Of the many presidents who could be effortlessly passed off as heroes, there are only a few truly heroic presidents. Among them, Abraham Lincoln stands tall. In 1861, the year when Lincoln was elected to office, the situations of the time called for a hero, and Lincoln graciously stepped up and accepted the challenge.
             After being elected in 1861, Lincoln was faced with a dilemma. Though he never officially realized it, the South called for some sort of action. At the beginning of the Civil War, the slavery issue was publicized by a large number of Union line slaves who freely provided their time to fight for their freedom and that of their colleagues. Many people urged Lincoln to free all slaves and surprisingly enough the majority of the public agreed. But for Abraham Lincoln's plan to work he had to operate slowly. On June 19, 1862, Congress spoke out and declared that slavery would be prohibited in all United States territories. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, offering liberty to approximately 3,120,000 slaves. Throughout the Civil War, and even after, Lincoln was very kind and forgiving to southerners. He always remembered the greater good and strived for the reunion of the nation, rather than becoming hateful toward the South. As Abraham stated in a speech at the Gettysburg military cemetery, he wanted a "government of the people, by the people, for the people, that shall not perish from the earth." With the enactment of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in effect in 1865, slavery was completely and totally abolished. By the end of the Civil War, Lincoln urged the South to put down their weapons, and invited them to rejoin the Union. The issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln's truly most noble and well-known action, proclaimed all the slaves in the United States free from slavery. Though this meant little to the South at the time, it means every...