Two Miserable Presidents Read Online Free Page A

Two Miserable Presidents
Book: Two Miserable Presidents Read Online Free
Author: Steve Sheinkin
Pages:
Go to
inches tall, with long limbs rock hard from years of farmwork. “He can sink an axe deeper into wood than any man I ever saw,” a friend said. He was also unbeatable at wrestling. When he was twenty-three, Lincoln decided to run for the Illinois state legislature. He traveled around Sangamon County talking to voters (and wrestling many of them). On Election Day he came in eighth.
    Lincoln ran again two years later—and won. He was a natural politician, the kind of guy who could walk into a room full of strangers and have everyone cracking up in a few minutes. But he had another side, a quiet and gloomy side. He sometimes sat still for hours, staring silently into the air. “I never saw a more thoughtful face,” a friend said of Lincoln. “I never saw so sad a face.”
    By the time he was fifty Lincoln had served in the state government and the United States House of Representatives, and had become a successful lawyer in Springfield, Illinois. But he had a bigger dream: to return to Washington, D.C., as a U.S. senator. And he got his chance in 1858 when the Republican Party announced: “Abraham Lincoln is the first and only choice of the Republicans of Illinois for the United States Senate.”
    Who were the Republicans? The answer requires …
    A Brief Word About Political Parties
    A t this time there were two main political parties in the United States: Democrats and Republicans. Just like today, Democrats and Republicans fought over all kinds of issues. But it was the issue of slavery in the western territories that caused the bitterest debate.
    The new Republican Party had been founded in 1854, and it opposed the expansion of slavery in the western territories. The Republicans got nearly all their support from the North. Members of the Democratic Party argued that slavery should be allowed in the territories if white settlers wanted it. The Democrats had some supporters in the North, but they got most of their support from the South.
    Long Abe vs. the Little Giant
    N ow back to “Long Abe” Lincoln and his 1858 Senate dreams.
    The man who had the job that Lincoln wanted was Senator Stephen “the Little Giant” Douglas. Douglas’s nickname was based on two things: he was little (just over five feet), and he had the powers of a giant in Congress. Douglas, who was a Democrat, knew Lincoln would be a tough opponent. “You have nominated a very able and a very honest man,” he told a Republican friend. “I shall have my hands full.”
    Lincoln opened the contest with an alarming prediction—the North and South were speeding toward a dangerous showdown: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Lincoln said. “I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.”

    The only way to prevent Northern states from becoming slave states, Lincoln argued, was to stop the expansion of slavery right now.
    Douglas thought this was ridiculous, and he said so over and over when the two candidates met in a series of famous debates all over Illinois. Lincoln and Douglas argued for three hours at a time before huge outdoor crowds—crowds that took part in the action by laughing, cheering, and, when they felt like it, yelling out insults and comments. When Lincoln took out a piece of paper to read something aloud, one person shouted, “Put on your specs!”
    â€œYes, sir, I am obliged to do so,” Lincoln said, putting on his glasses. “I am no longer a young man.”
    This got a big laugh.
    Newspaper writers followed the Lincoln-Douglas debates, printing the arguments for the entire country to read. Lincoln and Douglas, both great debaters, were battling over the very issues that were splitting the country apart.
    Douglas
Go to

Readers choose