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Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky. Growing up in the countryside, he made extraordinary efforts to educate himself while working on a farm and in a store. He said,“somehow I could read and write”. He was a captain in the U.S. Army and then spent eight years as a lawyer. His partner said Lincoln’s “ambition was a little engine that knew no rest."
1809年2月12日，亞伯拉罕·林肯出生在肯塔基州的一間小木屋中。生在鄉下，林肯曾經以務農為生，也在儲藏室工作過，與此同時，他發憤圖強努力奮進。他說：“我將通過某種方式來讀書、寫字”。林肯曾擔任美軍上尉，并作了八年的律師。他的搭檔說林肯的志向就像一臺小型引擎一樣，永不停歇。
Lincoln was a one-term member of the House of Representatives, but failed to get a seat in the U.S. Senate. He campaigned for years against slavery, calling it a “monstrous injustice”. In his speeches, he continually reminded people that “the authors of the Declaration of Independence…’did consider all men were created equal’”. He was elected as the United States’ 16th President in November 1860.
他還曾經擔任過一屆眾議院議員，但是沒有能夠獲得參議院的席位。有幾年，林肯一直在聲討奴隸制度，他把這叫做“極端不公”。在他的多次演講中，他不斷提醒人民“獨立宣言的作者”“人人生而平等”。1860年11月，他成為了美國第16任總統。
Lincoln warned the South 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." Despite this, the American Civil War started on April 12, 1861. Lincoln sent 75,000 troops to the South to “preserve the Union”. At Gettysburg in 1863, he said the War had created a new birth of freedom in the nation.
在就職演說中，他警告南方軍：“上帝沒有讓你們來毀滅國家，我有義務來保護她，不讓她受到傷害”。雖讓這樣，但美國內戰還是在1861年4月12日爆發。林肯派七萬五千名士兵開往南方“保衛祖國”。1863年在葛底斯堡，他說這場戰爭讓自由在這個國家里重生。
Lincoln was re-elected for a second term in 1864 after building the Republican Party into a strong national organization. He had already issued the Emancipation Proclamation that ended slavery. He promised to rebuild post-War America but was assassinated in April 1865. Lincoln’s death marked the first assassination of a U.S. president. He is continually considered to be one of the three greatest ever Presidents.
1864年，林肯再一次當選為美國總統，在這之前，他建立了共和黨。并頒布了結束奴隸制的解放奴隸宣言。雖然他承諾重建戰后的美國，但是他卻在1865年4月遭到槍殺。林肯是第一位遭到槍殺的美國總統。他也被人們認為是美國最偉大的三位總統之一。
譯文屬可可英語原創，未經允許，不得轉載。
