林肯介绍
reconstruction, and the withdrawal of federal troops from the five military zones in the former Confederacy.
Dred Scott decision - In a landmark decision handed down March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney argued that a slave was not a citizen of the
United States, and thus could not bring a lawsuit to a federal court. Further, he noted that as per the Fifth Amendment, no slave-owning citizen could be deprived of property, i.e. his slaves, without due process of law. This
controversial decision opened up the territories and the several free-soil states
to legalized slavery, and heightened regional tensions over the slavery question considerably.
评价 Without question, Abraham Lincoln is one of the most celebrated figures in American history. Like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson before him, Lincoln is almost universally revered today as a man of rare ability and
character who shaped the United States in his image, to the lasting benefit of all Americans who followed in his wake.
Because of Lincoln's firm place in the echelon of national heroes, he is often portrayed in a sanctified light, as though he worked according to a grand design in which he was incapable of doing wrong. History, in providing a narrative to events past, makes the world seem as though they it could not have happened otherwise. But the living, breathing reality of a life is always far more contingent, and often downright arbitrary.
Lincoln was well aware of his shortcomings as a leader, perched as he was upon the precarious position that his fortune—and indeed the nation's fortunes—rested. In discussing his role as commander-in-chief during the closing months of the Civil War, Lincoln was quite able to "plainly confess that events have controlled me more than I have controlled them."
启示
With so many failures, a lot of people, in Lincoln's position, probably would have given up. But because he was
determined and committed to make his political dreams come true, he would get up each time he was knocked down. He knew the only way to gain ground, to move forward, to march on, and to turn his goals into reality, was to learn from his setbacks and failures.
