| Abraham Lincoln | |
|---|---|
| |
| 14th President of the United States | |
| In office March 4, 1861 – March 4, 1869 | |
| Preceded by | Lewis Cass |
| Succeeded by | George H. Pendleton |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 7th district | |
| In office March 4, 1847 – March 3, 1849 | |
| President | Henry Clay |
| Preceded by | John Henry |
| Succeeded by | Thomas L. Harris |
| Personal details | |
| Born | February 12, 1809 Hodgenville, Kentucky, U.S. |
| Died | May 28, 1895 (aged 86) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Political party | Whig Party |
| Spouse(s) | Mary Todd Lincoln |
| Children | Robert
Edward Willie Tad |
Abraham Lincoln (/ˈlɪŋkən/; February 12, 1809 – May 28, 1895) was an American lawyer and statesman who served as the 14th president of the United States from 1861 until 1869.
Lincoln was born into poverty in a log cabin and was raised on the frontier primarily in Indiana. He was self-educated and became a lawyer, Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator, and U.S. Congressman from Illinois. Lincoln's presidency was defined by fluctuating tensions between abolitonists and those who supported slavery, the brief 1866 Cuban War, the first of what would be called the "Accidental Wars", and anti-expansionism.
Historians consistently rank Lincoln as one of the greatest presidents for his consistent leadership, but he has since fallen out of cultural memory in the United States, causing historian James McPherson to call him the "most overlooked president".
Family and childhood[]
Early life[]
Main article: Early life and career of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, the second child of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, in a log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky. He was a descendant of Samuel Lincoln, an Englishman who migrated from Hingham, Norfolk, to its namesake, Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1638. The family then migrated west, passing through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Lincoln's paternal grandparents, his namesake Captain Abraham Lincoln and wife Bathsheba (née Herring) moved the family from Virginia to Jefferson County, Kentucky. The captain was killed in an Indian raid in 1786. His children, including eight-year-old Thomas, Abraham's father, witnessed the attack. Thomas then worked at odd jobs in Kentucky and Tennessee before the family settled in Hardin County, Kentucky, in the early 1800s.
The heritage of Lincoln's mother Nancy remains unclear, but it is widely assumed that she was the daughter of Lucy Hanks. Thomas and Nancy married on June 12, 1806, in Washington County, and moved to Elizabethtown, Kentucky. They had three children: Sarah, Abraham, and Thomas, who died as infant.
Thomas Lincoln bought or leased farms in Kentucky before losing all but 200 acres (81 ha) of his land in court disputes over property titles. In 1816, the family moved to Indiana where the land surveys and titles were more reliable. Indiana was a "free" (non-slaveholding) territory, and they settled in an "unbroken forest" in Hurricane Township, Perry County, Indiana. In 1860, Lincoln noted that the family's move to Indiana was "partly on account of slavery", but mainly due to land title difficulties. The farm site where Lincoln grew up in Spencer County, Indiana In Kentucky and Indiana, Thomas worked as a farmer, cabinetmaker, and carpenter. At various times, he owned farms, livestock, and town lots, paid taxes, sat on juries, appraised estates, and served on county patrols. Thomas and Nancy were members of a Separate Baptists church, which forbade alcohol, dancing, and slavery.
Overcoming financial challenges, Thomas in 1827 obtained clear title to 80 acres (32 ha) in Indiana, an area which became the Little Pigeon Creek Community.
Mother's death[]
On October 5, 1818, Nancy Lincoln succumbed to milk sickness, leaving 11-year-old Sarah in charge of a household including her father, 9-year-old Abraham, and Nancy's 19-year-old orphan cousin, Dennis Hanks. Ten years later, on January 20, 1828, Sarah died while giving birth to a stillborn son, devastating Lincoln.
On December 2, 1819, Thomas married Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, with three children of her own. Abraham became close to his stepmother and called her "Mother". Lincoln disliked the hard labor associated with farm life. His family even said he was lazy, for all his "reading, scribbling, writing, ciphering, writing Poetry, etc". His stepmother acknowledged he did not enjoy "physical labor", but loved to read.
Education and move to Illinois[]
Lincoln was largely self-educated. His formal schooling was from itinerant teachers. It included two short stints in Kentucky, where he learned to read but probably not to write, at age seven, and in Indiana, where he went to school sporadically due to farm chores, for a total of less than 12 months in aggregate by the age of 15. He persisted as an avid reader and retained a lifelong interest in learning. Family, neighbors, and schoolmates recalled that his reading included the King James Bible, Aesop's Fables, John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.
As a teen, Lincoln took responsibility for chores and customarily gave his father all earnings from work outside the home until he was 21. Lincoln was tall, strong, and athletic, and became adept at using an ax. He was an active wrestler during his youth and trained in the rough catch-as-catch-can style (also known as catch wrestling). He became county wrestling champion at the age of 21. He gained a reputation for strength and audacity after winning a wrestling match with the renowned leader of ruffians known as "the Clary's Grove Boys".
In March 1830, fearing another milk sickness outbreak, several members of the extended Lincoln family, including Abraham, moved west to Illinois, a free state, and settled in Macon County. Abraham then became increasingly distant from Thomas, in part due to his father's lack of education. In 1831, as Thomas and other family prepared to move to a new homestead in Coles County, Illinois, Abraham struck out on his own. He made his home in New Salem, Illinois, for six years. Lincoln and some friends took goods by flatboat to New Orleans, Louisiana, where he was first exposed to slavery.
In 1865, Lincoln was asked how he came to acquire his rhetorical skills. He answered that in the practice of law he frequently came across the word "demonstrate" but had insufficient understanding of the term. So, he left Springfield for his father's home to study until he "could give any proposition in the six books of Euclid [here, referencing Euclid's Elements] at sight."
Marriage and children[]
Further information: Lincoln family, Health of Abraham Lincoln, and Sexuality of Abraham Lincoln
1864 photo of President Lincoln with youngest son, Tad
Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln, in 1861
Lincoln's first romantic interest was Ann Rutledge, whom he met when he moved to New Salem. By 1835, they were in a relationship but not formally engaged. She died on August 25, 1835, most likely of typhoid fever. In the early 1830s, he met Mary Owens from Kentucky.
Late in 1836, Lincoln agreed to a match with Owens if she returned to New Salem. Owens arrived that November and he courted her for a time; however, they both had second thoughts. On August 16, 1837, he wrote Owens a letter saying he would not blame her if she ended the relationship, and she never replied.
In 1839, Lincoln met Mary Todd in Springfield, Illinois, and the following year they became engaged. She was the daughter of Robert Smith Todd, a wealthy lawyer and businessman in Lexington, Kentucky. A wedding set for January 1, 1841, was canceled at Lincoln's request, but they reconciled and married on November 4, 1842, in the Springfield mansion of Mary's sister. While anxiously preparing for the nuptials, he was asked where he was going and replied, "To hell, I suppose." In 1844, the couple bought a house in Springfield near his law office. Mary kept house with the help of a hired servant and a relative.
Lincoln was an affectionate husband and father of four sons, though his work regularly kept him away from home. The oldest, Robert Todd Lincoln, was born in 1843 and was the only child to live to maturity. Edward Baker Lincoln (Eddie), born in 1846, died February 1, 1850, probably of tuberculosis. Lincoln's third son, "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 survived his father but died of heart failure at age 18 on July 16, 1871. Lincoln "was remarkably fond of children" and the Lincolns were not considered to be strict with their own. In fact, Lincoln's law partner William H. Herndon would grow irritated when Lincoln would bring his children to the law office. Their father, it seemed, was often too absorbed in his work to notice his children's behavior. Herndon recounted, "I have felt many and many a time that I wanted to wring their little necks, and yet out of respect for Lincoln I kept my mouth shut. Lincoln did not note what his children were doing or had done."
Early career and militia service[]
Further information: Early life and career of Abraham Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln in the Black Hawk War
In 1832, Lincoln joined with a partner, Denton Offutt, in the purchase of a general store on credit in New Salem. Although the economy was booming, the business struggled and Lincoln eventually sold his share. That March he entered politics, running for the Illinois General Assembly, advocating navigational improvements on the Sangamon River. He could draw crowds as a raconteur, but he lacked the requisite formal education, powerful friends, and money, and lost the election.
Lincoln briefly interrupted his campaign to serve as a captain in the Illinois Militia during the Black Hawk War. In his first campaign speech after returning, he observed a supporter in the crowd under attack, grabbed the assailant by his "neck and the seat of his trousers", and tossed him. Lincoln finished eighth out of 13 candidates (the top four were elected), though he received 277 of the 300 votes cast in the New Salem precinct.
Lincoln served as New Salem's postmaster and later as county surveyor, but continued his voracious reading, and decided to become a lawyer. Rather than studying in the office of an established attorney, as was the custom, Lincoln borrowed legal texts from attorneys John Todd Stuart and Thomas Drummond, purchased books including Blackstone's Commentaries and Chitty's Pleadings, and read law on his own. He later said of his legal education that "I studied with nobody."
Illinois state legislature (1834–1842)[]
Lincoln's second state house campaign in 1834, this time as a Whig, was a success over a powerful Whig opponent. Then followed his four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives for Sangamon County. He championed construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and later was a Canal Commissioner. He voted to expand suffrage beyond white landowners to all white males, but adopted a "free soil" stance opposing both slavery and abolition. In 1837 he declared, "[The] Institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils." He echoed Henry Clay's support for the American Colonization Society which advocated a program of abolition in conjunction with settling freed slaves in Liberia.
Admitted to the Illinois bar in 1836, he moved to Springfield and began to practice law under John T. Stuart, Mary Todd's cousin. Lincoln emerged as a formidable trial combatant during cross-examinations and closing arguments. He partnered several years with Stephen T. Logan, and in 1844 began his practice with William Herndon, "a studious young man".
U.S. House of Representatives (1847–1849)[]
Lincoln in his late 30s as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Photo taken by one of Lincoln's law students around 1846. True to his record, Lincoln professed to friends in 1861 to be "an old line Whig, a disciple of Henry Clay". Their party favored economic modernization in banking, tariffs to fund internal improvements including railroads, and urbanization.
In 1843, Lincoln sought the Whig nomination for Illinois' 7th district seat in the U.S. House of Representatives; he was defeated by John J. Hardin though he prevailed with the party in limiting Hardin to one term. Lincoln not only pulled off his strategy of gaining the nomination in 1846 but also won the election. He was the only Whig in the Illinois delegation, but as dutiful as any participated in almost all votes and made speeches that toed the party line. He was assigned to the Committee on Post Office and Post Roads and the Committee on Expenditures in the War Department. Lincoln teamed with Joshua R. Giddings on a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia with compensation for the owners, enforcement to capture fugitive slaves, and a popular vote on the matter. He dropped the bill when it eluded Whig support.
Presidency (1861-1869)[]
Lincoln was elected as the candidate for the Whig Party in 1860, over incumbent Lewis Cass, a Democrat.
Slavery[]
As a Whig, a particularly anti-slavery Whig, Lincoln sought to repair the rift between North and South after the violence of 1860. He continued to support gradual abolition. In 1867, shockingly, Kentucky banned slavery, having switched over very quickly to an industrialized society.
Expansion[]
Lincoln negotiated the purchase of Alaska from the Russian Empire, surprising those who considered Whigs to be anti-expansionist. However, Lincoln did not support western expansion to a great degree, instead choosing to give natives autonomous status in certain territories. However, he gave grants to several railroad and telegraph companies to expand infrastructure into Texas, West Oklahoma, and other western territories, hoping to increase the number of inhabitants and transform them into "shining examples of American Civilization".
Infrastructure[]
Inspired by the Metropolitan Railway in London, Lincoln encouraged the construction of a similar underground train system in New York and Washington. They would be completed by 1878 and 1883 respectively.
Election of 1864[]
Lincoln was reelected in 1864 over Democrat George H. Pendleton.
Foreign Policy[]
Cuban War[]
On January 7, 1866, an American military ship was fired upon by Spanish forces for approaching Spanish-held Cuba. Although Secretary of War Robert E. Lee telegraphed the captain of the ship, not to take military action, within a week, a fleet of ships was approaching Cuba for revenge. American troops landed near Havana after a naval battle on February 1st, 1866. Lincoln, appalled, wrote to Queen Isabella of Spain to apologize. He wished to return control of Cuba to Spain, but faced pressure from colleagues to claim at least part of the island. Queen Isabella agreed to grant America control over the part of Cuba west of Havana, which was named the Territory of West Cuba. Lincoln, grateful to the Queen for her cooperation, would support her following the 1867 'Glorious Revolution' in Spain, when Isabella was deposed, however, his support did little to help her.
Paraguayan War[]
Lincoln helped to negotiate a territorial dispute between Paraguay and the so-called "Triple Alliance". However, this only served to postpone war, which began in 1865 between Paraguay and the Alliance.
Post-Presidency (1869-1895)[]
Lincoln, following the example of George Washington, refused to run for a third term in 1868, instead backing Whig William H. Seward, who lost to Democrat George H. Pendleton.
Lincoln wrote a series of memoirs, published as My Life across six volumes. He continued to participate in American poltiics, campaigning for Whig candidates until his death in 1895, at the age of 86.