President Abraham Lincoln and the Statesmanship he Embodied

President Abraham Lincoln And The Statesmanship He Embodied
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Introduction
The term statesmanship has been used over the years. The main focus when it comes to statesmanship is to ensure that leaders are those who call for the value of good leadership and that of their followers. In this manner, leaders or statesmen are those that have overcome a lot of hardship issues in the name of their country or their people. This shows that statesmanship is pegged on such things as prudential wisdom, moral character, humility and other attributes that are all in the name of realizing a good society for all. According to various models, a statesman must possess the following things (Newell 2012). First, he must have a bedrock of principles. This means that he is a man which builds a platform based on an unchanging foundation of the firm fundamental truths. They are the things that the person believes to be the main part of his or her philosophy. A good foundation ensures that the person will be able to withstand any kind of pressure that may come in the way as they exercise good leadership.[Baldwin, Christopher E. "Franklin's classical american statesmanship. ." Perspectives on Political Science, 2012: 68.]
One of the ways that a statesman ensures he has done his work well is by also changing his policies at times to as a way of achieving objectives. Baldwin (2012) adds that a true statesman also does not follow the crown when it comes to making decisions that are of vital importance to himself and his society. They will always make decisions that are in line with their moral compass. A true statesman believes in absolute truth and his moral compass will follow what is right and fight what is entirely wrong (Dyer 2010). This research paper focuses on the statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln by looking at some of his actions leading to the change and development of the American democracy and nationalism to date. Since the paper is based on a historical personality, all the information used in the analysis was gathered from secondary data that included books, journals, dissertations and previous reports.
Analysis of Abraham Lincoln Statesmanship
For many readers, Abraham Lincoln will always be remembered as the statesman of democracy. One of the main areas that he was known to exert pressure on was the idea that individual freedom can only be found in a nation when there is a well and secured democratic political order which treats every citizen as an equal governed by the law and before the law (Newswander 2012). There are also limits that the state needs to use when treating its citizen or when looking at ways citizens treat one another.
As part of his statesmanship, Abraham Lincoln respected public opinion so much when he was president of the United States. There was nothing more significant to Lincoln in any public debate than tackling the root cause of an issue (Lyons 2006). His political tactics were unmatched as he used popular prejudice to his own purpose of making sure a citizens meeting meant doing well for the better majority that people with own self-interests Livinegston (1999), adds that Lincoln political skills were based on his understanding of public opinion. For some analysts, Lincoln was a prodigious political manipulator and despite his many failures to capture the presidency and his failures with the press he still remained to be one of the most successful politicians. Due to his skills in understanding and implementing public opinion, Abraham Lincoln grew up to be a great statesman (Ceaser 2007). This is because he paid little attention to dogmatic positions and used ribald storytelling to entice people of the different political divide to work together for the country. He also showed his capacity to suffer for the whole country through native intelligence and accepting criticism on his stand on slavery (Ruderman 2012).[Ruderman, Richard S. "Statesmanship reconsidered. ." Perspectives on Political Science, 2012: 87.]
The other quality that proves his statesmanship is the positive propaganda he always expressed. He never played the race card in his leadership and looked at every American as equal. He always reached out to his political enemies by not making politics personal. According to CITATION Raf12 \l 1033 (Major 2012), ‘Lincoln would spend most of his time in decision making. This show that he was humble as a statesman and did not just follow what people would say, he would take time to listen to different political divide and come up with a decision that would favor the majority, and if he did not follow the majority decision, he used his communication skills to ensure that arguments within the two political divide worked for every citizen.[Major, Rafael. "Those that have the power to hurt and will do none": Shakespea...