|
Presidents Theme
edHelper.com Subscribers: Click Here to Build a New Printable Version of this Pre-Made Worksheet! |
Return to Presidents Theme |
| Who is this president? |
|
____, the 16th president of the United States, was born in Hardin County, Kentucky. The son of a Kentucky frontiersman, ____ made extraordinary efforts to learn while working on a farm, splitting rails for fences, and keeping store at New Salem, Illinois. He was a captain in the Black Hawk War, spent eight years in the Illinois legislature, and rode the circuit of courts for several years. He married Mary Todd and had four sons, only one of whom lived to adulthood. He firmly believed that secession was illegal and that it was proper to use force to defend federal law and the Union. Elected president in 1860, he said in his Inaugural Address, "You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it." When confederate batteries fired on Fort Sumter, he called on the states to provide 75,000 volunteers. The Civil War had begun. ____ was not an abolitionist, but he understood that the war could not be successfully concluded without freeing the slaves. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves within the Confederacy. However, he frequently reminded the world that the Civil War was over a much larger issue-the unity of the Nation. At Gettysburg he made his point eloquently: "...that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." The war effort was hampered by the incompetence of many of his generals and the inexperience of the troops. However, he found his winning combination in Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman. Their victories silenced the criticism from others in his party, and he was re-elected in 1864. In his planning for peace, President ____ was generous and kind. He encouraged the Southerners to lay down their weapons and rejoin their countrymen. However, ____ did not live to guide the binding up of the nation's wounds. On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, President ____ was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes booth, an actor who somehow thought he was helping the South. He was wrong, for with ____'s death the next morning, the hopes for a peace guided by generosity and reconciliation died as well.
Gerald R. Ford
Abraham Lincoln
Ulysses S. Grant
John Quincy Adams
Warren Harding
Andrew Johnson
|
Answer Key
|