Be not afraid of greatness

“Be not afraid of greatness”
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II, v

In the history of the United States there are a lot of famous names and the name of Abraham Lincoln is among them. I’d like to write about one of the most famous presidents of the USA. Abraham Lincoln in my opinion is the eminent example of the "American dream". Just due to Lincoln many Americans think for a long time that in their country a person may rise from the lowest to the highest position. That was exactly what Lincoln did. I think that Abraham Lincoln is (real) Native American whose name is famous all over the world. I decided to begin my work from the famous Shakespeare’s quotation because I think that these words we can use relatively to all famous people and they show us that great people are not great only in their words, but they are great also in their actions. I want to quote the next words by John Dean: “Abraham Lincoln has constantly moved among and stirred Americans in the common, shifting ground of their popular, visual, and digital imagination. Nowadays, Lincoln is larger than the sum of his parts. This is due partly to his own prismatic personality, partly to his political genius, partly to the special needs of the American nation and its people. If Lincoln did not exist, someone, somehow, would have tried to construct a representative figure who came close to the mark of what the Civil War, the fight for Union, the failure of Succession, the liberty of the slaves and the material-spiritual expansion of America meant. But Lincoln existed. Lincoln hit the target. Here was witness, cause, martyr and lodestone all packed into one.” (asjournal.zusas.uni-halle.de). These true words one more time prove that Abraham Lincoln played a great role in the history of the United States.

It is unnecessary to retell Lincoln’s biography from the beginning, because his biography we can read in every textbook. I think it will be more interesting to dwell on his political career and how his actions influenced the social life of the country. First of all it is important to mention that Lincoln has an interesting biography and he achieved all his successes only by own efforts. According to Henry Ketchman we see that: “Lincoln’s duties at New Salem, as clerk, storekeeper, and postmaster, had resulted in an intimate acquaintance with the people of that general locality. His duties as surveyor took him into the outlying districts. His social instincts won for him friends wherever he was known, while his sterling character gave him an influence unusual, both in kind and in measure, for a young man of his years. He had always possessed an interest in public, even national, questions, and his fondness for debate and speech-making increased this interest. Moreover he had lived month by month going from one job to another, and had not yet found his permanent calling. When this combination of facts is recalled, it is a foregone conclusion that he would sooner or later enter politics. This he did at the age of twenty-three, in 1832.” (authorama.com). We know that exactly in 1834 Abraham Lincoln became a candidate to the Parliament of Illinois. He soon became a force in the political life of the country and in 1847 he went as a Congressman to the National Assembly (National Parliament). For example, in Congress Lincoln argued against the war continue between America and Mexico, though voted for supplying with armaments and live ammunitions troops on the field of the battle. Abraham declared that he initiates a bill, foreseeing liquidation of slavery in neighborhood of Columbia, but for a great regret he could not carry out the promise. He also proposed the row of "operative resolutions", invocatory democratic president to adduce that, encroaching on the territory of the USA, Mexico provoked the war. Based on all the above said we could come to the conclusion that in Congress of the USA Lincoln declared oneself as the convinced supporter of expansion of civil and political laws. Lincoln’s activity reflected interests of progressive circles of bourgeoisie of the North states and petty-bourgeois elements of the country. He came forward for expansion of civil and political laws of people, stood up for an enfranchisement of women. Being the decisive opponent of slavery, he stood for liberation of slaves and argued against the attempts of distribution of the slavery system on the whole territory of the USA.

I think that slavery topic is very interesting part of Lincoln’s biography, because he had own position relatively this question and he was not against slavery in its wide sense. The textbooks of history, estimating Abraham Lincoln’s achievements, in one voice testify that in Civil war he pursued one purpose - liberation of Negroes. It is not quite so and in acknowledgement of these words we have the next of Lincoln in which he declared: “My higher purpose in this fight is maintenance of union, not maintenance or elimination of slavery. If I will be able to rescue the union, not freeing the not one-unique slave, I would do it.”(Vorenberg, 2001). Moreover, his Declaration of Independence, destroyed slavery in the “mutinous states”. This statement was directed mainly on the possibility to deprive the governments of England and France of every possibility to enter into war on the side of Confederation.

Certainly, nothing interfered Lincoln to declare about possibility to be in the future delivered from slavery, but this man avoided demagogic statements. Preeminent aphorism belongs to Lincoln: “It is possible to fool part of people all time; it is possible to fool all people some time, but it is impossible to fool all time all people”. “Honest Lincoln” stayed honest to the whole nation to the end of his life. In addition, he understood that a task was not taken only to liberation of Negroes. Eventually, to the middle of XIX century slavery in the USA already was not so ugly, as before. In the Russian empire, for example, position of fortress peasants it was not at all better than in America. But in the USA, besides that, it was much colored - American Indians, Mexicans, and expatriates from South-east Asia, who were also exposed to the discrimination, though in a less measure. Discords are not uncommon were between the states, different religious confessions and ethnic groups. A task consisted of that, made Civil war to re-fuse hitherto separate people in a single nation, to overcome not only racial but also any other discrimination.  Preeminently Lincoln devoted the last years of the life to the decision of this task.

Thus, taking into account all above mentioned we can conclude that Abraham Lincoln became a central historical figure in consciousness of the American people, by a man, preventing disintegration of the United States and bringing in a considerable contribution to American nation formation and abolition of slavery as a basic obstacle for subsequent normal development of the country. For the conclusion we can quote Lincoln’s words about liberty who said:

"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny." (home.att.net)


Works cited

Dean, John. The Social and Cultural Construction of Abraham Lincoln in U.S. Movies and on U.S. TV. American Studies Journal, 53. 2009.

Ketcham, Henry. The Life of Abraham Lincoln - Webster's English Thesaurus Edition. Icon Group International, Inc. 2009.

McPherson, James M.  Battle Cry of Freedom: the Civil War Era. US: Oxford University Press. 1993.

Nevins, Allan.  The War for the Union: War becomes revolution, 1862-1863. Konecky & Konecky. 1960.

Vorenberg, Michael. Final Freedom: the Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment. Cambridge University Press. 2001.

White, R. A. Lincoln: A Biography. Random House, Inc. 2009.

Wills, Garry. Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America. New York: Simon & Schuster. 1993.