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Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States. He preserved the Union during the U.S. Civil War and brought about the emancipation of slaves.
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.
Hisdistinctively human, personality and historical role as savior of the Union and emancipator of the slaves creates a legacy that endures. His eloquence of democracy, and his insistence that the Union was worth saving embody the ideals of self-government that all nations strive to achieve.
Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809 in Kentucky. When young Abraham was nine years old his mother diedof tremetol (milk sickness) at age 34 and the event was devastating on him. In March, 1830, the family migrated, this time to Macon County, Illinois. Abraham was 22-year-old, at six feet four inches tall, Lincoln was rawboned and lanky, but muscular and physically strong. Young Lincoln eventually migrated to the small community of New Salem, Illinois where over a period of years he worked as ashopkeeper, postmaster, and eventually general store owner.
It was here that Lincoln, working with the public, acquired social skills and honed story-telling talent that made him popular with the locals.
* After the Black Hawk War, Abraham Lincoln began his political career and was elected to the Illinois state legislature in 1834 as a member of the Whig Party. He supported the Whig politics ofgovernment-sponsored infrastructure and protective tariffs.
* This political understanding led him to formulate his early views on slavery, not so much as a moral wrong, but as an impediment to economic development. It was around this time he decided to become a lawyer, teaching himself.
Abraham Lincoln served a single term in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1847-1849. His foray intonational politics seems to be as unremarkable as it was brief.
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 home and he decided not to run for second term, but instead returned Springfield to practice law.
In 1854, Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, whichrepealed 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 Lincoln’ political zeal once again and his views on slavery moved more toward moral indignation. Lincoln joined the Republican Party in 1856.
Lincolndecided to challenge sitting U.S. Senator Stephen Douglas for his seat. In his nomination acceptance speech, he criticized Douglas, the Supreme Court, and President Buchanan for promoting slavery and declared “a house divided cannot stand.”
In 1860, political operatives in Illinois organized a campaign to support Lincoln for the presidency. On May 18th at the Republican National Convention inChicago, Abraham Lincoln surpassed better known candidates such as William Seward of New York and Salmon P. Chase of Ohio.
* Lincoln’s nomination was due in part to his moderate views on slavery, his support for improving the national infrastructure, and the protective tariff.
* In the presidential election of November 6, 1860 Lincoln won 39.82% of the popular vote (1,865,908 votes)
Duringhis presidency, Lincoln is credited with freeing the slaves by the Emancipation Proclamation, though this only freed the Confederacy in areas not controlled by the Union.
Lincoln showed his leadership to the population of the Union during the war, as evidenced by the Gettysburg Address, a speech of consecration of a cemetery of Union soldiers killed in the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. While most...