Bethany S Shepard

The many personal and wartime problems that Lincoln faced Abraham Lincoln struggled with depression for most of his life. At one point (in 1841), he felt that he was the most miserable man on earth. He felt that if everyone on earth felt like him there wouldn’t be a single happy face on earth. He knew that he couldn’t remain like he was. He had to either improve things or die. His friends feared that he was suicidal at that time and took measures to prevent him from hurting himself. He was also afraid of sexual inadequacy. He was not sure that he would be able to please a woman and care for a wife. He wondered if he would be a good husband and lover. His friend, Joshua Speed, was nervous about that too. When Speed got married, he wrote to Lincoln that there was nothing to be nervous about. Lincoln was encouraged by his friend’s words, and he married Mary Todd, with whom he had a positive physical relationship. Lincoln was generally a somber and melancholy person who spent a lot of time thinking about death. He was fascinated by death. He talked about it often in his speeches, his poetry, and his writing. He often spoke about how life is fleeting and everyone is going to die. We are just a blip on the screen of time. He was also afraid that he might go insane. He had a friend who had gone insane about whom he wrote a poem. His friend was put in a mental institution, experiencing a living death. Lincoln had a twisted fascination with his friend’s mental problems. For Lincoln, the thought of going insane was more terrifying than dying. When he thought about it, his own logic would be shattered. He didn’t trust organized religion and didn’t attend a church. He did believe in God though. He believed that God was in charge of all of our fates. He liked to use anecdotes and also humor when he spoke. He could be very funny. The carnage at Fort Sumter was unbelievable to Lincoln. Lincoln was in a depressive episode which he remained in for the rest of his presidency. For him, the war was ironic. He was a peaceful man. And the sight of blood made him sick. He hated violence, but the country was embroiled in terrible violence, with Lincoln being at its center. The violence of the war troubled him greatly and kept him up many nights. He was unable to sleep. Eventually, he came to the conclusion that God was punishing the people for the great evils of slavery. There were 620,000 casualties on both sides during the war. John Brown had prophesied earlier that crime of slavery would be punished by blood. Lincoln had come to that conclusion too. The qualities that made him an excellent president Lincoln must have loved his country a lot to let it suffer for so long. He wanted the war to end quickly. He was a political genius. He possessed first-class emotional intelligence. It wasn’t because he understood the rules of the game but because he was able to empathize with people. He tried to understand the position of the slave owners. That was quite unusual for abolitionists in his time. He didn’t want to portray them as corrupt and unchristian men. He tried to persuade people that they would be the same way if they were also from the south. He didn’t see the point in referring to the southerners as anathema, since they would just do the same to northerners, and it wouldn’t solve anything. He referred to southerners at the end of the war as friends, not enemies. Was he upset that most of his cabinet members did not respect him? Many people believe that Lincoln was American’s greatest president. He fought for men’s intrinsic rights. He wanted all Americans, whether or not they were black, white, northern, or southern, to dedicate themselves to the cause of liberty. He felt that, if they did not, governance by the people would vanish from the planet. One of the things that he did that was astounding was to assign his enemies positions in the cabinet. He was very self-assured. If he had struggled with low self-esteem, he would not have done that. He would have only assigned people to his cabinet who had been his loyal supporters, people who wouldn’t question his authority. But that is not what he wanted. He wanted people in his cabinet who would have the political abilities and experience that would be needed to do a good job. Was he upset that General McClellan ignored his wartime visit? Lincoln and his secretary waited for an hour for McClellan to return from a wedding so that they could see him. McClellan returned, but he didn’t go to see the president. Instead, he went to bed. Lincoln’s secretary was very upset and felt that it was evil, but Lincoln remained calm. His secretary felt that what had happened was unjustifiable insolence, but it seemed that the president did not notice that. He didn’t make an issue out of the fact that McClellan had been rude and insulted the president’s personal dignity. Was he upset that General Grant may have had a drinking problem? Lincoln admired Grant’s bravery and ability to win battles so he overlooked the general’s drinking problems. The president joked that he wished that all of his generals drank as much as Grant if it meant that they could fight as well as he could. Lincoln had a great talent in being able to empathize with people. He could see the world through other people’s eyes. He could think like them and feel like them. What were his views on slavery when he was a young politician in Illinois? Lincoln hated slavery. He saw that there was a pro-slavery conspiracy at work in the United States. He felt like it was undermining the Declaration of Independence for it contained a comment about equality. Pro-slavery theorists denounced the idea of equality as a lie. He felt like they had put in its place doctrines about inequality and human servitude. He knew that they would try to nationalize slavery next. He feared that slavery would sweep into Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, New England, and all northern states. He felt that all American workers in a way would become enslaved. He felt that the northern free labor system would be done away with and the Declaration of Intendance would be overthrown. Self-governance would be gone forever, and feudalism would return. The upper-classes would rule, and we would be entrenched under the aristocracy. All the work that had been done since the revolution would mean nothing. He and the other abolitionists wanted to stop slavery before it started to spread. He felt that slavery degraded everyone, whites and blacks. Negros could not eat the bread that they had earned from their own labor. It contradicted the Declaration of Independence. It violated the principles of free labor, self-help, social mobility, and economic independence. All of those principles were at the center of his ideology as well as the republican ideology at the time. Republicans felt like they couldn’t do anything about slavery in the states in which it already existed. But, at least, they could stop it from spreading. Douglas tried to frighten people that southern slaves would flee to the north taking white people’s jobs and women. But Lincoln was able to convince people that the irradiation of slavery was beneficial to all people, including white people. What was his reaction to the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dread Scott Decision to decide to emancipate the slaves? Lincoln was very upset about what was going on in Kansas. The Kansas Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott decision were vital to him as well as other republicans. They felt it was part of a plan to spread slavery across the country. They felt that ultimately the goal would be to nationalize slavery. Stephen A. Douglas was the one who had come up with the Kansas Nebraska act. It got rid of the Missouri Compromise, which made slavery illegal in the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase region. A new system was established for dealing with slavery in which congress would not be involved. Instead, the people of the area would vote on whether or not it would be a slave state or not. Until they voted, slavery would be allowed in those places. The Dred Scott decision meant that congress could not ban slavey because it would violate southern property rights. Lincoln felt that they would end up with legalized slavery from Mexico to Canada. It upset him greatly. He felt like the democratic party had launched a revolution against the founding fathers. He felt like slavery would persist and grow endlessly. He felt like it was a cancer that would poison our political system and that couldn’t be removed.