Lincoln

There is probably no one American who affected this country as much as Abraham Lincoln. Largely self-educated, he debated and conversed with the powerful and politically astute. He formed strong opinions and was able to present them persuasively to crowds and gradually won support from voters who identified with the plain-speaking country lawyer from Illinois.

When the Whig party collapsed, it was replaced with the new Republican Party, which quickly became embroiled in the debates over slavery as the party declared the goal of banning slavery. Those debates led southern states to declare their secession from the United States when the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, won the election for president in 1860.

The American Civil War began April 12, 1861, when Confederate troops fired on the United States' Fort Sumter. Abraham Lincoln's stated goal in the war was the preservation of the Union. Although the United States was regarded by many as separate entities rather than as a single nation, if the North won the war it could change the domestic and the international view of those states as a single nation.

The war destroyed Southern cities, railroads and factories as well as the death of 30 percent of men age 18 to 40 in the South, John Huddleston says in his book "Killing Ground: The Civil War and the Chanbging American Landscape." Total estimated Northern and Southern dead are estimated to be 750,000 or more, according to an article by J. David Hacker in the journal Civil War History. The war was an economic disaster for the South, and President Lincoln saw the need to prepare for peace with a reconstruction plan rather than punishment for the states of the former Confederacy. That plan was damaged, and the South would feel the aftereffects of the war for the next 100 years with the assassination of President Lincoln on April 15, 1865.

The death of President Lincoln was a shock to Union supporters, and the nation went into a period of mourning. In addition, the perpetrators were identified as Confederate spies, causing a desire for revenge against the former Confederacy.

Abraham Lincoln, the country lawyer with little formal education served through the most perilous period in American history as our 16th president. Under his leadership the United States became one nation, demonstrated the power of this country and redefined freedom. His powerful words are inscribed on buildings all over this country to state our national values. He is respected and even revered around the world, and he is the personification of America to many.

Jack Dragoni attended Boston College and served in the U.S. Army in Berlin and Vietnam. He lives in Chaffee, Missouri.