Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) served as the 16th President of the United
States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led the country through
its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, preserved the Union, and ended slavery. Reared in
a poor family on the western frontier, he was mostly self-educated. He became a country lawyer,
anIllinois state legislator, and a one-term member of the United States House of Representatives, but
failed in two attempts at a seat in theUnited States Senate. He was an affectionate, though often
absent, husband, and father of four children.

Lincoln was an outspoken opponent of the expansion of slavery in the United States, which he deftly
articulated in his campaign debates and speeches.[1] As a result, he secured the Republican
nomination and was elected president in 1860. As president he concentrated on the military and
political dimensions of the war effort, always seeking to reunify the nation after the secession of the
eleven Confederate States of America. He vigorously exercised unprecedented war powers, including
the arrest and detention, without trial, of thousands of suspected secessionists. He issued
his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and promoted the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to
the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery.

Lincoln closely supervised the war effort, especially the selection of top generals, including Ulysses S.
Grant. He brought leaders of various factions of his party into his cabinet and pressured them to
cooperate. He defused a confrontation with Britain in the Trent affair late in 1861. Under his
leadership, the Union took control of the border slave states at the start of the war and tried repeatedly
to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond. Each time a general failed, Lincoln substituted
another, until finally Grant succeeded in 1865. A shrewd politician deeply involved with patronage and
power issues in each state, he reached out to War Democrats and managed his own re-election in
the1864 presidential election.

As the leader of the moderate faction of the Republican party, Lincoln came under attack from all
sides. Radical Republicans wanted harsher treatment of the South, Democrats desired more
compromise, and secessionists saw him as their enemy.[2] Lincoln fought back with patronage, by
pitting his opponents against each other, and by appealing to the American people with his powers of
oratory;[3][4] for example, his Gettysburg Address of 1863 became one of the most quoted speeches in
history. It was an iconic statement of America's dedication to the principles of nationalism, equal rights,
liberty, and democracy. At the close of the war, Lincoln held a moderate view ofReconstruction,
seeking to speedily reunite the nation through a policy of generous reconciliation in the face of
lingering and bitter divisiveness. Just six days after the decisive surrender of the commanding general
of the Confederate army, Lincoln fell victim to an assassin — the first President to suffer such a fate.
Lincoln has consistently been ranked by scholars as one of the greatest U.S. Presidents.
Early life
Main article: Early life and career of Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (no middle name) was born on February 12, 1809, the second child to Thomas
Lincoln and Nancy Lincoln (née Hanks), in a one-room log cabin on the Sinking Spring Farm in
southeast Hardin County, Kentucky[5] (now LaRue County).

Little is known about Lincoln's ancestors. Historical investigations have traced his family back
to Samuel Lincoln, an apprentice weaver who arrived in Hingham, Massachusetts,
from Norfolk, England, in 1637.[6][7] However, Lincoln himself was only able to trace his heritage back
as far as his paternal grandfather and namesake, Abraham Lincoln, a local militia captain, and a
substantial landholder with an inherited 200 acre estate in Rockingham County, Virginia) [6]. The elder
Abraham later moved his family from Rockingham County, Virginia to Jefferson County, Kentucky[6][8],
where he was ambushed and killed by an Indian raid in 1786, with his children Mordecai, Josiah, and
Thomas looking on.[8] Mordecai's marksmanship with a rifle saved Thomas from the same fate. As the
eldest son, by law, Mordecai inherited his father's entire estate.[9]

Thomas became a respected citizen of rural Kentucky. He bought and sold several farms, including
the Sinking Spring Farm. The family belonged to a Separate Baptists church, which had high moral
standards and opposed alcohol, dancing, and slavery,[10] though Lincoln, as an adult, never joined a
church. Thomas "enjoyed considerable status" in Kentucky, where he sat on juries, appraised estates,
served on country patrols, and guarded prisoners. By the time his son Abraham was born, Thomas
owned two 600 acre farms, several town lots, livestock and horses. He was amongst the richest men
in the area.[6] [11] In 1816, the Lincoln family lost their lands because of a faulty title and made a new
start in Perry County, Indiana (now Spencer County). Lincoln later noted that this move was "partly on
account of slavery" but mainly due to land title difficulties.[12]

Symbolic log cabin at the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park

When Lincoln was nine, his 34-year-old mother died of milk sickness.[13] His older sister, Sarah
(Grigsby), died while giving birth at a young age.[7] Soon after, his father married Sarah Bush
Johnston, with whom Lincoln became very close and whom he called "Mother."[14] However, he
became increasingly distant from his father. Lincoln regretted his father's lack of education, and did
not like the hard labor associated with frontier life. Still, he willingly took responsibility for all chores
expected of him as a male in the household; he became an adept axeman in his work building rail
fences. Lincoln also agreed with the customary obligation of a son to give his father all earnings from
work done outside the home until age 21.[13] In later years, he occasionally loaned his father money.[15]

In 1830, fearing a milk sickness outbreak, the family settled on public land in Macon County, Illinois.
[16]
 In 1831, when his father relocated the family to a new homestead in Coles County, Illinois, 22-year-
old Lincoln struck out on his own, canoeing down the Sangamon River to the village of New
Salem in Sangamon County.[17] In spring 1831, hired by New Salem businessman Denton Offutt and
accompanied by friends, he took goods by flatboat from New Salem to New Orleans via the
Sangamon, Illinois, and Mississippi rivers. After arriving in New Orleans—and witnessing slavery
firsthand—he walked back home.[18]

Lincoln's formal education consisted of approximately 18 months of classes from several itinerant
teachers; he was mostly self-educated and was an avid reader.[19] He attained a reputation of brawn
and audacity after a very competitive wrestling match, to which he was challenged by the renowned
leader of a group of ruffians, "the Clary's Grove boys."[20] His family and neighbors considered him to
be lazy.[21][22] Lincoln avoided hunting and fishing out of an aversion to killing animals.[23]

Marriage and family

Further information:  Mary Todd Lincoln;  Sexuality of Abraham Lincoln; Medical and mental health of
Abraham Lincoln

Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln, age 28

Lincoln's first romantic interest was Ann Rutledge, whom he met when he first moved to New Salem;
by 1835, they were in a relationship but not formally engaged. Ann wanted to notify a former love
before "consummating the engagement to Mr. L. with marriage." Rutledge died, however, on August
25, most likely of typhoid fever.[24]

In the early 1830s, he met Mary Owens from Kentucky when she was visiting her sister. Late in 1836,
Lincoln agreed to a match with Mary if she returned to New Salem. Mary did return in November 1836,
and Lincoln courted her for a time; however, they both had second thoughts about their relationship.
On August 16, 1837, Lincoln wrote Mary a letter from his law practice in Springfield, suggesting he
would not blame her if she ended the relationship. She never replied, and the courtship was over.[25]

In 1840, Lincoln became engaged to Mary Todd, who was from a wealthy slave-holding family
in Lexington, Kentucky.[26] They met in Springfield in December 1839,[27] and were engaged sometime
in late December.[28] A wedding was set for January 1, 1841, but the couple split as the wedding
approached.[27] They later met at a party, and then married on November 4, 1842 in the Springfield
mansion of Mary's married sister.[29] While preparing for the nuptials and having cold feet again,
Lincoln, when asked where he was going, replied, "To hell, I suppose."[30]

1864 Mathew Brady photo depicts President Lincoln reading a book with his youngest son, Tad

In 1844, the couple bought a house in Springfield near Lincoln's law office.[31] Mary Todd Lincoln
worked diligently in their home, assuming household duties which had been performed for her in her
own family. She also made efficient use of the limited funds available from her husband's law practice.
[32]
 One evening, Mary asked Lincoln four times to restart the fire and, getting no reaction, as he was
absorbed in his reading, she grabbed a piece of firewood and rapped him on the head.[33] The Lincolns
had a budding family, with the birth of Robert Todd Lincoln in 1843, and Edward Baker Lincoln in
1846. According to a house girl, Abraham "was remarkably fond of children"[34] and the Lincolns were
not thought to be strict with their children.[35]

Robert was the only child of the Lincolns to live past the age of 18. Edward Lincoln died on February
1, 1850, in Springfield, likely of tuberculosis.[36]The Lincolns' grief over this loss was somewhat
assuaged by the birth of William "Willie" Wallace Lincoln nearly 11 months later, on December 21.
However, Willie died of a fever at the age of 11 on February 20, 1862, in Washington, D.C., during
President Lincoln's first term.[37] The Lincolns' fourth son, Thomas "Tad" Lincoln, was born on April 4,
1853 and outlived his father, but died at the age of 18 on July 16, 1871, in Chicago.[38]

The death of their sons had profound effects on both parents. Later in life, Mary struggled with the
stresses of losing her husband and sons; Robert Lincoln committed her to a mental health asylum in
1875.[39] Abraham Lincoln suffered from "melancholy", a condition which now may be referred to
asclinical depression.[40]
Lincoln's father-in-law was based in Lexington, Kentucky; he and most of the Todd family were slave
owners and some members were slave traders. Lincoln was close to the Todds and he and his family
occasionally visited the Todd estate in Lexington. Lincoln's connections in Lexington could have
accelerated his ambitions, but he remained in Illinois, where, to his liking, slavery was almost
nonexistent.[41]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, guided his country through the most
devastating experience in its national history--the CIVIL WAR. He is considered by many historians to
have been the greatest American president.

Early Life

Lincoln was born on Feb. 12, 1809, in a log cabin in Hardin (now Larue) County, Ky. Indians had killed
his grandfather, Lincoln wrote, "when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest" in 1786; this
tragedy left his father, Thomas Lincoln, "a wandering laboring boy" who "grew up, literally without
education." Thomas, nevertheless, became a skilled carpenter and purchased three farms in
Kentucky before the Lincolns left the state. Little is known about Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks
Lincoln. Abraham had an older sister, Sarah, and a younger brother, Thomas, who died in infancy.

In 1816 the Lincolns moved to Indiana, "partly on account of slavery," Abraham recalled, "but chiefly
on account of difficulty in land titles in Kentucky." Land ownership was more secure in Indiana
because the Land Ordinance of 1785 provided for surveys by the federal government; moreover, the
Northwest Ordinance of 1787 forbade slavery in the area. Lincoln's parents belonged to a faction of
the Baptist church that disapproved of slavery, and this affiliation may account for Abraham's later
statement that he was "naturally anti-slavery" and could not remember when he "did not so think,
and feel."

Indiana was a "wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods." The Lincolns'
life near Little Pigeon Creek, in Perry (now Spencer) County, was not easy. Lincoln "was raised to farm
work" and recalled life in this "unbroken forest" as a fight "with trees and logs and grubs." "There
was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education," Lincoln later recalled; he attended "some
schools, so called," but for less than a year altogether. "Still, somehow," he remembered, "I could
read, write, and cipher to the Rule of Three; but that was all."

Lincoln's mother died in 1818, and the following year his father married a Kentucky widow, Sarah
Bush Johnston. She "proved a good and kind mother." In later years Lincoln could fondly and
poetically recall memories of his "childhood home." In 1828 he was able to make a flatboat trip to
New Orleans. His sister died in childbirth the same year.

In 1830 the Lincolns left Indiana for Illinois. Abraham made a second flatboat trip to New Orleans,
and in 1831 he left home for New Salem, in Sangamon County near Springfield. The separation may
have been made easier by Lincoln's estrangement from his father, of whom he spoke little in his
mature life. In New Salem, Lincoln tried various occupations and served briefly in the Black Hawk War
(1832). This military interlude was uneventful except for the fact that he was elected captain of his
volunteer company, a distinction that gave him "much satisfaction." It opened new avenues for his
life.

Illinois Legislator

Lincoln ran unsuccessfully for the Illinois legislature in 1832. Two years later he was elected to the
lower house for the first of four successive terms (until 1841) as a Whig. His membership in the Whig
Party was natural. Lincoln's father was a Whig, and the party's ambitious program of national
economic development was the perfect solution to the problems Lincoln had seen in his rural,
hardscrabble Indiana past. His first platform (1832) announced that "Time and experience . . . verified
. . . that the poorest and most thinly populated countries would be greatly benefitted by the opening
of good roads, and in the clearing of navigable streams. . . . There cannot justly be any objection to
having rail roads and canals."

As a Whig, Lincoln supported the Second Bank of the United States, the Illinois State Bank,
government-sponsored internal improvements (roads, canals, railroads, harbors), and protective
tariffs. His Whig vision of the West, derived from Henry CLAY, was not at all pastoral. Unlike most
successful American politicians, Lincoln was unsentimental about agriculture, calling farmers in 1859
"neither better nor worse than any other people." He remained conscious of his humble origins and
was therefore sympathetic to labor as "prior to, and independent of, capital." He bore no antagonism
to capital, however, admiring the American system of economic opportunity in which the "man who
labored for another last year, this year labors for himself, and next year he will hire others to labor
for him." Slavery was the opposite of opportunity and mobility, and Lincoln stated his political
opposition to it as early as 1837.

Lawyer and U.S. Representative

Encouraged by Whig legislator John Todd Stuart, Lincoln became a lawyer in 1836, and in 1837 he
moved to Springfield, where he became Stuart's law partner. With a succession of partners, including
Stephen T. Logan and William H. Herndon, Lincoln built a successful practice. Lincoln courted Mary
Todd, a Kentuckian of much more genteel origins than he. After a brief postponement of their
engagement, which plummeted Lincoln into a deep spell of melancholy, they were married on Nov.
4, 1842. They had four sons: Robert Todd (1843-1926), Edward Baker (1846-50), William Wallace
(1850-62), and Thomas "Tad" (1853-71). Mary Todd Lincoln was a Presbyterian, but her husband was
never a church member.

Lincoln served one term (1847-49) as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, where he
opposed the Mexican War--Whigs did everywhere--as unnecessary and unconstitutional. This
opposition was not a function of internationalist sympathy for Mexico (Lincoln thought the war
inevitable) but of feeling that the Democratic president, James Polk, had violated the Constitution.
Lincoln had been indifferent about the annexation of Texas, already a slave territory, but he opposed
any expansion that would allow slavery into new areas; hence, he supported the Wilmot Proviso,
which would have barred slavery from any territory gained as a result of the Mexican War. He did not
run for Congress again, returning instead to Springfield and the law.

The Slavery Issue and the Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Lincoln "was losing interest in politics" when the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by Congress in
1854. This legislation opened lands previously closed to slavery to the possibility of its spread by local
option (popular sovereignty); Lincoln viewed the provisions of the act as immoral. Although he was
not an abolitionist and thought slavery unassailably protected by the Constitution in states where it
already existed, Lincoln also thought that America's founders had put slavery on the way to "ultimate
extinction" by preventing its spread to new territories. He saw this act, which had been sponsored by
Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas, as a new and alarming development.

Lincoln vied for the U.S. Senate in 1855 but eventually threw his support to Lyman Trumbull. In 1856
he joined the newly formed Republican Party, and two years later he campaigned for the Senate
against Douglas. In his speech at Springfield in acceptance of the Republican senatorial nomination
(June 16, 1858) Lincoln suggested that Douglas, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, and Democratic
presidents Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan had conspired to nationalize slavery. In the same
speech he expressed the view that the nation would become either all slave or all free: "A house
divided against itself cannot stand."

The underdog in the senatorial campaign, Lincoln wished to share Douglas's fame by appearing with
him in debates. Douglas agreed to seven debates: in Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston,
Galesburg, Quincy, and Alton, Ill. Lincoln knew that Douglas--now fighting the Democratic Buchanan
administration over the constitution to be adopted by Kansas--had alienated his Southern support;
and he feared Douglas's new appeal to eastern Republicans now that Douglas was battling the South.
Lincoln's strategy, therefore, was to stress the gulf of principle that separated Republican opposition
to slavery as a moral wrong from the moral indifference of the Democrats, embodied in legislation
allowing popular sovereignty to decide the fate of each territory. Douglas, Lincoln insisted, did not
care whether slavery was "voted up or voted down." By his vigorous showing against the famous
Douglas, Lincoln won the debates and his first considerable national fame. He did not win the Senate
seat, however; the Illinois legislature, dominated by Democratic holdovers in the upper house,
elected Douglas.

Election to the Presidency

In February 1860, Lincoln made his first major political appearance in the Northeast when he
addressed a rally at the Cooper Union in New York. He was now sufficiently well known to be a
presidential candidate. At the Republican national convention in Chicago in May, William H. Seward
was the leading candidate. Seward, however, had qualities that made him undesirable in the critical
states the Republicans had lost in 1856: Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, and New Jersey. As a result
Lincoln won the nomination by being the second choice of the majority.

He went on to win the presidential election, defeating the Northern Democrat Douglas, the Southern
Democrat John C. Breckinridge, and the Constitutional Union candidate John Bell. Lincoln selected a
strong cabinet that included all of his major rivals for the Republican nomination: Seward as
secretary of state, Salmon P. Chase as secretary of the treasury, and Edward Bates as attorney
general.

By the time of Lincoln's inauguration in March 1861, seven states had seceded from the Union. His
conciliatory inaugural address had no effect on the South, and, against the advice of a majority of his
cabinet, Lincoln decided to send provisions to Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor. The fort was a
symbol of federal authority--conspicuous in the state that had led secession, South Carolina--and it
would soon have had to be evacuated for lack of supplies. On Apr. 12, 1861, South Carolina fired on
the fort, and the Civil War began.

The Civil War

As a commander in chief Lincoln was soon noted for vigorous measures, sometimes at odds with the
Constitution and often at odds with the ideas of his military commanders. After a period of initial
support and enthusiasm for George B. McClellan, Lincoln's conflicts with that Democratic general
helped to turn the latter into his presidential rival in 1864. Famed for his clemency for court-
martialed soldiers, Lincoln nevertheless took a realistic view of war as best prosecuted by killing the
enemy. Above all, he always sought a general, no matter what his politics, who would fight. He found
such a general in Ulysses S. Grant, to whom he gave overall command in 1864. Thereafter, Lincoln
took a less direct role in military planning, but his interest never wavered, and he died with a copy of
Gen. William Sherman's orders for the March to the Sea in his pocket.
Politics vied with war as Lincoln's major preoccupation in the presidency. The war required the
deployment of huge numbers of men and quantities of materiel; for administrative assistance,
therefore, Lincoln turned to the only large organization available for his use, the Republican party.
With some rare but important exceptions (for example, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton),
Republicans received the bulk of the civilian appointments from the cabinet to the local post offices.
Lincoln tried throughout the war to keep the Republican party together and never consistently
favored one faction in the party over another. Military appointments were divided between
Republicans and Democrats.

Democrats accused Lincoln of being a tyrant because he proscribed civil liberties. For example, he
suspended the writ of habeas corpus in some areas as early as Apr. 27, 1861, and throughout the
nation on Sept. 24, 1862, and the administration made over 13,000 arbitrary arrests. On the other
hand, Lincoln tolerated virulent criticism from the press and politicians, often restrained his
commanders from overzealous arrests, and showed no real tendencies toward becoming a dictator.
There was never a hint that Lincoln might postpone the election of 1864, although he feared in
August of that year that he would surely lose to McClellan. Democrats exaggerated Lincoln's
suppression of civil liberties, in part because wartime prosperity robbed them of economic issues and
in part because Lincoln handled the slavery issue so skillfully.

The Constitution protected slavery in peace, but in war, Lincoln came to believe, the commander in
chief could abolish slavery as a military necessity. The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation of
Sept. 22, 1862, bore this military justification, as did all of Lincoln's racial measures, including
especially his decision in the final proclamation of Jan. 1, 1863, to accept blacks in the army. By 1864,
Democrats and Republicans differed clearly in their platforms on the race issue: Lincoln's endorsed
the 13TH Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery, whereas McClellan's pledged to return
to the South the rights it had had in 1860.

Lincoln's victory in that election thus changed the racial future of the United States. It also agitated
Southern-sympathizer and Negrophobe John Wilkes Booth, who began to conspire first to abduct
Lincoln and later to kill him. On Apr. 14, 1865, five days after Robert E. Lee's surrender to Grant at
Appomattox Court House, Lincoln attended a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's
Theatre in Washington. There Booth entered the presidential box and shot Lincoln. The next morning
at 7:22 Lincoln died.

Lincoln's achievements--saving the Union and freeing the slaves--and his martyrdom just at the war's
end assured his continuing fame. No small contribution was made by his eloquence as exemplified in
theGettysburg Address (Nov. 19, 1863), in which he defined the war as a rededication to the
egalitarian ideals of the Declaration of Independence, and in his second inaugural address (Mar. 4,
1865), in which he urged "malice toward none" and "charity for all" in the peace to come.

http://sc94.ameslab.gov/tour/alincoln.html