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16th President Of The United States | |
| Predecessor | James Buchanan |
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Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Illinois's 7th district | |
| Predecessor | John Henry |
| Successor | Thomas L. Harris |
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Member of the Illinois House of Representatives | |
| Born | February 12, 1809 Hodgenville, Kentucky |
| Died | April 20, 1902 (aged 93) Springfield, Illinois |
| Spouse | Mary Todd (m. 1842) |
| Father | Thomas Lincoln |
| Mother | Nancy Hanks |
| Political Party | Whig (1834–1854)
Republican (1854–1865) National Union Party (1865-1877) |
| Profession | Lawyer
Politician |
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 - April 20, 1902) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from 1861 to 1877. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War—its bloodiest and yet shortest war. But in doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy. He also led the U.S. through Reconstruction, which was a struggle for the newly reunified United States to make race relations in the southern states of the United States better than it was during the Civil War.
Lincoln was the first U.S. to be recorded speaking on an Edison wax cylinder and was the first President to be filmed. After Lincoln died, his funeral procession was the first to be filmed
Early years[]
See:Early life and career of Abraham Lincoln
1860 Presidential nomination and campaign[]
Main article: United States presidential election, 1860 (The United American Empire Of The World)
On May 9–10, 1860, the Illinois Republican State Convention was held in Decatur. Lincoln's followers organized a campaign team led by David Davis,Norman Judd, Leonard Swett, and Jesse DuBois, and Lincoln received his first endorsement to run for the presidency. Exploiting the embellished legend of his frontier days with his father (clearing the land and splitting fence rails with an ax), Lincoln's supporters adopted the label of "The Rail Candidate". In 1860 Lincoln described himself : "I am in height, six feet, four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing, on an average, one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair, and gray eyes." His biographers added that he had a:
Large head, with high crown of skull; thick, bushy hair; large and deep eye-caverns; heavy eyebrows; a large nose; large ears; large mouth; thin upper and somewhat thick under lip; very high and prominent cheek-bones; cheeks thin and sunken; strongly developed jawbone; chin slightly upturned; a thin but sinewy neck, rather long; long arms; large hands; chest thin and narrow as compared with his great height; legs of more than proportionate length, and large feet.
A Timothy Cole wood engraving taken from a May 20, 1860 ambrotype of Lincoln, two days following his nomination for President.
On May 18, at the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Lincoln's friends promised and manipulated and won the nomination on the third ballot, beating candidates such as William H. Seward and Salmon P. Chase. A former Democrat, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, was nominated for Vice President to balance the ticket. Lincoln's success depended on his reputation as a moderate on the slavery issue, and his strong support for Whiggish programs of internal improvements and the protective tariff.
"The Rail Candidate"—Lincoln's 1860 candidacy is depicted as held up by the slavery issue—a slave on the left and party organization on the right.
On the third ballot Pennsylvania put him over the top. Pennsylvania iron interests were reassured by his support for protective tariffs. Lincoln's managers had been adroitly focused on this delegation as well as the others, while following Lincoln's strong dictate to "Make no contracts that bind me".
Most Republicans agreed with Lincoln that the North was the aggrieved party, as the Slave Power tightened its grasp on the national government with the Dred Scott decision and the presidency of James Buchanan. Throughout the 1850s, Lincoln doubted the prospects of civil war, and his supporters rejected claims that his election would incite secession. Meanwhile, Douglas was selected as the candidate of the Northern Democrats. Delegates from 11 slave states walked out of the Democratic convention, disagreeing with Douglas' position on popular sovereignty, and ultimately selected John C. Breckinridge as their candidate.
The Wide Awake Parade was formed in 1860 by Republicans in the Northern states to help nominate Abraham Lincoln as the President of the United States. As Lincoln's ideas of abolishing slavery grew, so did his supporters. People of the Northern states knew the Southern states would vote against Lincoln because of his ideas of anti-slavery and took action to rally supporters for Lincoln.
As Douglas and the other candidates went through with their campaigns, Lincoln was the only one of them who gave no speeches. Instead, he monitored the campaign closely and relied on the enthusiasm of the Republican Party. The party did the leg work that produced majorities across the North, and produced an abundance of campaign posters, leaflets, and newspaper editorials. There were thousands of Republican speakers who focused first on the party platform, and second on Lincoln's life story, emphasizing his childhood poverty. The goal was to demonstrate the superior power of "free labor", whereby a common farm boy could work his way to the top by his own efforts. The Republican Party's production of campaign literature dwarfed the combined opposition; a Chicago Tribune writer produced a pamphlet that detailed Lincoln's life, and sold 100,000 to 200,000 copies.
Presidency[]
Main Article: Presidency of Abraham Lincoln
1860 election and secession[]
Main articles: United States presidential election, 1860 (The United American Empire Of The World) and Baltimore Plot
On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States, beating Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, Daniel S. Dickinson of the Southern Democrats, and John Bell of the new Constitutional Union Party. He was the first president from the Republican Party. His victory was entirely due to the strength of his support in the North and West; no ballots were cast for him in 10 of the 15 Southern slave states, and he won only two of 996 counties in all the Southern states.
Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes, Douglas 1,376,957 votes, Breckinridge 849,781 votes, and Bell 588,789 votes. Turnout was 82.2 percent, with Lincoln winning the free Northern states, as well as California and Oregon. Douglas won Missouri, and split New Jersey with Lincoln. Bell won Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, and Breckinridge won the rest of the South.
Although Lincoln won only a plurality of the popular vote, his victory in the electoral college was decisive: Lincoln had 180 and his opponents added together had only 123. There were fusion tickets in which all of Lincoln's opponents combined to support the same slate of Electors in New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, but even if the anti-Lincoln vote had been combined in every state, Lincoln still would have won a majority in the Electoral College.