Today is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.

President Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in Hodgenville, Kentucky. He began his political career with his election to the Illinois state legislature in 1834. Mr. Lincoln earned his law degree in 1837, and moved to Springfield, Illinois, where he practiced in the John T. Stuart law firm.

Abraham Lincoln served a single term in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1847-1849, before he became the President of the United States in 1860.

Before his inauguration in March 1861, seven Southern states seceded from the Union. By April, the U.S. military installation, Fort Sumter, was under siege in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. In the early morning hours of April 12, 1861, the American Civil War began.

On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This order proclaimed all those enslaved in Confederate territory to be forever free. It ordered the Army to treat as free, all those enslaved in ten states that were still in rebellion. The Proclamation could not be enforced in areas still under rebellion, but as the army took control of Confederate regions, the slaves in those regions were emancipated, rather than returned to their masters.

From 20,000 to 50,000 former slaves in regions where rebellion had already been subdued were immediately emancipated and over 3 million more were freed as the Union army advanced.

After the Civil War ended, President Lincoln won a second term as president. On April 14, 1865 he was assassinated.  A well-known actor, and Confederate sympathizer, John Wilkes Booth shot a bullet into the president’s head, as the Lincolns watched a play held at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.

President Abraham Lincoln’s grave is in Springfield, Illinois.

Fast forward one hundred fifty years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Human trafficking and slavery still exists.

Information gathered from the National Human Trafficking Resource Center states that human trafficking victims can be men or women, adults or children, and foreign nationals or U.S. citizens. Trafficking is a crime that cuts across race, nationality, gender, age, and socioeconomic background. However, human traffickers typically prey on individuals who are vulnerable in some way. Some examples of high risk populations include undocumented migrants, runaways and at-risk youth, and oppressed or marginalized groups.

Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery where people profit from the control and exploitation of others. The factors that each of these situations have in common are elements of force, fraud, or coercion that are used to control people.

Human trafficking is considered to be one of the fastest growing criminal industries in the world.

You may think trafficking is a problem “somewhere else”. Certainly, not where I live.

Well, according to the local news station, here in my part of Texas, it is a major concern. The news station reported that of the hundreds of thousands of trafficking victims across the country, the Department of Justice estimates one in four of them will travel through our city at some point. If you live near a large metropolitan city, the statistics for your city may be comparable.

Various agencies are involved with stopping human trafficking and slavery through educating, eradicating, rescuing, and transitioning. A few of those are Abolition International, Rapha House, and Free the Captives.

At the very least, we should pray.

I wish you well.

Sandy

PS

Please subscribe by either going to my home page, or scrolling below.