Abraham LincolnBENEDICT S. GOMBOCZ

Early years and education

Early years and education Abraham Lincoln was born on Sunday, February 12, 1809, in a log

cabin not far from Hodgenville, Kentucky.

The son of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, he was named after his grandfather on his father’s side.

Thomas Lincoln worked as a carpenter and farmer.

Both of his parents belonged to a Baptist congregation that broke away from another church (the Lincoln family opposed slavery).

The family moved to southern Indiana when Abraham was seven.

Abraham shortly went to school in Kentucky and did the same in Indiana; he went to school with his older sister, Sarah (his younger brother, Thomas, died as infant).

Nancy Hanks Lincoln died of milk sickness, a disease that is the result of drinking milk from cows which had scraped on deadly white snakeroot in 1818, when Abraham was only nine.

The following year, Thomas Lincoln remarried to Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln, and Abraham loved his new stepmother.

Sarah bought three of her own children into the home.

Abraham went to school at uneven interludes; he spent, all in all, less than twelve months attending school, and he didn’t go to college.

Abraham Lincoln’s boyhood home near Hodgenville, KY

Early years (cont.)

Early years (cont.) As he matured, Abraham enjoyed reading and liked to learn

working in the fields, which led to a complicated relationship with his father, who was exactly the opposite.

Abraham regularly borrowed books from his neighbors.

His sister, who married Aaron Grigsby in 1826, died in 1828; later that same year, Lincoln went to New Orleans via flatboat trip.

The Lincoln family moved west to Illinois in 1830.

Lincoln in 1830, age 21

Life in New Orleans and Illinois

Life in New Orleans and IL Lincoln went on a second flatboat trip to New Orleans in 1831.

He subsequently moved to New Salem, Illinois, and lived there until 1837; he held numerous jobs while in New Salem, such as owning a store, reviewing, and serving as a postmaster.

He amazed the residents with his personality, fought the town bully, and was given the nickname “Honest Abe”.

Lincoln, almost six feet four inches and was almost 180 pounds, momentarily served in the Black Hawk War; he also unsuccessfully ran for the Illinois legislature in 1832.

He ran for the Illinois legislature again four more times: in 1834, 1836, 1838, and 1840; he won all four times.

A member of the Whig Party, Lincoln joined the Republican Party in 1856, when that party replaced the Whig Party.

He also studied law in his free time, becoming a lawyer in 1836.

Rumors that Lincoln had a romance with a beautiful woman named Ann Rutledge may be true.

Unfortunately, Ann passed away in 1835.

Lincoln’s home in New Salem, IL

Marriage

Marriage In 1839, Lincoln met Mary Todd in Springfield.

They were married three years later and had four children during the next eleven years: Robert (1843-1926), Edward “Eddie” (1846-1850), William “Willie” (1850-1862), and Thomas “Tad” (1853-1871).

Lincoln became a successful lawyer, and in 1844, the family purchased a home at the corner of Eighth and Jackson.

Mary Todd Lincoln, 1846-1847

Early political career

Early political career Lincoln made a successful bid for the House of Representatives in 1846.

While serving in Washington, he became recognized for opposing the U.S.-Mexican War (later to be known as “Mr. Polk’s war”) and slavery.

After his term was over, he returned to Springfield and continued his law practice, taking it more seriously than he did before.

His father passed away in early 1851.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act, passed in 1854, renewed Lincoln’s lack of interest in politics; that year, Lincoln unsuccessfully ran for the Senate, but in 1856, he won some support for the Republican nomination as vice president.

Also in 1856, he delivered his Lost Speech.

He opposed the Dred Scott decision of 1857 and delivered his famous “House Divided” Speech on June 16, 1858.

He additionally participated in a series of debates with Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, also a resident of Illinois, in 1858.

While he opposed expanding slavery into the territories, Lincoln was not an abolitionist.

Despite losing against Douglas in the Senate race, Lincoln won national recognition, and advanced his national status by delivering a successful speech at the Copper Institute in New York.

Lincoln in the 1858 Senate debate with Stephen A. Douglas

Election to the presidency and first term

Election to the presidency and first term Even though William H. Seward was the preferred candidate for the Republican

presidential nomination in 1860, Lincoln won on the third ballot.

With Hannibal Hamlin of Maine as his running mate, Lincoln won the presidential election of November 6, 1860, during which he defeated Douglas, John Bell, and John Breckinridge.

The Lincolns left via train for Washington, D.C. in February 1861.

At an eleven-year-old girl’s suggestion, the president-elect grew a beard, becoming the first bearded president.

On March 4, 1861, Lincoln was inaugurated as the 16th president.

After Lincoln’s election, several Southern states, afraid of the new Republican administration, broke away from the Union; Lincoln now dealt with the biggest internal crisis that no U.S. president faced.

Lincoln raised an army and chose to save the Union from falling apart after Fort Sumter fell.

Lincoln originally expected a short conflict; he ordered 75,000 volunteers to serve over a three-month period.

In spite of massive pressures, loss of life, battlefield impediments, arguing among his Cabinet members, generals who were not prepared to fight, death threats, and so on, Lincoln did not abandon his pro-Union policy during the Civil War.

The Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln’s declaration of freedom for all parts of the Confederacy that were not under Union occupation, was passed on January 1, 1863.

On November 19, 1863, Lincoln delivered his renowned Gettysburg Address, which devoted the battlefield to the fallen soldiers; he asked the living to complete the mission the perished soldiers started.

Lincoln’s first inauguration, March 4, 1861

Domestic policies

Domestic policies Part of Lincoln’s domestic policies was the Homestead Act of 1862,

an act that permitted poor people in the East to acquire land in the West.

He also signed legislation titled the National Banking Act, which created a national currency and also allowed the establishment of a system of national banks.

He additionally signed tariff legislation that gave protection to American industry and signed a bill that approved the building of the first transcontinental railroad.

His foreign policy sought to prevent other countries from intervening in the Civil War.

Homestead Act of 1862

Re-election and end of the Civil War

Re-election and end of the Civil War Ulysses S. Grant was appointed General-in-chief of the armies of

the United States in 1864.

The Confederacy, meanwhile, was slowly nearing defeat.

On November 8, 1864, Lincoln was re-elected with Andrew Johnson of Tennessee as his running mate, defeating Democrat George B. McClellan of New Jersey and his running mate, George H. Pendleton.

On April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House.

Two days after Lee surrendered, Lincoln spoke to a crowd outside the White House.

Among other things, Lincoln showed his support for voting rights for African Americans; this enraged a particular racist and Confederate sympathizer in the audience: actor John Wilkes Booth, who despised everything President Lincoln represented.

Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Course House, April 9, 1865

Assassination

Assassination On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, President Lincoln and his wife went to

a play, Our American Cousin, at Ford’s Theatre.

During the play, Booth showed up at the theater, entered the President’s Box from behind; at about 10:15 p.m., he shot the president in the back of his head.

As he leapt off the stage, Booth shouted Sic semper tyrannis (“Thus always to tyrants”).

Lincoln was brought to the Petersen House, where he was pronounced dead the next morning at 7:22 a.m.; he was only 56.

His assassination was the first attempt made on the life of a U.S. President (an unsuccessful attempt was made on Andrew Jackson’s life in January 1835), and for days, the country mourned its dead leader.

His death, ironically, was caused by deep divisions and hatreds between the North and the South that led to the Civil War.

Lincoln’s body was taken to Springfield from Washington, D.C. via train; everyone, even his enemies, felt grief over his death.

On May 4, 1865, he was buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery.

Due to the assassination, Reconstruction took place without him; his successor, Andrew Johnson, would preside over an unsuccessful Reconstruction for the next four years.

President Lincoln’s assassination at Ford’s Theatre, April 14, 1865

Legacy

Legacy Abraham Lincoln is remembered for his important role as the

leader in preserving the Union throughout the Civil War and initiating the process that brought about the end of slavery in the United States.

He is also remembered for his personality, his speeches and letters, and as a man of modest origins whose fortitude and persistence led him to his election as the nation’s 16th president.

President Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863

Key achievements

1. Abraham Lincoln dared to make the decision to fight to prevent division in the country.

2. Lincoln was a persistent commander-in-chief during the Civil War who preserved the United States as one nation.

3. Lincoln’s foreign policy succeeded in stopping foreign intervention in the Civil War.

4. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which started the process of freedom for slaves; it also permitted African Americans to serve in the Union army.

5. Lincoln strongly backed the Thirteenth Amendment that officially outlawed slavery in the United States.

6. Included in the legislation he signed was the Homestead Act of 1862, the Morill Act, the National Banking Act, and a bill that approved the construction of the first transcontinental railroad.

7. Lincoln set an example of effective character, leadership, and morality which his successors tried to follow; during his 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama said that he would use Lincoln as a model.

8. Both before and throughout his presidency, Lincoln delivered a number of important speeches: the House Divided Speech (1858), the Cooper Union Address (1860), the First Inaugural Address (1861), the Gettysburg Address (1863), and the Second Inaugural Address (1865).

9. Lincoln wrote several letters, such as the letters to Grace Bedell, Horace Greeley, Fanny McCullough, and Lydia Bixby.

10. His quotes are among the most well-known in the world (My favorite quote from President Lincoln: “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.”)

Lincoln Memorial

Lincoln Memorial (exterior) Lincoln Memorial (interior)

March on Washington

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial

Civil rights activists listening to Dr. King speak in front of the Lincoln Memorial

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library

References and other sites

References: http://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln77.html

Other sites: http://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln78.html

Best books about Abraham Lincoln: http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1212.Best_Books_About_Abraham_Lincoln