【美国精神】第75期

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Explanation:   

  Being the president of the United States is always a difficult and dangerous job, but it is especially so (or even more so) when there is a civil war and two or more parts of one country are fighting against each other. This was the experience of Abraham Lincoln, who was the 16th president of the United States.  

 

  Abraham Lincoln believed that slavery (or the practice of owning other people and making them work without paying them) was wrong and he worked hard to make slavery illegal (or against the law) in the United States. This was one of the biggest reasons that the United States had its Civil War. The northern and southern states fought bitterly (or in a very serious and negative way) against each other and it seemed like the United States could not be united anymore (or with all the states working together in one country). But Abraham Lincoln led the United States during the Civil War and he was able to preserve (or save) the Union when many people thought it wasn’t possible. 

 

  Abraham Lincoln also made the Emancipation¹ Proclamation, an official government document that freed the slaves and made slavery illegal (or against the law). This made many people in the north happy, but it made many people in the south angry. In fact, the Emancipation Proclamation made some people so angry that they began to plan Abraham Lincoln’s assassination² (or the murder of a country’s leader). 

 

  On April 14, 1865, President Lincoln and his wife were watching a play (or theater performance) at Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC. A man named John Wilkes Booth³ was in the theater, too, and he had a gun.  He shot President Lincoln.  The president died the next morning. He was the first U.S. president to be assassinated⁴. People in the northern part of the country mourned his loss (or felt sad that he had died), but some of the people in the south celebrated⁵ his death. Today he is remembered as a great president who helped the country stay together in very, very difficult times. 

 

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