Although we all know Lincoln as the man who ended slavery, his life was mostly full of failures. Moreover, his political life is just one of them.
Franz Grillparzer’s words sum up the struggle of Lincoln, who, despite all the failures, finally achieved what he wanted because of his perseverance: “The greatness of the victory is measured by the difficulty of the struggle.”
The 16th American President, Abraham Lincoln, who is tested with every step he takes, is known as a president who experienced the greatest victories in world history.
Abraham, the first child of an uneducated farmer family in 1809, was able to get an education in just 1.5 years. Having completed his education, albeit late, by struggling with difficulties, Lincoln made it his duty to change the world order. His life began with difficulties from the house where he was born.
He was very disturbed by the human inequality in his country and dreamed that every human being should live under equal conditions, and integrated his life into it. He internalized this inequality in a geometry book he read. Lincoln, who gained these ideas by reading this book with the Eucrid axiom and correlation, underlined the following words in the book: “Things that are equal to the same thing are also equal to each other.”
He put this word spoken two thousand years ago into his life and forced himself to move in this direction.
One of the things he promised when he ran for president was to abolish slavery. 13. As soon as he took office thanks to the constitutional amendment, he would of course abolish slavery, with the idea that everyone should have the same rights and freedoms with this motto. But the consequences would not be so easy.
The southeastern parts of the United States had an agrarian economy. Crops such as cotton and sugarcane were grown on these farms, and black slaves provided the necessary labor force. In other parts of the country, the economy was oriented towards industry, and there was no need for slavery. For this reason, this decision drew the reaction of many states that built their system on slavery. However, he never gave up on his decision and struggle. Despite the civil wars.
According to a rumor, it is said that when he stood up at the last moment, he said “I stumbled, but I did not fall”. Nothing could have summed up his attitude towards what he had been through better.
Lincoln, who stumbled many times in his life, managed to become the 16th President of the United States 18 years later on the path he stumbled forward on.
Perhaps the most important feature that distinguishes him from us and other presidents is that he did not give up easily despite the blows he received. While the first thing a person does when faced with the slightest setback is to give up, Lincoln did not know what it is to give up when he was a child. However, there is something we missed that failure is not an absolute end; It can be the beginning of a success.
Let’s take a brief look at the failures that led him to success.
He was born into a poor family and had difficulty getting the education he wanted. He started working on the family farm in 1816. Then, at the age of 10, he lost his mother in 1818. He wanted to enter the Illinois state legislature in 1832 and failed. He lost his fiancée, Ann Rutledge, in 1835, and her death greatly affected Lincoln. In 1838, he wanted to be a spokesman for the state legislature, but failed to do so either.
In 1843, he wanted to be among his party’s parliamentary candidates in the US House of Representatives, but he was not selected as a candidate by his party. In 1849 he wanted to take over the head of the Federal Office of Public Lands, again unsuccessful.
He ran for the U.S. Senate in 1854 and lost. At that time, senators were elected by the state legislature. Lincoln, who could not reach a sufficient majority of votes, was unsuccessful in eight consecutive votes. In 1856, he wanted to run for vice president at the party convention, in the voting, Lincoln received 110 of 363 votes and did not run. He ran again for the U.S. Senate in 1858 and lost again.
In addition to all these, three of his four children died; Mental depression was inevitable for him. But he was eventually elected as the 16th president of the United States in 1860. If we speak and know him today with his achievements, it is only because of his determination. Abraham Lincoln, who did not fall by taking firm steps towards the goals in his life, even if he “stumbled”, is an important figure in political history today and is a serious proof that you should not give up. Perhaps the first thing to believe is the confidence that comes with getting up after a fall.
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