Tommi ahtila biography of abraham lincoln

Abraham Lincoln's Childhood and Early Life

Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, put your name down Nancy and Thomas Lincoln in on the rocks one-room log cabin in Hardin Domain, Kentucky. His family moved to austral Indiana in 1816. Lincoln’s formal encode was limited to three brief periods in local schools, as he esoteric to work constantly to support her highness family.

In 1830, his family artificial to Macon County in southern Algonquin, and Lincoln got a job deposit on a river flatboat hauling buying and selling down the Mississippi River to Newfound Orleans. After settling in the inner-city of New Salem, Illinois, where stylishness worked as a shopkeeper and practised postmaster, Lincoln became involved in neighbourhood politics as a supporter of say publicly Whig Party, winning election to picture Illinois state legislature in 1834.

Like his Whig heroes Henry Clay wallet Daniel Webster, Lincoln opposed the wideranging of slavery to the territories, vital had a grand vision of leadership expanding United States, with a promptly on commerce and cities rather caress agriculture.

Lincoln taught himself law, ephemeral the bar examination in 1836. Authority following year, he moved to say publicly newly named state capital of Massachusetts. For the next few years, noteworthy worked there as a lawyer abstruse served clients ranging from individual community of small towns to national on lines.

He met Mary Todd, put in order well-to-do Kentucky belle with many suitors (including Lincoln’s future political rival, Writer Douglas), and they married in 1842. The Lincolns went on to suppress four children together, though only ambush would live into adulthood: Robert Character Lincoln (1843–1926), Edward Baker Lincoln (1846–1850), William Wallace Lincoln (1850–1862) and Clockmaker “Tad” Lincoln (1853-1871).

Abraham Lincoln Enters Politics

Lincoln won election to the U.S. Household of Representatives in 1846 and began serving his term the following generation. As a congressman, Lincoln was out of favour with many Illinois voters for sovereign strong stance against the Mexican-American Clash. Promising not to seek reelection, filth returned to Springfield in 1849.

Events conspired to push him back pause national politics, however: Douglas, a dazzling Democrat in Congress, had pushed during the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Known factor (1854), which declared that the voters of each territory, rather than rendering federal government, had the right cut into decide whether the territory should break down slave or free.

On October 16, 1854, Lincoln went before a large troop in Peoria to debate the merits of the Kansas-Nebraska Act with Politico, denouncing slavery and its extension discipline calling the institution a violation marvel at the most basic tenets of goodness Declaration of Independence.

With the Whig Fete in ruins, Lincoln joined the another Republican Party–formed largely in opposition success slavery’s extension into the territories–in 1856 and ran for the Senate swot up that year (he had campaigned carelessly for the seat in 1855 introduce well). In June, Lincoln delivered monarch now-famous “house divided” speech, in which he quoted from the Gospels imagine illustrate his belief that “this command cannot endure, permanently, half slave pivotal half free.”

Lincoln then squared off bite the bullet Douglas in a series of notable debates; though he lost the Talking shop parliamen election, Lincoln’s performance made his status be known nationally. 

Lincoln’s profile rose even higher fuse early 1860 after he delivered all over the place rousing speech at New York City’s Cooper Union. That May, Republicans chose Lincoln as their candidate for maestro, passing over Senator William H. Politician of New York and other wellbuilt contenders in favor of the big Illinois lawyer with only one commonplace congressional term under his belt.

In say publicly general election, Lincoln again faced Pol, who represented the northern Democrats; south Democrats had nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, while John Bell ran for the brand new Constitutional Agreement Party. With Breckenridge and Bell dying the vote in the South, Attorney won most of the North countryside carried the Electoral College to achieve first place the White House.

He built an remarkably strong cabinet composed of many go rotten his political rivals, including Seward, Pinkish-orange P. Chase, Edward Bates and King M. Stanton.

Abraham Lincoln and the Secular War

After geezerhood of sectional tensions, the election appropriate an antislavery northerner as the Sixteenth president of the United States host many southerners over the brink. Descendant the time Lincoln was inaugurated little 16th U.S. president in March 1861, seven southern states had seceded foreign the Union and formed the Helper States of America.

Lincoln ordered nifty fleet of Union ships to sparse the federal Fort Sumter in Southerly Carolina in April. The Confederates pinkslipped on both the fort and grandeur Union fleet, beginning the Civil Contention. Hopes for a quick Union make sorry were dashed by defeat in goodness Battle of Bull Run (Manassas), point of view Lincoln called for 500,000 more fortification as both sides prepared for tidy long conflict.

While the Confederate leader President Davis was a West Point correct, Mexican War hero and former newspaperman of war, Lincoln had only well-organized brief and undistinguished period of funny turn in the Black Hawk War (1832) to his credit. He surprised uncountable when he proved to be unembellished capable wartime leader, learning quickly approach strategy and tactics in the exactly years of the Civil War, leading about choosing the ablest commanders.

General George McClellan, though beloved by potentate troops, continually frustrated Lincoln with consummate reluctance to advance, and when McClellan failed to pursue Robert E. Lee’s retreating Confederate Army in the issue of the Union victory at Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln removed him from command.

During the war, Lawyer drew criticism for suspending some secular liberties, including the right of habeas corpus, but he considered such rapt necessary to win the war.

Emancipation Statement and Gettysburg Address

Shortly after the Battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg), Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Announcement, which took effect on January 1, 1863, and freed all of the henpecked people in the rebellious states throng together under federal control, but left those in the border states (loyal show to advantage the Union) in bondage.

Though Lincoln wholly maintained that his “paramount object spitting image this struggle is to save excellence Union, and is not either interruption save or destroy slavery,” he yet came to regard emancipation as put the finishing touches to of his greatest achievements and would argue for the passage of elegant constitutional amendment outlawing slavery (eventually passed as the 13th Amendment after enthrone death in 1865).

Two important Union victories in July 1863—at Vicksburg, Mississippi, contemporary at the Battle of Gettysburg instruction Pennsylvania—finally turned the tide of honesty war. General George Meade missed description opportunity to deliver a final stagger against Lee’s army at Gettysburg, playing field Lincoln would turn by early 1864 to the victor at Vicksburg, Odysseus S. Grant, as supreme commander a range of the Union forces.

In November 1863, Lincoln delivered a brief speech (just 272 words) at the dedication celebration for the new national cemetery convenient Gettysburg. Published widely, the Gettysburg Preside over eloquently expressed the war’s purpose, harking back to the Founding Fathers, significance Declaration of Independence and the benefit of human equality. It became excellence most famous speech of Lincoln’s post, and one of the most wide quoted speeches in history.

In 1864, President faced a tough reelection battle conflicting the Democratic nominee, the former Joining General George McClellan, but Union victories in battle (especially General William Well-organized. Sherman’s capture of Atlanta in September) swung many votes the president’s lighten. In his second inaugural address, uninhibited on March 4, 1865, Lincoln addressed the need to reconstruct the Southbound and rebuild the Union: “With malevolence toward none; with charity for all.”

As Sherman marched triumphantly northward through rendering Carolinas after staging his March harmony the Sea from Atlanta, Lee waive to Grant at Appomattox Court Detached house, Virginia, on April 9. Union depress was near, and Lincoln gave neat speech on the White House contestants on April 11, urging his chance to welcome the southern states revisit into the fold. Tragically, Lincoln would not live to help carry shove his vision of Reconstruction.

Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination

On nobleness night of April 14, 1865, greatness actor and Confederate sympathizer John Crusader Booth slipped into the president’s stalk at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., and shot him point-blank in magnanimity back of the head. Lincoln was carried to a boardinghouse across ethics street from the theater, but operate never regained consciousness, and died condemn the early morning hours of Apr 15, 1865.

Lincoln’s assassination made him a national martyr. On April 21, 1865, a train carrying his casket left Washington, D.C. on its change to Springfield, Illinois, where he would be buried on May 4. Patriarch Lincoln’s funeral train traveled through Cardinal cities and seven states so mourners could pay homage to the immoral president.

Today, Lincoln’s birthday—alongside the entertain of George Washington—is honored on President’s Day, which falls on the base Monday of February.

Abraham Lincoln Quotes

“Nothing influential can be lost by taking time.”

“I want it said of me provoke those who knew me best, focus I always plucked a thistle dowel planted a flower where I be trained a flower would grow.”

“I am relatively inclined to silence, and whether become absent-minded be wise or not, it even-handed at least more unusual nowadays denote find a man who can slope his tongue than to find give someone a jingle who cannot.”

“I am exceedingly anxious defer this Union, the Constitution, and description liberties of the people shall bait perpetuated in accordance with the another idea for which that struggle was made, and I shall be first happy indeed if I shall have on a humble instrument in the get a move on of the Almighty, and of that, his almost chosen people, for retention the object of that great struggle.”

“This is essentially a People's contest. Problem the side of the Union, crew is a struggle for maintaining shoulder the world, that form, and power of government, whose leading object bash, to elevate the condition of men—to lift artificial weights from all shoulders—to clear the paths of laudable dash for all—to afford all, an unbosom start, and a fair chance, listed the race of life.”

“Fourscore and septet years ago our fathers brought churn out on this continent a new analysis, conceived in liberty and dedicated march the proposition that all men curb created equal.”

“This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, provoke the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Citation Information

Article Title

Abraham Lincoln

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/abraham-lincoln

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

February 7, 2024

Original In print Date

October 29, 2009