Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War, defeating the Confederacy and playing a major role in the abolition of slavery.

Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky and grew up on the frontier. He was self-educated and became a lawyer, an Illinois state legislator, and a U.S. representative. He was upset by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, which opened the territories to slavery, and he became a leader of the new Republican Party. He became known across the country through the 1858 Senate campaign debates against Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election, becoming the first Republican president. His victory caused most of the slave states to begin seceding and form the Confederate States. A month after Lincoln took office, Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter, starting the Civil War.

As a moderate Republican, Lincoln had to handle many different political views during the war. He closely guided the Union's plans and tactics, including the choice of generals and a naval blockade of Southern ports. In April 1861, he suspended the writ of habeas corpus, a step that Chief Justice Roger Taney later said in Ex parte Merryman only Congress could take. He also avoided war with Britain by calming the Trent Affair. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that the slaves in the states "in rebellion" were free. On November 19, 1863, he gave the Gettysburg Address, which became one of the most famous speeches in American history. He supported the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished chattel slavery in 1865. After his re-election in 1864, he wanted to help the war-torn nation heal through Reconstruction.

On April 14, 1865, five days after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.. He was the first U.S. president to be assassinated. Lincoln is remembered as a martyr and a national hero for his leadership during the war and for his efforts to preserve the Union and end slavery. He is consistently ranked in both popular and scholarly polls as one of the greatest presidents in American history.

Main article: Early life and career of Abraham Lincoln

Early life and education

Abraham Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky on February 12, 1809. He grew up on Sinking Spring Farm and Knob Creek Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky. He was the second child of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln. His ancestor Samuel Lincoln came to Massachusetts in 1637. Lincoln's grandfather, Captain Abraham Lincoln, moved the family from Virginia to Kentucky, and he was killed in a Native American raid in 1786. In the early 1800s, the family settled in Hardin County, Kentucky. Thomas and Nancy married on June 12, 1806, and moved to Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Their children were Sarah, Abraham, and Thomas Jr., who died as an infant. The family belonged to a Separate Baptist Church.

Thomas bought several farms but could not get clear property titles to them, and he lost hundreds of acres in legal disputes. In 1816, the family moved to Indiana, where land titles were more reliable, and settled in the Little Pigeon Creek Community. Thomas later earned clear title to 80 acres there. Nancy died from milk sickness in 1818, and Thomas married Sarah Bush Johnston in 1819. Abraham was largely self-educated, with schooling from itinerant teachers and only sporadic attendance in Indiana. He loved reading. As a young man, he traveled by flatboat to New Orleans, Louisiana, where the slave markets left a lasting impression on him, according to historian Michael Burlingame. In 1830, the family moved to Illinois and settled in Macon County.

Marriage and children

Further information: Lincoln family, Health of Abraham Lincoln, and Sexuality of Abraham Lincoln

Some historians, such as Michael Burlingame, believe Ann Rutledge was Lincoln's first romantic interest. She was a young woman from Kentucky whom he met in New Salem, Illinois. Other writers, such as Lewis Gannett, say the evidence does not show a romance between them. David Herbert Donald wrote that how their friendship became a romance "cannot be reconstructed from the record." Rutledge died of typhoid fever on August 25, 1835, and Lincoln was very sad, falling into a serious depression. In the early 1830s, he met Mary Owens, also from Kentucky. They decided not to marry. In 1839, Lincoln met Mary Todd in Springfield, Illinois. She was the daughter of Robert Smith Todd, a wealthy lawyer and businessman in Lexington, Kentucky. They became engaged, broke off the engagement, and then got back together. They married on November 4, 1842, and in 1844 bought a house in Springfield near his law office. The marriage was turbulent, as Mary was sometimes unkind and at times violent toward her husband. The couple had four sons. The eldest, Robert Todd Lincoln, was born in 1843 and was the only child to grow up. Edward Baker "Eddie" Lincoln was born in 1846 and died on February 1, 1850, probably of tuberculosis. William Wallace "Willie" Lincoln was born on December 21, 1850, and died of a fever at the White House on February 20, 1862. The youngest, Thomas "Tad" Lincoln, was born on April 4, 1853, and died of edema at age 18 on July 16, 1871. Lincoln loved children, and the family was not strict with their children. The deaths of Eddie and Willie affected both parents deeply. Lincoln suffered from "melancholy," a condition now thought to be clinical depression.

Lincoln's early working life began in 1831, when his father moved the family to a new homestead in Coles County, Illinois, and Abraham set out on his own. He lived in New Salem, Illinois for six years and worked at a general store there. He gained a reputation for strength and courage after winning a wrestling match against the leader of a rough group called the Clary's Grove boys. In 1832, he ran for the Illinois House of Representatives, but he paused his campaign to serve as a captain in the Illinois Militia during the Black Hawk War. He was elected captain of his company but did not see combat. He lost the election. Later, he bought a general store in New Salem with William Berry, which became a tavern as well. The business struggled and went into debt, so Lincoln sold his share. He served as New Salem's postmaster and later as county surveyor. He decided to become a lawyer and taught himself by borrowing legal books, including Blackstone's Commentaries and Chitty's Pleadings, from attorney John Todd Stuart. He later said he "studied with nobody."

Early political offices and prairie lawyer

In 1834, Lincoln supported Whig Party leader Henry Clay in a state house race and finished second among thirteen candidates. He also backed Clay's support for the American Colonization Society, which wanted abolition along with sending freed slaves to Liberia. The Whigs also wanted internal improvements such as railroads. Lincoln served four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives for Sangamon County. There he pushed for the Illinois and Michigan Canal and led a campaign to move the state capital from Vandalia to Springfield. In 1838, after the murder of anti-slavery newspaper editor Elijah Parish Lovejoy, Lincoln gave an address at the Lyceum in Springfield. He criticized Stephen A. Douglas and the Democratic Party, and he spoke against anti-abolitionism and racial hatred. Lincoln was later criticized for a planned duel with James Shields, but the duel did not take place. In 1846, Lincoln won election to Illinois's 7th district seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was assigned to the Committee on Post Office and Post Roads and the Committee on Expenditures in the War Department. He teamed with Joshua R. Giddings on a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, but dropped it when most other Whigs did not support it. Lincoln spoke against the Mexican–American War and criticized President James K. Polk. He supported the Wilmot Proviso, a plan to ban slavery in U.S. territory won from Mexico, but it failed. In his 1847 spot resolutions, he asked Polk to name the exact spot where the war had begun, but Polk did not respond. This cost Lincoln support in his district, and newspapers mocked him as "spotty Lincoln." At the 1848 Whig National Convention, Lincoln first backed Henry Clay, then joined other Whigs in supporting Zachary Taylor, who won the party's nomination and the presidency. Lincoln hoped to be appointed to the United States General Land Office, but the administration offered him the post of secretary of the Oregon Territory instead. He declined and went back to practicing law.

Lincoln was admitted to the Illinois bar on September 9, 1836, and began practicing law under John T. Stuart. He later partnered with Stephen T. Logan, and in 1844 he began his practice with William Herndon. In Springfield, he handled many kinds of cases, including many transportation disputes. In 1849 he received a patent for a flotation device that helped riverboats move in shallow water. The patent was never commercialized, but it made Lincoln the only president to hold a patent. He represented a bridge company in Hurd v. Rock Island Bridge Company, and he appeared before the Illinois Supreme Court in 411 cases. From 1853 to 1860, one of his largest clients was the Illinois Central Railroad. In 1858, he represented William "Duff" Armstrong, who was acquitted after Lincoln used a fact from judicial notice and a Farmers' Almanac to challenge an eyewitness. In 1859, he defended "Peachy" Quinn Harrison, the grandson of Peter Cartwright, Lincoln's political opponent. Lincoln argued that a dying declaration was not hearsay. The judge allowed the testimony instead of holding Lincoln in contempt of court, and Harrison was acquitted.

See also: List of cases involving Abraham Lincoln

Republican politics (1854–1860)

Main article: Political career of Abraham Lincoln (1849–1861)

Main article: Dred Scott v. Sandford

Main articles: Lincoln–Douglas debates and Cooper Union speech

Main article: 1860 United States presidential election

Lincoln returned to politics in 1854 after the Compromise of 1850 failed to ease tensions over slavery between the slave-holding South and the free North. Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas proposed popular sovereignty as a compromise, but his Kansas–Nebraska Act angered many Northerners and narrowly passed Congress in May 1854. In his Peoria Speech that October, Lincoln declared his opposition to slavery. As the Whig Party split, the new Republican Party drew from its anti-slavery wing, along with Free Soil, Liberty, and anti-slavery Democrats. Lincoln was wary of the new party at first and hoped to revive the Whigs, even as they grew close to the Know Nothing movement. In 1854 he was elected to the Illinois legislature but declined to take his seat so he could run for the U.S. Senate. Senators were then chosen by state legislatures. After leading in six rounds of voting, he could not win a majority, so he urged his backers to vote for Lyman Trumbull, an anti-slavery Democrat. This helped defeat the Democratic candidate, Joel Aldrich Matteson. As violent political confrontations in Kansas continued and the 1856 elections approached, Lincoln joined the Republicans at the Bloomington Convention, where the Illinois Republican Party was established. He gave the final speech of the convention, calling for the Union to be preserved. At the 1856 Republican National Convention, he received support to run as vice president, but the party chose John C. Frémont and William Dayton. James Buchanan won the presidency, Millard Fillmore ran for the Know Nothings, and Republican William Henry Bissell was elected governor of Illinois. Lincoln had become a leading Republican in Illinois. The Missouri Compromise had made a territory free, but when a slave named Dred Scott was returned to a slave state, he asked a federal court for his freedom. In Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), his petition was denied. Roger B. Taney, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, wrote that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. Lincoln denounced the decision as the product of a conspiracy by the Slave Power, and he argued it went against the Declaration of Independence, which said that "all men [are] created equal."

In 1858 Lincoln hoped to defeat Douglas in the Senate race, and Illinois Republicans chose him as their candidate. In his House Divided Speech, he said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." The seven debates between Lincoln and Douglas drew thousands of people. Lincoln accused Douglas of distorting the idea that all men are created equal. Douglas argued in his Freeport Doctrine that settlers, under popular sovereignty, could choose whether to allow slavery. Douglas won re-election by the legislature, but Lincoln had gained a national reputation and was popular in the Midwest. Newspapers began to mention him as a possible presidential candidate. In February 1860, Henry Ward Beecher invited him to speak at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, but the event moved to Cooper Union in Manhattan. In his speech at Cooper Union, Lincoln argued that the Founding Fathers had restricted slavery in the Northwest Ordinance, and that morality required opposition to slavery. Journalist Noah Brooks reported that "No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience." On May 18, 1860, at the Republican National Convention, Lincoln won the nomination on the third ballot, and Hannibal Hamlin of Maine was chosen for vice president to balance the ticket. Lincoln's rivals included John C. Breckinridge, who ran for the Southern Democrats, the Constitutional Union Party with its candidate John Bell, and the Wide Awakes, a Republican youth group. On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected as the first Republican president. He received 1,866,452 votes, or 39.8 percent, and no ballots were cast for him in 10 of the 15 Southern slave states.

Presidency (1861–1865)

Main article: Presidency of Abraham Lincoln

After Lincoln was elected, several Southern states left the Union before he took office in March 1861. They formed the Confederate States of America, with Jefferson Davis as its president. Lincoln refused to recognize the Confederacy and said that leaving the Union was illegal. He traveled to Washington in disguise to avoid suspected attackers. In choosing his cabinet, he picked the people he thought were the strongest, including his main political rival, William H. Seward, who became Secretary of State. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Union troops at Fort Sumter, starting the American Civil War. Lincoln took control of the war and used a naval blockade against Confederate ports. After trying several generals, he gave command of the Union armies to Ulysses S. Grant, whose victories helped the Union.

Lincoln first issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862. On January 1, 1863, he issued the final version, which freed the slaves in the states that were still in rebellion. In November 1863, he gave the Gettysburg Address, which became one of the most quoted speeches in American history. Lincoln was re-elected in 1864. On April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, which signaled the end of the war. Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment in January 1865, and after it was approved by enough states in December 1865, it abolished slavery. Efforts to rebuild the nation after the war, known as the Reconstruction era, began before the war ended.

Assassination

Main article: Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

John Wilkes Booth was a well-known actor and a Confederate spy from Maryland. He never joined the Confederate army, but he had contacts within the Confederate secret service. After Lincoln gave his last public speech on April 11, 1865, Booth made a plan to hurt the President. When Booth learned that the Lincolns planned to attend a play with Grant, he planned to harm both Lincoln and Grant at Ford's Theatre. Lincoln and his wife went to see the play Our American Cousin on the evening of April 14. At the last minute, Grant decided to go to New Jersey to visit his children instead. During the play, Booth went into Lincoln's theater box and shot him. Lincoln's guest, Major Henry Rathbone, tried to stop Booth, but Booth hurt him and escaped. Lincoln was taken across the street to Petersen House, where doctors, including Charles Leale, cared for him. Lincoln died the next morning, on April 15. Two weeks later, Sergeant Boston Corbett found Booth at a farm in Virginia and shot him.

Funeral and burial

Main article: State funeral of Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln lay in state from April 19 to 20, first in the White House and then in the Capitol rotunda. His body, along with the body of his son Willie, then traveled for two weeks on a funeral train from Washington D.C. to Springfield, Illinois. The train stopped in several cities for memorials that were attended by hundreds of thousands of people. Many others gathered along the tracks as the train passed. Historians noted the widespread shock and sorrow, though some people who had disliked Lincoln celebrated his death. Walt Whitman wrote four poems about Lincoln, including "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" and "O Captain! My Captain!". Lincoln was buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, and he now rests within the Lincoln Tomb.

Philosophy and views

Lincoln redefined the political philosophy of republicanism in the United States. He called the Declaration of Independence the "sheet anchor" of republicanism, at a time when most political discussion focused on the Constitution. He presented the Declaration as making equality a basic principle of the United States. As a Whig activist, Lincoln supported business interests and opposed the Jacksonian democrats, yet he admired Andrew Jackson's steeliness and patriotism and adopted the Jacksonian "belief in the common man." Historian William C. Harris found that Lincoln's respect for the Founding Fathers and the Constitution strengthened his conservatism.

Main article: Religious views of Abraham Lincoln

As a young man, Lincoln was a religious skeptic, but he knew the Bible well and often quoted it in his public speeches. These included the House Divided Speech, the Gettysburg Address, and his second inaugural address. After his son Edward died in 1850, he more often spoke of depending on God. He never joined a church, although he and his wife frequently attended First Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Illinois, beginning in 1852. Sources describe his religious beliefs in different ways, and his last words, as reported by his wife, were "There is no place I so much desire to see as Jerusalem."

Health and appearance

Main article: Health of Abraham Lincoln

Michael Burlingame described Lincoln as "awkward" and "gawky" as a young person. As a teenager, he was tall and strong, and he took part in jumping, throwing, wrestling, and footraces. His clothes were rough and suited to the frontier, and he cared little about fashion. Lincoln was six feet four inches tall and had a high-pitched voice. He did not grow a beard until 1860, after Grace Bedell, who was 11 years old, suggested it. He was the first U.S. president to have one. William H. Herndon described his face as "long, narrow, sallow, and cadaverous." Lincoln said he had a "dark complexion, with coarse black hair." Some people were unkind about his looks. Walt Whitman wrote that Lincoln's face was "so awful ugly it becomes beautiful," and the Charleston Mercury wrote that he had "the dirtiest complexion."

Lincoln had several illnesses, some documented and some only suspected, including depression, smallpox, and malaria. He took blue mass pills, which contained mercury, to treat melancholy or hypochondriasis. This could have led to mercury poisoning. Some claim his health was getting worse before he was assassinated, since photographs of Lincoln seem to show weight loss and changes to his face. It has been suggested that he may have had a rare genetic condition, such as Marfan syndrome or multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2B.

Legacy

Since 1948, surveys of U.S. scholars ranking presidents have generally placed Lincoln, George Washington, and Franklin D. Roosevelt at the top, though the order changes. A 2004 study found that scholars in history and politics ranked Lincoln first, while legal scholars placed him second after Washington. Between 1999 and 2011, Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan were the top-ranked presidents in eight public opinion surveys by Gallup. After his assassination, Lincoln became a national martyr. Abolitionists saw him as a champion of human liberty, and many in the South, though not all, considered him an outstanding leader. During the New Deal era, liberals honored him as a friend of the common man, and sociologist Barry Schwartz says he became "a moral symbol inspiring and guiding American life" in the 1930s and 1940s. Lincoln's reputation grew through the Progressive Era, and the high point came in 1922 with the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall. By the 1970s, many political conservatives saw him as a hero, though neo-Confederates such as Mel Bradford criticized his treatment of the White South. Some Black intellectuals later questioned whether Lincoln deserved his title as the Great Emancipator, and Lerone Bennett Jr. called him a White supremacist in 1968, while defenders pointed to his opposition to slavery. Lincoln has also been admired worldwide by figures such as Karl Marx, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Mahatma Gandhi, Willy Brandt, and Nelson Mandela, who compared Lincoln's "new birth of freedom" to the end of apartheid in South Africa.

Main article: Memorials to Abraham Lincoln

See also: Cultural depictions of Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln's portrait appears on the penny and the $5 bill of United States currency, and on postage stamps across the world. Many towns, cities, and counties are named after him, including the capital of Nebraska. The United States Navy has named three vessels after him, including the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72). The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., is one of the most visited National Park Service sites in the country. In Springfield, Illinois, visitors can see the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Lincoln's home, and his tomb. A carving of Lincoln appears on Mount Rushmore, which receives about 3 million visitors a year. A statue of Lincoln by Augustus Saint-Gaudens stands in Lincoln Park, Chicago, and recastings stand in Parliament Square, London, and Parque Lincoln, Mexico City. Several states mark "Presidents' Day" as "Washington–Lincoln Day." Lincoln has also appeared often in media, from the early film Abraham Lincoln's Clemency (1910) to works from the Great Depression era such as Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). The 1938 play Abe Lincoln in Illinois won a Pulitzer Prize and was adapted in film. After film portrayals declined between 1941 and 1999, Daniel Day-Lewis won the Academy Award for Best Actor for playing Lincoln in Lincoln, a 2012 biographical film directed by Steven Spielberg.