address, Lincoln believed that the “brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract”. Lincoln also believes that loyalty of the men must grow the devotion to the war for the war’s excess. Just as Lincoln inserted the Bible and the