5. Describe George Washington as a military leader. Abraham lincoln

Who of American presidents had a nickname "Honest Abe"?

Who made American slaves free?

Do you know the poem "O Captain! My Captain!"?

Abraham Lincoln, 16^th President of the U.S.A., a Republican was born in Kentucky in 1809. His father was a poor farmer: his mother died when Abraham was nine. He was brought up in the backwoods of Indiana.

When the Black Hawk War commenced A. Lincoln volunteered for service. His company elected him captain, but he saw no fighting except, he said, "with the mosquitoes".

Returning from the war in 1832 he bought a grocery store on credit. When the store failed and the partner died, Lincoln paid off the debts that won him the nickname "Honest Abe". In 1833, Lincoln was appointed postmaster of New Salem. In 1834, Lincoln won as a Whig and served four terms. In 1842, A. Lincoln married Ann Todd. They had four sons.

Abraham Lincoln taught himself law and entered Congress in 1847. Believing that slavery was the negation to freedom and equality, he left the Whigs and joined the antislavery Republican Party.

His election as president, on an antislavery program, provoked the secession of the Southern states. He fought the resulting Civil War /1861-65/ to save the Union, and in 1863 proclaimed the emanci­pation of slaves.

The Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863, during the Civil War, by President Abraham Lincoln. It declared freedom only for slaves in Confederate areas that were in rebellion against the Union. It also allowed former slaves to join the Union army and navy.

That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be thenceforward, and forever free...

Now therefore, I. Abraham Lincoln, President of the united States, by virtue of the powers in me vested as Commander -in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States ...do order and declare that all persons held as slaves in Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana,....Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia...shall be free; and that the Executive Government of the United States... will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I thereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free from all violence;... and I recom­mend them that. ..they labor faithfully for reasonable ages.

And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity I invoke the considerate judgement of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

After the crucial battle of the Civil War at Gettysburg A. Lincoln proclaimed in his speech at the dedication of the national cemetery a famous eulogy of American democracy: "Government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not parish from the earth". He promised moderation towards the de­feated South, but was assassinated by John Booth, a Southern fanatic, on April 14,1865.