Abraham Lincoln Essays (2220 words) - Slavery In The United States

Abraham Lincoln The foundation for black participation in the Civil War began more than a hundred years before the outbreak of the war. Blacks in America had been in bondage since early colonial times. In 1776, when Jefferson proclaimed mankind's inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the institution of slavery had become firmly established in America. Blacks worked in the tobacco fields of Virginia, in the rice fields of South Carolina, and toiled in small farms and shops in the North. Foner and Mahoney report in A House Divided, America in the Age of Lincoln that, ?In 1776, slaves composed forty percent of the population of the colonies from Maryland south to Georgia, but well below ten percent in the colonies to the North.? The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793 provided a demand for cotton thus increasing the demand for slaves. By the 1800's slavery was an institution throughout the South, an institution in which slaves had few rights, and could be sold or leased by their owners. They lacked any voice in the government and lived a life of hardship. Considering these circumstances, the slave population never abandoned the desire for freedom or the determination to resist control by the slave owners. The slave's reaction to this desire and determination resulted in outright rebellion and individual acts of defiance. However, historians place the strongest reaction in the enlisting of blacks in the war itself. Batty and Parish in The Divided Union: The Story of the Great American War, 1861-65, concur with Foner and Mahoney about the importance of outright rebellion in their analysis of the Nat Turner Rebellion, which took place in 1831. This revolt demonstrated that not all slaves were willing to accept this ?institution of slavery? passively. Foner and Mahoney note that the significance of this uprising is found in its aftermath because of the numerous reports of ?insubordinate? behavior by slaves . Individual acts of defiance ranged from the use of the Underground Railroad - a secret, organized network of people who helped fugitive slaves reach the Northern states and Canada - to the daily resistance or silent sabotage found on the plantations. Stokesbury acknowledges the existence of the Underground Railroad but disagrees with other historians as to its importance. He notes that it never became as well organized or as successful as the South believed. Even with the groundwork having been laid for resistance, the prevalent racial climate in America in 1860 found it unthinkable that blacks would bear arms against white Americans. However, by 1865 these black soldiers had proven their value. Wilson writes in great detail describing the struggles and achievements of the black soldiers in his book The Black Phalanx. McPherson discusses that widespread opposition to the use of blacks as soldiers prevailed among northern whites. Whereas McPherson relates the events cumulating in the passage of two laws that aided black enlistment, Wilson focuses on the actual enlistment. He notes that the first regiment of free blacks came into service at New Orleans in September 1862 through the efforts of Butler. Wilson credits Butler's three regiments of blacks as the first officially mustered into Union ranks. North Carolina and Kansas also organized additional black units where minor skirmishes proved to be successful. Wilson also notes that ?Kansas has ... the honor of being the first State in the Union to begin the organization of Negroes as soldiers for the Federal army.? Sewell and McPherson agree that up to this point President Lincoln had opposed the idea of blacks fighting for the Union but after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that slaves in states still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, ?shall be then, thence forward, and forever free,? he reversed his thinking. At the end of the Emancipation Proclamation Lincoln announced that the freed blacks ?would be received into the armed service of the United States....? Lincoln planned to tap into a new source of fighting individuals, ?...the great available and as yet unavailed of, force for the restoration of the Union.?. Lincoln thought this would both weaken the enemy and strengthen the Union. The recruitment of the blacks took laborers from the South

What Being a Lame Duck Means in Politics

What Being a Lame Duck Means in Politics A lame duck politician is an elected official who is not seeking re-election. The term is often used to describe U.S. presidents in their second and final terms in the White House. The use of lame duck is often considered derogatory because it refers to an elected officials loss of power and inability to effect change. U.S. presidents are bound by the Constitution to two terms in the White House under the 22nd Amendment. So they automatically become lame ducks the minute their take their oaths of office for the second time. Most of the time lame duck presidents become mired in cursed second terms. Few have notched successes as lame ducks. Members are Congress are not bound by statutory term limits, but the minute they announce their intention to retire they, too, earn lame duck status. And while there are obvious downsides to being a lame duck, there are also some positive aspects to not being bound to the often-fickle whims of the electorate. Origins of the Phrase Lame Duck The phrase lame duck was originally used to describe bankrupt businessmen. Ebenezer Cobham Brewers A Dictionary of Phrase and Fable described a lame duck as â€Å"a stock-jobber or dealer who will not, or cannot, pay his losses and has to waddle out of the alley like a lame duck. By the 1800s the phrase connoted politically bankrupt or broken down elected officials. Calvin Coolidge is said to be the first American president to be called a lame duck, during his second term. The term is also used to described political patronage, as in lame duck appointments, or those made by an outgoing politician in his final days in office to reward friends and supporters. The term was also popularized during the debate over when the president was to be sworn into office. The 20th Amendment, which stipulates that the incoming president and vice president take their oaths of office on Jan. 20 after the election instead of waiting until March as they previously did, was called the lame duck amendment because it prevented the still-in-session Congress from acting behind the back of the incoming commander-in-chief. Lame Ducks Are Ineffective and Mischievous One common rap against elected officials who are on their way out of office is that no one takes them seriously. Its true that lame ducks see the power they once enjoyed in office great diminished whether its by an election loss, the approach of a term limit or the decision to retire. Wrote  Michael J. Korzi in  Presidential Term Limits in American History: Power, Principles, and Politics: The lame duck theory suggests that the closer a president comes to the end of a second term - if he or she is barred from seeking re-election - the less relevant the president is to the Washington scene and especially the congressional players who are critical to the passage of many presidential priorities. The lame-duck effect on the presidency is different than the lame-duck sessions of Congress, which occur  in even numbered years when the House and Senate reconvene after the elections - even those lawmakers who lost their bids for another term.   It is true that lame ducks and lame-duck sessions held under the cover of night and without public scrutiny have resulted in some rather undesirable consequences: pay raises, enhanced perks and more lavish benefits for members of Congress, for example. They also have provided an opportunity to pass unpopular legislation not mentioned during the campaign, since blame can then be passed on the non-returning members, wrote  Robert E. Dewhirst and John David Rausch in the  Encyclopedia of the United States Congress. Lame Ducks Have Nothing to Lose   Elected officials in their final terms in office have the luxury of being bold and being able to address serious issues by adopting often controversial policies. As Ohio University economics professor  Richard Vedder told  The Post  of Athens about lame-duckery: â€Å"It’s kind of like having terminal cancer. If you know your time is up and you only have two months to live, maybe you’ll behave a little different in the last 90 days.† Candidates who dont have to face the wrath of voters for unpopular decisions are often more willing to deal with important or controversial issues without fear of angering blocs of constituents. That means some lame duck politicians can be freer and more productive in their final days in office. President Barack Obama, for example, surprised many political observers when he announced in December 2014 that the United States would work toward  restoring  diplomatic relations with the communist nation  of Cuba. At the beginning of his second term, Obama angered gun-rights advocates when he  announced  23 executive actions designed to address gun violence in the United States  after several mass shootings occurred during his first term.  The most significant proposals called for universal background checks on anyone trying to buy a gun, restoring a ban on military-style assault weapons, and cracking down on straw purchases. Though Obama was not successful in having these measures passed, his moves did spark a national dialogue on the issues.

Information managment Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Information managment - Coursework Example The article after providing a brief background of the Cloud Computing technology, focuses on its evolutionary path. â€Å"This paper examines cloud computing in the context of other major changes in Information Technology (IT) and explores the revolutionary transformations and challenges it brings to IT management.† (Bento and Bento 39). The authors divide the evolution into six phases starting from 1970’s, when the IT systems in organizations got centralized, particularly regarding the financial and accounting information. They further delve into these phases by discussing how advancement in hardwares, softwares and most prominently Worldwide Web, led to the development of Cloud Computing. Discussion of each phase provides good information and appears to be the strong â€Å"phases† of this article. The next part of the article provides number of definitions for Cloud Computing and high number of definitions appears to be a slight weaker part in the article. Alth ough, giving high number of definitions can gave different perspectives of Cloud Computing, the article has too much definitions and it occupies sizable part of the article, minimizing the other topics. For example, details about how one works in the Cloud has been given only in a minimal manner. In the final part of the article, the author again relates the various evolutionary phases with the business environment. Although, it gives somewhat newer perspectives, it appears to be a kind of repetition of the first part. So, the author could have researched and written more about Cloud Computing applications, instead of giving background information maximally. Critique of the Second Article- Although, this IS based technology, Cloud computing has many benefits including cutting of costs, reorienting work force in other departments, etc, there are some security issues. These security issues is only focused in the journal article, A survey on security issues in service delivery models o f Cloud Computing written by S. Subashini and V. Kavitha. The authors list out the various ways in which the information or data stored in the Cloud could be compromised and that includes issues with Data security, Network security, Data integrity, Data segregation, Web application security Vulnerability in virtualization, etc, etc. The authors start off by providing an apt introduction about Cloud Computing and its optimum application in business enterprises. They provide facts of how cloud computing will grow to $95 billion and that 12% of the worldwide software market will move to the cloud (Subashini and Kavitha 2). Then the authors move into the focus area of security issues, listing and discussing in-depth each security issue. The main strength of this article is that it does not miss any security issue that could plague the Cloud Computing environment. The authors focus on all the probable security issues, even providing real-life examples of companies at some places. However , this can also be viewed as a weakness, because there is not much real-life examples. Only the example of Amazon’s Cloud Computing environment is given at some places, and not much about other companies. Even while, discussing about the probable security issues and the corrective steps, the authors are skeptical whether a new paradigm or model of Cloud Computing will work. They state, that â€Å"A new model targeting at improving features of an existing