Abraham Lincoln

(1809 - 1865)
 Early Life
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 10, 1809, in a
one-room log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky; his family
moved to Indiana in 1816.

In 1830, his family moved to Macon County in southern Illinois,

and Lincoln got a job working on a river flatboat hauling freight
down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. After settling in the
town of New Salem, Illinois, where he worked as a shopkeeper
and a postmaster, Lincoln became involved in local politics as a
supporter of the Whig Party, winning election to the Illinois state
legislature in 1834.

His parents were members of Separate Baptists Church -

opposed slavery, dancing and alcohol.
Early life

In meantime, Abraham taught himself law, passing

the bar examination in 1833, and moved to
Springfield, worked there for a couple of years.

“Honest Abe”

He met Mary Todd, a well-to-do Kentucky belle with

many suitors (including Lincoln’s future political
rival, Stephen Douglas), and they married in 1842.
 Lincoln’s road to the White House
Lincoln won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1846 and
began serving his term the following year. But he was unpopular,
because of his stance against the war with Mexico.

Promising that he will not candidate himself anymore, he returned to

Springfield in 1949.

In meantime, Douglas had push through the passage of

Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed the white citizens to decide
whether the state will be free or slavery.

On October 16, 1854, Lincoln went before a large crowd in Peoria to

debate the merits of the Kansas-Nebraska Act with Douglas,
denouncing slavery and its extension and calling the institution a
violation of the most basic tenets of the Declaration of Independence.
Lincoln’s road to the White House

In 1858 Lincoln became a member of Republican party, which opposed slavery.

The same year, he became a candidate for the Senate.

In June, Lincoln delivered his now-famous “house divided” speech, in

which he quoted from the Gospels to illustrate his belief that “this
government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free.”
Lincoln then squared off against Douglas in a series of famous debates;
though he lost the election, Lincoln’s performance made his reputation
nationally.

In 1960 he raised another great speech at New York City’s Cooper

Union, and in the same year, became a candidate for president.
A wartime president

Northern Democrats - Douglas;

Southern Democrats - John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky;

Constitutional Union Party - John Bell

Republicans - Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln won most of the North and carried the Electoral

College. After years of sectional tensions, the election of
an antislavery northerner as the 16th president of the
United States
By the time Lincoln was inaugurated in March 1861 as the 16th
president of the USA, 11 slavery states in south proclaimed their
independence as Confederate States of America.

Beginning of the war - Fort Sumter, South Carolina.

Hopes for a quick Union victory were dashed by defeat in the

Battle of Bull Run (Manassas), and Lincoln called for 500,000
more troops as both sides settled in for a long conflict.
While Davis Jefferson was a hero from Mexican war, Lincoln was just
a winner of Black Hawk War. Nonetheless, he surprised many
by proving to be a more than capable wartime leader,
learning quickly about strategy and tactics in the early years
of the Civil War, and about choosing the ablest commanders
(although her removed George McClellan from his position).

During the war, Lincoln drew criticism for suspending some

civil liberties, including the right of habeas corpus, but he
considered such measures necessary to win the war.
 EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION AND
GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

After the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation

Proclamation which took effect on January 1, 1863, and freed all of the
slaves in the rebellious states but left those in the border states (loyal
to the Union) in bondage.

Two important Union victories in July 1863–at Vicksburg, Mississippi,

and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania–finally turned the tide of the war. In
November 1863, Lincoln delivered a brief speech at the dedication
ceremony for the new national cemetery at Gettysburg. Published
widely, the Gettysburg Address eloquently expressed the war’s
purpose, harking back to the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of
Independence and the pursuit of human equality. It became the most
famous speech of Lincoln’s presidency, and one of the most widely
quoted speeches in history.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a
new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men
are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any
nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a
great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field,
as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation
might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can
not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here,
have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will
little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what
they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the
unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before
us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause
for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly
resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under
God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people,
by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
 VICTORY AND DEATH

In 1864, Republicans candidate Abraham Lincoln for

president. Democrats nominated George McClellan; Abraham
victory.

Lincoln gave a speech on the White House lawn on

April 11, urging his audience to welcome the southern
states back into the fold. Tragically, Lincoln would not
live to help carry out his vision of Reconstruction. On
the night of April 14, the actor and Confederate
sympathizer John Wilkes Booth slipped into the
president’s box at Ford’s Theatre in Washington and
shot him point-blank in the back of the head. Lincoln
was carried to a boarding house across the street from
the theater, but he never regained consciousness, and
died in the early morning hours of April 15.
Mount Rushmore, South Dakota.
George Washington-
Thomas Jefferson-
Theodore Roosvelt-
Abraham Lincoln
THE END