85人教版高中英语第一册第六课 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Abraham Lincoln, the son of a poor family, was born in kentucky on February 12, 1809. He spent his childhood in hard work, helping his father on their small farm. His mother, who he loved dearly, died in 1818. happily for him, his father’s second wife was kind to him too. When she saw that Abraham liked reading, she did all she could to help him. But the family was poor and the boy could not get many books. Abraham lincoln later said himself that he only went to school a little now and little then. His whole school education added up to no more than one year.
As a young man he was a storekeeper and later a postmaster. He studied law in his spare time and became a lawyer. he was active in politics and strongly against slavery. In all his political life, he thought of building a feee state for all the people.
In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United State. Then he worked still harder for freedom for the slaves. Soon the Southern states rebelled. They set up a state of thier own, where they would be free to keep negroes as slaves. Lincoln said that it was not right for the south to break away from the Union. Fighting broke out between the North and the South. This was the American Civil War. The war lasted four years before the North won in the end. The nation was reunited and the salves were set free.
In 1864, Lincoln was elected President of the united States for the second time. But his enemies, the slave owners in the South and the bankers in big cities, who had grown rich on the work of the slaves, could not let Lincoln continue his work. He, who let the United States through these years, was shot on April 14, 1865, at a theatre in Washington, D.C. and died early the next morning. The whole nation was in deep sorrow at this news, for the people had come to love him as an inspiring leader, and a wise, warm-hearted, honest man.
About seventeen months before his death, at the opening of a memorial to the many men who lost their lives fighting for the freedom of the Negroes, Abraham Lincoln told his people that the living must finish the work of those dead; that they must fight for freedom for all-Negroes and whites; that America must strengthen government of the people, by the people and for the people.
Today, Abraham Lincoln is regarded as one of the greatest of all American presidents.