Undergraduate / Common Essay-harvard, Yale, Princeton and Dartmouth [7]

Hi everyone!
This is my common app essay and it would be reall cool if people would read and give advice on it. Its my third draft, so hopefully their are not to many grammer corrections to make but if you have suggestions for things to add or change they would be appreciated.

I chose the option where you write about a person who has influenced you and the person i chose is Abraham Lincoln.

ABE LINCOLN

Lincoln is the greatest president. You could say he is because he knew how to run a healthy society in the way that in which people could trust and believe in the government. Meaning that it is not corrupt and they can and are a part of the government in the form of voting. This is relevant to today because it tells what to look for in a great president and know what current and future presidents need to do. Also it explains that greatness is a person. In our society most people think that if someone is famous they are great or better than others. People want to know them and be with them. Greatness is how a person deals with something or how well they can do something. That is why when you have to think about the differences between good and great because the difference between he is good and he is great is dramatic. If you great then you must fit the unwritten criteria. Now a great in our culture is usually used in a weak way like getting a 100% on a test. The true meaning of greatness has only been found by a small few and only a couple of them have used it. So not actually knowing the meaning of greatness sometimes people will get confused or will try to change it. When man kind can see the difference between greatness and fame they will be able to see it every where including in life and in people. Greatness is hard to describe. That is also why few have seen or know what it is; Lincoln is one of those people. One of the reasons he is considered the greatest president is because he can explain the ideas of the country and its ideals. Presidents usually try to face only the big issue or ideals of big groups or organizations when the reason to the ideals and issues get over looked or ignored. Also the president doesn't have as much power as people think and Abe was able to use his to the fullest instead of just saying that he can do something that he can't actually do. Lincoln was able to find the ideals and deal with them in his own way and power. Now a day presidents don't actually figure out anything, all the issues are brought up to them by someone else and they have to get someone else to run their campaign. Also they are told issues after issue and pretty much what to say on it or what the people 'want' to hear. Lincoln was able to speak his mind and talk about issues to the people that wanted to hear them. He wasn't able to cross the country in under a day or talk to the people through television broadcasts, only large groups of people and news papers. With Lincoln it was more of a personal approach to find out the ideals of the country that he didn't know. Out of the power he actually had he tried to fix any problem he could otherwise he tried to make it heard by all so the people would bring it up to the country and congress so that they could fix the issue. Also he was able to deal with the big issues too. Slavery being the main issue of his time. He is the greatest president because of the balance of the country. This being in the sense that the other big issue and ideal was slavery and that the country was divided into separate areas of land and thought of people. Balance was the main thing of what was going to happen and he was bale to say that the country was going to fall one way or the other.

Lincoln has a very big background that can be explained in a short amount of words. The founding ideals were important in many ways including how the country can and should be run. These ideals came from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The Declaration said how we were independent, that all men are created equal, we have the right to pursue happiness and freedom. We have a government by the people and for the people meaning the people are the ones who get to choose the leader but also can have more power than him if they get enough people with their opinion. The president is a very important person in a government and needs to have some power but still maintain the life in which the people will accept. This means no leaking information or giving special treatment. Lincoln used the government with in his power to help all the people of the country that he could at one time. This included getting rid of slavery. In one of his early speeches he says 'All good things come from labor'. This makes sense that to get any thing you want or need you can always work to get it. Some people do not need to work to get what they desire. That makes them not appreciate what they have. The old saying that might have been around when Lincoln was around is you don't know how good something is until it is gone and it is true. But if you work for whatever you have than it can't be gone because you earned it. When life is handed to you on a platter, when the platter is gone life turns around and you have to figure it out on the way. Earning everything makes anybody ready to do anything and they know what to do so they can come back from the good old harsh and bad times and recover. That is what labor has done for this country, we worked hard to make it the way it is but it won't change if something else goes wrong somewhere else. This has changes since Lincoln's day but it took hard work to create and make this country great and it took great presidents to help. The war of the rebellion or the Civil War was a big issue during his presidency. When the south seceded it was considered treason and the north didn't like it so they headed to war over the fact that any state or group of people could leave the union if they wanted to. All the south had for motivation or for them to be willing to fight was slavery and the fear of losing it. All the war did besides make the north and south fight was ensure the strength of the US and abolishment of slavery. This happened because of the south being out of government they couldn't have any say in the voting of laws. Also they didn't actually need to secede from the union because they had enough states in congress that they would have enough people to over turn or stop the laws from happening.

Democracy was one of the best things to happen to this country and the world of government. It is the only government where just about everybody eventually benefits from it. Society benefits because if enough people want something they can make it happen. Everybody can make a difference. This is because they can vote and help decide who the President or the Senate or the people in the House of Representatives are and they will make sure that the people will go for their ideas and that the one they vote for will have the best idea possible or the best opinion that can help improve society in their eyes. There is no such thing as a pure democracy in entire countries but it can run a small group or club. But instead for the type of democracy that we have, voting is how we get our leader and representatives into the positions we deem important enough that they can help us. In all the other governments not everybody always benefits to the fullest of the ability of the country. Also usually in the other governments the people don't always have the choice. Sometime only one person gets to decide for the whole country and make it benefit them. The only purpose of the government is to create order and stability and to protect the ideals of the ruling class. In a democracy the ruling class is the majority. In all the other governments the ruling class is a much smaller group of people and in some cases it is one person.

Liberty came from democracy within the government. In and with liberty there are very few limiting rule and even fewer controlling rule that tell you what to do. With liberty you don't have to listen to anybody. Nobody can boss you around unless you choose to listen with the exception of breaking the law and that you have to listen to the authorities. The only restrictions on jobs are the requirements needed to get the fobs. This country is and was based on liberty and thanks to slavery there were people that were supposed to be citizens but are not and r forced to do work and not get any thing for it. There are people still today that probably believe that slavery was OK and should still be around today but instead there is no slavery. In the eyes of people there could be thought that slavery was not wrong because they had room and board but it was wrong because of why they were considered slaves and how they had no rights. Discrimination is OK if it is private but not in a country. If somebody wants to be racist they can be but they shouldn't be running a country based on liberty. If it is public or a job or some sort if should be available to everybody who fits the requirements for it. If it is private like a club or something that is different because it is private otherwise it is no part of what liberty is or is trying to say. Lincoln recognized that slavery was and is wrong and he figured out that the country was split. "A house divided among itself can not stand" is what he said in his house divided speech and he also was saying that the country will eventually go either pro slavery or completely free of slavery.

Lincoln is the greatest President because he had the ability to explain the ideals of the country. The reason this is important is because if the people did not know they were heard they would try all other kinds of methods before trying the government because they wouldn't think the government could or would help. Without knowing they were heard people would stop trusting or believing in the government and start trying to build their own government or ways to get things done on a high level or scale. Eventually if people didn't know the government had figured out what was important they would stop believing in the government all together. This is relevant today because the country sill has ideas. Presidents use these ideas to try to win elections or fix problems with their power. They use the biggest problems as almost bonuses to help them and earn the countries trust and belief in the government but they also know what they need to work on fixing or changing within the country. That is why there is much relevance in this essay that still applies to the issues of today and the future.