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Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
16th President
Term of office March 4, 1861 – April 15, 1865
Preceded by James Buchanan
Succeeded by Andrew Johnson
Date of birth February 12, 1809
Place of birth Hardin County, Kentucky (now in LaRue County)
Date of death April 15, 1865
Place of death Washington, D.C.
Spouse Mary Todd Lincoln
Political party Republican

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865), sometimes called Abe Lincoln and nicknamed Honest Abe, the Rail Splitter, and the Great Emancipator, was the 16th President of the United States (1861 to 1865), and the first president from the Republican Party.

Lincoln staunchly opposed the expansion of slavery into federal territories, and his victory in the 1860 presidential election further polarized an already divided nation. Before his inauguration in March of 1861, seven southern slave states seceded1 from the United States, formed the Confederate States of America, and took control of U.S. forts and other properties within their boundaries. These events soon led to the American Civil War.

Lincoln is often praised for his work as a wartime leader who proved adept at balancing competing considerations and at getting rival groups to work together toward a common goal. Lincoln had to negotiate between Radical and Moderate Republican leaders, who were often far apart on the issues, while attempting to win support from War Democrats and loyalists in the seceding states. He personally directed the war effort, which ultimately led the Union forces to victory over the Confederacy.

His leadership qualities were evident in his diplomatic handling of the border slave states at the beginning of the fighting, in his defeat of a congressional attempt to reorganize his cabinet in 1862, in his many speeches and writings which helped mobilize and inspire the North, and in his defusing of the peace issue in the 1864 presidential campaign. Critics vehemently attacked him for violating the Constitution, overstepping the traditional bounds of executive power, refusing to compromise on slavery in the territories, declaring martial law, suspending habeas corpus, ordering the arrest of some opposing state government officials and a number of publishers, and for being a racist.

Lincoln is most famous for his roles in preserving the Union and ending slavery in the United States with the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. All historians agree that Lincoln had a lasting influence on American political values and social institutions. He redefined republicanism, democracy and the meaning of the nation. He destroyed secessionism and greatly weakened states rights.

Lincoln's administration established the U.S. Department of Agriculture, created the modern system of national banks, and encouraged farm ownership with the Homestead Act of 1862. During his administration West Virginia and Nevada were admitted as states.

Lincoln is usually ranked as one of the greatest presidents. Because of his role in ending slavery, and his guiding the Union to victory in the civil war, his assassination made him a martyr to millions of Americans.

Early life

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in a one-room log cabin on 348 acre (1.4 km²) Sinking Spring Farm in the Southeast part of Hardin County, Kentucky, then considered the frontier (now part of LaRue Co., in Nolin Creek, three miles (5 km) south of Hodgenville), to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks. Lincoln was named after his deceased grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, who was scalped in 1786 in an Indian raid. He had no middle name. Lincoln's parents were uneducated illiterate farmers. Later, when Lincoln became more renowned, reporters and storytellers often exaggerated the poverty and obscurity of Lincoln's birth. In fact, Lincoln's father Thomas was a respected and relatively affluent citizen of the Kentucky backcountry. He had purchased the Sinking Spring Farm in December 1808 for $200 cash and assumption of a debt. His parents belonged to a Baptist church that had pulled away from a larger church because they refused to support slavery. Accordingly, from a very young age, Lincoln was exposed to anti-slavery sentiment. However he never joined his parents' church, or any other church, and as a youth ridiculed religion.

Three years after purchasing the property, a prior land claim filed in Hardin Circuit Court forced the Lincolns to move. Thomas continued legal action until he lost the case in 1815. Money spent on the lawsuit contributed to family difficulties. In 1811, they were able to lease 30 acres (0.1 km²) of a 230 acre (0.9 km²) farm on Knob Creek a few miles away, where they then moved. In a valley of the Rolling Fork River, this was some of the best farmland in the area. At this time, Lincoln's father was a respected community member and a successful farmer and carpenter. Lincoln's earliest recollections are from this farm. In 1815, another claimant sought to eject the family from the Knob Creek farm. Frustrated with litigation and lack of security provided by Kentucky courts, Thomas decided to move to Indiana, which had been surveyed by the federal government, making land titles more secure. It is possible that these episodes motivated Abraham to later learn surveying and become an attorney.

In 1816, when Lincoln was seven years old, he and his parents moved to Spencer County, Indiana, he would state "partly on account of slavery" and partly because of economic difficulties in Kentucky. In 1818 Lincoln's mother along with others in the town, died of "milk sickness". Nancy Hanks Lincoln was only thirty-four years old when she died, and her son Abraham was nine.

In 1830, after more economic and land-title difficulties in Indiana, the family settled on government land on a site selected by Lincoln's father in Macon County, Illinois. The following winter was especially brutal, and the family nearly moved back to Indiana. When his father relocated the family to a nearby site the following year, the 22-year-old Lincoln struck out on his own, canoeing down the Sangamon to Sangamon County, Illinois (now in Menard County), in the village of New Salem. Later that year, hired by New Salem businessman Denton Offutt and accompanied by friends, he took goods from New Salem to New Orleans via flatboat on the Sangamon, Illinois and Mississippi rivers. While in New Orleans, he may have witnessed a slave auction that left an indelible impression on him for the rest of his life. Whether he actually witnessed a slave auction at that time or not, living in a country with a considerable slave presence, he probably saw similar atrocities from time to time.

His formal education consisted of perhaps 18 months of schooling from itinerant teachers. In effect he was self-educated, studying every book he could borrow. He mastered the Bible, Shakespeare, English history and American history, and developed a plain style that puzzled audiences more used to orotund oratory. He avoided hunting and fishing because he did not like killing animals even for food and, though unusually tall and strong, spent so much time reading that some neighbors thought he must be doing it to avoid strenuous manual labor. He was skilled with an axe and a good wrestler.


Young Abraham Lincoln

Early career

Lincoln began his political career in 1832 at the age of 23 with a campaign for the Illinois General Assembly as a member of the Whig Party. The centerpiece of his platform was the undertaking of navigational improvements on the Sangamon River in the hopes of attracting steamboat traffic to the river, which would allow sparsely populated, poor areas along and near the river to grow and prosper. He served as a captain in a company of the Illinois militia drawn from New Salem during the Black Hawk War, although he never saw combat. He wrote after being elected by his peers that he had not had "any such success in life which gave him so much satisfaction."

He later tried and failed at several small-time business ventures. He held an Illinois state liquor license and sold whiskey. Finally, after coming across the second volume of Sir William Blackstone's four-volume Commentaries on the Laws of England, he taught himself the law, and was admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1837. That same year, he moved to Springfield, Illinois and began to practice law with Stephen T. Logan. He became one of the most highly respected and successful lawyers in the prairie state, and grew steadily more prosperous. Lincoln served four successive terms in the Illinois House of Representatives, as a representative from Sangamon County, beginning in 1834. He became a leader of the Whig party in the legislature. In 1837 he made his first protest against slavery in the Illinois House, stating that the institution was "founded on both injustice and bad policy." [1]

Lincoln shared a bed with Joshua Fry Speed from 1837 to 1841 in Springfield. While many claim it was not uncommon in the mid-19th century for men to share a bed (just as two men today may share a house or an apartment), C. A. Tripp's 2005 biography, The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, suggesting that their relationship may also have been sexual, has generated a great deal of controversy. However, even when Lincoln was bitterly reviled for any number of faults by many enemies during the Civil War, not one ever suggested he had ever engaged in homosexual activities.

In 1841 Lincoln entered law practice with William Herndon, a fellow Whig. In 1856 both men joined the fledgling Republican Party. Following Lincoln's assassination, Herndon began collecting stories about Lincoln from those who knew him in central Illinois, eventually publishing a book, Herndon's Lincoln. He never joined an antislavery society and denied he supported the abolitionists. He married into a prominent slave-owning family from Kentucky, and allowed his children to spend time there surrounded by slaves. Several of his in-laws became Confederate officers. He greatly admired the science that flourished in New England, and was perhaps the only father in Illinois at the time to send his son Robert Todd Lincoln to elite eastern schools, Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard College.

Marriage

On November 4, 1842, at the age of 33, Lincoln married Mary Todd. The couple had four sons.

  • Robert Todd Lincoln: b. August 1, 1843, in Springfield, Illinois; d. July 26, 1926, in Manchester, Vermont.
  • Edward Baker Lincoln: b. March 10, 1846, in Springfield, Illinois; d. February 1, 1850, in Springfield, Illinois.
  • William Wallace Lincoln: b. December 21, 1850, in Springfield, Illinois; d. February 20, 1862, in Washington, D.C.
  • Thomas "Tad" Lincoln: b. April 4, 1853, in Springfield, Illinois; d. July 16, 1871, in Chicago, Illinois.

Only Robert survived into adulthood. Of Robert's three children, only Jessie Lincoln had any children (two: Mary Lincoln Beckwith and Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith). Neither Robert Beckwith nor Mary Beckwith had any children, so Abraham Lincoln's bloodline ended when Robert Beckwith (Lincoln's great-grandson) died on December 24, 1985. [2]

Towards the presidency

Lincoln in 1846 or 1847

In 1846 Lincoln was elected to one term in the House of Representatives as a member of the United States Whig Party. A staunch Whig, Lincoln often referred to Whig leader Henry Clay as his political idol. As a freshman House member, Lincoln was not a particularly powerful or influential figure in Congress. He used his office as an opportunity to speak out against the war with Mexico, which he attributed to President Polk's desire for "military glory — that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood."

Lincoln was a key early supporter of Zachary Taylor's candidacy for the 1848 Whig Presidential nomination. When his term ended, the incoming Taylor administration offered Lincoln the governorship of remote Oregon Territory. Acceptance would end his career in the fast-growing state of Illinois, so he declined. Returning instead to Springfield, Illinois he turned most of his energies to making a living at the bar, which involved extensive travel on horseback from county to county.

By the mid-1850s, Lincoln had acquired prominence in Illinois legal circles, especially through his involvement in litigation involving competing transportation interests — both the river barges and the railroads. In 1849, he received a patent related to buoying vessels.

Lincoln represented the Alton & Sangamon Railroad, for example, in an 1851 dispute with one of its shareholders, James A. Barret. Barret had refused to pay the balance on his pledge to that corporation on the ground that it had changed its originally planned route. Lincoln argued that as a matter of law a corporation is not bound by its original charter when that charter can be amended in the public interest, that the newer proposed Alton & Sangamon route was superior and less expensive, and that accordingly the corporation had a right to sue Mr. Barret for his delinquent payment. He won this case, and the decision by the Illinois Supreme Court was eventually cited by several other courts throughout the United States.

Another important example of Lincoln's skills as a railroad lawyer was a lawsuit over a tax exemption that the state granted to the Illinois Central Railroad. McLean County argued that the state had no authority to grant such an exemption, and it sought to impose taxes on the railroad notwithstanding. In January 1856, the Illinois Supreme Court delivered its opinion upholding the tax exemption, accepting Lincoln's arguments.

Lincoln's most notable criminal trial came in 1858 when he defended William "Duff" Armstrong, who was on trial for the murder of James Preston Metzker. The case is famous for when Lincoln used judicial notice, a rare tactic at that time, to show an eyewitness had lied on the stand, claiming he witnessed the crime in the moonlight. Lincoln produced a Farmer's Almanac to show that the moon on that date was at such a low angle it could not have produced enough illumination for the would-be witness to see anything clearly. Based upon this evidence, Armstrong was acquitted.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which expressly repealed the limits on slavery's spread that had been part of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, drew Lincoln back into politics. Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, the most powerful man in the Senate, proposed popular sovereignty as the solution to the slavery impasse, incorporating it into the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Douglas argued that in a democracy the people of a territory should decide whether to allow slavery or not, and not have a decision imposed on them by Congress. It was a speech against Kansas-Nebraska, on October 16, 1854 in Peoria, that caused Lincoln to stand out among the other free soil orators of the day. He helped form the new Republican party, drawing on remnants of the old Whig, Free Soil, Liberty and Democratic parties. In a stirring campaign, the Republicans carried Illinois in 1854, and elected a senator. Lincoln was the obvious choice, but to keep party unity he allowed the election to go to his colleague Lyman Trumbull.

In 1857-58 Douglas broke with President Buchanan, leading to a terrific fight for control of the Democratic party. Some eastern Republicans even favored the reelection of Douglas in 1858, since he led the opposition to the administration's push for the Lecompton Constitution which would have admitted Kansas as a slave state. Accepting the Republican nomination for the Senate in 1858, Lincoln delivered a famous speech [3] in which he stated, "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other." The speech created a lasting image of the danger of disunion due to slavery, and rallied Republicans across the north.

The 1858 campaign featured the Lincoln-Douglas debates, a nationally noticed discussion on the issues that threatened to split the nation in two. Lincoln forced Douglas to propose his Freeport Doctrine, which lost him further support among slave-holders and speeded the division of the Democratic Party. Though the Republican legislative candidates won more popular votes, the Democrats won more seats and the legislature reelected Douglas to the Senate (this was before the 17th Amendment proscribed popular vote for Senate seats). Nevertheless, Lincoln's eloquence transformed him into a national political star.

Election and early Presidency

"The Rail Candidate", political cartoon, 1860

Lincoln was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate for the 1860 election for several reasons: because his views on slavery were seen as more moderate; because of his Western origins (in contrast to his main rival for the nomination, the New Yorker William H. Seward), and because several other contenders had enemies within the party. During the campaign, Lincoln was dubbed "The Rail Splitter" by Republicans to emphasize Lincoln's humility and humble origins, though in fact Lincoln was quite wealthy at the time due to his successful law practice.

On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the 16th President of the United States, beating Douglas, Breckenridge, and Bell. Lincoln was the first Republican president. He won entirely on the strength of his support in the North: he was not even on the ballot in nine states in the South — and won only 2 of 996 counties in the entire South. Lincoln gained 1,865,908 votes for 180 electoral votes, Douglas 1,380,202 for 12 electoral votes, Breckenridge 848,019 for 72 electoral votes, and Bell 590,901 for 39 electoral votes.

Even before Lincoln's election, some leaders in the South made it clear that their states would leave the Union in response to a Lincoln victory. South Carolina took the lead followed by six other Southern states. They seceded before Lincoln took office, forming an entirely new nation, the Confederate States of America. President Buchanan and president-elect Lincoln refused to recognize the Confederacy.

President-elect Lincoln survived an assassination attempt in Baltimore, Maryland, and on February 23, 1861 arrived secretly in disguise in Washington, D.C. Southerners ridiculed Lincoln for this subterfuge, but the efforts at security may have been prudent. At Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, 1861, the Turners formed Lincoln's bodyguard; and a sizable garrison of federal troops was also present, ready to protect the president and the capital from Confederate invasion.

Photograph showing March 4, 1861 inauguration of Abraham Lincoln in front of U.S. Capitol

In his First Inaugural Address, Lincoln declared, "I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments", arguing further that the purpose of the United States Constitution was "to form a more perfect union" than the Articles of Confederation which were explicitly perpetual, and thus the Constitution too was perpetual. He asked rhetorically that even were the Constitution construed as a simple contract, would it not require the agreement of all parties to rescind it?

Also in his inaugural address, in a final attempt to unite the Union and prevent the looming war, Lincoln supported the proposed Corwin Amendment to the constitution, of which he had been a driving force. It would have explicitly protected slavery in those states in which it already existed, and had already passed both houses. Lincoln adamantly opposed the Crittenden Compromise, however, which would have permitted slavery in the territories, renewing the boundary set by the Missouri Compromise and extending it to California. Despite support for this compromise among some Republicans, Lincoln declared that were the Crittenden Compromise accepted, it "would amount to a perpetual covenant of war against every people, tribe, and state owning a foot of land between here and Tierra del Fuego."

Because opposition to slavery expansion was the key issue uniting the Republican Party at the time, Lincoln is sometimes criticized for putting politics ahead of the national interest in refusing any compromise allowing the expansion of slavery. Supporters of Lincoln, however, point out that he did not oppose slavery because he was a Republican, but became a Republican because of his opposition to the expansion of slavery, that he opposed several other Republicans who were in favor of compromise, and that he clearly thought his course of action was in the national interest.

After Union troops at Fort Sumter were fired on and forced to surrender in April, Lincoln called on governors of every state to send 75,000 troops to recapture forts, protect the capital, and "preserve the Union", which in his view still existed intact despite the actions of the seceding states. Virginia, which had repeatedly warned Lincoln it would not allow an invasion of its territory or join an attack on another state, now seceded, along with North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas. The slave states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware did not secede, and Lincoln urgently negotiated with state leaders there promising not to interfere with slavery in loyal states.

Slavery and the Emancipation Proclamation

Lincoln met with his Cabinet for the first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation draft on July 22, 1862.
Main articles: Abraham Lincoln on slavery, Emancipation Proclamation

Lincoln is well known for ending slavery in the United States and he personally opposed slavery as a profound moral evil not in accord with the principle of equality asserted in the Declaration of Independence. Yet, Lincoln's views of the role of the federal government on the subject of slavery are more complicated. Lincoln had campaigned against the expansion of slavery into the territories, however, he maintained that the federal government could not constitutionally bar slavery in states where it already existed. During his presidency, Lincoln made it clear that the North was fighting the war to preserve the Union, not to abolish slavery. He was criticized both at home and abroad for his refusal to take a stand for the complete abolition of slavery. On August 22, 1862, a few weeks before signing the Proclamation, and after it had already been drafted, Lincoln responded by letter to an editorial by Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune which had urged abolition:

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. [4]

With the Emancipation Proclamation issued in two parts on September 22, 1862 and January 1, 1863, Lincoln made the abolition of slavery a goal of the war. Lincoln addresses the issue of his consistency (or lack thereof) between his earlier position and his later position on emancipation in an 1864 letter to Albert G. Hodges[5]

Lincoln is often credited with freeing enslaved African Americans with the Emancipation Proclamation. However, territories and states that still allowed slavery but were under Union control were exempt from the emancipation. The proclamation on its first day, January 1, 1863, freed only a few escaped slaves, but as Union armies advanced south more and more slaves were liberated. Lincoln signed the Proclamation as a wartime measure, insisting that only the outbreak of war gave constitutional power to the President to free slaves in states where it already existed. Acting entirely on his presidential powers, he did not ask or receive approval of Congress for the declaration. He later said: "I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper." The proclamation made abolishing slavery in the rebel states an official war goal and it became the impetus for the enactment of the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution which abolished slavery. Politically, the Emancipation Proclamation did much to help the Northern cause; Lincoln's strong abolitionist stand finally convinced the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and other foreign countries that they could not support the Confederate States of America.

Important domestic measures of Lincoln's first term

File:Lincoln.png
While Lincoln is usually portrayed bearded, he first grew a beard in 1861 at the suggestion of 11-year-old Grace Bedell.

Lincoln believed in the Whig theory of the presidency, which left Congress to write the laws. He signed them, vetoing only bills that threatened his war powers. Thus he signed the Homestead Act in 1862, making available millions of acres of government-held land in the west for purchase at very low cost. The Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act, also signed in 1862, provided government grants for agricultural universities in each state. The most important legislation involved money matters, including the first income tax and higher tariffs. Most important was the creation of the system of national banks by the National Banking Acts of 1863, 1864 and 1865. They allowed the creation of a strong national financial system.

Lincoln sent a senior general to put down the "Sioux Uprising" of August 1862 in Minnesota. Presented with 303 death warrants for convicted Santee Dakota who had massacred innocent farmers, Lincoln affirmed 39 of these for execution (one was later reprieved).

1864 election and Second Inauguration

After Union victories at Gettysburg, Vicksburg and Chattanooga in 1863, many in the North believed that victory was soon to come after Lincoln appointed U.S. Grant General-in-Chief on March 12, 1864. Although no president since Andrew Jackson had been elected to a second term (and none since Van Buren had been re-nominated), Lincoln's re-election was considered a certainty.

However, when the spring campaigns, east and west, all turned into bloody stalemates, Northern morale dipped and Lincoln seemed less likely to be re-nominated. Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase strongly desired the Republican nomination and was working hard to win it, while John Fremont was nominated by a breakoff group of radical Republicans, potentially taking away crucial votes in the November elections.

Believing his defeat to be inevitable, Lincoln made his cabinet members sign — sight-unseen — a sealed letter that read:

This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterwards.

The Democrats, hoping to exploit the latest news from the war in their platform, waited until late summer to nominate a candidate. Their platform was heavily influenced by the Peace wing of the party, calling the war a "failure," but their candidate, George McClellan, was a War Democrat, determined to persecute the war until the Union was restored, although willing to compromise on all other issues, including slavery.

McClellan's candidacy was practically stillborn, as on September 1, just two days after the convention, Atlanta was abandoned by the Confederate army. Coming on the heels of David Farragut's capture of Mobile Bay and followed by Phil Sheridan's crushing victory over Jubal Early's army at Cedar Creek, it was now apparent that the war was drawing to a close, and the Democratic platform was wrong.

Still, Lincoln believed that he would win the electoral vote by only a slim margin, failing to give him the mandate he'd need if he was to push his lenient reconstruction plan. To his surprise, Lincoln ended up winning all but two states, capturing 212 of 233 electoral votes.

After Lincoln's election, on March 4, 1865, he delivered his second inaugural address, which was his favorite of all his speeches. At this time, a victory over the rebels was within sight, slavery had effectively ended, and Lincoln was looking to the future.

Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether"

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

Civil War and Reconstruction

Conducting the war effort

The war was a source of constant frustration for the president, and it occupied nearly all of his time. Lincoln had a contentious relationship with General George B. McClellan, who became general-in-chief of all the Union armies in the wake of the embarrassing Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run and after the retirement of Winfield Scott in late 1861. Lincoln wished to take an active part in planning the war strategy despite his inexperience in military affairs. Lincoln's strategic priorities were two-fold: first, to ensure that Washington, D.C., was well-defended; and second, to conduct an aggressive war effort in hopes of ending the war quickly and appeasing the Northern public and press, who pushed for an offensive war. McClellan, a youthful West Point graduate and railroad executive called back to military service, took a more cautious approach. McClellan took several months to plan and execute his Peninsula Campaign, which involved capturing Richmond by moving the Army of the Potomac by boat to the peninsula between the James and York Rivers. McClellan's delay irritated Lincoln, as did McClellan's insistence that no troops were needed to defend Washington, D.C. Lincoln insisted on holding some of McClellan's troops to defend the capital, a decision McClellan blamed for the ultimate failure of his Peninsula Campaign.

McClellan, a lifelong Democrat who was temperamentally conservative, was relieved as general-in-chief after releasing his Harrison's Landing Letter, where he offered unsolicited political advice to Lincoln urging caution in the war effort. McClellan's letter incensed Radical Republicans, who successfully pressured Lincoln to appoint fellow Republican John Pope as head of the new Army of Virginia. Pope complied with Lincoln's strategic desire for the Union to move towards Richmond from the north, thus guarding Washington, D.C. However, Pope was soundly defeated at the Second Battle of Bull Run during the summer of 1862, forcing the Army of the Potomac back into the defenses of Washington for a second time, leading to Pope's being sent west to fight against the American Indians.

Panicked by Confederate General Robert E. Lee's invasion of Maryland, Lincoln restored McClellan to command of all forces around Washington in time for the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. It was the Union victory in that battle that allowed Lincoln to release his Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln relieved McClellan of command shortly after the 1862 midterm elections and appointed Republican Ambrose Burnside to head the Army of the Potomac, who promised to follow through on Lincoln's strategic vision for an aggressive offensive against Lee and Richmond. After Burnside was embarrassingly routed at Fredericksburg, Joseph Hooker assumed command, but was routed at Chancellorsville in May 1863 and also relieved of command.

After the Union victory at Gettysburg and months of inactivity for the Army of the Potomac, Lincoln made the fateful decision to appoint a new army commander: General Ulysses S. Grant, who was disfavored by Republican hardliners because he had been a Democrat, but who had a solid string of victories in the Western Theater, including Vicksburg and Chattanooga. Earlier, reacting to criticism of Grant, Lincoln was quoted as saying, "I cannot spare this man. He fights." Grant waged his bloody Overland Campaign in 1864, using a strategy of a war of attrition, characterized by high Union losses at battles such as the Wilderness and Cold Harbor, but by proportionately higher losses in the Confederate army. Grant's aggressive campaign would eventually bottle up Lee in the Siege of Petersburg and result in the Union taking Richmond and bringing the war to a close in the spring of 1865.

Lincoln authorized Grant to use a scorched earth approach to destroy the South's morale and economic ability to continue the war. This allowed Generals William Tecumseh Sherman and Philip Sheridan to destroy factories, farms, and cities in the Shenandoah Valley, Georgia, and South Carolina. The damage in Sherman's March to the Sea through Georgia totaled in excess of $100 million.

Lincoln had a star-crossed record as a military leader, possessing a keen understanding of strategic points (such as the Mississippi River and the fortress city of Vicksburg) and the importance of defeating the enemy's army, rather than simply capturing cities. However, he had little success in his efforts to motivate his generals to adopt his strategies. Eventually, he found in Grant a man who shared his vision of the war and was able to bring that vision to reality with his relentless pursuit of coordinated offensives in multiple theaters of war.

Lincoln, perhaps reflecting his lack of military experience, developed a keen curiosity with military campaigning during the war. He spent hours at the War Department telegraph office, reading dispatches from his generals through many a night. He frequently visited battle sites and seemed fascinated by watching scenes of war. During Jubal A. Early's raid into Washington, D.C., in 1864, Lincoln had to be told to duck his head to avoid being shot observing the scenes of battle.

Homefront

Lincoln was more successful in giving the war meaning to Northern civilians through his oratorical skills. Despite his meager education and “backwoods” upbringing, Lincoln possessed an extraordinary command of the English language, as evidenced by the Gettysburg Address, a speech dedicating a cemetery of Union soldiers from the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. While the featured speaker, orator Edward Everett, spoke for two hours, Lincoln's few choice words resonated across the nation and across history, defying Lincoln's own prediction that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." Lincoln's second inaugural address is also greatly admired and often quoted. In these speeches, Lincoln articulated better than any of his contemporaries the rationale behind the Union effort.

During the Civil War, Lincoln exercised powers no previous president had wielded; he proclaimed a blockade, suspended the writ of habeas corpus, spent money without congressional authorization, and frequently imprisoned accused Southern spies and sympathizers without trial. Some scholars have argued that Lincoln's political arrests extended to the highest levels of the government, including an attempted warrant for Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, though the allegation remains unresolved and controversial (see the Taney Arrest Warrant controversy).

Lincoln was the only U.S. President to face a presidential election during a civil war (in 1864). The long war and the issue of emancipation appeared to be severely hampering his prospects and an electoral defeat appeared likely against the Democratic nominee and former general, George McClellan. Lincoln ran under the Union party banner, composed of War Democrats and Republicans. General Grant was facing severe criticism for his conduct of the bloody Overland Campaign that summer and the seemingly endless Siege of Petersburg. However, the Union capture of the key railroad center of Atlanta by Sherman's forces in September changed the situation dramatically and Lincoln was reelected.

Reconstruction

The reconstruction of the Union weighed heavy on the President's mind throughout the war effort. He was determined to take a course that would not permanently alienate the former Confederate states, and throughout the war Lincoln urged speedy elections under generous terms in areas behind Union lines. This irritated congressional Republicans, who urged a more stringent Reconstruction policy. One of Lincoln's few vetoes during his term was of the Wade-Davis Bill, an effort by congressional Republicans to impose harsher Reconstruction terms on the Confederate areas. Republicans in Congress retaliated by refusing to seat representatives elected from Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee during the war under Lincoln's generous terms.

"Let 'em up easy," he told his assembled military leaders Gen. Ulysses S. Grant (a future president), Gen. William T. Sherman and Adm. David Dixon Porter in an 1865 meeting on the steamer River Queen. When Richmond, the Confederate capital, was at long last captured, Lincoln went there to make a public gesture of sitting at Jefferson Davis's own desk, symbolically saying to the nation that the President of the United States held authority over the entire land. He was greeted at the city as a conquering hero by freed slaves, whose sentiments were epitomized by one admirer's quote, "I know I am free for I have seen the face of Father Abraham and have felt him."

On April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. This left only Joseph Johnston's forces in the East to deal with. Weeks later Johnston would defy Jefferson Davis and surrender his forces to Sherman. Of course, Lincoln would not survive to see the surrender of all Confederate forces; just five days after Lee surrendered, Lincoln was assassinated. He was the first President to be assassinated, and the third to die in office.

Assassination

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln. From left to right: Henry Rathbone, Clara Harris, Mary Todd Lincoln, Lincoln, and Booth.

Lincoln had met frequently with Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant as the war drew to a close. The two men planned matters of reconstruction, and it was evident to all that they held each other in high regard. During their last meeting, on April 14, 1865 (Good Friday), Lincoln invited Grant to a social engagement that evening. Grant declined (Grant's wife, Julia Dent Grant, is said to have strongly disliked Mary Todd Lincoln). The President's eldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, also turned down the invitation.

John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and Southern sympathizer from Maryland, heard that the president and Mrs. Lincoln, along with the Grants, would be attending Ford's Theatre. Having failed in a plot to kidnap Lincoln earlier, Booth informed his co-conspirators of his intention to kill Lincoln. Others were assigned to assassinate Vice-President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward.

Without his bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon, to whom he related his famous dream of his own assassination, the Lincolns left to attend the play at Ford's Theater. The play, Our American Cousin, was a musical comedy by the British writer Tom Taylor. As Lincoln sat in his state box in the balcony, Booth crept up behind the President's box and waited for the funniest line of the play, hoping the laughter would cover the gunshot noise. On stage, actor Harry Hawk said the last line Lincoln would ever hear "Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal—you sockdologizing old man-trap...". When the laughter came Booth jumped into the box the president was in and aimed a single-shot, round-slug .44 caliber Deringer at his head, firing at point-blank range. The bullet entered behind Lincoln's left ear and lodged behind his eyeball. Booth then shouted "Sic semper tyrannis!" (Latin: "Thus always to tyrants," and Virginia's state motto; some accounts say he added "The South is avenged!") and jumped from the balcony to the stage below, breaking his leg. Despite his injury, Booth managed to limp to his horse and make his escape.

The mortally wounded and paralyzed President was taken to a house across the street, now called the Petersen House, where he lay in a coma for some time before he quietly expired. Lincoln was officially pronounced dead at 7:22 AM the next morning, April 15, 1865. Upon seeing him die, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton lamented "Now he belongs to the ages." After Lincoln's body was returned to the White House, his body was prepared for his "lying in state."

In 2004 a newly discovered photograph from the estate of photographer, artist and engraver John B. Bachelder, purportedly showing Lincoln but a few hours post mortem, was published in Lloyd Ostendorf's book Lincoln's Photographs: A Complete Album (Rockywood Press, Dayton, Ohio, 2004). If authentic, it is the only immediately post mortem photograph of the late president to be taken by Bachelder.

Secretary Seward, who was also attacked that night, did survive. He was not told of Lincoln's assassination, but on Monday announced from his bed that "the President is dead," after seeing the flag at half-mast over the War Department from his window, and concluding that since Lincoln had neither come to see how he was or sent someone to inquire that he must be dead.

Booth was shot 12 days later while being captured. Four co-conspirators were convicted and hanged, while three others were given life sentences.

Lincoln's funeral train carried his remains, as well as 300 mourners and the casket of his son William, 1,654 miles to Illinois.

Lincoln's body was carried by train in a grand funeral procession through several states on its way back to Illinois. The nation mourned a man whom many viewed as the savior of the United States. He was buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, where a 177 foot (54 m) tall granite tomb surmounted with several bronze statues of Lincoln was constructed by 1874. To prevent continued attempts to steal Lincoln's body and hold it for ransom, Robert Todd Lincoln had Lincoln exhumed and reinterred in concrete several feet thick on September 26, 1901.


Legacy and memorials

Lincoln's death made the President a martyr to many. Today he is perhaps America's second most famous and beloved President after George Washington. Repeated polls of historians have ranked Lincoln as among the greatest presidents in U.S. history. Among contemporary admirers, Lincoln is usually seen as a figure who personifies classical values of honesty, integrity, as well as respect for individual and minority rights, and human freedom in general. Many American organizations of all purposes and agendas continue to cite his name and image, with interests ranging from the gay rights group Log Cabin Republicans to the insurance corporation Lincoln Financial.

Daniel Chester French's seated Lincoln faces the National Mall to the east.

Over the years Lincoln has been memorialized in many city names, notably the capital of Nebraska; with the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. (pictured, right); on the U.S. $5 bill and the 1 cent coin (Illinois is the primary opponent to the removal of the penny from circulation); and as part of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Lincoln's Tomb, Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, New Salem, Illinois (a reconstruction of Lincoln's early adult hometown), Ford's Theater and Petersen House are all preserved as museums. The state nickname for Illinois is Land of Lincoln.

Counties in 18 U.S. states (Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming) are named after Lincoln.

On February 12, 1892, Abraham Lincoln's birthday was declared to be a federal holiday in the United States, although in 1971 it was combined with Washington's birthday in the form of President's Day. February 12 is still observed as a separate legal holiday in many states, including Illinois.

Lincoln's birthplace and family home are national historic memorials: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site in Hodgenville, Kentucky and Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, Illinois. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is also in Springfield. The Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery is located in Elwood, Illinois.

Statues of Lincoln can be found in other countries. In Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, is a 13-foot high bronze statue, a gift from the United States, dedicated in 1966 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The U.S. received a statue of Benito Juárez in exchange, which is in Washington, D.C. Juárez and Lincoln exchanged friendly letters, and Mexico remembers Lincoln's opposition to the Mexican-American War. There is also a statue in Tijuana, Mexico, showing Lincoln standing and destroying the chains of slavery. There are at least three statues of Lincoln in the United Kingdom—one in London, one in Manchester and another in Edinburgh.

The ballistic missile submarine Abraham Lincoln (SSBN-602) and the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) were named in his honor. Also, the USS Nancy Hanks was named to honor his mother.

Director Steven Spielberg is currently planning a movie on Lincoln with Liam Neeson in the leading role.

The American Disney theme parks feature an Audio-Animatronics Abraham Lincoln in the show Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln and the Hall of Presidents.

In a recent public vote entitled "The Greatest American," Lincoln placed second.

To this day, comedians generally avoid jokes about Lincoln because audiences do not usually appreciate them.

Trivia

  • Lincoln stood 6'3 3/4" (192 cm) tall and thus was the tallest president in U.S. history, just edging out Lyndon Johnson at 6'3 1/2" (192 cm).
  • Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the same day of the same year, February 12, 1809.
  • The last surviving self-described witness to Lincoln's assassination was Samuel J. Seymour (~1860–April 14, 1956), who appeared two months before his death at age 96 on the CBS-TV quiz show I've Got a Secret. As a five-year-old, he said that he thought at first that he, himself, had been shot because his nurse, trying to fix a torn place in his blouse, stuck him with a pin at the moment of the gun's discharge.
  • According to legend, Lincoln was referred to as "two-faced" by his opponent in the 1858 Senate election, Stephen Douglas. Upon hearing about this Lincoln jokingly replied, "If I had another face to wear, do you really think I would be wearing this one?"
  • According to legend, Lincoln also said, as a young man, on his appearance one day when looking in the mirror: "It's a fact, Abe! You are the ugliest man in the world. If ever I see a man uglier than you, I'm going to shoot him on the spot!" It would no doubt, he thought, be an act of mercy.
  • Based on written descriptions of Lincoln, including the observations that he was much taller than most men of his day and had long limbs, an abnormally-shaped chest, and loose or lax joints, it has been conjectured since the 1960s that Lincoln may have suffered from Marfan syndrome.

Quotes

  • "If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how—the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference." The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln: Six Months at the White House by Francis B. Carpenter (University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1995), pp. 258-259.
  • "Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it." Lincoln's Cooper Institute Address, February 27, 1860.
  • "Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Letter To Henry L. Pierce and Others" (April 6, 1859), p. 376.

Presidential appointments

Cabinet

Lincoln was known for appointing his enemies and political rivals to high positions in his Cabinet. Not only did he use great political skill in reducing potential political opposition but he felt he was appointing the best qualified person for the good of the country.

OFFICE NAME TERM
President Abraham Lincoln 1861–1865
Vice President Hannibal Hamlin 1861–1865
  Andrew Johnson 1865
Secretary of State William H. Seward 1861–1865
Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase 1861–1864
  William P. Fessenden 1864–1865
  Hugh McCulloch 1865
Secretary of War Simon Cameron 1861–1862
  Edwin M. Stanton 1862–1865
Attorney General Edward Bates 1861–1864
  James Speed 1864–1865
Postmaster General Horatio King 1861
  Montgomery Blair 1861–1864
  William Dennison 1864–1865
Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles 1861–1865
Secretary of the Interior Caleb B. Smith 1861–1863
  John P. Usher 1863–1865


Supreme Court

Lincoln appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:

  • Noah Haynes Swayne - 1862
  • Samuel Freeman Miller - 1862
  • David Davis - 1862
  • Stephen Johnson Field - 1863
  • Salmon P. Chase - Chief Justice - 1864

Major presidential acts

Involvement as President-elect
  • Morrill Tariff of 1861
  • Corwin Amendment
Enacted as President
  • Signed Revenue Act of 1861
  • Signed Homestead Act
  • Signed Morill Land-Grant College Act
  • Signed Internal Revenue Act of 1862
  • Established Bureau of Agriculture (1862)
  • Signed National Banking Act of 1863
  • Signed Internal Revenue Act of 1864

States admitted to the Union

See also

  • Origins of the American Civil War
  • Lincoln-Kennedy coincidences
  • List of U.S. Presidential religious affiliations
  • World Almanac's Ten Most Influential People of the Second Millennium
  • Movies: D.W. Griffith's 'Abraham Lincoln', The Dramatic Life of Abraham Lincoln
  • Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
  • 1850 US Census with Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois
  • 1860 US Census with Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois

Further reading

  • Volume 1 and Volume 2 of Abraham Lincoln: a History (1890) by John Hay & John George Nicolay; this is one of the great scholarly multivolume lives.
  • Abraham Lincoln by Lord Charnwood ISBN 0486299597, an interpretive essay by a British historian.
  • Lincoln by David Herbert Donald (1999) ISBN 068482535X the best one-volume scholarly biography.
  • Lincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era by David Herbert Donald ISBN 0375725326
  • Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin ISBN 0684824906 (2005). Best-selling interpretation of Lincoln and his cabinet.
  • Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President by Allen C. Guelzo ISBN 0802842933
  • Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President by Harold Holzer ISBN 0743224663
  • Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution by James M. McPherson ISBN 0195076060
  • Lincoln's War: The Untold Story of America's Greatest President as Commander-in-Chief by Geoffrey Perret ISBN 0375507388. A popular history.
  • Abraham Lincoln's DNA and other adventures in genetics by Philip Reilly ISBN 0879695803
  • Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness by Joshua Wolf Shenk ISBN 0618551166
  • The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln by C. A. Tripp ISBN 0743266390
  • Lincoln by Gore Vidal ISBN 0375708766, a novel.
  • Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America by Garry Wills ISBN 0671867423
  • The Real Lincoln by Thomas DiLorenzo ISBN 0761526463, a stinging neo-Confederate attack on Lincoln as evil.

External links

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Preceded by:
John Henry 		U.S. Congressman from the 7th District of Illinois
1847 – 1849 		Succeeded by:
Thomas Langrell Harris
Preceded by:
John C. Frémont 		Republican Party presidential candidate
1860 (won), 1864 (won) 		Succeeded by:
Ulysses S. Grant
Preceded by:
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March 4, 1861 – April 15, 1865 		Succeeded by:
Andrew Johnson
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