President Abraham Lincoln: Hero or Failure?
As the 16th president he failed to broker a peaceful solution during America’s greatest crisis- which resulted in over 620,000 casualties. The casualties amassed during the American Civil War totaled more than all of America’s combined war related fatalities (which are more than the “combined combat casualty totals” of the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam).
When Lincoln was elected as president in 1861, the great American Civil War immediately commenced. On the other hand, however, he crushed the so-called rebellion.
Arguments for and against are respected.
There are some outstanding answers (with citations); I believe I will leave this one to the voters to decide.
Thank you all very much!
Additional view:
http://thomaslegion.net/presidentabrahamlincoln.html
After further consideration and reviewing the sources and citations, I decided to make a decision. Your answer was detailed and cited. I thank you all for participating!
Answer by WeimLuvr
he was a hero. he fought as hard as he could against the biggest problem in his day.
Answer by Dru
If Lincoln was a failure, then Jefferson Davis was an even bigger failure.
Answer by jasonlai73
i would say that he should be a successful president who managed to hold americans together else we might see 2 USA now.
Answer by Mr. G
Hero…
State had already left the union when he became President. Negotiations was not an option. In fact, Jefferson Davis was sworn into the office of President of the Confederacy before Licoln took over a US President.
As for casualties, since the North won and never recognized the South as leaving the Union, all of the Southern casualties were counted as American. Therefore, the casulaties on both sides counted towards the total. You can make numbers say anything you want.
There are way too many arguments for him to be regarded as a hero to mention here.
Lincoln’s Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words (Vintage)
Widely considered in his own time as a genial but provincial lightweight who was out of place in the presidency, Abraham Lincoln astonished his allies and confounded his adversaries by producing a series of speeches and public letters so provocative that they helped revolutionize public opinion on such critical issues as civil liberties, the use of black soldiers, and the emancipation of slaves. This is a brilliant and unprecedented examination of how Lincoln used the power of words to not only build his political career but to keep the country united during the Civil War.
List Price: $ 16.00
Price: $ 8.99
If Abraham Lincoln Were Alive Today, Could he be re-elected President?
Answer by The Voice they Fear
Um, yes assuming if he hadn’t already held 2 terms.
Answer by Léon Heinrich
Probably
I would Vote for him in a heart-beat
Answer by Mike
Definitely not by the republican party and Teddy Roosevelt would be chastised for his progressive views.
Answer by Its M
Yes
One Nation Under Sex: How the Private Lives of Presidents, First Ladies and Their Lovers Changed the Course of American History
Ben Franklin saved the American Revolution by seducing French Women. A gay love affair between President James Buchanan and Senator William King aided the secession movement. Woodrow Wilson’s girlfriend dictated his letters to the German Kaiser. And lesbian relationships inspired Eleanor Roosevelt to become a revolutionary crusader for equal rights. The colorful sex lives of America’s most powerful leaders have influenced social movements, government policies, elections and even wars, yet they are so whitewashed by historians that people think Thomas Jefferson and Abe Lincoln were made of marble, not flesh and blood.
But the truth is about to come out. In One Nation Under Sex, free speech activist and notorious Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt teams up with Columbia University history professor David Eisenbach to peek behind the White House bedroom curtains and document how hidden passions have shaped public life. They unpack salacious rumors and outright scandals, showing how private affairs have driven pivotal decisions—often with horrific consequences. Along the way, they explore the origins of America’s fascination with sex scandals and explain how we can put aside out political moralism and begin focusing on the real problems that threaten our nation.
List Price: $ 25.00
Price: $ 6.99
President Elect Barack H. Obama, President Abraham Lincoln, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt?
What is similar or different about the economic and social conditions of these Politcal Giants?
Answer by lilloric
country’s economy was in the whole for roosevelt and obama not sure on lincoln. they were all men with great ideas for helping this country and those who had been forgotten. in roosevelt’s time there were also record foreclosures(like what obama is walking into) mainly on farms he created a program to help the farmers
Answer by Louise
country’s economy was in the whole for roosevelt and Obama was not sure on lincoln. they were all men with great ideas for helping the USA and those who had not been remembered. It is good to see ever race trated as an equal nowadays.
Posts Related to President Abraham Lincoln: Hero or Failure?
Did the Tea Party get Bullied by doing what the NAACP TOLD them to do?
Did the Tea Party get Bullied by doing what the NAACP TOLD them to do? The National Tea Party Federation, an organization that represents the ...
Help us with these baby names!?
Help us with these baby names!? My sister got her first altrasound today, and found out that she is in fact having twins!! It's so ...
LGBT: Do you ever feel like this?
LGBT: Do you ever feel like this? I feel like every famous person was at least bi.... Historians argue that Abraham Lincoln had an affair ...
What modern-day political party (D, R, other) would Abraham Lincoln join if he were alive today?
What modern-day political party (D, R, other) would Abraham Lincoln join if he were alive today? What about George Washington? Thomas Jefferson? Franklin Delano Roosevelt? ...
Why don’t Neocons know the difference between Ideology and Political party?
Why don't Neocons know the difference between Ideology and Political party? Neo-cons keep saying that liberals are to blame for slavery amd Jim crows laws. ...
Tagged with: Abraham • Failure • Hero • Lincoln • president
Filed under: Abraham Lincoln Bicentenial
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
Yes. He was assassinated before he completed his first term. But, he wouldn’t have the money for campaigning today. Not unless he did what all the others do and jump in bed with a government who can finance his campaign.
Who knows, but if Einstein were black would his name be MC Hammer?
yes he is honest which our president now dont know what that is
No.
Thank you for the two points.
He could, but he probably wouldn’t considering he never finished high school and according to some people only college educated people are intelligent enough to run a country.
I’d vote for him.
No I don’t think most would vote for him, people thought McCain was to old, so I’m guessing they would feel the same about lincoln.
His mental illness would be too well known by now, and he’ d be VERY very old.
Assuming Mary Todd was still with us, I think her craziness alone would discourage most of having her in the White House again.
Yes, the 22nd Amendment prevents anyone from being elected more than twice to the presidency but specifically does not include anyone who was president before the amendment was passed.
Based of the fact that he was a good man and stood for what is right, I think he’d be elected. We’d be in much better shape.
Lincoln’s long face and looks reminds me of John Kerry, ugly. I doubt if he could get elected, after being dead that long, he is probably just a skelton of a man…….wait maybe he could, one was elected.
No, I don’t believe they would elect him because the liberals would be calling him a fundie all the time.
Probably not. Abraham Lincoln is not very photogenic and would not show well on TV or in newspaper pictures. Also, I read that his voice was kind of high and squeaky. He would certainly be no Obama as far as his speaking skills would go.
We only elect charismatic pretty boys anymore. Certainly no one as Intelligent and superior as Lincoln would stand a chance because he doesn’t qualify as either.
No way. Too many Americans would not understand much of what he says or thinks. He would be a Democrat or an Independent because his ideas were too liberal to qualify him to be today’s kind of Republican. Whatever party he belonged to, the opposite party would make fun of his looks and his intellect. He would not win because he’s not good-looking enough to win today’s elections.
Hero because he led the vulnerable nation through the toughest time in the nations 200+ year history.
Yes, he failed to hold the country together (as if anyone could!) but he put it back together. Granted, it was done at the cost of a bloody civil war, but Lincoln wasn’t the one who started it. Lincoln is a hero, ranked right up there with George Washington (their portraits hung side by side in just about every classroom in the country when I was a kid) because he kept the country united. There wouldn’t be a United States of America today were it not for Abe Lincoln. The greatest tragedy (both for the country and Lincoln) of the whole sorry civil war period is that Lincoln was murdered before he could take the south back into the union. He would have done it quickly and painlessly (relatively speaking) and gotten it over with, so we wouldn’t have had Reconstruction and the lingering animosity it generated which extended into my lifetime, and was responsible for all the civil unrest and racial animosity of the 60′s, and beyond! If Lincoln had lived just ONE lousy year longer, he’d be an even bigger hero than we’d probably realize. After all, history is a one-way street, and we only see what happened, not what might have been if things had been different.
he was a hero!!!!
Hero and he is my favorite president .
I wont say failure, but is actions are not that of a hero. Lincoln acted for the sole purpose of winning the war. He did everything it took to win the war.
Lincoln-Suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus in Maryland. Habeas Corpus is one of the most truesered right throught American History. It was a reason for the revolution. Lincoln suspended the writ, even after it was deemed unconstitutional by the supreme Court. Lincoln also tried people in military tribunals when civil courts were not aiding his cause. To tie this to today, Bush has not completely suspended the writ or forced tirbunals on American citizens. (please dont comment on your views of bush, just making a comparison) Lincoln defied the Supreme Court, took away basic rights, that does not qualify him a hero, if it did, We’d have Stalin on the 5 dollar bill.
Now on to the Emancipation. Lincoln did not, DID NOT (sry about that but some people relly need to learn their history) free the slaves, and Lincoln did not, DID NOT care about freeing the slaves. Lincoln issuse the EP to keep Britain out of the war. Britian which had outlawed slavery could not support a war that had slavery as an issue (The Civil War was about Way of Life by the way, NOT slavery). The EP was a political move, to help Lincon win the war. The EP let boarder states keep thier slaves, the last thing Lincoln wanted to do was loose them. Rought Quote, “I’d like to have God on my side, but i need Kentucky.” Lincoln could have cared less about Morals, Lincoln wanted to win the war.
These facts are always forgotten or distorted (EP) inorder to make Lincoln appear as a hero. But with these actions he can not be a hero.
However he is no where near a Failure. He won the war. SC succeded even before Lincoln was put into office.
But Failure and Hero are two different adjectices. They describe two seperate things. Like in literature tragic Heros, are heros but they are also Failures.
Lincoln is a success, but he is not a hero. He is a man that did what he needed to do to win the War. A success, yes a Hero no. A man that did everything to win the war, no matter its illegality, yes.
Hell yes a failure a lair and and a racist
Abraham Lincoln, as cited in “The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln,” Roy Basler, ed. 1953 New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press:
“I will say, then, that 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 races — that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races from living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”
An address by Abraham Lincoln at Springfield, Illinois, on June 26, 1857 [Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol II, pp 408-9, Basler, ed.]:
“A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as immediate separation is impossible the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. Such separation, if ever affected at all, must be effected by colonization The enterprise is a difficult one, but ‘where there is a will there is a way:’ and what colonization needs now is a hearty will. Will springs from the two elements of moral and self-interest. Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and at the same time, favorable to, or at least not against our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be.”
Neither hero nor failure. The best word to describe him is: pragmatist.
Contrary to folklore, he did not issue the Emancipation Proclamation on the grounds that slavery was immoral. He eventually raised issues about the viability of the institution but his decisions about it were always within the context of saving the union. Keep in mind that slaves were only freed in states that had seceded from the union. He undercut the south by effectively eliminating their economy and their labor force.
He said repeatedly that blacks were not his equal and that had there been an easy way to do it, he would have preferred to ship blacks back to Africa. What he recognized though and said often is that the nation could not stand half-slave and half-free.
He did what was necessary to save the union — carefully considered, possibly courageously for its time, but also clearly pragmatic in its execution.
I don’t consider Lincoln a failure. He rode the tides as best he could. The situation was unwieldy at best, fraught full of troubles and there zould have been no pleasing of everyone in the course ofthe war. I think he did try to stop the war as best he could, even to resorting to harsh tacttics(i. e., Sherman’s March, which did arouse bad feelings between North and South, some of which lingers even now, sad to say)–I think the intent of that was twofold.
One, to make war as unpleasant as possible , to discourage enthusasm for it on EITHER side. Two, t o expedite the pace of the war, so as to end things as quickly as possible.
Looking at pictures of Lincoln’s face, from the time he was elected to the end of the war, he paid a heavy price for it all–there’s a deep sadness in his face that points out quite clearly how badly this affected him on a personal level.
Dealing with local politics(the local powerbrokers had no high opinion of him, even to parodying him in newpqpers), a rough Congress, headstrong generals, the international press, and on tiop of that, his belief that the South had to be reunited zith the North , which didn’t earn him any fans on either side of the country, north or south, also added to his burden. He also wanted very much to end the war on a high note–clemency for the southern soldiers, and a gentler Reformation than what was actually doled out after his assassination
There is one more factor t oadd here. There are signs that Lincoln may have suffered from manic-depressive illness. Considering THAT(and no medication back then to help him–no one thought of lithium back then to help, or even understood the littlest bit of what Lincoln was suffering), considering his tragic personal life as well, losing Tad and his other children—with all that in context, I think he did as good a job as he could, given what he knew.
The only ‘brokered peace’ that Jefferson Davis and his Gang of Traitors would accept was the Continuation of Slavery. They broke from the US of A before Lincoln was inaugurated. Actually James (b t t blaster) Buchanan is the one to be faulted for not hammering out a compromise – - – but again any compromise would have meant SLAVERY.
Are you really so enamoured of the South that you are auggesting that Slavery ought to have been continued. Yes I have heard all the arguments about Slavery being ‘forced’ upion the poor struggling ‘Impoverish’ Southerners, and that the south treated the ‘good’ Negroes fairly, and that slavery would have died out – - – e v e n t u a l l l l l l y y y y y y
Would it really have made America a better place if Southern Colonels strode forth to fight World War One with their personal propety, their slaves driving their Model-T’s and shinning their boots and keeping their rifles ready.
Lincoln was the Bravest Man in AMerica. By 1860 most Americans were Sick of the South and their clinging to Slavery and were willing to let them go. It was Lincoln who said ‘No, this Union will not be Rent Asunder.’ That is Not Failure, that is Raw Courage. Lincoln fought for America. Jeferson Davis and his Pals were Rebels, they committed treason, they ought to have been hung!!!
And yes I expect your cliche of students to toss a dozen or more thumbs down – - – -so be it – - – or will I be reported for abuse for saying bad things about Jefferson Davis? That has happened twice!!
Pax————————————
American mythology holds Lincoln as a sort of super being, a saint and holy martyr. But you’re right, he was just a man, a man who did his best with what cards were dealt him.
At the time of the Civil War the military did not understand the power of the new weapons. Even at the time of the first World War it was not appreciated, and thousands of men were uselessly wasted by feeding them into the jaws of that monster. And then at the time of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks, do you think the President understood that it’s use would lead to Mutual Assured Destruction? Politicians and military leaders never understand the power of their own weapons.
Then again, Lincoln was fighting an evil so perverse as to want the freedom to hold millions in slavery forever. What possible agreement could there be with inhuman monsters like that?
To cherish such a heritage as that of the Confederacy or Nazism or Islamic terrorism is the height of shame.
Remember the Emancipation Proclamation. President Lincoln was one of the most respected Presidents in history. Granted the Civil War resulted in a tremendous number of casualties, but this was about slavery and their right to be free. After the war, President Lincoln was going to give the Blacks a choice of either staying here or to go back to their homelands. This never came to be, because he was killed before he could put the plan into effect. He didn’t sell the public a bill of goods like the President’s of today do. To me he was a great man and leader!
Superman is not a hero either(from ur perspective)……
No one achieved there goals as heroes… but they sure have made an impression on people who still lives.
It’s how you define hero- Nature made people with a lil bitta chaos so face it