Comprehension:
In modern times, Abraham Lincoln stands as the model of a compassionate statesman. He showed this quality not only in striving for the emancipation of the American blacks, but in the dignity with which he conducted the American Civil War. Lincoln did not fancy himself as a liberator. He thought it would be better for all if emancipation was a gradual process spread over many years. He proposed compensation for slave owners in U.S., bonds and grants for the rehabilitation of the blacks - ‘colonisation’ as they called it. But fate was to deem otherwise. The haste with which the South wanted to break away from the union with the North, compelled him to move faster than he expected, perhaps more than most men of his time had thought through the issue of slavery. ‘We must free the slaves’, he said, ‘or be ourselves subdued’. ‘Before reading, the first draft of Proclamation of Emancipation, he told his colleagues. ‘In giving freedom to the slaves, we assure freedom to the free.’
On 22nd September 1862 Lincoln set his hand on the Proclamation of Emancipation declaring that on the first day of January1863, all persons held as slaves within any state ‘shall be then, and forever free.’ Lincoln’s revolution for slavery left him without any moral indignation or passion against slave owners. The guilt of slave owners, he felt, should be shared by the whole country of North and the South for it seemed to him that everyone in the nation was an accomplice in perpetuating that system. To have whipped up any hatred against slave owners would, to him, have been an act of malice.
As per the passage, Abraham Lincoln was called the model of a compassionate statesman because-
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → his acts were conducted with nobility and not guided by malice.
The passage says that Lincoln showed compassion "not only in striving for the emancipation of the American blacks, but in the dignity with which he conducted the American Civil War". He felt no "moral indignation or passion against slave owners", and to whip up hatred against them would, to him, "have been an act of malice". Dignity (nobility) and the absence of malice are the reasons given.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: he was a great leader and brought a change in the society. — Incorrect. Too broad: greatness and social change do not explain compassion; the passage links compassion to his dignity and lack of malice.
Option 2: he loved black people and displayed a biasness towards them. — Incorrect. Contradicted: he showed no bias against either side; he held "the whole country" responsible for slavery and even proposed compensation for slave owners.
Option 4: he was a popular leader among the black people. — Incorrect. Not mentioned: the passage says nothing about his popularity among black people.