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Was Abraham Lincoln a good president?

亚伯拉罕·林肯是个好总统吗?

Richard Lobb
Why is Abraham Lincoln always regarded (as I read almost everywhere) as one of the best presidents (one of the best three in the most surveys) in the United States history?
I agree with a ranking that places Lincoln among our very best presidents. I have always felt Lincoln is in a group of three at the tippy-top of the presidents — consisting of Washington, Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Washington because he did more than any other single person to create the nation and set it on its extraordinary course; Lincoln because he preserved the nation from dissolution; and FDR because he projected the nation onto the world stage. Feel free to argue, but that’s my view.

为什么亚伯拉罕·林肯（正如我几乎在任何地方读到的）常被看作是美国历史上最优秀的总统之一（在许多调查中被列为最好的三位总统之一）？
我认同将林肯列为我们最优秀的总统之一的排名。我一直认为林肯是顶尖的三位总统(包括乔治·华盛顿、亚伯拉罕·林肯和富兰克林·德拉诺·罗斯福)之一。华盛顿因为他于国家的创立和确立其非凡的发展方向比任何其他个人都有着更多的贡献；林肯因为他维护了国家的完整，防止了国家的分裂；罗斯福则是因为他将国家推向了世界舞台尽管争论吧，但这是我的观点

Kade?
He did what was needed during the most brutal war American has ever been a part of as it happened on our own soil by our own countrymen. He led the country to victory for a noble cause which means he’s viewed favorably by the public today, especially because he was assassinated and people always hold great sympathy for those great people who died before their time….that being said if he had been president today he would have been torn to shreds for his crimes.

亚伯拉罕·林肯在美国历史上最残酷的战争中，也就是我们自己的土地上由同胞发起的战争中，做了必要的事。他领导国家为了一个崇高的目标取得了胜利，这就是为什么他今天在公众中享有良好的声誉，尤其是因为他被暗杀，人们对那些英年早逝的伟大人物总是怀有极大的同情……话虽如此，如果他今天担任总统，他可能会因为自己的罪行被严厉谴责。

so Abraham Lincoln was a great president to achieve victory in war but he did actually commit offenses that would have seen him impeached after the war. He violated the constitution numerous times.
Lincolns most controversial action was that he suspended the writ of habeas corpus. This allowed him to imprison anyone and everyone that was viewed as a southern sympathizer without them having committed a crime or being told what specific crime they committed. If a modern president did this there would be outrage no matter the circumstances. It let Lincoln imprison any southern sympathizers indefinitely without fair trial.

所以，亚伯拉罕·林肯是一位在战争中取得胜利的伟大总统，但他确实犯了一些在战后可能会被弹劾的过错：他多次违反了宪法。
林肯最具争议的行动之一是暂停了人身保护令。这使他能够监禁任何被视为南方同情者的人，而无需他们犯罪或被告知犯了什么具体罪行。如果现代总统这样做，无论在什么情况下都会引起公愤。这让林肯可以无限期地监禁任何南方同情者，而无需公平审判。

He also used government suppression on the press to threaten any articles that painted the north unfavorably when that was the only way to get information back then.
He ordered the unx army into the south without the approval of congress which is needed under any circumstances at the time.
He ordered the arrest warrant of a Supreme Court justice who said Lincoln was breaking the constitution

他还利用政府压制媒体，威胁任何对北方不利的报道，而那时这是获取信息的唯一方式。
他未经国会批准就命令联邦军队进入南方，而这在当时任何情况下都其实是需要国会的批准的。
他下令逮捕了一位最高法院大法官，该大法官声称林肯违反了宪法。

and for immoral actions that are understood but frowned upon during war, he ordered a general to burn southern food and supplies that were meant for civilian use during the winter, and his non consented first attack killed 50,000 southern civilians.

在战争中，他还有一些被理解但不被认可的不道德行为，比如他命令一位将军焚烧了本应供平民在冬季使用的食品和物资，而他那未经同意的首次攻击导致5万名南方平民死亡。
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He was a GREAT military commander and president like George Washington. At the same time he broke several laws that would leave any president today impeached. So was he a good president? He was great for the COUNTRY in the long term. But he was very Machiavellian and believed that he could use whatever means necessary to win the war. That’s why I think it’s important we remember him as a great leader who shouldn’t be deified as this friendly and wise old man. He was very vicious when it came to winning even towards the unx and at certain points when the war was hard was closer to a dictator than a president.

他是一位伟大的军事指挥官和总统，就像乔治·华盛顿一样。但同时，他也违反了几项法律——足以让任何一位现代总统被弹劾。那么，他是一位好总统吗？从长远来看，对国家而言，他是伟大的总统。但他非常崇尚马基雅维利主义，坚信为了打赢战争可以采取任何必要的手段。这就是为什么我认为记住他是一位不应被神化的伟大领袖很重要，不应该将他视为一个友好而明智的老人。在追求胜利的过程中，他表现得非常残酷，甚至对联邦自身也是如此。在战争特别艰难的时期，他的统治方式更像一个独裁者，而不像一个总统。

William Murphy
What made Abraham Lincoln a great leader?
Lincoln was a very gifted politician. He could be very charming and persuasive in person, and even his political oponnents often found themselves liking him in spite of themselves. He was not a great public speaker, though he was capable of writing a brilliant speech; his Gettysburg Address was a brilliant summary both of the stakes of the civil war and his vision of the kind of country the U.S. should be, and it took only two minutes to deliver. His second inaugural address is, in my opinion, one of the two or three most important and best speeches ever delivered by an American president.

是什么让亚伯拉罕·林肯成为伟大的领导者？
林肯是一位非常有天赋的政治家。他在个人交往中非常有魅力和说服力，甚至连他的政治对手也常常在不自觉中对他产生好感。虽然他不是一位伟大的演讲者，但他能够写出精彩的演讲搞；他的《葛底斯堡演说》既精彩地总结了内战的利害关系，又阐明了他对美国应成为何种国家的愿景，而他的演讲仅用了两分钟。我的看法是，他的第二次就职演说是美国总统所发表的两三篇最重要和出色的演讲之一。

Lincoln was brilliant but lacked an ego. He was willing to work with members of Congress even if they were publicly very critical of him, and refused to take such criticism personally. In 1860, he was barely even a consideration for the Republican presidential nomination, as there were a half dozen more prominent candidates, but he outmaneuvered them for the nomination and then asked nearly all the men he defeated to serve in his cabinet, even though all of them thought they deserved to be president more than he did, because they were the best minds and leaders in his party and he knew he'd need their help.

林肯聪明却不自负。他愿意与国会成员合作，即使他们公开批评他，也拒绝将这种批评个人化。在1860年，他几乎没有被考虑作为共和党总统候选人，因为还有几位更显著的候选人，但他巧妙地获得了提名，并邀请几乎所有被他击败的人加入他的内阁，尽管他们都认为自己比他更适合担任总统，因为他们是他党内最优秀的头脑和领导者，他知道自己需要他们的帮助。

Lincoln was a rare leader whose personal and poltical gifts were exactly what was needed at the.moment of greatest crisis in U.S. history, and without him there would be no single, unified nation calling itself the United States of America today; there'd be at least two smaller, weaker nations (and probably more than two) where there is one U.S. today.

林肯是一位罕见的领导者，他的个人魅力和政治才能正是美国历史上最大危机时刻所需的。如果没有他，今天就没有一个统一的国家称为美利坚合众国；今天的美国可能会是至少两个更小、更弱的国家（可能还有更多）。
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Nate Anderson
Why is Abraham Lincoln considered the best president?
For most people, Lincoln = (ending slavery) + (keeping the unx together)
Both events are viewed highly favorably and he's therefore considered one of the best.
What history has mostly forgotten is that in order to achieve those two key aspects of his legacy he also crippled state rights and strengthened the central government considerably.
For those who believe Democracy works best when power is decentralized (myself included), I have mixed feelings about Lincoln: On one hand, ending slavery and extending individual rights is unequivocally good and is a truly Democratic act. On the other hand, the byproduct of his approach was the long-term weakening of a different core aspect of our Republic.

为什么亚伯拉罕·林肯会被认为是最好的总统呢？
对大多数人而言，林肯的形象等同于（废除奴隶制）加上（维护联邦的统一）。
这两个成就都受到了高度的赞扬，因此他被看作是最优秀的总统之一。
然而，历史往往忽略了，为了实现这两项遗产的关键部分，他也严重损害了州权，并大幅加强了中央政府的权力。
对于那些认为民主在权力下放时效果最佳的人来说——我也是其中之一——我对林肯有着复杂的看法：一方面，废除奴隶制和扩展个人权利无疑是极其正面的，是真正民主的行为。另一方面，他的做法间接导致了我们共和国另一个核心要素的逐渐弱化。

Renee Osborne McClean
Lincoln was an exceptional American leader because of his ability to use his perceived weaknesses as strengths and because his character was intrinsically decent and good. As historian Doris Kearns Goodwin points out in her book, “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”, Lincoln was a brilliant political strategist and positioned himself not as an extremist but as a consistent voice on moral policy as seen in the Republican Convention of 1859. He recognized the weaknesses in his opponents and sought to avoid those qualities in his character, “Finally, Lincoln’s profound and elevated sense of ambition — “an ambition”, Fehrenbacher observes, “notably free of pettiness, malice and overindulgence,” shared little common ground with Chase’s blatant obsession with office, Seward’s tendency towards opportunism, or the ambivalent ambition that led Bates to withdraw from public office. Though Lincoln desired success as fiercely as any of his rivals, he did not allow his quest for office to consume the kindness and openheartedness with which he treated supporters and rivals alike, and did not alter his steady commitment to the antislavery cause.” (Kearns Goodwin, p. 256).

林肯之所以成为一位非凡的美国领袖，是因为他能够将自己的弱点转化为优势，并且他本性善良、品格高尚。历史学家多丽丝·基恩斯·古德温（Doris Kearns Goodwin ）在她的书《对手团队：亚伯拉罕·林肯的政治天才》中指出，林肯是一位卓越的政治策略家，他没有把自己定位为极端分子，而是在1859年的共和党大会上，展现出了在道德政策上的坚定立场。他识别出对手的弱点，并努力避免自己出现同样的问题。“最终，林肯深刻而高尚的抱负——费伦巴赫评论说，这种抱负“显著地没有小气、恶意和过度放纵”——与蔡斯对职位的明显迷恋、西沃德的投机倾向，或贝茨因矛盾的抱负而退出公职的情况几乎没有共同点。尽管林肯像他的对手一样渴望成功，但他没有让自己对职位的追求吞噬了他对支持者和对手一视同仁的善意和慷慨，也没有改变自己对废奴事业的坚定承诺。”（古德温，第256页）。

Another example of profiting from his rival’s character flaws was when he accepted the speaking engagement at Cooper unx which placed him on the national stage and whereas Salmon Chase declined because he saw it as too unimportant for him to attend. Eventually, Lincoln reached out to Salmon Chase, William Seward, and Edward Bates to join his political “family”, the Cabinet. He also recognized that his own perceived weaknesses could be used as strengths. For example, given the fact that Lincoln had two failed attempts to win Illinois’ Senate seat and served only one term in the House meant that he had not the time to accumulate political enemies. When it came to dismissing the incompetent General Fremont, who was the darling of the Mexican American War, Lincoln skillfully leaked a Congressional report about him to the press to prepare public sentiment against him before the axe fell.

另一个例子是，他利用对手的性格缺陷，接受了在库珀联盟的演讲邀请，这使他登上了全国舞台，而蔡斯却因为认为这不值得他去而拒绝了。最终，林肯邀请了蔡斯、西沃德和贝茨加入他的政治“家庭”，即内阁。他也意识到自己的所谓弱点可以转化为优势。例如，考虑到林肯曾两次尝试赢得伊利诺伊州参议院席位失败，只在众议院任职一个任期，这意味着他没有时间积累政治敌人。在解雇不称职的弗里蒙特将军时——他是美墨战争的英雄——林肯巧妙地向媒体泄露了一份关于他的国会报告，以在采取行动之前为公众情绪做准备。

Suffering losses in his own personal life before and during the War i.e. the loss of his son, Edward before he ran for president and the death of his third son, Willie in 1862, made Lincoln incredibly and obviously empathetic. A war correspondent on a visit to General McClellan’s encampment in July of 1862, noted how the troops demonstrated a profound sense of endearment for their Commander in Chief, “ His benignant smile as he passed on was a real reflection of his honest, kindly heart; but deeper, under the surface of that marked and not all uncomely face, were the unmistakable signs of care and anxiety…”.

在战争前后，他个人生活中遭受的损失，比如他在竞选总统前失去儿子爱德华，以及1862年他的第三个儿子威利去世，使林肯表现出了极大的同情心。1862年7月，一位战地记者访问了麦克莱伦将军的营地，注意到部队对他们的总司令表现出深厚的喜爱，“他路过时那慈祥的微笑真正反映了他诚实、善良的心；但在那张有特色且不难看的面孔下，更深处，是忧虑和焦虑的明显迹象……”。

Lastly, Lincoln had a profound sense of posterity and the ripples of his actions throughout the annals of time. This was seen when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. As the paper was unrolled before him, he stayed his hand as the gravity of his action weighed upon him, “I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper,” he said. “If my name ever goes into history it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.” The Senator-elect from Ohio and future president, James Garfield prophetically said, “Strange phenomenon in the world’s history when a second-rate Illinois lawyer is the instrument to utter words which shall form an epoch memorable in all future ages.”

最后，林肯对后世和他的行动在时间长河中的涟漪有着深刻的认识。这在他签署《解放奴隶宣言》时就显现出来了。当他面前展开文件时，由于行动的严重性使他感到压力，他停住了手，“我从来没有在我的生活中，像我在签署这份文件时那样确信我正在做正确的事情，”他说。“如果我的名字将来载入史册，那将是因为这一行为，我的整个灵魂都在其中。”来自俄亥俄州的当选参议员和未来的总统，詹姆斯·加菲尔德预言性地说，“当一个二流的伊利诺伊州律师成为发表将在所有未来时代都值得纪念的话语的工具时，这是世界历史上的一个奇怪现象。”
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Yes, Lincoln was a remarkable person and leader because that simple, humble man, who literally came from the wilderness, fought for every ounce of self-education, not only fulfilled his true purpose signing the Emancipation Proclamation; he ended one age of United States social and economic history and unleashed the birth of a new nation.

确实，林肯是一个卓越的人物和领袖。这位出身贫寒、谦逊的人，几乎是从荒野中一步步奋斗而来，他为了自我教育的每一点进步而努力。他不仅通过签署《解放奴隶宣言》实现了自己的真正使命；他还终结了美国社会和经济历史上的一个时代，并催生了一个新国家的诞生。

Matthew Sutton
Is Abraham Lincoln the greatest President that the US has ever had?
Many do consider him the greatest, and just about any credible, mainstream ranking of Presidents will place him in the top three.

亚伯拉罕·林肯是否是美国历史上最伟大的总统？
很多人确实这么认为，几乎所有可信的、主流的总统排名都将他列入前三名。

He probably had the single most difficult Presidency and managed to pull off what in retrospect seems implausible for any mortal. He saw many of his officers resign to join the Confederacy which he still defeated and occupied in the bloodiest war in US history (to date the CSA is largest country ever 'annexed', and the unx had to extemporize a massive army, navy and industrial war machine in months in order to achieve victory).

他可能经历了最为艰难的总统任期，并成功完成了现在看来对任何人来说都几乎不可能的壮举。他的许多官员辞职加入了南方联盟，但他最终还是击败并占领了他们，这是迄今为止美国历史上最血腥的战争（到目前为止，南部邦联是被"吞并"的最大国家，而联邦不得不在几个月内迅速组建起庞大的军队、海军和工业战争机器以取得胜利）。

Lincoln settled both the slavery and states right's issues which had been political crises for decades, essentially recreating the political landscape and recreating the role of the federal government, and he did so under withering opposition from every side, and a common belief that he was an inept, easily manipulated stooge (only after his death did many grudgingly realize that he was a man of tremendous intellect and moral courage). His five years in office was essentially a non-stop emergency only ended by his death. The fractured country he inherited he left to following generations as a transformed nation capable of growing into a world superpower.

林肯解决了长期作为政治危机的奴隶制和州权问题，基本上重塑了政治格局和联邦政府的角色，尽管他面临着来自各方的激烈反对，并且普遍被认为是一个无能、容易被操纵的傀儡（直到他去世后，许多人才不情愿地意识到他是一个具有巨大智慧和道德勇气的人）。他的五年任期基本上是一个无休止的紧急状态，直到他去世才结束。他接手的是分裂的国家，留给后代的是一个能够成长为世界超级大国的变革后的国家。

Still, there are other Presidents that have set precedents of exemplary leadership and conscientious government (Washington, Eisenhower), decisiveness in critical moments (Jackson, Truman), consistent effectiveness (Polk, FDR, LBJ), or redefining the possibilities of the office (Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson) or have had such a monumental influence on American political thought (Adams, Jefferson, Madison) that Lincoln is not without competition.

尽管如此，还有其他总统树立了卓越领导和良心政府的典范（如华盛顿、艾森豪威尔），在关键时刻表现出果断（如杰克逊、杜鲁门），一贯展现出高效（如波尔克、罗斯福、约翰逊），或者重新定义了总统职位的可能性（如泰迪·罗斯福、威尔逊），或者对美国政治思想产生了巨大影响（如亚当斯、杰斐逊、麦迪逊），因此林肯并非没有竞争对手。

Washington created the entire concept of "President". He determined how the Chief Executive balanced civilian interests to military ones (was he a general in charge of executing Congress's laws or a civilian in nominal charge of the military? does he sit on a throne or at a desk? how much does he defer to Congress?), how he interacted with the other two branches of government, how he was disinterested in using the office for personal gain or the establishment of a political dynasty.

华盛顿塑造了“总统”这一角色的整个概念。他确立了首席行政官如何平衡民间和军事利益的方式（他是负责执行国会法律的将军，还是名义上统帅军队的平民？他是坐在宝座上还是办公桌前？他对国会的依赖程度有多大？），他与其他两个政府部门如何互动，他对利用职权谋求个人利益或建立政治王朝毫无兴趣。

He decided to simply govern as a citizen and strongly rejected the trappings of authority, ceremony, pomp, circumstance and courtly aloofness that distinguish many ruling regimes around the world. At the time he was President there were few examples (since Republican Rome) of how a democratic republic without even a ceremonial monarchy could or would function. He himself stepped down after serving only two terms, while he certainly could've been continuously elected as President for the rest of his life (he was one of the few politicians embraced by both the Democrats and Federalists), and he also could have groomed a potential successor. However had Washington set such an unhealthy precedent it probably would've been disastrous to the future stability of the United States.

他选择以一个公民的身份来治理国家，坚决拒绝那些权威的象征、仪式、排场、环境和宫廷式的冷漠，这些在世界各地的许多统治政权中都很常见。在他担任总统时，几乎没有先例（自罗马共和国以来）表明一个没有仪式性君主制的民主共和国能够或将会如何运作。他选择在仅连任两届后主动卸任，尽管他完全有可能持续被选为总统直到生命的尽头（他是为数不多的被民主党和联邦党人都接受的政治家之一），他也完全有可能培养一个潜在的继任者。然而，如果华盛顿当时树立了这样一个不健康的先例（总统可以持续性连任），那可能对美国未来的稳定造成灾难性的影响。

Jefferson as a young man wrote the Declaration of Independence, a profound Enlightenment statement of fundamental, inalienable human rights that served as inspiration for revolutionaries around the world. His importance as stalwart champion of individual, personal dignity and his wariness of government power have proven influential in American political life. As President, he nevertheless shrewdly acted outside strict Constitutional bounds to purchase the territory of Louisiana: more than doubling the geographic extent of the new United States. He sent two peaceful expeditions to survey the new territories and to become acquainted with native peoples who lived there. The Lewis and Clark expedition conclusively showed that the Mississippi-Missouri river system had no outlet to the Pacific (an idea fancied for centuries). He also kept the United States from being drawn into the Napoleonic Wars.

杰斐逊在年轻时起草了《独立宣言》，这份宣言深刻地阐述了基本的、不可剥夺的人权，是启蒙运动的重要文献，激励了全世界的革命者。他坚定地捍卫个人尊严，对政府权力保持警惕，这些观点在美国政治生活中产生了深远的影响。作为总统，他巧妙地采取了一些超出严格宪法范围的行动，例如购买路易斯安那领土，使美国的地理范围扩大了一倍以上。他还派遣了两支和平探险队去勘测新获得的领土，并与当地原住民建立联系。刘易斯和克拉克的探险之旅最终证实了密西西比-密苏里河水系并没有如人们几个世纪以来所想象的那样流入太平洋。此外，杰斐逊还成功避免了美国卷入拿破仑战争。

Madison somehow managed to the keep the United States from disintegrating during the War of 1812 and even managed to see it through on relatively favorable terms. He also was one of the primary architects of the US Constitution and is usually credited with writing the Bill of Rights.

麦迪逊在1812年战争期间以某种方式设法维持了美国的统一，甚至还成功地让国家在相对有利的条件下结束了战争。他也是美国宪法的主要设计者之一，并且通常被认为是《权利法案》的起草人。

Polk acquired Texas, and (depending on the version of history you subscribe to engineered a war) with Mexico that netted the United States colossal amounts of territory bringing it all the way to the Pacific ocean...he also created the Dept of Interior to manage federal lands and deal with native American issues in a coherent fashion, and he created the treasury system that wasn't replaced until the Federal Reserve and income taxes came into being in 1913.

波克（Polk）收购了德克萨斯州，并且（根据不同的历史版本，可能是经过精心策划的战争）与墨西哥发动了一场战争，使得美国获得了大量领土，扩展至太平洋。他还创建了内政部，以有条理的方式管理联邦土地和处理与美洲原住民的事务，并设立了财政系统，直到1913年联邦储备系统和所得税的建立才被替代。

Ted Roosevelt had the foresight to create the national parks system. Wilson pushed for the creation of an international organization of governments that could peacefully resolve misunderstandings and provide a platform for transnational cooperation--the League of Nations failed but it was reborn as the United Nations.

泰迪·罗斯福具有先见之明，创立了国家公园体系。威尔逊则推动成立了一个国际政府组织，旨在和平解决争端并促进跨国合作——尽管国际联盟未能成功，但它后来演变为联合国。

FDR expanded the federal government's role in American life with ambitious stimulus and public works projects that brought electricity, water, communications and highways to much of America, programs like social security aimed to reduce the blight of destitute elderly, and he saw the US enter and play a major role in defeating Fascism--all the time hiding the fact that he was paralyzed.

富兰克林·德拉诺·罗斯福（FDR）通过雄心勃勃的刺激计划和公共工程扩大了联邦政府在美国人民生活中的作用，这些项目将电力、水、通信和高速公路带到了美国大部分地区。他还推出了社会保障等计划，以减轻贫困老年人的困境。同时，他带领美国参与并发挥了在击败法西斯主义中的重大作用——而这一切，他都是在自己瘫痪的状态下完成的。

Truman acted to prevented a possible nuclear war with China over Korea, kept W Berlin fed, made the decision to use nuclear weapons on Japan, and found himself President of the most powerful version of the USA the world had yet seen. His Presidency oversaw the massive subsidies that would largely rebuild postwar Western Europe and Japan, and redefine America's role in the world as an active opponent of Communism.
Depending on who you talk to and what their values are any one of these Presidents might be considered if not the greatest, great.

杜鲁门采取措施，避免了因朝鲜问题可能与中国爆发的核战争，确保了西柏林的物资供应，做出了对日本使用核武器的关键决策，并成为了当时世界上最强大的美国的总统。在他的总统任期内，通过大规模的补贴计划，美国在很大程度上重建了战后的西欧和日本，并重新定义了美国在世界上作为共产主义的积极对抗者的角色。
根据你与谁交谈以及他们的价值观，这些总统中的任何一位都可能被认为是伟大的，甚至是最好的。