Was Abraham Lincoln a good president?

It seems to me that what historians call his major accomplishments all revolve around the Civil War. If the Civil War had not happened, would Lincoln be considered a foremost president? Note that the Confederate States seceded before Lincoln took office.

Was the Civil War really about freeing the slaves. How did Lincoln really feel about "Negroes" socially. Would the slaves have been freed if the Civil War had not occurred?

What were Lincoln's sentiments about equality of Blacks and society. What were his major achievements?562,130 Americans were killed in the Civil War, 36,000 were Negroes. http://www.americanwarlibrary.com/allwars.htmhttp://www.civilwarhome.com/casualties.htmCould another president have solved the slavery and secession problems without the loss of almost 600,000 Americans?

What about "compensated emancipation"? All the countries in the world that had legal slavery freed their slaves by compensating their owners. Washington DC did so also Asked by Geppetto 25 months ago Similar questions: Abraham Lincoln president Society > story.

Yes. A president is defined by the events that happen on his watch and how he handles it. The Civil War was his defining moment and his problem to grapple with, even though the threat of succession had been happening for decades, namely, over which states would be slave states, and which would be free.

When we faced westward expansion, that's when the issue came to a head. As to whether he would have been considered a good president had the Civil War not happened, it's anyone's guess. The war didn't start out with the main objective of freeing the slaves; it was to prevent the union from breaking up--in other words, the preservation of the union and the United States.

Lincoln was very adamant about that. As the war progressed, it became obvious that the subject of slavery was more than just retaining the planter life style of the South, it was also a human problem that had to be dealt with. Abolitionists in the North were lobbying for an end to slavery and there was the problem of runaways.

Should they be sent back to the South and their owners? Finally, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, which essentially freed the blacks in the South and the motives were not altogether altruistic. He knew that this would create insurrection in the South by the slaves, and even more runaways, which would contribute toward turning the domestic life of the South upside down and benefit the North.

Later in the war, black units of soldiers were formed in the North with great skeptism but they handled themselves with courage and bravery. Lincoln believed that they should be treated equally but had no illusions about their treatment at that time in white society. A fund was set up to send them to Liberia at the end of the war, but a black delegation convinced the president that they had a right to be citizens of this country when they fought in the war and were loyal to the union.

There was a prevailing belief by our founders that over time, slavery would end through attrition. The war forced that problem to be faced sooner rather than later. What were his accomplishments?

He was commander in chief and thus, head of the armed forces. He directed the war effort. (If anyone doubts the toll it took, take a look at the picture of him in 1865 as contrasted from when he first took office.) The first two years, the North was defeated roundly by Robert E.

Lee until his reputation grew to enormous proportions. Lincoln had a problem with Northern generals, Burnside & Hooker were brave enough but their skills were not up to matching Robert E.Lee. McClellan would not fight unless he had three times the men in the field as the South.

This frustrated Lincoln, and it wasn't until he finally got the combination of the juggernaut of Grant and Sherman that the North started to make progress until ultimate victory. Both sides lost a great many men, but the South could not replace them as easily as the North, especially with the great losses at Gettysburg. Could another president have solved the situation without that loss of manpower?

I would say no.It had more to do with the armies in the field and their generals. The southern generals were almost all West Point educated and, with the leadership of Robert E. Lee, it was soon apparent that the North had a formidable foe.

Also, the amunition vs. war tactics was more advanced, i.e. , the mini-ball which shattered bone and contributed to amputation of limbs. They also still used the Napoleonic tactic of attacking head on in a straight line which made them targets for cannon and riflemen behind trenches.

There were a lot of factors which played out that contributed to the casualty rate. Many died of disease and infection after being wounded without modern medical techniques as we know them today. For instance, General Stonewall Jackson survived the amputation of his arm, having been hit by "friendly fire," but got pneuomonia and died from that not the wound.

Also, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet was badly injured by his own men in the battle of the Wilderness but survived.

The killing of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth was a tragedy for the South. Booth, who was full of revenge at the destruction of his beloved South, thought he would have everlasting fame for murdering the president. I say this was a tragedy because, before he was shot, Lincoln had a meeting with Sherman and Grant and stipulated that the South was to be welcomed back into the fold without rancor and without punishment.In other words, if he had lived, Succession would not have been the nightmare that it turned out to be.

S killing put the country in the hands of abolitionists and the radicals of the Republican party that wanted revenge at any cost. Andrew Johnson, a weak VP, was not up to the job of directing the post-war recovery and, thus, Lincoln's wishes were not honored. Thus, the mayhem of Reconstruction began.

I believe that if Lincoln had lived long enough to direct the recovery, the aftermath of bitterness of that war would have healed in a better way. We were fortunate to have such a man as president at that point in time. Google the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural Addess of Abraham Lincoln and you will see the greatness in this man.

Sources: story major .

IF he was a "good" president it was because he kept the union together, rather than anything to do with slavery. Freeing the slaves was mostly the issue that allowed the Union to clothe themselves in the garb of moral righteousness. Lincoln himself said that he cared far less about slavery than he did about preserving the union.

He was willing to free the slaves if that would help to preserve the union. Note that the Emancipation Proclamation ONLY freed the slaves in territories controlled by the Confederacy, NOT in the north and NOT in Confederate territory already controlled by Union forces. The hope was to provoke slave insurrections in the south which might cripple the southern war effort.

Lincoln himself had no high opinion of blacks, nor thought them particularly capable of handling freedom. As it turned out, sudden abolition did not greatly change the conditions of life for southern blacks, who had few options aside from sharecropping or moving north to work in the burgeoning factories. It would certainly have been possible to end slavery without a war had that been the main issue.

Quite a few Latin American nations had already done so by various gradualist approaches that allowed all parties to make the adjustment to emancipation over a period of years, and with government bearing part of the cost. There would have been no reason not to follow this well-worn path. On of the larger causes of the war was the fact that most of the federal budget was paid by import duties on manufactured goods.

This was before the days of income tax. The southern economy was based on the export of raw materials (cotton) and the import of manufactured goods. By placing these duties, the north raised the price of the goods to the final user.

The south could not buy low-cost imports from it's foreign trading partners and so would buy higher-priced manufactures from northern factories. Thus the federal budget was financed on the backs of southern farmers, to the great benefit of norther industrialists. The south seceded mostly to preserve their way of life (slavery included) from federal encroachment.

The exclusion of slavery in new western territories and states, they saw as a move to isolate and control the old south, diluting their vote in congress by the inclusion of new "free states". The north was not prepared to allow this to happen. Another aspect of this was that England (for one) was maneuvering to bring about a secession, hoping to be able to regain control of at least part of the NA states if their unity could be broken.

Some decry the great growth of the power of thefederal government during and after the Civil War. That, apparently, was the price of Union. Were we better off with a forced union?

Those who think so celebrate Lincoln as a great president because he was the one who brought that about.

He had the right ideas, whether or not others were willing to go along with them. One of his ideas was (literally) buying back all the slaves: rather than simply freeing them, he was going to work within the Constitution and not deprive citizens of money or property without due process. The Constitution enabled the government to exercise eminent domain over a one's property if he or she were compensated.So he was going to compensate them.

He also had the plan to resettle the slaves elsewhere (Central America) to do away with the possibility of the racial tensions and abuses and bad laws (Plessy vs. Ferguson?!) that we endured for the next 100 years. I think much of the time that we have screwy Presidents now (Bush or Obama, take your pick) is that when we Americans get good leaders, we don't want them. Instead, Lincoln is assassinated, Johnson takes over, and ruins everything with a wrathful vengeance against the South's plantation economy..

2 he was good enough to be assassinated by the political opposition.

He was good enough to be assassinated by the political opposition.

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Heard an interesting supposition concerning Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War and would like some input.

E-mail listing of private Abraham Lincoln memrobelia collectors or societies.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.