Abraham Lincoln

1. Lincoln warned the South in his Inaugural Address In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.Lincoln thought secession illegal, and was willing to use force to defend Federal law and the Union. When Confederate bat .....

Synopsis

2. Abraham Lincoln is regarded as one of Americas greatest heroes due to both his incredible impact on the nation and his unique appeal. His is a remarkable story of the rise from humble beginnings to achieve the highest office in the land; then, a sudden and tragic death at a time when his country needed him most to complete the great task remaining before the nation. Lincolns distinctively human and humane personality and historical role as savior .....

Childhood

3. Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Thomas was a strong and determined pioneer who found a moderate level of prosperity and was well respected in the community. The couple had two other children Abrahams older sister Sarah and younger brother Thomas, who died in infancy. Due to a land dispute, the Lincolns were forced to move from Kentucky to Perry County, Indiana in 1817, .....

Law Career

4. In March, 1830, the family again migrated, this time to Macon County, Illinois. When his father moved the family again to Coles County, 22 year old Abraham Lincoln struck out on this own, making a living in manual labor. At six feet four inches tall, Lincoln was rawboned and lanky, but muscular and physically strong. He spoke with a backwoods twang and walked with a long striding gait. He was known for his skill in wielding an ax and early on ma .....

Entering Politics

5. Abraham Lincoln served a single term in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1847 to 1849. His foray into national politics seems to be as unremarkable as it was brief. He was the lone Whig from the state of Illinois, showing party loyalty, but finding few political allies. He used his term in office to speak out against the Mexican American War and supported Zachary Taylor for president in 1848. His criticism of the war made him unpopular back .....

Elected President

6. In 1854, Congress passed the Kansas Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise, and allowed individual states and territories to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery. The law provoked violent opposition in Kansas and Illinois. And it gave rise to the Republican Party. This awakened Abraham Lincolns political zeal once again, and his views on slavery moved more toward moral indignation. Lincoln joined the Republican Party in 18 .....

Civil War

7. Abraham Lincoln responded to the crisis wielding powers as no other president before him. He distributed $2 million from the Treasury for war material without an appropriation from Congress; he called for 75,000 volunteers into military service without a declaration of war; and he suspended the writ of habeas corpus, arresting and imprisoning suspected Confederate sympathizers without a warrant. Crushing the rebellion would be difficult under any .....

Assassination

8. Reconstruction began during the war as early as 1863 in areas firmly under Union military control. Abraham Lincoln favored a policy of quick reunification with a minimum of retribution. But he was confronted by a radical group of Republicans in the Senate and House that wanted complete allegiance and repentance from former Confederates. Before a political battle had a chance to firmly develop, Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, by well k .....

Growing Up

9. Abraham Lincoln came from humble beginnings. He was born in a single room log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky. His parents were Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln. His father lost everything when Abraham was young and they had to move to Perry County, Indiana where they struggled to get by. When he was just nine years old, his mother died and his sister Sarah took care of him until his father remarried.Abraham had very little formal education, but h .....

Before He Became President

10. Lincoln served on the Illinois State Legislature for several terms. During that time he studied the law and began to work as a lawyer. He ran for the U.S. Congress in 1845. He won the election and served as a congressman for one term. After serving as congressman he continued to work as a lawyer. Later, Lincoln ran for the U.S. Senate, he did not win but he did gain national recognition for his arguments against slavery during the debates.In 1860 .....

Abraham Lincoln Presidency

11. Lincoln won the 1860 election and was inaugurated as president in March of 1861. The southern states did not want Lincoln to be president. They did not agree with his policies. Before he was officially in office, they began to secede (leave the country). The first state to leave was South Carolina, but soon six more states followed and together they formed a new country called the Confederacy. This all happened after Lincoln won the election, but .....

The Emancipation Proclamation

12. On January 1, 1863 Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This was an order that freed the slaves in the Confederate States. Although not all the slaves were immediately set free, it paved the way for the 13th Amendment which would free all slaves in the United States a few years later. .....

Gettysburg Address

13. Today, Lincoln is often remembered for a short speech he gave at Gettysburg on November 1, 1863. Its called the Gettysburg Address. It was only a few minutes long, but is considered one of the great speeches in American history. .....

The Civil War Ends

14. The Civil War finally ended on April 9, 1865 when General Robert E. Lee surrendered at the Appomattox Court House in Virginia. Lincoln wanted the country to heal, forgive, and rebuild. He wanted to be generous to the southern states in helping them during the reconstruction. Unfortunately, he would not live to see the country rebuild. .....

Abraham Lincolns Military Career

15. In 1832, Lincoln enlisted to fight in the Black Hawk War. He was quickly elected to be the captain of a company of volunteers. His company joined regulars under Colonel Zachary Taylor. He only served 30 days in this capacity and then signed on as a private in the mounted Rangers. He then joined the Independent Spy Corps. He saw no real action during his short stint in the military. .....

Career Before the Presidency

16. Lincoln worked as a clerk before joining the military. He ran for the state legislature and lost in 1832. He was appointed as Postmaster of New Salem by Andrew Jackson (1833 36). He was elected as a Whig to the Illinois legislature (1834 1842). He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1836. Lincoln served as a US Representative (1847 49). He was elected to the state legislature in 1854 but resigned to run for the US Senate. He gave his famou .....

Lincoln Douglas Debates

17. Lincoln debated his opponent, Stephen Douglas, seven times in what became known as the Lincoln Douglas Debates. While they agreed on many issues, they disagreed over the morality of slavery. Lincoln did not believe that slavery should spread any further but Douglas argued for popular sovereignty. Lincoln explained that while he was not asking for equality, he believed African Americans should get the rights granted in the Declaration of Independe .....

Bid for the Presidency 1860

18. Lincoln was nominated for the presidency by the Republican Party with Hannibal Hamlin as his running mate. He ran on a platform denouncing disunion and calling for an end to slavery in the territories. The Democrats were divided with Stephen Douglas representing the Democrats and John Breckinridge the National (Southern) Democrats. John Bell ran for the Constitutional Union Party which basically took votes from Douglas. In the end, Lincoln won 40 .....

Reelection in 1864

19. The Republicans, now the National Union Party, had some concern that Lincoln wouldnt win but still renominated him with Andrew Johnson as his Vice President. Their platform demanded unconditional surrender and the official end to slavery. His opponent, George McClellan, had been relieved as the head of the Union armies by Lincoln. His platform was that the war was a failure, and Lincoln had taken away too many civil liberties. Lincoln won because .....

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

20. On April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated while attending a play at Fords Theater in Washington, D.C. Actor John Wilkes Booth shot him in the back of the head before jumping onto the stage and escaping to Maryland. Lincoln died on April 15th.On April 26th, Booth was found hiding in a barn which was set on fire. He was then shot and killed. Eight conspirators were punished for their roles. .....

Historical Significance

21. Abraham Lincoln is considered by many scholars to have been the best President. He is credited with holding the Union together and leading the North to victory in the Civil War. Further, his actions and beliefs led to the emancipation of African Americans from the bonds of slavery. .....

Political Ambitions

22. As a young man, Lincoln stood out from the crowd, tall and lanky at six feet four inches. He arrived in New Salem and landed a job as a clerk in a general store. Soon thereafter, Lincoln started to make a name for himself, successfully wrestling the town bully and amazing most of his neighbors with his strength and ability to split rails and fell treesa survival skill that he developed as a child of the American frontier. In small towns during th .....

Political Success and Strategies

23. In 1834, Lincoln ran again for the state legislature, and this time he won. Even the Democrats supported him. His strategy had worked he issued no platform statement, made no promises, and gave few speeches. Instead, he shook hands, told jokes, and visited nearly every family in the county. He ran and won again in 1836, 1838, and 1840. Once in office, his Whig leanings came early to the front as he supported internal improvements and the charteri .....

Taking Political Risks

24. After four terms in the state legislature, Lincoln left office in 1841 but returned to public life in 1846 to win the Whig nomination for a seat from the Illinois seventh congressional district to the U.S. House of Representatives. Ten days after the nomination, America went to war with Mexico. During the months of the campaign, Lincoln said nothing about the Mexican American War, which allowed him to win the district by a large majority. Once in .....

The Issue of Slavery 1858 Lincoln Douglas Debates

25. Two years after Fr?monts defeat, Abraham Lincoln won his partys nomination to the U.S. Senate. This put him head to head in a race with the powerful senator Stephen A. Douglas, one of Lincolns rivals from his days in the Illinois state capital, who was running for a third term as a Democrat. There followed a series of seven debates between Lincoln and Douglas in towns across Illinois over the next seventy days. Several factors helped to attract n .....

Political Motives

26. A leader of the Democratic Party, Douglas had made himself politically vulnerable when he broke with Democratic President James Buchanan and southern Democrats over the issue of Kansas statehood. Douglas opposed the admission of Kansas as a slave state under the terms of the controversial, proslavery Lecompton constitution. That constitution, which was widely believed to have been the result of voter fraud by Missouri border ruffians, would have .....

A Constitutional Moral or Local Issue

27. Furthermore, Lincoln charged Douglas with being part of secret cabal to extend slavery to the free states. He boldly announced that slavery was simply immoral and had to be dealt with forthrightly by the U.S. Congress. For Lincoln, slavery violated the fundamental assertion of the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal. He argued that its continued existence and support in the nation ran counter to the wishes of the Founding F .....

Limited Racial Equality

28. It was on this last issue of racial equality that Lincoln had the most difficulty in answering Douglas. Lincoln could not easily declare that slavery was immoral and that African Americans were endowed with God given rights as presented in the Declaration of Independence without leaving himself vulnerable to Douglass race baiting attacks. Either African Americans were equal to white Americans, Douglas proclaimed, or they were not. Lincoln answere .....