Abraham Lincoln

~ The History of the UK and

the USA ~

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Abraham Lincoln (born February 12, 1809, near Hodgenville, Kentucky, U.S.—died April 15, 1865, Washington,
D.C.) was the 16th president of the United States (1861–65), who preserved the Union during the American
Civil War and brought about the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States.

Among American heroes, Lincoln continues to have a unique appeal for his fellow countrymen and also for
people of other lands. This charm derives from his remarkable life story—the rise from humble origins, the
dramatic death—and from his distinctively human and humane personality as well as from his historical role
as saviour of the Union and emancipator of enslaved people. His relevance endures and grows especially
because of his eloquence as a spokesman for democracy. In his view, the Union was worth saving not only for
its own sake but because it embodied an ideal, the ideal of self-government. In recent years, the political side
to Lincoln’s character, and his racial views in particular, have come under close scrutiny, as scholars continue to
find him a rich subject for research. The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., was dedicated to him on May
30, 1922.
 Lincoln was born into poverty in a log cabin in Kentucky and was raised on the frontier,
mainly in Indiana. He was self-educated and became a lawyer, Whig Party leader, Illinois
state legislator, and U.S. representative from Illinois. In 1849, he returned to his successful
law practice in Springfield, Illinois. In 1854, he was angered by the Kansas–Nebraska Act,
which opened the territories to slavery, causing him to re-enter politics. He soon became a
leader of the new Republican Party. He reached a national audience in the 1858 Senate
campaign debates against Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln ran for president in 1860, sweeping
the North to gain victory. Pro-slavery elements in the South viewed his election as a threat
to slavery, and Southern states began seceding from the nation. During this time, the
newly formed Confederate States of America began seizing federal military bases in the
South. A little over one month after Lincoln assumed the presidency, Confederate forces
attacked Fort Sumter, a U.S. fort in South Carolina. Following the bombardment, Lincoln
mobilized forces to suppress the rebellion and restore the union.
Lincoln, a moderate Republican, had to navigate a contentious array of factions with friends and opponents
from both the Democratic and Republican parties. His allies, the War Democrats and the
Radical Republicans, demanded harsh treatment of the Southern Confederates.
He managed the factions by exploiting their mutual enmity, carefully distributing political patronage, and by
appealing to the American people. Anti-war Democrats (called "Copperheads") despised Lincoln, and some
irreconcilable pro-Confederate elements went so far as to plot his assassination.
His Gettysburg Address came to be seen as one of the greatest and most influential statements of
American national purpose. Lincoln closely supervised the strategy and tactics in the war effort, including
the selection of generals, and implemented a naval blockade of the South's trade. He suspended
habeas corpus in Maryland, and averted British intervention by defusing the Trent Affair.
In 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the slaves in the states "in rebellion" to
be free. It also directed the Army and Navy to "recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons", and
to receive them "into the armed service of the United States." Lincoln pressured border states to outlaw
slavery, and he promoted the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery,
except as punishment for a crime.
Lincoln managed his own successful re-election campaign. He sought to heal the war-torn nation through
reconciliation. On April 14, 1865, just five days after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, he was
attending a play at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Mary, when he was fatally shot by
Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln is remembered as a martyr and a national hero for his
wartime leadership and for his efforts to preserve the Union and abolish slavery. Lincoln is often ranked in
both popular and scholarly polls as one of the very greatest presidents in American history.
As a young adult, Lincoln worked as a flatboat navigator, storekeeper, soldier,
surveyor, and postmaster. At age 25 he was elected to the local government in
Springfield, Illinois. Once there, he taught himself law, opened a law practice,
and earned the nickname "Honest Abe."
He served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives but lost two U.S. Senate
races. But the debates he had about the enslavement of people with his 1858
senatorial opponent, Stephen Douglas, helped him win the presidential
nomination two years later. (Lincoln opposed the spread of slavery in the
United States.) In the four-way presidential race of 1860, Lincoln got more votes
than any other candidate.
A NATION DIVIDED

• When Lincoln first took office in 1861, the United States was not truly united. The nation had been arguing for years about enslaving people and
each state’s right to allow it. Now Northerners and Southerners were close to war. When he became president, Lincoln allowed the enslavement of
people to continue in southern states but he outlawed its spread to other existing states and states that might later join the Union.

• Southern leaders didn’t agree with this plan and decided to secede, or withdraw, from the nation. Eventually, 11 southern states formed the
Confederate States of America to oppose the 23 northern states that remained in the Union. The Civil War officially began on April 12, 1861, at Fort
Sumter, South Carolina, when troops from the Confederacy attacked the U.S. fort.

WARTIME PRESIDENCY
• Lincoln’s primary goal as president was to hold the country together. For a long time, it didn’t look as if he would succeed. During the early years,
the South was winning the war. It wasn’t until the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania during July 1863 that the war turned in favor of the Union.

• Through speeches such as the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln encouraged Northerners to keep fighting. In this famous dedication of the battlefield
cemetery, he urged citizens to ensure "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." Earlier that same year Lincoln called for the end
of the enslavement of people in his Emancipation Proclamation speech.

• When the war was nearly over, Lincoln was re-elected in 1864. Civil War victory came on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, when
Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. Some 750,000 soldiers had died during the four-year conflict.
OTHER ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Seeing the Union successfully through the Civil War was Lincoln’s
greatest responsibility, but it wasn’t his only triumph during his
presidential years. Together with Congress, he established the
Department of Agriculture; supported the development of a
transcontinental railroad; enacted the Homestead Act, which opened up
land to settlers; and crafted the 13th Amendment, which ended the
enslavement of people.
TRAGIC FATE
Less than a week after people celebrated the end the
Civil War, the country was mourning yet again. Lincoln
became the first president to be assassinated when
he was shot on April 14, 1865.
The night he was shot, he and his wife, Mary Todd
Lincoln, were watching a play in Washington, D.C. The
entrance to their box seats was poorly guarded,
allowing actor John Wilkes Booth to enter. Booth
hoped to revive the Confederate cause by killing
Lincoln. He shot Lincoln in the back of the head, then
fled the theater. He wasn’t caught until two weeks
later. He was shot during his eventual capture and
died from his wounds.
The president's death at the end of the Civil War
unsettled the fragile nation.
The wounded and unconscious president was carried
to a boardinghouse across the street, where he died
the next morning, April 15, 1865. Lincoln’s presidency
was tragically cut short, but his contributions to the
United States ensured that he would be remembered
as one of its most influential presidents.
 FUN FACTS

• The Lincoln family ate at the White House

dinner table with their cat.

• Lincoln sometimes kept important documents

under the tall black hats he wore.

• Lincoln was taller (at six feet four inches) than

any other president.