Abraham Lincoln

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• Born: 12 February 1809
• Birthplace: Near Hodgenville, Kentucky
• Died: 15 April 1865 (assassination by gunshot)
• Best Known As: The Civil War president who wrote the Gettysburg Address

Abraham Lincoln was president of the United States from 1861 until his shocking assassination in 1865. The colorful stories about Lincoln's life really are true: He was born in a log cabin and grew up on the American frontier, educated himself by reading borrowed books, and worked splitting fence rails and clerking in a general store, and then as a country lawyer, long before he became president. He served in the Illinois General Assembly for eight years and in the U.S. House of Representatives for one term (1847-49) before his election as the nation's first Republican president in 1860. As president he is best remembered for leading the Union through the Civil War and freeing Confederate slaves with the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation; for delivering the Gettysburg Address, the most famous oration in American history, on 19 November 1863; and for his tragic assassination by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. Upon Lincoln's death, Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency. The Lincoln Memorial, with its famous statue of Lincoln by Daniel Chester French, was dedicated in Washington in 1922.

He married Mary Anne Todd in 1842... Yes, that's Lincoln on the U.S. penny and the five dollar bill. Lincoln also named Salmon P. Chase to be Chief Justice of the United States in 1864, and Chase is on the $10,000 bill... Lincoln was preceded by James Buchanan, the only president to remain a bachelor for life... Lincoln was the first president to be born outside the original thirteen states... He was the first president to wear a beard while in office... Lincoln's oldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, was present at three assassinations: his father's, President Garfield's in 1881 and President McKinley's in 1901... A famous (and enormous) biography of Lincoln was written by 20th-century author Carl Sandburg... Lincoln was the 16th president.

Lincoln, Abraham (1809–1865), sixteenth president of the United States. Abraham Lincoln is an ambiguous figure in history and literature, with much disagreement centered on his beliefs and actions regarding African Americans. Lincoln hated slavery but equivocated in public statements about racial equality. He considered his 1863 Emancipation Proclamation the most historic act of his presidency, but many critics interpret the order freeing Southern slaves during the Civil War as a military measure, not a humanitarian one. In a famous 1862 letter to the editor Horace Greeley, Lincoln explained that his “official duty” in the war was to “save the Union” but added that this stance signaled “no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.” Near the war's end, Lincoln vetoed a congressional bill to codify emancipation and insisted instead that the permanent end of slavery be written into the Constitution as the Thirteenth Amendment.

Assassination elevated Lincoln to national martyrdom, but his dual incarnations as “Savior of the Union” and “Great Emancipator” have coexisted uneasily. Thomas Dixon's 1905 novel The Clansman (filmed as D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation) portrayed Lincoln as an eager racist. Despite numerous tributes like Langston Hughes's poem “Lincoln Monument” (1927) and William E. Lilly's Set My People Free (1932), many African American writers have expressed ambivalence. Frederick Douglass knew Lincoln and believed him to be utterly without prejudice but in an 1876 speech declared Lincoln “pre-eminently the white man's President.” In 1922 W. E. B. Du Bois provoked angry letters from readers of the Crisis magazine with a critical paragraph calling Lincoln “a big, inconsistent, brave man.” Many civil rights leaders effectively used Lincoln as a political symbol, but criticisms continued from Malcolm X, Julius Lester, and more recently from Vincent Harding in There Is a River (1982). Lincoln remains a compelling presence, but the icon has proved even more ambiguous than the man.

Bibliography

• Arthur Zilversmit, ed., Lincoln on Black and White: A Documentary History, 1971.
• Stephen B. Oates, Abraham Lincoln: The Man behind the Myths, 1984

Scott A. Sandage

(click to enlarge)
Abraham Lincoln, 1863. (credit: Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

(born Feb. 12, 1809, near Hodgenville, Ky., U.S. — died April 15, 1865, Washington, D.C.) 16th president of the U.S. (1861 – 65). Born in a Kentucky log cabin, he moved to Indiana in 1816 and to Illinois in 1830. After working as a storekeeper, a rail-splitter, a postmaster, and a surveyor, he enlisted as a volunteer in the Black Hawk War (1832) and was elected captain of his company. He taught himself law and in 1836 passed the bar examination. In 1837 he moved his practice from New Salem to Springfield, Ill. He became a successful circuit-riding lawyer, noted for his shrewdness, common sense, and honesty (earning the nickname "Honest Abe"). From 1834 to 1840 he served in the Illinois state legislature, and in 1847 he was elected as a Whig to the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1856 he joined the Republican Party, which nominated him as its candidate in the 1858 Senate election. In a series of seven debates with Stephen A. Douglas (the Lincoln-Douglas Debates), he argued against the extension of slavery into the territories. Though morally opposed to slavery, he was not an abolitionist; indeed, he attempted to rebut Douglas's charge that he was a dangerous radical, by reassuring audiences that he did not favour political equality for blacks. Despite his loss in the election, the debates brought him national attention. In the 1860 presidential election, he ran against Douglas again and won by a large margin in the electoral college, though he received only two-fifths of the popular vote. The South opposed his position on slavery in the territories, and before his inauguration seven Southern states had seceeded from the Union. The ensuing American Civil War completely consumed Lincoln's administration. He excelled as a wartime leader, creating a high command for directing all the country's energies and resources toward the war effort and combining statecraft and overall command of the armies with what some have called military genius. However, his abrogation of some civil liberties, especially the writ of habeas corpus, and the closing of several newspapers by his generals disturbed both Democrats and Republicans, including some members of his own cabinet. To unite the North and influence foreign opinion, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation (1863); his Gettysburg Address (1863) further ennobled the war's purpose. The continuing war affected some Northerners' resolve and his reelection was not assured, but strategic battle victories turned the tide, and he easily defeated George B. McClellan in 1864. His platform included passage of the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery (ratified 1865). At his second inaugural, with victory in sight, he spoke of moderation in reconstructing the South and building a harmonious Union. On April 14, five days after the war ended, he was shot and mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth.

For more information on Abraham Lincoln, visit Britannica.com.

Lincoln, Abraham (1809-65), US President and American civil war leader. His election was the proximate cause of the conflict and his political views shaped it. He was adamant that slavery was not the issue, but rather whether his vision of a unified continental empire would prevail over his opponents' traditional belief in a free association of sovereign states. Fort Sumter controlled the port of Charleston and symbolized his commitment to tariffs and economic autarky, bitterly opposed by the free-trading South. By deliberately provoking hostilities there, he accepted that most of the ‘upper eight’ slave states would secede or, like Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland, adopt a hostile neutrality because of his policy.

The length, cost, and ferocity of the war can also be attributed largely to him. He defined the conflict as between the USA and traitorous individuals in which the states had no standing, because to do otherwise would admit that the Union was not perpetual and that secession was constitutional. There could be no peace negotiations, no compromise, only unconditional surrender to a lawful police action. Lincoln's position predicated the grinding, exhausting struggle it was to become and from the outset, even when most believed in a prompt outcome, he implemented the ‘Anaconda Plan’ devised by army commander Scott for the slow suffocation of secession by sea and river.

He was an ‘accidental’ president, virtually unknown nationally before 1860 and elected with only 40 per cent of the popular vote because the Democrat Party split. Far from being the unquestioned leader of his own party, he was a compromise candidate, expected to be dominated by powerful cabinet members and congressional leaders. His lack of a personal political base forced many undesirable compromises on him, perhaps the most damaging being the appointment of the corrupt Cameron, owed a favour from the Republican Convention, as his first war secretary. But within a year he had replaced him with the fanatically honest Stanton and by various means he gradually brought the rest to heel.

Lincoln's subsequent achievement must be measured from the baseline that he began his presidency with scant experience of even local government. He lacked personal standing and was contemptuously dubbed ‘the baboon’ by Washington society. Not least, his erratic wife only with charity may be called a liability. He assumed power without even the physical means to enforce his authority, the first troops summoned to garrison the capital being compelled to bypass hostile Maryland. His military experience was confined to a short non-combatant stint with the militia during the Black Hawk war of 1832, and he inherited a tiny pre-war regular army, scattered along the frontier. In addition the senior officers were mainly southern, including Lee who declined an offer to command Union forces and went with Virginia.

His performance as C-in-C was far from perfect, but he handled mobilization much more skilfully than his opposite number Davis. Both sides had their share of political officers, but Lincoln was cursed not only with politically irresistible demands by local politicians to be given command over ‘their’ militias, but also by generals who were convinced they could replace him to advantage. Among the former was Sickles of Gettysburg infamy, probably the only general in history to be appointed after he was found legally insane. Among the latter was McClellan, the officer he appointed to succeed Scott and who later stood against him in the 1864 presidential elections.

This does not acquit him of overestimating his own competence as strategist in early 1862, when he dispersed forces and permitted his armies to be defeated in detail. In mitigation, he was ill-served by field commanders who either lacked the killer instinct or made grandiose plans that unwisely assumed the enemy would do what was expected of them. After he learned his own limitations, much of what his generals regarded as ‘meddling’ was his insistence that they close with the enemy to make the Union's great numerical and industrial superiority felt. Once he found in Grant and Sherman a pair of bulldogs who ignored setbacks and would not let go, his ‘meddling’ diminished.

Overall, it is difficult to fault his performance. After early ‘learning’ errors he made the best of whatever human material was to hand and backed winners wherever he could find them. Above all, he rallied an uncertain Union and made full use of its preponderant financial and industrial resources to settle fundamental issues left unresolved since the birth of the republic. In the process, he created a new nation.

Bibliography

• Donald, David, Lincoln (London, 1995)

— Hugh Bicheno

Born into a poor family in Hardin County, Kentucky, Lincoln moved with his family to Indiana in 1816 and to Illinois in 1830. In 1831, he settled in New Salem, near Springfield; in 1842, he married Mary Todd, daughter of a prominent family. Lincoln pursued the law and politics, both successfully. As a Whig he served in the state legislature (1834–41) and in the House of Representatives (1847–49), where he criticized the Mexican War. The slavery expansion controversy prompted his reentry into public life in 1854, now in the new Republican Party. His national stature was enhanced when he challenged and lost to Stephen A. Douglas for the U.S. Senate in 1858.

In 1860, Lincoln won the Republican presidential nomination because of his reputation for public honesty, his availability, and because his rivals had too many political enemies. Winning popular votes only in the North, Lincoln carried the electoral vote against three opponents (including Douglas) and took office on 4 March 1861. The country was divided by the secession of seven Southern states, whose white population believed that Lincoln's election portended the death of slavery. In his inaugural address, Lincoln tried to reassure his “dissatisfied fellow countrymen” that he would not attack slavery where it existed, but neither would he allow the Union to be destroyed. The Southern capture of Fort Sumter in April 1861 did lead to war, to the secession of additional Southern states, and ultimately to the end of slavery.

Thus, Abraham Lincoln addressed two mortal public issues: war and freedom. He addressed them with a political skill never before demanded of a U.S. president and never matched thereafter. Lincoln understood his limitations and his strengths, at once willing to defer to men of demonstrably greater knowledge or ability yet willing to impose his authority over them. As commander in chief, Lincoln understood that mobilizing an effective military force was similar to forming a political coalition, that political goals were akin to grand strategy. He also promoted professional soldiers, usually West Pointers, to significant commands, but he was chided too for appointing “political generals,” which he believed necessary in order to gain popular support for the war. Some of the most egregious tactical blunders on both sides—from Malvern Hill to Cold Harbor to Franklin—occurred under the command of West Pointers.

During 1862–63, when Lincoln effectively acted as general in chief, he tried to impress upon his generals the need for precise aims and energetic execution of plans. Most notable was his frustration with George B. McClellan, a general of ability who seemed reluctant to engage the enemy even when he held a military advantage, which he always did. When McClellan refused to press Robert E. Lee after the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln removed him from command. He also removed another general given to inertia, Don Carlos Buell, Union commander in Kentucky. Only days later, Lincoln wondered if the problem was “in our case” and not in the generals. Their successors (Ambrose Burnside and William S. Rosecrans) could do no better. Hard facts of terrain, distance, and a determined enemy would dictate military progress or the lack of it.

The Union army did know success, however, notably in the major Battle of Gettysburg (July 1863) and the siege of Vicksburg (which ended with Vicksburg's surrender on 4 July 1863). Yet there was no decisive, or Napoleonic victory, nor could there be, as Lincoln came to understand; there would be only a remorseless and bloody struggle until the Confederate army and the Southern will were broken, as they finally were in 1864–65. Victories in Virginia and Georgia were achieved by veteran armies led by redoubtable soldiers, Grant and Sherman, men of ability and determination, educated by their victories and their defeats. In order to overcome criticism of his wartime policies—the Habeas Corpus Act, the establishment of martial law, censorship of opposition newspapers, and arrests of vocal opponents of the war—and to gain the support of War Democrats, Lincoln led a Union Party in 1864 and named Andrew Johnson of Tennessee as his vice president. The Democrats nominated George B. McClellan, but military success, especially after the Battle of Atlanta in September 1864, assured Lincoln's reelection.

Emancipation is the event most associated with Lincoln next to the preservation of the Union. His enemies, North and South, resisted freedom for the slaves during the Civil War; his public friends thought that he was a reluctant emancipator, too calculating in advancing the great cause. A politician of Lincoln's time and place could not be unaware of the depths of racial animosity in the North, a social bias offset only by an intensity of feeling for the Union; yet this should not obscure the time and thought Lincoln gave to emancipation. He commented favorably on various options: colonization; gradual and compensated emancipation; and in 1862, he proposed an amendment to the Constitution that would abolish slavery. On 22 September 1862, after Antietam, he announced the Emancipation Proclamation, a war measure grounded in his constitutional mandate as commander in chief, to take effect on 1 January 1863. Lincoln's eloquence of advocacy thereafter elevated political rhetoric to levels unequaled before or since. The Union could be saved only through military force, he said, and emancipation was a necessary corollary to military action. Thus were joined the great issues of war and freedom. Lincoln had effected a revolution and said as much in his immortal speech at Gettysburg.

In his second inaugural address, Lincoln suggested that the Civil War was God's punishment for the great sin of slavery, and that even if it continued “until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another 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,’” Five days after the war ended, Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth while watching a play at Ford's Theatre. He died on Good Friday, 15 April 1865.

[See also Civil War: Military and Diplomatic Course; Civil War: Domestic Course; Commander in Chief, President as.]

Bibliography

• Godfrey R. B. Charnwood, Abraham Lincoln, 1916.
• John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History, 1890; rev. ed. 1917.
• James G. Randall, Lincoln the President, 4 vols., 1945–55.
• Roy P. Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln: Collected Works, 9 vols., 1953–55.
• Mark E. Neely, Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America, 1993.
• David Herbert Donald, Lincoln, 1995.
• James A. Rawley, Abraham Lincoln and a Nation Worth Fighting For, 1996

(b. Hardin County, Ky., 12 Feb. 1809; d. Washington, D.C. 15 Apr. 1865), lawyer, congressman, and president of the United States, 1861–1865.

As the newly inaugurated president of a divided nation, Abraham Lincoln anticipated working with a generally cooperative Congress. Though still viable, its Democratic ranks had been both diminished in size and deprived of some of its most forceful and experienced legislators owing to the departure of the seceded states' delegations. But of the southern justices of the Supreme Court, only Alabaman John A. Campbell had resigned in 1860. As feared, the chief justice, Marylander Roger B. Taney, did try to lead a bloc hostile to Union war objectives. His circuit opinion in Ex parte Merryman (1861) condemned Lincoln's “arbitrary arrests” of allegedly disloyal civilians as arrogations of Congress's sole authority to declare and wage war. Taney denounced the president's refusal to obey his order to produce the detainee John Merryman as a fatal blow to constitutional government. Like many other lawyers, however, Lincoln believed that the Merryman opinion violated Taney's own political question doctrine counseling judicial restraint, as enunciated in Luther v. Borden (1849), which suggested that in civil strife the elective branches bore responsibility for making basic policy choices.

Merryman convinced no other justices and few lower federal judges. By stressing the obvious dangers to the Union, Lincoln stymied an antiwar bloc on the Court by disseminating the conclusions of legal scholars that previous crises had triggered comparable exercises of the nation's war powers. Lincoln believed that the Constitution was adequate for both peace and war. Most northern lawyers accepted Lincoln's position that erroneous judicial opinions such as Scott v. Sandford (1857) and Merryman were ultimately reversible by political processes.

Nature of the Lincoln Court

While the war ground on, the Court's composition changed. Campbell's resignation in 1860, then Peter Daniel's death in 1860, John McLean's in 1861, and Taney's in 1864, permitted Lincoln to appoint Republicans Noah H. Swayne of Ohio, David Davis of Illinois, and Samuel Miller of Iowa, plus antisecession Democrat Stephen J. Field of California. For the post of chief justice, Lincoln named abolitionist veteran Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, who since 1861 had served effectively as secretary of the treasury. Lincoln believed that these appointees concurred with administration civil‐military policies and long‐term postwar aims.

Lincoln supported statutes such as the 1862 Judicial Reorganization Act and the 1863 Habeas Corpus Act, which enlarged the federal courts' jurisdiction and increased the number of circuits and of justices and judges. These measures increased opportunities for antigovernment decisions and opinions on war governance from the highest bench.

Lincoln's desire for interbranch accord was apparent early in his administration. Meanwhile, the embittered Taney repeatedly violated judicial propriety by preparing opinions‐without‐cases, declaring unconstitutional executive orders and statutes dealing with emancipation, conscription, and state reconstruction. Lincoln ordered federal attorneys to avoid initiating prosecutions involving these policies, but he could not inhibit victims or other opponents from bringing suit. His gamble paid off because most justices also wished to emphasize shared constitutional responsibilities and to avoid confrontation, at least while the war continued.

Prosecution of the War

Despite Taney, throughout the war a narrow Court majority sustained presidential orders and statutes as constitutionally adequate. For example, Justice James M. Wayne's opinion in Ex parte Stevens (1861) implicitly rejected Merryman. Stevens involved a Union soldier who had responded to Lincoln's call for ninety‐day volunteers, then had his enlistment extended to three years by presidential order, an extension that Congress retroactively legitimized. The Court sustained the president's and Congress's actions.

Following a year‐long interval, the Court heard arguments in the Prize Cases (1863). This challenge to Lincoln's proclamations of 1861 and 1862 imposing naval blockades on southern ports raised technical issues about when the Civil War began and basic questions about its legitimacy. The plaintiffs argued that no war, but rather a rebellion, existed. Blockades were appropriate only for formal international wars that only Congress could declare. Military necessities could not, they maintained, transcend the Constitution's provisions governing the declaration and conduct of war. Echoing arguments made earlier in Stevens, the Prize Cases claimants asserted that even if blockades were proper, all seizures of violators' property before Congress confirmed Lincoln's orders were illegal as, implicitly, were other executive initiatives. Government attorneys pleaded the adequacy of the Constitution's provisions for the nation's defense against foreign or domestic fees, the inappropriateness of excessively formal doctrines to the existing crisis, and the political‐question precedent of Luther. By a bare 5‐to‐4 majority, the Court sustained the government, Justice Robert C. Grier holding that the existence of the war was a political reality and that the Confederacy's citizens were technically enemies whose property could be confiscated. For the minority, Justice Samuel Nelson insisted that Lincoln's orders became legitimate only when Congress ratified them.

The justices similarly avoided constitutional confrontation in Ex parte Vallandigham (1864), which raised issues of military arrests and trials of civilians. Vallandigham, a former Ohio Democratic congressman, had encouraged antiwar activists in Ohio. General Ambrose Burnside had him charged with treason in 1863. An army court sentenced Vallandigham to prison for the duration of the war. Determined to make no martyrs, Lincoln commuted the sentence to exile to the Confederacy, from where Vallandigham slipped back into Ohio and resumed antiwar politicking. Lincoln ordered federal attorneys and the army to ignore him. Vallandigham petitioned the Supreme Court to void his earlier military arrest and trial as unlawful. Wayne's terse opinion skirted substantive civil‐military questions, instead holding that the Court lacked jurisdiction over an appeal from a military tribunal (see Military Trials and Martial Law). The Court's majority again declined to hear an appeal on jurisdictional grounds in Roosevelt v. Meyer (1863), implicitly sustaining a wartime statute authorizing the issuance of paper money. By such cautious rulings and by avoiding challenges to executive orders on conscription, confiscation, and emancipation, the Court exercised judicial review yet avoided confrontation with the president and Congress.

Activist Wartime Court

None of this suggests that the Court was supine, however. Instead, the justices vigorously established unprecedented authority over states' public policies and the judgments of states' supreme courts. The outstanding example is Gelpcke v. Dubuque (1864). Iowa municipalities defaulted on bonds issued to attract all rail lines and terminals. Successive elected Iowa supreme courts issued conflicting decisions on the validity of the bonds and of the repudiations. The bondholders appealed to lower federal courts, which by statute and custom deferred to state supreme court rulings on state law. But the federal judges lacked guidance as to which of the multiple and contradictory state decisions prevailed. After federal judges in Iowa sustained repudiation, bondholders appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. As recently as 1862, in Leffingwell v. Warren, the Court had ruled that the most recent state supreme court judgment construing state law should control. But in Gelpcke, Justice Swayne reverted to an earlier holding that a contract valid by state standards when made could not invalidated by subsequent state laws or state supreme court rulings. Gelpcke increased investors' confidence both in the stability of state bonds and in the role of the federal courts in supervising elected state judges, who allegedly bowed to their constituents' parochial interests. The Supreme Court's reporter, John W. Wallace, extolled the justices for enforcing “high moral duties … upon a whole community, seeking apparently to violate them” (1 Wall. xiv).

Lincoln welcomed the Court's generally co‐operative stance. Election results in 1862 and 1864 suggested that the northern public, including soldiers, believed that the Lincoln administration and the Supreme Court were sustaining constitutionalism and law. Republican congressmen sometimes expressed anti‐Court views. Yet they and Lincoln applauded the Court's reviving credibility after Dred Scott and Merryman. Accordingly, Congress never transformed criticism into constraints on the Court that would have denied its appropriate role in evaluating public policies and protecting private rights.

Emancipation, Citizenship, and Reconstruction

Indeed, Lincoln deferred to the Court as the final legitimizer of one of his most sensitive war power orders, that of 8 December 1863 on the political reconstruction of the Confederate states. In this order, Lincoln reshaped the federal system by imposing standards for readmission and interim governance of the affected states, including the abolition of slavery in new constitutions and the reconstitution of the states' electorates. But Lincoln also feared that the Court might yet reverse his Reconstruction orders, a possibility that spurred Republican efforts to confirm emancipation in what became the Thirteenth Amendment. Lincoln vigorously supported the amendment, seeing in the Constitution thus improved an appropriate guide for the post‐Appomattox Supreme Court and for the reunited nation.

Lincoln believed that the Constitution was adequate for all purposes. His impressive educability and his innate instinct for interracial decency led him, on becoming president, to envisage an improved as well as reunified nation. In 1862 he requested Attorney General Edwin Bates to specify the rights adhering to national citizenship. Bates's reply rested on Justice Bushrod Washington's 1823 circuit opinion in Corfield v. Coryell. He stressed mobility, a right no slave enjoyed. Lincoln's catalog of federal citizens' rights grew much larger after his military emancipation order in 1862 and his 1863 orders to the army to recruit blacks, especially recent slaves.

In his address at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in late 1863, the president linked the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution. Meanwhile, his administration was embodying equalitarian aspirations in recommended statutes, especially the Homestead, Morrill, and Jurisdiction laws of 1862 and 1863. These federal laws implicitly defined freedom as a cluster of national rights, including widened access to property (especially land), literacy (education), and legal remedies for both private and public wrongs. Having advocated in 1863 that the occupied states both constitutionalize abolition and educate their black residents, Lincoln expanded that idea to all states in 1865. He reported happily the numerous Homestead Act sales to smallholders, including Union Army veterans, among them many black soldiers. In April 1865, with total victory imminent and a new presidential term seemingly ahead, Lincoln defined his final objectives: suffrage for literate blacks and black veterans and state‐supported education for all children, white and black.

The Postwar Era and the Johnson Administration

Lincoln's perception of the Thirteenth Amendment was central to his postwar objectives. Abolition would help him and Congress implement individuals' rights derived from the national Constitution, rights paralleling and not displacing those derived from state citizenship. Lincoln's view of federalism allowed for interstate diversity but required states' laws and customs to be race blind.

People who shared Lincoln's aspirations, like Chief Justice Chase, failed to convince his successor, Andrew Johnson, that the Thirteenth Amendment embraced civil and political rights and extended federal power over private as well as public wrongs. Johnson made no appointments to the Supreme Court, but he filled many lower federal judgeships and other court offices and the entire judiciary of all the southern states with whites, predominantly pardoned ex‐Confederates. Though the Court after 1865 remained dominated by Lincoln's appointees, most justices shared only some of his views on the need for race‐blind equality under state laws as a primary ingredient in federal rights. The Supreme Court began to lose its wartime sense of restraint and of enhanced national purpose.

In the Test Oath (see Test Oaths) and Ex parte Milligan decisions of 1866–1867, the Court, with Chase vainly dissenting, adopted increasingly ahistorical formalist views. The decision in the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) limited the Thirteenth Amendment to formal abolition. Thereafter, victims of private wrongs, including those connived at by state authorities, enjoyed few practical federal remedies. Another retrograde decision in the pivotal 1873 Court term, Osborn v. Nicholson, validated a prewar contract for the sale of a slave. Another, Bradwell v. Illinois, excluded qualified women who sought access to state‐licensed professions from Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendment protections. Nevertheless, the war‐time Court had built enduring constitutional redoubts against a total return to official racism.

See also Civil War; Race and Racism.

Bibliography

• Herman Belz, Emancipation and Equal Rights: Politics and Constitutionalism in the Civil War Era (1978).
• Harold M. Hyman and William M. Wiecek, Equal Justice under Law: Constitutional Development, 1835–1875 (1982).
• James G. Randall, Constitutional Problems under Lincoln, rev. ed. (1951).
• David M. Silver, Lincoln's Supreme Court (1956)

— Harold M. Hyman

Lincoln, Abraham (1809-65) 16th president of the United States (1861-65), born in Hardin County, Kentucky. In Illinois, where he later settled, Lincoln pursued law and politics (as a Whig), serving in the state legislature (1834-41) and in the U.S. House of Representatives (1847-49), where he spoke out against the Mexican War (1846-48). Prompted by the controversy over the expansion of slavery into the territories, he returned to public life in 1854. In 1858, though he lost the election, he gained national prominence when he challenged Stephen A. Douglas for the U.S. Senate and engaged him in a series of debates that brought the issue to a head. Nominated in 1860 for president on the Republican ticket, Lincoln carried the electoral vote despite winning slightly under 40 percent of the popular vote. Before his inauguration, in March 1861, seven of the ten states that would form the Confederacy had already seceded. One month later, with the Southern capture of Fort Sumter, the Civil War had begun. Lincoln's intention, he said, was to preserve the Union and to stop the spread of slavery, not to attack it where it existed. Lincoln devoted most of his time to his duties as commander in chief, studying military history and strategy and frequently visiting troops at the front. He grew impatient with the failures of Union generals to act with the aggressiveness he believed necessary. Though Confederate successes (First and Second Bull Run, 1861-62) in the first two years of the war gave way to Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg (both 1863), the conflict dragged on. Lincoln came to see that his hoped-for decisive victory that would end the war was not to be; the bloody and remorseless struggle would end only when the will of the South was broken. Weary of war and its costly human sacrifice, Northerners appeared ready in early 1864 to turn Lincoln out of office. But the victory at Atlanta that year, followed by successes in the Shenandoah Valley, restored their faith in the commander in chief and ensured his reelection on the Union ticket. The changes in fortune had come about with Lincoln's appointment of Ulysses S. Grant as general in chief of all Union armies. Grant's strategy of attacking on several fronts at once was to be the key to the Union victory, which was effectively sealed with the surrender of Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox in April 1865. Five days later Lincoln was shot, the first president to be assassinated. He died the following morning (April 15). Though Lincoln has been criticized for exceeding his powers in curtailing civil liberties during the war, he remains a figure revered as the preserver of the republic and the destroyer of slavery. Though the Emancipation Proclamation (1863) did not itself end that institution, it set the wheels in motion; and Lincoln himself proposed, but did not live to see enacted, a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Sixteenth president of the United States and president during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was immortalized by his Emancipation Proclamation, his Gettysburg Address, and two outstanding inaugural addresses.

Abraham Lincoln was born on Feb. 12, 1809, in a log cabin on a farm in Hardin County, Ky. His father had come with his parents from Virginia and had grown to manhood on the Kentucky frontier. He had evidently become moderately successful as a farmer and carpenter, for in 1803 he was able to pay £118 cash for a farm near Elizabethtown. Three years later he married Nancy Hanks, described as "intelligent, deeply religious, kindly, and affectionate," but as "illiterate" as himself. Of her family and background little authentic is known.

Lincoln's Background

The young couple soon moved to the one-room cabin on Nolin Creek where their second child, Abraham, was born. Two years later the family moved to the farm on Knob Creek that Abraham later remembered. There, when there was no pressing work to be done, Abraham walked 2 miles to the schoolhouse, where he learned the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Five years later the elder Lincoln sold his lands and carried his family into the untracked wilderness of Indiana across the Ohio River. It was late fall, and there was time only to pull together a crude three-sided shelter of logs, brush, and leaves. The open side was protected by a blazing fire which had to be replenished at all times. The only water was nearly a mile away. For food the family depended almost entirely on game.

They began building a better home and clearing the land for planting. They were making progress when, in the summer of 1818, a dread disease known as milk sickness struck the region. First it carried off Mrs. Lincoln's uncle and aunt and then Nancy Hanks Lincoln herself. On the shoulders of Abraham's 12-year-old sister, Sarah, fell the burden of caring for the household; the home was soon reduced to near squalor.

The next winter Abraham's father returned to Kentucky and brought back a second wife, Sarah Bush Johnson, a widow with three children. Abraham learned to love her and in later years referred to her as "my angel mother."

As time passed, the region where the Lincolns lived grew in population, and James Gentry's little store became a trading center around which the village of Gentryville grew. There Abraham spent much of his spare time, early showing a marked talent for storytelling and mimicry. He grew tall and strong, and his father often hired him out to work for neighbors. Through this came the chance, with Gentry's son Allen, to take a flatboat of produce down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans - Lincoln's first sight of anything other than frontier simplicity.

Meanwhile Lincoln's father had again moved his family to a new home in Illinois, where he built a cabin on the Sangamon River. This was open prairie country, but the abundant trees along the streams supplied the rails to fence their fields. Young Lincoln, already skilled with his ax, was soon splitting rails, not only for the Lincoln farm but for others as well.

At the end of the first summer in Illinois an attack of fever and ague put the Lincolns again on the move. This time it was to Coles County. Abraham, however, did not go along. He was now of independent age and had agreed with two friends to take a cargo of produce, belonging to one Denton Offutt, downriver to New Orleans. Offutt was so impressed with Lincoln's abilities that he placed him in charge of the mill and store which he had established at New Salem.

Entering Public Life

This was the turning point; the Lincoln of history began to emerge. To the store came people of all kinds to talk and trade and to enjoy the stories and rich human qualities stored up in this unique man. The young roisterers from Clary's Grove found him to be more than a match for their champion wrestlers and became his devoted followers. The members of the New Salem Debating Society welcomed him; and when the Black Hawk War broke out, the volunteers of the region elected Lincoln to be their captain. On his return he announced himself as a candida te for the Illinois Legislature on a "Henry Clay-Whig" platform of internal improvements, better educational facilities, and lower interest rates. He was not elected, but he did receive 277 of the 300 votes cast in the New Salem precinct.

Lincoln next formed a partnership with William Berry and purchased one of the other stores in New Salem. However, on the death of his partner Lincoln found himself responsible for a $1,100 debt. His appointment as New Salem postmaster and the chance to work as deputy surveyor of the country improved his finances. He also was enabled to widen his acquaintances and to win election to the state legislature in 1834. The skill with which Lincoln conducted his campaign so impressed John Todd Stuart, the Whig leader of the county and an outstanding lawyer in Springfield, that he took Lincoln under his care and inspired him to begin the study of law.

Lincoln served four successive terms in the legislature and became floor leader of his party in the lower house. Meanwhile, he mastered the law books he could buy or borrow and in September 1836 passed the bar examinations and was admitted to practice. He played an important part in having the state capital moved from Vandalia to Springfield, and in 1837 he moved there to become Stuart's law partner. Coming into a firm already well established, Lincoln had a secure legal future. He not only practiced in Springfield but rode the Eighth Circuit of some 160 miles through the Sangamon Valley. He did not, however, neglect politics, and in 1846 he was elected to the U.S. Congress.

In these years Lincoln had become engaged to Mary Todd, a cultured and well-educated Kentucky woman who was visiting relatives in Springfield. After a rather stormy courtship, they were married on November 2, 1842. The part which Mary played in Lincoln's life is still a matter of controversy.

National Politics

Lincoln's election to Congress came just as the war with Mexico began. Like many Whigs, he doubted the justice of the war, but since it was popular in Illinois he kept quiet.

When Congress convened in December 1847, Lincoln, the only Whig from Illinois, voted for the Wilmot Proviso whenever it came up. When William A. Richardson, Illinois Democrat, presented resolutions declaring the war just and necessary and Mexico the aggressor, Lincoln countered with resolutions declaring that Mexico, not the United States, had jurisdiction over "the spot" where blood was first shed. These resolutions, together with one to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, brought sharp criticism from the people back in Illinois. Lincoln was "not a patriot." He had not correctly represented his state. Although the Whigs won the presidency in 1848, Lincoln could not even control the patronage in his own district. His political career seemed to be ended. His only reward for party service was an offer of the governorship of far-off Oregon, which he refused. He could only return to the practice of law.

War on the Horizon

During the next 12 years, while Lincoln rebuilt his legal practice, the nation was drifting steadily toward sectional confrontation. Victory in the Mexican war, having added vast western territory to the United States, had raised anew the issue of slavery in the territories. To southerners it involved the security and rights of slavery everywhere; to Northerners it was a matter of morals and democratic obligations. Tempers flared and the crisis developed. Only the frantic efforts of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster brought about the Compromise of 1850 as a temporary truce. The basic issues, however, were not eliminated. Four years later Stephen A. Douglas, by his bill to organize the Kansas-Nebraska Territory according to "squatter sovereignty" and "with all questions pertaining to slavery … left to the decision of the people," reopened the whole bitter struggle.

Douglas's bill, plus the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, brought Lincoln back into politics. He had always viewed slavery as a "moral, social and political wrong" and looked forward to its eventual abolition. Although willing to let it alone for the present in the states where it existed, he would not see it extended one inch. Douglas's popular sovereignty doctrine, he thought, revealed an indifference to the moral issue and ignored the growing Northern determination to rid the nation of slavery. So when Douglas returned to Illinois to defend his position, Lincoln seized every opportunity to point out the weakness in it.

Republican Leader

Lincoln's failure to receive the nomination as senator in 1855 convinced him that the Whig party was dead, and by summer 1856 he became openly identified with the new Republicans. At their state convention that year he delivered what many have considered his greatest speech. It was an appeal aimed at welding all anti-Nebraska men into a vigorous and successful party. Thus, Lincoln had made himself the outstanding leader of the new party. At the party's first national convention in Philadelphia, he received 110 votes for vice president on the first ballot. Though he was not chosen, he had been recognized as an important national figure.

Violence in Kansas and the Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott case soon centered national attention on Illinois. There Douglas, who had broken sharply with the new administration over acceptance of the proslavery Lecompton Constitution, had returned to wage his fight for reelection to the Senate. It would be an uphill struggle, with the fate of the national Democratic party in the balance. It would not be like earlier elections, for Illinois had grown rapidly and the population majority had shifted from the southern part of the state to the central and northern areas. In these growing areas the new Republican party had gained a large majority and offered, in Abraham Lincoln, a rival candida te of proven ability. Some Republicans in the East thought that Douglas should not be opposed, because of his stand on Kansas; but Lincoln thought differently. He had delivered his now famous "house divided" speech, and he pressed Douglas for a joint discussion of issues. Out of this came the Lincoln-Douglas debates, in which Lincoln proved his ability to hold his own against the "Little Giant." In the end Douglas was reelected, but Lincoln had gained national attention. Invitations for speeches pored in from all over the country. His speech at Cooper Institute in New York attracted wide attention and gave him a new standing in the East.

When the Republican National Convention met to choose its presidential candida te for 1860, Lincoln was the first or second choice of most delegations. As a result, when serious objections were raised against other first choices, many turned to Lincoln. That he stood well in the states which the Republicans had lost in 1856 also helped; the bargains and promises which Lincoln's managers made did the rest. He was nominated on the third ballot. The split in the Democratic party and the formation of the Constitutional Union party made Lincoln's election certain. He would be a minority, sectional president. Seven Southern states reacted by seceding from the Union and forming the Confederate States of America.

Sixteenth President

In the critical months before taking office, Lincoln selected his Cabinet. It was a strange group, chosen with the aim of representing all elements in the party. The skill with which Lincoln taught each of his men that he was their master and secured maximum service from them is one of the marks of his greatness.

In his inaugural address he clarified his position on the national situation. Secession, he said, was anarchy. The Union could not legally be broken apart. He would not interfere with slavery in the states, but he would "hold, occupy, and possess" all Federal property and places. Firmness and conciliation would go together.

The first test came when Secretary of State William H. Seward secretly conferred with Southerners regarding the evacuation of Ft. Sumter in Charleston harbor. Lincoln firmly but kindly put Seward in his place and refused to yield even though it meant the outbreak of the Civil War.

A second test came when Col. John C. Frémont, in command at St. Louis, invoked martial law and announced the confiscation of the property of all persons who had taken up arms against the government and the freeing of their slaves. Lincoln quickly rescinded the orders and, when Frémont resisted, removed him from command.

Civil War

From this time on, Lincoln's life was shaped by the problems and fortunes of civil war. As president, he was the head of all administration agencies and commander in chief of the armies. On him the criticisms for inefficiency in administration and failure in battle fell first. Radicals in Congress were soon demanding a reorganization of his Cabinet and a new set of generals to lead his armies. He let the dissatisfied congressmen air their views and in the end withdraw in confusion. To the critics of Gen. George McClellan, he pointed to the army this general had created, relieved him when he failed, but brought him back to serve until better men had been developed. Meanwhile Lincoln himself studied military books. He correctly evaluated Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Gen. William T. Sherman and the importance of the western campaign.

As to slavery, Lincoln waited until after the victory at Antietam, when it would have real meaning as a war measure, to issue his Emancipation Proclamation. Later, at Gettysburg, he gave the war its universal meaning as a struggle to preserve a nation "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

As the war dragged on, Lincoln's critics began to question his chances for reelection. Salmon P. Chase in the Cabinet and Radicals in Congress plotted to crowd him aside, and only the loyalty of the people and final military success secured his reelection. His second inaugural address was brief. It lacked bitterness toward the South and urged his people "to bind up the nation's wounds." "With malice toward none; with charity for all," Americans could achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace.

Lincoln had already taken steps in that direction. As the Federal Army had conquered Southern territory, he had set up military governments and soon had governments in Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Virginia. When Congress opposed this, he applied the "pocket veto" to its bill. He had never learned to hate. He was interested only in a restored Union. He did insist on ending slavery in the reconstructed states, and there are some indications that he favored votes for capable Negroes. What the final outcome might have been, history does not know, for on the night of April 14, 1865, an assassin's bullet ended his life. Then, as Edwin Stanton said, he belonged to the ages.

Further Reading

Lincoln's writings are gathered in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (8 vols., 1953), edited by Roy P. Basler and others. The Lincoln Reader (1947), edited by Paul M. Angle, is one of many anthologies of selected writings. Lincoln and His America, 1809-1865: The Words of Abraham Lincoln (1970), arranged by David Flowden and the editors of Viking Press, is a handsome book that gives a portrait of Lincoln's entire life through his own words and includes hundreds of photographs.

The literature on Lincoln is enormous and still growing. A useful bibliography is Paul M. Angle, A Shelf of Lincoln Books: A Critical, Selective Bibliography of Lincolniana (1946). One of the most popular biographies is Carl Sandburg's sprawling study, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years (2 vols., 1926) and Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (4 vols., 1939), all condensed into one volume in 1954. Among the many good biographies are older works: W. H. Herndon and J. W. Weik, Herndon's Lincoln (3 vols., 1889); the classic work of John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History (10 vols., 1890), condensed into an excellent one-volume edition in 1966; Lord Charnwood, Abraham Lincoln (2 vols., 1925); and Albert J. Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1858 (2 vols., 1928). Edgar Lee Masters, Lincoln the Man (1931), portrays Lincoln unfavorably. More recent biographies are Benjamin P. Thomas, Abraham Lincoln (1952); Stefan Lorant, The Life of Abraham Lincoln (1954); Reinhard Henry Luthin, The Real Abraham Lincoln (1960); and Edward J. Kempf, Abraham Lincoln's Philosophy of Common Sense: An Analytical Biography of a Great Mind (3 vols., 1965).

Interpretative studies of Lincoln's life include Roy P. Basler, The Lincoln Legend: A Study in Changing Conceptions (1935), which analyzes the creation of a national legend about Lincoln; David Herbert Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era (1956); Richard N. Current, The Lincoln Nobody Knows (1958); and David D. Anderson, Abraham Lincoln (1970), which examines Lincoln's personal and political life through the development of his thought and prose.

There are numerous studies of specific aspects of Lincoln's career and influence. Among them are T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and the Radicals (1941) and Lincoln and the Generals (1952); David M. Potter, Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis (1942; with a new preface, 1962); Reinhard Henry Luthin and Harry J. Carman, Lincoln and Patronage (1943); Jay Monaghan, Diplomat in Carpet Slippers (1945); Burton J. Hendrick, Lincoln's War Cabinet (1946); James G. Randall, Lincoln and the South (1946), Lincoln the President (4 vols., 1946-1955), Lincoln the Liberal Statesman (1947), and Mr. Lincoln (1957); William Best HesseHine, Lincoln and the War Governors (1948); Donald W. Riddle, Lincoln Runs for Congress (1948); Don E. Fehrenbacher, Prelude to Greatness: Lincoln in the 1850s (1962); Benjamin Quarles, Lincoln and the Negro (1962); Paul Simon, Lincoln's Preparation for Greatness: The Illinois Legislative Years (1965); Dean Sprague, Freedom under Lincoln (1965); and Richard Allen Heckman, Lincoln vs. Douglas: The Great Debates (1967), which attempts to diminish the exaggerated importance of the debates and place them in a better perspective. A critique of special interest is Benjamin P. Thomas, Portrait for Posterity: Lincoln and His Biographers (1947). The 1860 and 1864 presidential elections are detailed in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., History of American Presidential Elections (4 vols., 1971).

(1809-65) US politician. He expressed his democratic ideals most famously at the dedication of a cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, site of the battle of the Civil War where the Confederate armies had been turned back from their northernmost point. Lincoln stated that ‘the world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here’, but expressed the hope that ‘government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth’. Lincoln's magnificent oratory may conceal more than it reveals. In particular he was not a principled opponent of slavery, but rather a principled defender of the Union. He was also a master of manipulation, being one of the most effective hammerers of the wedge between Northern and Southern Democrats, which led to the splintering of the Democrats in the 1860 presidential election and to Lincoln's election on under 40 per cent of the popular vote.

• Born: Feb. 12, 1809, near Hodgenville, Ky.
• Political party: Whig (in Congress); Republican
• Education: sporadic schooling in lower grades
• Military service: Illinois volunteer regiment, 1832
• Previous government service: postmaster, New Salem, Ill., 1833–36; Illinois General Assembly, 1834–41; U.S. House of Representatives, 1847–49
• Elected President, 1860; served, 1861–65
• Died: Apr. 15, 1865, Washington, D.C.

Using military force to defeat the Southern secessionists and win the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln acted in accordance with his oath of office to preserve the Union. In doing so, he used emergency powers that no previous President had exercised. His twin policies, emancipation of slaves and reconciliation of North and South, were his greatest legacies to a war-torn nation.

Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Kentucky. He was the first President born outside the original 13 states that formed the Union. When he was seven, his family moved to another log cabin in Indiana, where his father cleared and farmed 160 acres. His mother died when he was nine and his father married Sarah Bush John-ston, whose three children moved into the log cabin with Lincoln and his sister, Sarah. After his farm chores young Abe educated himself by lantern light, borrowing books from neighbors and nearby towns. He grew to his full size of six feet, four inches and gained a reputation not only as a scholar but also as a wrestler and axeman.

At age 22 Lincoln struck out on his own and settled in New Salem, Illinois. He worked as a storekeeper and was a captain in a campaign against the Black Hawk Indians, but he saw no action and his store failed. He then worked as a surveyor and postmaster. He lost a contest for the state legislature in 1832 (“The only time I have ever been beaten by the people,” he later said), but he was elected two years later on the Whig ticket. He also studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1836. Lincoln became a successful lawyer in Springfield, and his clients included the Illinois Central Railroad and other corporations. In 1839 he met Mary Todd, and they married in 1842.

Lincoln entered national politics in 1846, when he was elected as a Whig to the U.S. House of Representatives. He introduced a bill to end slavery in the nation' capital, but it was never brought to a vote. His support for the Wilmot Proviso (a bill to outlaw slavery in territories acquired from Mexico), his opposition to the Mexican-American War (he voted for a resolution in Congress that described it as “a war unconstitutionally and unjustly begun by the President”), and his campaigning for Zachary Taylor in the election of 1848 were unpopular positions in Illinois, and he declined to seek reelection.

In various speeches in 1854, Lincoln opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Bill sponsored by Senator Stephen A. Douglas. The bill provided for a popular vote on the question of slavery in each of the territories. In two debates with Douglas, Lincoln argued that the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which forbade slavery north of Missouri's southern boundary, should be retained. He argued that only in free states could poor white workers improve their circumstances, because there they would not be competing against slave labor.

Lincoln failed in a bid to obtain a Senate seat in 1855, but the following year he helped organize the Republican party and nearly won its Vice Presidential nomination. In 1858 Lincoln challenged Douglas for his Senate seat. “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” he told the Illinois Republican party convention in his acceptance speech, adding “I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.” In a second series of Lincoln-Douglas debates held around the state, Lincoln hammered at Douglas for ignoring the moral dimension of the slavery question, calling slavery a “moral, social and political evil.” Lincoln lost the election but gained a national reputation.

In February 1860 Lincoln delivered an antislavery speech in New York City and was applauded by his audience and by New York newspapers, which made him a contender for the Republican Presiential nomination. In May, he won the nomination by defeating the favorite, William H. Seward, on the third ballot, after his campaign managers promised cabinet positions to politicians from Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania.

The Whigs nominated John Bell, the Northern Democrats nominated Stephen A. Douglas, and the Southern Democrats bolted from their party to nominate John C. Breckinridge. Lincoln, along with Vice Presidential nominee Hannibal Hamlin, was elected with a 39.8 percent plurality of the popular vote but a large majority in the electoral college. He said farewell to his friends in Springfield and took a train east. Because of a plot against his life, he left his train in Philadelphia and arrived without notice in Washington, D.C., on February 23, 1861. By that time seven states of the lower South had already left the Union, and a peace convention in Richmond, Virginia, was trying to forge a compromise under the auspices of former President John Tyler. Lincoln gave the delegates to the convention no encouragement, however.

Lincoln took the oath of office on March 4, 1861. “We must not be enemies,” he pleaded with Southern leaders in his inaugural address. He reminded them that no state had a right to leave the Union “upon its own mere motion” and warned that he had taken an oath of office to enforce federal laws. “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.” He rejected the Crittenden Compromise, which would have permitted slavery in the Western states below the Mason-Dixon line. Lincoln would allow slavery to continue where it already was but would hear nothing of extending it across the lower states to the West.

After his inauguration Lincoln informed the governor of South Carolina that he would resupply the federal garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor with ammunition, food, and medicine, but would send no reinforcements or weapons. On April 12, 1861, the South Carolina government responded by opening fire on Fort Sumter, and two days later its commander surrendered. Congress was not in session, and Lincoln did not call it into emergency session. Instead, relying on his own Presidential powers, on April 15 he proclaimed a blockade of Southern ports, called on the states for 75,000 volunteers to join the army and enforce federal laws, suspended the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus (so that he could arrest and hold people without taking them to court), rounded up thousands of Confederate sympathizers in the border states, and spent funds from the U.S. Treasury without obtaining congressional appropriations. Then, on July 4, Lincoln called Congress into session and informed the legislators of what he had done. Within the month Congress retroactively ratified his actions.

For several years the war went badly for the North. In July the First Battle at Bull Run in Virginia was a defeat for Union forces, with more than 3,500 dead and wounded. A campaign to capture Richmond bogged down. The South won victories at Fredericksburg and at the Second Battle of Bull Run. The Union instituted a draft to replace troops fallen in battle. In New York City draft riots showed strong antiwar sentiment among many Northerners. But eventually the war effort succeeded. In 1862 Union forces led by Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Don C. Buell began to win victories along the Mississippi River, and Admiral David Farragut captured New Orleans. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued a Proclamation of Emancipation that freed slaves in states in secession. As Union forces advanced into enemy territory, former slaves became a decisive source of manpower for the Union forces.

In 1863 the fortunes of war turned toward the North. On July 3, Union forces defeated more than 90,000 troops led by Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The following day Grant divided the Confederacy with the capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi. President Lincoln named him commander of the Union armies early in 1864, and he faced off against Lee in Virginia, taking huge losses but steadily moving forward. Meanwhile, General William Tecumseh Sherman began a successful march from Tennessee into Georgia, eventually seizing and burning Atlanta.

The election of 1864 would decide whether or not the war would continue. Lincoln received the Republican nomination and chose the military governor of Tennessee, Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, to run with him on a coalition Unionist ticket. Democrats challenged Lincoln's exertion of Presidential power, called for a halt to hostilities and the return of slave-holding states to the Union, and nominated General George B. McClellan, whom Lincoln had relieved of command. Successes in the field, especially the capture of the last port on the Gulf of Mexico at Mobile Bay by Admiral Farragut, led many voters to believe the war would soon be over. Lincoln won 55 percent of the popular vote and almost all the electoral votes in the election.

Lincoln's second inaugural address stressed a policy of reconciliation toward the South: “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 piece among ourselves and with all nations.” In 1864 he had vetoed the Wade-Davis Reconstruction bill passed by Congress because he opposed its harsh terms. Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Virginia reestablished state governments and petitioned Congress for recognition but were denied. On April 11, two days after Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Grant, Lincoln again called for the former Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union on lenient terms.

On the evening of April 14, while attending a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Southern sympathizer, and died the next morning. As his body was taken back to Springfield, mourners lined the 1,700-mile route to pay their respects to the Great Emancipator.

See also Amnesty, Presidential; Assassinations, Presidential; Buchanan, James; Emancipation Proclamations; Gettysburg Address; Grant, Ulysses S.; Hamlin, Hannibal; Johnson, Andrew; War powers

Sources

• Richard N. Current, The Lincoln Nobody Knows (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1980).
• David Herbert Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (New York: Vintage, 1961).
• Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr., et al. Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography (New York: Knopf, 1992).
• James M. McPherson, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).
• Mark E. Neely, The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982)

(1809-1865), sixteenth president of the United States. Lincoln summarized his early life as "the short and simple annals of the poor." He was born in a Kentucky log cabin, the son of a typical pioneer family. Never prosperous, the family moved several times, and he grew up in Kentucky and Indiana. He later reckoned that his total schooling did not exceed one year, but being unusually ambitious he pursued self-improvement through reading and longed for a better life. Lincoln's identification with the Whig party and its program to promote economic opportunity grew out of his hard lot as a youth.

When he came of age, Lincoln moved to New Salem, Illinois, where he held a variety of jobs, served in the legislature, and studied law. After receiving his attorney's license, he moved to the new capital of Springfield. He retired from the legislature after four terms, served one term in Congress (1847-1849), and then devoted himself to his legal practice and became an important and prosperous attorney.

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854 rekindled Lincoln's political ambition. He spoke eloquently against the expansion of slavery in the West, became a leader of the new Republican party, and gained national attention in 1858 from his debates with Stephen A. Douglas. In 1860, aided by the facts that he came from a doubtful state, had a reputation as a moderate on the slavery question, and was acceptable to both the Germans and the nativists, he won the Republican presidential nomination and was elected.

Shortly after Lincoln entered office the Civil War began. Taking a broad view of the president's war powers, he proclaimed a blockade, suspended the writ of habeas corpus for disloyal activity, spent money without congressional authorization, and controlled the war effort. On most legislative matters he yielded to Congress, but he carefully preserved his independence on questions that he considered executive responsibility. Despite his military inexperience, he displayed a shrewd grasp of military strategy, recognizing from the beginning the importance of the western theater and the necessity of taking advantage of the Union's superior resources. It took him several years, however, to find competent generals to implement this strategy.

On the issue of emancipation, Lincoln moved cautiously, insisting that his main priority was to save the Union. As the war continued, however, he became convinced that undermining slavery would weaken the Confederacy, and on January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation applied only to areas under Confederate control, and its legal impact was uncertain, but it redefined the nature of the war and was of great symbolic significance.

Nevertheless, Lincoln seemed certain to be defeated in 1864. His record on civil liberties provoked protests, public opinion remained divided over emancipation, even Republicans lacked confidence in him, and most important, no end to the war was in sight. Sherman's capture of Atlanta in September, however, revived northern spirits and Lincoln was easily reelected. A few months later, in the hour of the Union's victory, he was cut down by an assassin's bullet.

Lincoln is justly considered our greatest president. He was a masterful politician, sensitive to and yet constantly shaping public opinion, skilled at balancing competing considerations, and extraordinarily adept at getting rival groups to work together toward a common goal. His leadership qualities were demonstrated in his brilliant 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, and in his defusing of the peace issue in the 1864 campaign when he maneuvered the Confederacy into rejecting negotiations. Never losing sight of the larger aims of the war, he remained flexible in his approach to problems, as evidenced by his evolving policies on emancipation and Reconstruction. Nevertheless, the toll of the war was visible in his haggard face: he stoically endured more than any other president personal slights, public ridicule, and criticism beyond the bounds of all decency, had his hopes dashed by one humiliating military defeat after another, and suffered deep personal anguish over the mounting casualty lists. Yet he never faltered in his resolve to persevere to victory.

Uncorrupted by power, Lincoln enunciated the nation's loftiest ideals during its darkest moment. The Gettysburg Address ranks as the supreme statement of the meaning of the war, and his second inaugural is testimony to his humane spirit. For the American people, his life from log cabin to White House epitomizes the American experience, and he has become the national symbol of democracy.

Bibliography:

Stephen B. Oates, With Malice toward None: The Life of Abraham Lincoln (1977); James G. Randall, Lincoln the President, 4 vols. (1945-1955; vol. 4 completed by Richard N. Current).

Author:

William E. Gienapp

See also Elections: 1860 , 1864; Lincoln-Douglas Debates; Republican Party; Slavery; Whig Party. For events during Lincoln's administration, see Civil War; Confederate States of America; Copperheads; Draft Riots; Emancipation Proclamation and Thirteenth Amendment; Gettysburg Address; Homestead Act; Morrill Land Grant Act; Secession; Wade-Davis Bill.

Sixteenth president of the United States, who, it has been claimed, was influenced in his decision to free the slaves by Spiritualist experiences. Immediately after his election to the presidency, an article was published in the Cleveland Plaindealer based on statements of medium J. B. Conklin, who identified Lincoln as a sympathizer with Spiritualism. Conklin said Lincoln was the unknown individual who frequently attended his séances in New York, asked mental questions, and departed as unnoticed as he had arrived. When the article was shown to Lincoln, he reportedly did not contradict it but said: "The only falsehood in the statement is that the half of it has been told. This article does not begin to tell the wonderful things I have witnessed."

In a letter to Horace Greeley in August 1862, Lincoln stated: "My paramount object is to save the union, and not either to save or destroy slavery." The antislavery proclamation was dated a month later, September 1862, and was issued in January 1863. The change in Lincoln's attitude was at least in part brought about by the influences of Senator Thomas Richmond, by his experiences through the mediums J. B. Conklin, Mrs. Cranston Laurie, Mrs. Miller, Nettie Colburn (later known under her married name Henrietta Maynard), and by Dr. Farnsworth's predictions. Senator Richmond, one of the leading businessmen of Chicago, had a controlling interest in the grain and shipping industries. While chairman of the committee on banks and corporations, he became a personal friend of Lincoln. In his book, God Dealing with Slavery (1870), Richmond reproduced the letters which, under psychic influence, he sent to the president.

Col. S. P. Kase claimed in the Spiritual Scientist that "for four succeeding Sundays Mr. Conklin, the test medium, was a guest at the presidential mansion. The result of these interviews was the President's proposition to his cabinet to issue the proclamation." Col. Kase also narrated President Lincoln's visit, in the company of his wife, in Mrs. Laurie's house. Laurie was a well-known medium. The colonel's daughter, Mrs. Miller, produced strong physical phenomena.

Colburn was another guest. She later became famous as an inspirational speaker, but then she was scarcely out of her teens. She passed into trance, approached the president with closed eyes, and addressed him for a full hour and a half. The sum total of her address was: "This civil war will never cease. The shout of victory will never ring through the North, till you issue a proclamation that shall set free the enslaved millions of your unhappy country."

In the same séance President Lincoln witnessed powerful physical manifestations. The piano on which the medium was playing rose four inches from the floor in spite of the efforts of Col. Kase, Judge Wattles, and the two soldiers who accompanied the president to weigh it down.

In 1891 Colburn (then Mrs. Maynard) published the book Was Abraham Lincoln a Spiritualist? in which she described her very first meeting with President Lincoln. In 1862 in Washington, Mrs. Lincoln had a sitting with her and was so much impressed that she asked her to come and see the president. According to Maynard's account in her book, she delivered a trance address in which the President: "was charged with the utmost solemnity and force of manner not to abate the terms of its [Emancipation Proclamation] issue and not to delay its enforcement as a law beyond the opening of the year; and he was assured that it was to be the crowning event of his administration and his life; and that while he was being counselled by strong parties to defer the enforcement of it, hoping to supplant it by other measures and to delay action, he must in no wise heed such counsel, but stand firm to his convictions and fearlessly perform the work and fulfill the mission for which he had been raised by an overruling Providence. Those present declared that they lost sight of the timid girl in the majesty of the utterance, the strength and force of the language, and the importance of that which was conveyed, and seemed to realise that some strong masculine spirit force was giving speech to almost divine commands. I shall never forget the scene around me when I regained consciousness. I was standing in front of Mr. Lincoln, and he was sitting back in his chair, with his arms folded upon his breast, looking intently at me. I stepped back, naturally confused at the situation—not remembering at once where I was; and glancing around the group where perfect silence reigned. It took me a moment to remember my whereabouts. A gentleman present then said in a low tone: 'Mr. President, did you notice anything peculiar in the method of address?' Mr. Lincoln raised himself, as if shaking off his spell. He glanced quickly at the full-length portrait of Daniel Webster that hung above the piano, and replied: 'Yes, and it is very singular, very!' with a marked emphasis."

On Mr. Some's inquiry whether there had been any pressure brought to bear upon the president to defer the enforcement of the proclamation, Lincoln admitted, "It is taking all my nerve and strength to withstand such a pressure."

Sources:

Berger, Arthur S., and Joyce Berger. The Encyclopedia of Parapsychology and Psychical Research. New York: Paragon House, 1991.

Britten, Emma Hardinge. Nineteenth-Century Miracles. London & Manchester, 1883.

Fleckles, Elliott V. Willie Speaks Out: The Psychic World of Abraham Lincoln. St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn Publications, 1974.

Maynard, Nettie Colburn. Was Abraham Lincoln A Spiritualist? Philadelphia: R. C. Hartrampft, 1891. Reprint, London: Psychic Book Club, 1956.

Shirley, Ralph. Short Life of Abraham Lincoln. London: 1919.

A political leader of the nineteenth century; the leader of the Union during the Civil War, and one of the most revered presidents, who served from 1861 to 1865. Lincoln, who worked for a time splitting wood into fence rails, was a lawyer by profession and largely self-taught; there is a familiar image of him studying by firelight in the log cabin in Kentucky in which he was born and raised. First a Whig, he joined the Republican party and was its nominee for the Senate from Illinois in 1858. Lincoln rose to national prominence in a famous series of debates with his opponent in the 1858 election, Stephen A. Douglas (see Lincoln-Douglas debates). He was elected president in 1860. Lincoln was an exceptionally active commander in chief of the army and navy in the Civil War, which broke out the month after his inauguration. During the war, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, delivered the Gettysburg Address, and approved the Homestead Act. In his second inaugural address (see Lincoln's second inaugural address), delivered in 1865 as the war was ending, he pleaded for restraint and “charity for all” in the aftermath of the war. He never was able to carry out his program of Reconstruction, however, because a supporter of the Confederacy, the actor John Wilkes Booth, assassinated him a few days after the southern states surrendered.

Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the United States, serving from 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln and his supporters preserved the Union by defeating the South in the Civil War.

Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, near Knob Creek, Kentucky. In 1816 his family moved to a farm in Indiana, where he spent the rest of his childhood. He attended school for less than a year and gained most of his education by reading books. In 1828 and 1831, he made flatboat trips down the Mississippi River to take produce to New Orleans. On these trips he was first exposed to the institution of slavery.

In 1830 his family moved to Decatur, Illinois. He left his family in 1831 and moved to New Salem, Illinois, where he worked at various jobs and continued his self-education. He began to study law, then was sidetracked by political ambitions.

In 1832 he ran for the state legislature as a member of the Whig party. He aligned himself with the views of Whig party leader Henry Clay, who served as a U.S. senator from Kentucky. Like Clay, Lincoln promised to use the power of the government to improve the life of the people he represented. During the 1832 campaign, the Black Hawk War erupted in southern Illinois. Lincoln enlisted in the local militia and was elected captain. Though he served for eighty days, he never saw battle. His service in the military distracted him from his campaign for the legislature, and he lost his first election.

In 1834 he was elected to the state legislature. He was reelected in 1836, 1838, and 1840. John T. Stuart, a fellow legislator and also a lawyer, was impressed with Lincoln's intellectual and oratorical abilities and encouraged him to practice law. In the fall of 1836, Lincoln was admitted to the Illinois bar, and in 1837 he became Stuart's law partner in Springfield, Illinois. In 1841 the pair dissolved their partnership and Lincoln began a new partnership with Stephen T. Logan. By 1844 that arrangement had dissolved and Lincoln took William H. Herndon as a partner. Lincoln was a hardworking attorney who over the years represented railroad companies and other business entities. By the 1850s he had argued many times before the Illinois Supreme Court and various federal courts.

However, his interest in politics continued. In 1847 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a member of the Whig party. His one brief term in this office was detrimental to his career, for his opposition to the Mexican War and his stand on several other issues were received unfavorably by his constituents.

He did not seek reelection in 1848, choosing instead to work on the presidential campaign of Zachary Taylor. After Taylor's victory Lincoln was severely disappointed when he failed to receive a prominent presidential appointment. He abandoned politics and devoted his energies to his law practice in Springfield.

Events involving slavery soon drew Lincoln back into the political arena. The passage in 1854 of the Kansas-Nebraska Act infuriated Lincoln. Senator Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, a Democrat and rival of Lincoln's, had drafted this legislation, which revoked the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The repeal meant that the settlers of Kansas and Nebraska could allow slavery to exist if they so wished. This was intolerable to Lincoln and many antislavery Whigs and Democrats. Lincoln took to the political stump again, railing against slavery and the congressional actions that had placed the issue at the forefront of national policy.

The Whig party fell apart over the slavery question. In 1856 Lincoln joined others opposed to slavery from both the Whig and Democrat parties, in the newly formed Republican party. He quickly rose to prominence. The Republicans chose him as their candidate in the 1858 senatorial race against Douglas. The campaign was marked by a series of seven brilliant debates between the two contenders. Lincoln advocated loyalty to the Union, regarded slavery as unjust, and was opposed to any further expansion of slavery. He opened his campaign by declaring, "‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free." Lincoln lost the election owing to an unfavorable apportionment of legislative seats in Illinois. (At that time U.S. senators were elected by a vote of the state legislature.) Though Republicans garnered larger numbers of votes, Douglas was reelected.

Despite the Senate loss, Lincoln's national reputation was enhanced by his firm antislavery position. He was urged to run for president in 1860. At the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1860, Lincoln defeated William H. Seward for the nomination. A split in the Democratic party led to the fielding of two Democratic candidates, John C. Breckenridge and Douglas. This split enabled Lincoln easily to defeat his rivals, including John Bell, head of the Constitutional Union party. He would be easily reelected in 1864.

By the time Lincoln took his oath of office in March 1861, seven Southern states had seceded from the Union and had established the Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis was elected president of the new government. Lincoln wished to find a solution short of war that would preserve the Union, but there were few options. When Lincoln allowed supplies to be sent to Fort Sumter, a Union base on an island outside Charleston, South Carolina, the new Confederate government seized the opportunity to interpret this as an act of war. On April 12, 1861, Fort Sumter was attacked by Confederate forces, and the Civil War began.

Lincoln's initial actions against this act of aggression included drafting men for military service, approving a blockade of the Southern states, and suspending the writ of habeas corpus. His troop request led to the secession of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Suspending habeas corpus effectively curtailed civil liberties, as persons who were suspected of being Southern sympathizers could be held in custody indefinitely. All these actions were taken by executive order, in Lincoln's capacity as commander in chief, because Congress was not in session at the time.

During the early stages of the war, the North suffered great losses, particularly at Bull Run. A succession of Union generals failed to achieve military success. Not until General Ulysses S. Grant emerged in 1863 as a strong and successful military leader did the Union army begin to achieve substantial victories. In 1864 Lincoln named Grant the commander of the Union army. In April 1865 General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate army to Grant at Appomattox, Virginia, signaling the end of the war.

Lincoln fought the Civil War to preserve the Union, not to end slavery. Though he was personally opposed to slavery, he had been elected on a platform that pledged to allow slavery to remain where it already existed. However, wartime pressures drove Lincoln toward emancipation of the slaves. Military leaders argued that an enslaved labor force in the South allowed the Confederate states to place more soldiers on the front lines. By the summer of 1862, Lincoln had prepared an emancipation proclamation, but he did not want to issue it until the Union army had better fortune on the battlefield. Otherwise the proclamation might be seen as a sign of weakness.

The Union army's victory at Antietam encouraged the president to issue on September 22, 1862, a preliminary proclamation that slavery was to be abolished in areas occupied by the Confederacy effective January 1, 1863. The wording of the Emancipation Proclamation on that date made clear that slavery was still to be tolerated in the border states and areas occupied by Union troops, so as not to jeopardize the war effort. Lincoln was uncertain that the U.S. Supreme Court would uphold the constitutionality of his action, so he lobbied Congress to adopt the Thirteenth Amendment, which totally abolished slavery.

Lincoln's writing and speaking skills played a vital part in maintaining the resolve of the Northern states during the war and in preparing the nation for the aftermath of the war. In 1863, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Lincoln delivered his poignant Gettysburg Address at the dedication of a national cemetery for soldiers who had died at the bloody battleground. The speech summarized the tragic and human aspects of Gettysburg and distilled Lincoln's resolve to protect the Union. At his second inauguration, in March 1865, Lincoln reached out to the South as the end of the war approached. He proclaimed, "With malice toward none; with charity for all."

Even before the war ended, Lincoln began to formulate a plan for Reconstruction, which included the restoration of Southern state governments and the amnesty of Confederate officials who vowed loyalty to the Union. These proposals met fierce opposition in Congress, as the Radical Republicans sought harsher treatment for the South and its supporters.

The war ended on April 9, 1865, but Lincoln did not have a chance to fight for his Reconstruction proposals. He was shot in the head on April 14 by John Wilkes Booth during the performance of a play at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C. He died the next day. After lying in state in the Capitol, his body was returned to Springfield for burial.

Quotes:

"No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent."

"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy."

"You can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time."

"If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. You may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

"Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way."

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."

See more famous quotes by Abraham Lincoln

"Abe Lincoln" redirects here. For the musician, see Abe Lincoln (musician).

For other uses, see Abraham Lincoln (disambiguation).

Abraham Lincoln
16th President of the United States
In office March 4, 1861 – April 15, 1865
Vice President	Hannibal Hamlin (1861–1865) Andrew Johnson (1865)
Preceded by	James Buchanan
Succeeded by	Andrew Johnson
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 7th district
In office March 4, 1847 – March 3, 1849
Preceded by	John Henry
Succeeded by	Thomas L. Harris
Born	February 12, 1809(1809-02-12) Hardin County, Kentucky
Died	April 15, 1865 (aged 56) Washington, D.C.
Resting place	Oak Ridge Cemetery Springfield, Illinois 39°49′24″N 89°39′21″W / 39.82333°N 89.65583°W / 39.82333; -89.65583
Nationality	American
Political party	Whig (1832–1854), Republican (1854–1864), National Union (1864–1865)
Spouse(s)	Mary Todd Lincoln
Children	Robert Todd Lincoln, Edward Lincoln, Willie Lincoln, Tad Lincoln
Occupation	Lawyer
Religion	See: Abraham Lincoln and religion
Signature
Military service
Service/branch	Illinois Militia
Years of service	1832
Battles/wars	Black Hawk War

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, preserving the Union and ending slavery. Before his election in 1860 as the first Republican president, Lincoln had been a country lawyer, an Illinois state legislator, a member of the United States House of Representatives, and twice an unsuccessful candidate for election to the U.S. Senate. As an outspoken opponent of the expansion of slavery in the United States,^[1][2] Lincoln won the Republican Party nomination in 1860 and was elected president later that year. His tenure in office was occupied primarily with the defeat of the secessionist Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. He introduced measures that resulted in the abolition of slavery, issuing his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and promoting the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Six days after the large-scale surrender of Confederate forces under General Robert E. Lee, Lincoln became the first American president to be assassinated.

Lincoln closely supervised the victorious war effort, especially the selection of top generals, including Ulysses S. Grant. Historians have concluded that he handled the factions of the Republican Party well, bringing leaders of each faction into his cabinet and forcing them to cooperate. Lincoln successfully defused the Trent affair, a war scare with Britain late in 1861. Under his leadership, the Union took control of the border slave states at the start of the war. Additionally, he managed his own reelection in the 1864 presidential election.

Copperheads and other opponents of the war criticized Lincoln for refusing to compromise on the slavery issue. Conversely, the Radical Republicans, an abolitionist faction of the Republican Party, criticized him for moving too slowly in abolishing slavery. Even with these opponents, Lincoln successfully rallied public opinion through his rhetoric and speeches; his Gettysburg Address (1863) became an iconic symbol of the nation's duty. At the close of the war, Lincoln held a moderate view of Reconstruction, seeking to speedily reunite the nation through a policy of generous reconciliation. Lincoln has consistently been ranked by scholars as one of the greatest of all U.S. Presidents.

Contents 1 Personal life 1.1 Childhood and education 1.2 Marriage and family 2 Early political career and military service 2.1 National politics 2.2 Prairie lawyer 3 Republican politics 1854–1860 3.1 Lincoln–Douglas debates of 1858 4 1860 Presidential election 5 Presidency and the Civil War 5.1 Secession winter 1860–1861 5.2 Fighting begins 5.3 Conducting the war effort 5.4 Grant 5.5 Emancipation Proclamation 5.6 Gettysburg Address 5.7 1864 election 5.8 Second Inaugural Address 5.9 Reconstruction 6 Home front 6.1 Redefining Republicanism 6.2 Civil liberties suspended 6.3 Domestic measures 7 Assassination 8 Administration, Cabinet and Supreme Court appointments 1861–1865 9 States admitted to the Union 10 Religious and philosophical beliefs 11 Legacy and memorials 12 See also 13 References 14 Bibliography 15 External links

Personal life

Childhood and education

Samuel Lincoln, first American ancestor of Abraham, worshipped at Old Ship Church, Hingham, Massachusetts

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, two farmers, in a one-room log cabin on the 348-acre (1.4 km²) Sinking Spring Farm, in southeast Hardin County, Kentucky^[3] (now part of LaRue County), making him the first president born in the west. Lincoln was not given a middle name.^[4] His ancestor Samuel Lincoln had arrived in Hingham, Massachusetts from England in the 17th century.^[5] His grandfather, also named Abraham Lincoln, had moved to Kentucky, where he owned over 5,000 acres (20 km²), and was ambushed and killed by an Indian raid in 1786.^[6]

Thomas Lincoln was a respected citizen of rural Kentucky. He owned several farms, including the Sinking Spring Farm, although he was not wealthy. The family belonged to a Separate Baptists church, which had high moral standards frowning on alcohol consumption and dancing, and many church members were opposed to slavery.^[7] Abraham himself never joined their church, or any other church.^[8][9]

In 1816, the Lincoln family left Kentucky to avoid the expense of fighting for one of their properties in court, and made a new start in Perry County, Indiana (now in Spencer County). Lincoln later noted that this move was "partly on account of slavery", and partly because of difficulties with land deeds in Kentucky. Abraham's father disapproved of slavery on religious grounds and because it was hard to compete economically with farms operated by slaves. Unlike land in the Northwest Territory, Kentucky never had a proper U.S. survey, and farmers often had difficulties proving title to their property.^[10]

Symbolic log cabin at the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park

When Lincoln was nine, his mother, then 34 years old, died of milk sickness. Soon afterwards, his father remarried to Sarah Bush Johnston. Lincoln and his stepmother were close; he called her "Mother" for the rest of his life, but he became increasingly distant from his father. Abraham felt his father wasn't a success, and didn't want to be like him. In later years, he would occasionally lend his father money.^[11] In 1830, fearing a milk sickness outbreak, the family settled on public land in Macon County, Illinois.^[12]

The next year, when his father relocated the family to a new homestead in Coles County, Illinois, 22-year-old Lincoln struck out on his own, canoeing down the Sangamon River to the village of New Salem in Sangamon County.^[13] 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.^[14] Lincoln's formal education consisted of about 18 months of schooling, but he was largely self-educated and an avid reader. He was also skilled with an axe and a talented local wrestler, the latter of which helped give him confidence.^[15] Lincoln avoided hunting and fishing because he did not like killing animals, even for food.^[16]

Marriage and family

Further information: Mary Todd Lincoln; Sexuality of Abraham Lincoln; Medical and mental health of Abraham Lincoln

Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln's first love was Ann Rutledge. He met her when he first moved to New Salem, and by 1835 they had reached a romantic understanding. Rutledge, however, died on August 25, probably of typhoid fever.^[17]

Earlier, in either 1833 or 1834, he had met Mary Owens, the sister of his friend Elizabeth Abell, when she was visiting from her home in Kentucky. Late in 1836, Lincoln agreed to a match proposed by Elizabeth between him and her sister, if Mary ever returned to New Salem. Mary did return in November 1836 and Lincoln courted her for a time; however they both had second thoughts about their relationship. On August 16, 1837, Lincoln wrote Mary a letter from Springfield, to which he had moved that April to begin his law practice, suggesting he would not blame her if she ended the relationship. She never replied, and the courtship was over.^[18][19]

In 1840, Lincoln became engaged to Mary Todd, from a wealthy slaveholding family based in Lexington, Kentucky.^[20] They met in Springfield in December 1839,^[21] and were engaged sometime around that Christmas.^[22] A wedding was set for January 1, 1841, but the couple split as the wedding approached.^[21] They later met at a party, and then married on November 4, 1842, in the Springfield mansion of Mary's married sister.^[23] In 1844, the couple bought a house on Eighth and Jackson in Springfield, near Lincoln's law office.^[24]

The Lincolns soon had a budding family, with the birth of son Robert Todd Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois on August 1, 1843, and second son Edward Baker Lincoln on March 10, 1846, also in Springfield.^[25] According to a house girl, Abraham "was remarkably fond of children".^[25] The Lincolns did not believe in strict rules and tight boundaries when it came to their children.^[26]

An 1864 Mathew Brady photo depicts President Lincoln reading a book with his youngest son, Tad

Robert, however, would be the only one of the Lincolns' children to survive into adulthood. Edward Lincoln died on February 1, 1850 in Springfield, likely of tuberculosis.^[27] The Lincolns' grief over this loss was somewhat assuaged by the birth of William "Willie" Wallace Lincoln nearly eleven months later, on December 21. But Willie himself died of a fever at the age of eleven on February 20, 1862, in Washington, D.C., during President Lincoln's first term.^[28] The Lincolns' fourth son Thomas "Tad" Lincoln was born on April 4, 1853, and, although he outlived his father, died at the age of eighteen on July 16, 1871 in Chicago.^[29] Robert Lincoln eventually went on to attend Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard College. His (and by extension, his father's) last known lineal descendant, Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, died December 24, 1985.^[30]

The death of the Lincolns' sons had profound effects on both Abraham and Mary. Later in life, Mary Todd Lincoln found herself unable to cope with the stresses of losing her husband and sons, and this (in conjunction with what some historians consider to have been pre-existing bipolar disorder^[31] ) eventually led Robert Lincoln to involuntarily commit her to a mental health asylum in 1875.^[32] Abraham Lincoln himself was contemporaneously described as suffering from "melancholy" throughout his legal and political life, a condition which modern mental health professionals would now typically characterize as clinical depression.^[33]

Early political career and military service

Main articles: Abraham Lincoln's early life and career and Abraham Lincoln in the Black Hawk War

Sketch of a younger Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln began his political career in March 1832 at age 23 when he announced his candidacy for the Illinois General Assembly. He made the decision based on self-confidence; he felt himself equal to any man. He was esteemed by the residents of New Salem, but he didn't have an education, powerful friends, or money. The centerpiece of his platform was the undertaking of navigational improvements on the Sangamon River. Before the election he served as a captain in a company of the Illinois militia during the Black Hawk War, although he never saw combat. Lincoln returned from the militia after a few months and was able to campaign throughout the county before the August 6 election. At 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m), he was tall and "strong enough to intimidate any rival." At his first political speech, he grabbed a man accosting a supporter by his "neck and the seat of his trousers", and threw him. When the votes were counted, Lincoln finished eighth out of thirteen candidates (only the top four were elected), but he did manage to secure 277 out of the 300 votes cast in the New Salem precinct.^[34]

In 1834, he won an election to the state legislature. He was labeled a Whig, but ran a bipartisan campaign.^[35] He then decided to become a lawyer, and began teaching himself law by reading Commentaries on the Laws of England.^[36] Admitted to the bar in 1837, he moved to Springfield, Illinois, that April,^[37] and began to practice law with John T. Stuart, Mary Todd's cousin, who let Lincoln have the run of his law library while studying to be a lawyer.^[38] With a reputation as a formidable adversary during cross-examinations and closing arguments, Lincoln became an able and successful lawyer. In 1841, Lincoln entered law practice with William Herndon, whom Lincoln thought "a studious young man".^[39] He served four successive terms in the Illinois House of Representatives as a representative from Sangamon County, affiliated with the Whig party.^[40] In 1837, he and another legislator declared that slavery was "founded on both injustice and bad policy"^[41][42] the first time he had publicly opposed slavery. In the 1835–1836 legislative session he'd voted to restrict suffrage to whites only.^[43] He would later say^{[citation needed]} that he had been against slavery since he was a boy, but being labelled an abolitionist was "political suicide" in Sangamon County in those years, and so he chose his words carefully when discussing the issue publicly.^[44]

National politics

Lincoln in 1846 or 1847

Lincoln was a Whig, and since the early 1830s had strongly admired the policies and leadership of Henry Clay.^[45] "I have always been an old-line Henry Clay Whig" he professed to friends in 1861.^[46] The party favored economic expansion such as improving roads and increasing trade.^[47]

In 1846, Lincoln was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served one two-year term.^[48] As a House member, Lincoln was a dedicated Whig, showing up for most votes and giving speeches that echoed the party line.^[49] He used his office as an opportunity to speak out against the Mexican–American War, which he attributed to President Polk's desire for "military glory — that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood".^[50] Lincoln's main stand against Polk occurred in his Spot Resolutions: The war had begun with a violent confrontation on territory disputed by Mexico and Texas,^[51] but as Lincoln pointed out, Polk had insisted that Mexican soldiers had "invaded our territory and shed the blood of our fellow-citizens on our own soil".^[52] Lincoln demanded that Polk show Congress the exact spot on which blood had been shed, and proof that that spot was on American soil.^[52] Congress never enacted the resolution or even debated it,^[53] and its introduction resulted in a loss of political support for Lincoln in his district;^[54] one Illinois newspaper derisively nicknamed him "spotty Lincoln."^[55]

Despite his admiration for Henry Clay, Lincoln was a key early supporter of Zachary Taylor's candidacy for the 1848 presidential election.^[53] When Lincoln's term ended, the incoming Taylor administration offered him the governorship of the Oregon Territory. The territory leaned heavily Democratic, and Lincoln doubted they would elect him as governor or as a senator after they were admitted to the union, so he returned to Springfield.^[56]

Prairie lawyer

Back in Springfield, Lincoln turned most of his energies to making a living practicing law, even appearing before the Supreme Court of the United States, arguing a case involving a canal boat that sank after hitting a bridge.^[57] By the mid-1850s, Lincoln was representing competing transportation interests; the river barges and the railroads. As a riverboat man, Lincoln had initially favored riverboat interests, but ultimately he represented whoever hired him.^[58] In 1849, he had received a patent for a "device to buoy vessels over shoals". Lincoln's goal had been to lessen the draft of a river craft by pushing horizontal floats into the water alongside the hull. The floats would have served as temporary ballast tanks.^[59][60] The idea was never commercialized, but Lincoln is still the only person to hold a patent and serve as President of the United States.^[61] As the 1850s began, Lincoln also argued cases on behalf of the railroad industry. In 1851, he represented the Alton & Sangamon Railroad in a dispute with one of its shareholders, James A. Barret, who had refused to pay the balance on his pledge to the railroad on the grounds that it had changed its originally planned route.^[62][63] 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 25 other courts throughout the United States.^[62] Lincoln appeared in front the of the Illinois Supreme Court 175 times, 51 times as sole counsel, of which, 31 were decided in his favor.^[64]

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.^[65] The case is famous for Lincoln's use of judicial notice to show an eyewitness had lied on the stand. After the witness testified to having seen the crime in the moonlight, Lincoln produced a Farmers' Almanac to show that the moon on that date was at such a low angle it could not have produced enough illumination to see anything clearly. Based on this evidence, Armstrong was acquitted.^[65]

Republican politics 1854–1860

Lincoln returned to politics in response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), which expressly repealed the limits on slavery's extent as established by the Missouri Compromise (1820). Illinois Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, the most powerful man in the Senate, proposed popular sovereignty as the solution to the slavery impasse, and incorporated it into the Kansas–Nebraska Act. Douglas argued that in a democracy the people should have the right to decide whether to allow slavery in their territory, rather than have such a decision imposed on them by the national Congress.^[66]

In the October 16, 1854, "Peoria Speech",^[67] Lincoln outlined his position on slavery that he would repeat over the next six years on the route to the presidency.^[68]

[The Act has a] declared indifference, but as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate it. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world — enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites — causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty — criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.^[69]

According to a newspaper account of the speech, Lincoln spoke with "a thin high-pitched falsetto voice of much carrying power, that could be heard a long distance in spite of the hustle and bustle of the crowd ... [with] the accent and pronunciation peculiar to his native state, Kentucky."^[70]

In late 1854, Lincoln decided to run for the United States Senate as a Whig.^[71] Despite leading in the first six rounds of voting in the state legislature, Lincoln instructed his backers to vote for Lyman Trumbull to prevent pro-Nebraska candidate Joel Aldrich Matteson from winning. Trumbull beat Matteson in the tenth round of voting.^[72] The Whigs had been irreparably split by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. "I think I am a Whig, but others say there are not Whigs, and I am an abolitionist, even though I do no more than oppose the expansion of slavery" he said. Drawing on remnants of the old Whig party, and on disenchanted Free Soil, Liberty, and Democratic party members, he was instrumental in forging the shape of the new Republican Party.^[73] At the Republican convention in 1856, Lincoln placed second in the contest to become the party's candidate for Vice-President.^[74]

In 1857–58, Douglas broke with President Buchanan, leading to a fight for control of the Democratic Party. Some eastern Republicans even favored the reelection of Douglas in 1858, since he had led the opposition to the Lecompton Constitution, which would have admitted Kansas as a slave state.^[75] Accepting the Republican nomination for Senate in 1858, Lincoln delivered his famous speech: "'A house divided against itself cannot stand.'(Mark 3:25) 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."^[76] The speech created an evocative image of the danger of disunion caused by the slavery debate, and rallied Republicans across the north.^[77]

Lincoln–Douglas debates of 1858

Main article: Lincoln–Douglas debates of 1858

The 1858 campaign featured the Lincoln–Douglas debates, generally considered the most famous political debate in American history.^[78] Lincoln warned that "The Slave Power" was threatening the values of republicanism, while Stephen A. Douglas emphasized the supremacy of democracy, as set forth in his Freeport Doctrine, which said that local settlers should be free to choose whether to allow slavery or not and could overrule the Supreme Courts Dred Scott v. Sandford decision.^[79] Though the Republican legislative candidates won more popular votes, the Democrats won more seats, and the legislature reelected Douglas to the Senate.^[80] Nevertheless, Lincoln's speeches on the issue transformed him into a national political figure.^[81]

On February 27, 1860, New York party leaders invited Lincoln to give a speech at Cooper Union to group of powerful Republicans. In one of the most important speeches of his career, Lincoln showed that he was a contender for the Republican's presidential nomination.^[82] Journalist Noah Brooks reported, "No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience."^[83][84]

1860 Presidential election

Main article: United States presidential election, 1860

"The Rail Candidate" – Lincoln's 1860 candidacy is held up by the slavery issue (slave on left) and party organization (New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley) on right.

On May 9–10, 1860, the Illinois Republican State Convention was held in Decatur.^[85] At this convention, Lincoln received his first endorsement to run for the presidency.^[86] On May 18, at the 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Lincoln emerged as the Republican candidate on the third ballot, beating candidates such as William H. Seward and Salmon P. Chase.^[87]

Why Lincoln won the nomination has been subject of much debate. His expressed views on slavery were seen as more moderate than those of rivals Seward and Chase.^[88] Some feel that Seward lost more than Lincoln won, including Seward himself. Others attribute it to luck, and the fact that the convention was held in Lincoln's home state. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin believes the real reason was Lincoln's skill as a politician.^[89] Most Republicans agreed with Lincoln that the North was the aggrieved party^[90] as the Slave Power tightened its grasp on the national government with the Dred Scott decision and the presidency of James Buchanan. Throughout the 1850s Lincoln denied that there would ever be a civil war, and his supporters repeatedly rejected claims that his election would incite secession.^[91]

Meanwhile, Douglas was selected as the candidate of the northern Democrats, with Herschel Vespasian Johnson as the vice-presidential candidate. Delegates from eleven slave states walked out of the Democrat's convention, disagreeing with Douglas's position on Popular sovereignty, and ultimately selected John C. Breckinridge as their candidate.^[92]

As Douglas stumped the country, Lincoln was the only one of the four major candidates to give no speeches whatever. Instead he monitored the campaign closely but relied on the enthusiasm of the Republican Party. It did the leg work that produced majorities across the North. It produced tons of campaign posters and leaflets, and thousands of newspaper editorials. There were thousands of Republican speakers who focused first on the party platform, and second on Lincoln's life story, emphasizing his childhood poverty. The goal was to demonstrate the superior power of "free labor", whereby a common farm boy could work his way to the top by his own efforts. The Republican Party's production of campaign literature dwarfed the combined opposition. A Chicago Tribune writer produced a pamphlet that detailed Lincoln's life, and sold one million copies.^[93][94]

1860 presidential election results

On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected as the 16th President of the United States, beating Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge of the Southern Democrats, and John Bell of the new Constitutional Union Party. He was the first Republican president, winning entirely on the strength of his support in the North: he was not even on the ballot in ten states in the South, and won only two of 996 counties in all the Southern states.^[95] Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes, Douglas 1,376,957 votes, Breckinridge 849,781 votes, and Bell 588,789 votes. The electoral vote was decisive: Lincoln had 180 and his opponents added together had only 123. Turnout was 82.2%, with Lincoln winning the free northern states. Douglas won Missouri, and split New Jersey with Lincoln.^[96] Bell won Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, and Breckinridge won the rest of the South.^[97] There were fusion tickets in which all of Lincoln's opponents combined to form one ticket in New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island, but even if the anti-Lincoln vote had been combined in every state, Lincoln still would have won because he would still have had a majority in the electoral college.^[98]

Presidency and the Civil War

Main articles: Origins of the American Civil War and Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War

With the emergence of the Republicans as the nation's first major sectional party by the mid-1850s, the old Second Party System collapsed and a realignment created the Third Party System. It became the stage on which sectional tensions were played out. Although little of the West–the focal point of sectional tensions– was fit for cotton cultivation, Southern secessionists read the political fallout as a sign that their power in national politics was rapidly weakening. The slave system had been buttressed by the Democratic Party, which was increasingly seen by anti-slavery elements as representing a more pro-Southern position that unfairly permitted the Slave Power to prevail in the nation's territories and to dominate national policy before the Civil War. Yet the Democrats suffered a significant reverse in the electoral realignment of the mid-1850s; they lost the dominance they had achieved over the Whig Party and, indeed, were the minority party in most of the northern states. The 1854 election was a Realigning election or "critical election" that saw a realignment of voting patterns.^[99] Abraham Lincoln's election was a watershed in the balance of power of competing national and parochial interests and affiliations.^[100]

Secession winter 1860–1861

Main articles: Baltimore Plot and Cornerstone Speech

As Lincoln's election became more likely, secessionists made clear their intent to leave the Union.^[101] On December 20, 1860, South Carolina took the lead; by February 1, 1861, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana,^[102] and Texas had followed.^[103] The seven states soon declared themselves to be a new nation, the Confederate States of America.^[102] The upper South (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas) listened to, but initially rejected, the secessionist appeal.^[104][105] President Buchanan and President-elect Lincoln refused to recognize the Confederacy.^[106] Attempts at compromise, such as the Crittenden Compromise which would have extended the Missouri line of 1820, were discussed.^[107] Despite support for the Crittenden Compromise among some Republicans, Lincoln denounced it in private letters,^[107] saying "either the Missouri line extended, or ... Pop. Sov. would lose us everything we gained in the election; that filibustering for all South of us, and making slave states of it, would follow in spite of us, under either plan",^[108] while other Republicans publicly stated 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."^[109]

The Confederate States of America selected Jefferson Davis on February 9, 1861, as their provisional President.^[110]

A photograph of the March 4, 1861 inauguration of Abraham Lincoln in front of United States Capitol

President-elect Lincoln evaded possible assassins in Baltimore, and on February 23, 1861, arrived in disguise in Washington, D.C.^[111] At his inauguration on March 4, 1861, sharpshooters watched the inaugural platform, while soldiers on horseback patrolled the surrounding area.^[112] 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, thus the Constitution too was perpetual. He asked rhetorically that even were the Constitution a simple contract, would it not require the agreement of all parties to rescind it?^[113]

Also in his inaugural address, in a final attempt to reunite the states and prevent certain war, Lincoln supported the pending Corwin Amendment to the Constitution, which had passed Congress the previous day. This amendment, which explicitly protected slavery in those states in which it already existed, was considered by Lincoln to be a possible way to stave off secession.^[114] A few short weeks before the war he went so far as to pen a letter to every governor asking for their support in ratifying the Corwin Amendment.^[115]

By the time Lincoln took office, the Confederacy was an established fact,^[102] and no leaders of the insurrection proposed rejoining the Union on any terms. The failure of the Peace Conference of 1861 rendered legislative compromise virtually impossible. Buchanan might have allowed the southern states to secede, and some members of his cabinet recommended that. However, conservative Democratic nationalists, such as Jeremiah S. Black, Joseph Holt, and Edwin M. Stanton had taken control of Buchanan's cabinet in early January, and refused to accept secession.^[116] Lincoln and nearly every Republican leader adopted this position by March 1861: the Union could not be dismantled. Believing that a peaceful solution was still possible, Lincoln decided to not take any action against the South unless the Unionists themselves were attacked first.^{[citation needed]} This finally happened in April 1861.^[117]

Historian Allan Nevins argues that Lincoln made three miscalculations in believing that he could preserve the Union, hold government property, and still avoid war. He "temporarily underrated the gravity of the crisis", overestimated the strength of Unionist sentiment in the South and border states, and misunderstood the conditional support of Unionists in the border states.^[118]

Fighting begins

Main article: American Civil War

On April 12, 1861, Union troops at Fort Sumter were fired upon and forced to surrender.^[117] On April 15, Lincoln called on the states to send detachments totaling 75,000 troops,^[119] to recapture forts, protect the capital, and "preserve the Union", which in his view still existed intact despite the actions of the seceding states.^[120] These events forced the states to choose sides. Virginia declared its secession, after which the Confederate capital was moved from Montgomery to Richmond. North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas also voted for secession over the next two months. Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland threatened secession,^[119] but neither they nor the slave state of Delaware seceded. Lincoln urgently negotiated with state leaders there, promising not to interfere with slavery.^{[citation needed]} Troops headed south towards Washington, D.C. to protect the capital in response to Lincoln's call. On April 19, angry secessionist mobs in Baltimore, a Maryland city to the north of Washington that controlled the rail links, attacked Union troops traveling to the capital. George William Brown, the Mayor of Baltimore, and other suspect Maryland politicians were arrested and imprisoned at Fort McHenry.^[121] Rebel leaders were also arrested in other border areas^{[citation needed]} and held in military prisons without trial. Over 18,000 were arrested. One, Clement Vallandigham, was exiled, but the remainder were released, usually after two or three months (see: Ex parte Merryman).^[122]

Conducting the war effort

Main article: Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War

"Running the 'Machine'": An 1864 political cartoon featuring Lincoln; William Fessenden, Edwin Stanton, William Seward, and Gideon Welles take a swing at the Lincoln administration

The war was a source of constant frustration for the president and occupied nearly all of his time. He had a contentious relationship with General McClellan,^[123] 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.^[124] Despite his inexperience in military affairs, Lincoln immediately took an active part in determining war strategy. His priorities were twofold: to ensure that Washington was well defended; and to conduct an aggressive war effort that would satisfy the demand in the North for prompt, decisive victory.^[125] McClellan, a youthful West Point graduate and railroad executive called back to active military service,^[126] took a more cautious approach.^[65] He took several months to plan and execute his Peninsula Campaign, with the objective of capturing Richmond by moving the Army of the Potomac by boat to the peninsula and then traveling by land to Richmond. McClellan's delay concerned Lincoln, as did his insistence that no troops were needed to defend Washington, Lincoln insisted on holding some of McClellan's troops to defend the capital, a decision McClellan blamed for the ultimate failure of the Peninsula Campaign.^[65] McClellan, a conservative Democrat,^[127] was passed over for general-in-chief (that is, chief strategist) in favor of Henry Wager Halleck, after giving Lincoln his Harrison's Landing Letter, where he offered unsolicited political advice to Lincoln urging caution in the war effort.^[128] McClellan's letter incensed Radical Republicans, who successfully pressured Lincoln to appoint John Pope, a Republican, as head of the new Army of Virginia. Pope complied with Lincoln's strategic desire to move toward Richmond from the north, thus protecting the capital from attack. However, Pope was soundly defeated at the Second Battle of Bull Run in the summer of 1862, forcing the Army of the Potomac to defend Washington for a second time.^[129] In response to his failure, Pope was sent to Minnesota to fight the Sioux.^[130]

Despite his dissatisfaction with McClellan's failure to reinforce Pope, Lincoln restored him to command of all forces around Washington, to the dismay of his cabinet (all save Seward), who wished McClellan gone.^[131] Two days after McClellan's return to command, General Lee's forces crossed the Potomac River into Maryland, leading to the Battle of Antietam (September 1862).^[132] The ensuing Union victory, one of the bloodiest in American history, enabled Lincoln to give notice that he would issue an Emancipation Proclamation in January,^[133] but he relieved McClellan of his command after waiting for the conclusion of the 1862 midterm elections and appointed Republican Ambrose Burnside to head the Army of the Potomac.^[134] Burnside was politically neutral, which Lincoln desired, and for the most part supported the President's aims.^[135] Burnside had promised to follow through on Lincoln's strategic vision for a strong offensive against Lee and Richmond. After Burnside was stunningly defeated at Fredericksburg in December,^[136] Joseph Hooker took command, despite his history of "loose talk" and criticizing former commanders.^[137] Hooker was routed by Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May, 1863,^[138] but continued to command his troops for roughly two months. Hooker did not agree with Lincoln's desire to divide his troops, and possibly force Lee to do the same, and tendered his resignation, which was accepted. During the Gettysburg Campaign he was replaced by George Meade.^[139]

Using black troops and former slaves was official government policy after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. At first Lincoln was reluctant to fully implement this program, but by the spring of 1863 he was ready to initiate "a massive recruitment of Negro troops." In a letter to Andrew Johnson, the military governor of Tennessee, encouraging him to lead the way in raising black troops, Lincoln wrote, "The bare sight of fifty thousand armed, and drilled black soldiers on the banks of the Mississippi would end the rebellion at once."^[140] By the end of 1863, at Lincoln's direction, General Lorenzo Thomas had recruited twenty regiments of African Americans from the Mississippi Valley.^[141]

Grant

Lincoln, in a top hat, with Allan Pinkerton and Major General John Alexander McClernand at Antietam

After the Union victory at Gettysburg, Meade's failure to pursue Lee and months of inactivity for the Army of the Potomac persuaded Lincoln that a change was needed. McClellan was seeking the Democratic nomination for President, and Lincoln worried that Grant might also have political aspirations. Lincoln convinced himself that Grant didn't have political aspirations, in the immediate at least, and made Ulysses S. Grant commander of the Union Army.^[142] Grant already had a solid string of victories in the Western Theater, including the battles of Vicksburg and Chattanooga.^[143] Responding to criticism of Grant, Lincoln replied, "I can't spare this man. He fights."^[144] Grant waged his bloody Overland Campaign in 1864 with 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 Confederate losses.^{[citation needed]} The high casualty figures alarmed the nation, and, after Grant lost a third of his army, Lincoln asked what Grant's plans were. "I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer," replied Grant. Lincoln and the Republican party mobilized support throughout the North, backed Grant to the hilt, and replaced his losses.^[145] The Confederacy was out of replacements, so Lee's army shrank with every battle, forcing it back to trenches outside Petersburg. In April 1865, Lee's army finally crumbled under Grant's pounding, and Richmond fell.^[146]

Lincoln authorized Grant to target the Confederate infrastructure – such as plantations, railroads, and bridges – hoping to destroy the South's morale and weaken its economic ability to continue fighting. This strategy allowed Generals Sherman and Sheridan to destroy plantations and towns in the Shenandoah Valley, Georgia, and South Carolina. The damage caused by Sherman's March to the Sea through Georgia totaled more than $100 million by Sherman's own estimate.^[147]

Lincoln grasped the need to control strategic points (such as the Mississippi River and the fortress city of Vicksburg) and understood the importance of defeating the enemy's army, rather than simply capturing territory. He had, however, limited success in motivating his commanders to adopt his strategies until late 1863, when he found a man who shared his vision of the war in Ulysses S. Grant. Only then could he relentlessly pursue a series of coordinated offensives in multiple theaters, and have a top commander who agreed on the use of black troops.^[148] Two days a week, Lincoln would meet with his cabinet in the afternoon, and occasionally his wife would force him to take a carriage ride because she was concerned he was working too hard. Throughout the war, Lincoln showed an intense interest with the military campaigns. He spent hours at the War Department telegraph office, reading dispatches from the field.^[149] He visited battle sites frequently, and seemed fascinated by scenes of war.^{[citation needed]} During Jubal Anderson Early's raid on Washington, D.C. in 1864, Lincoln was watching the combat from an exposed position; captain Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. shouted at him, "Get down, you damn fool, before you get shot!"^[150]

Emancipation Proclamation

Main articles: Abraham Lincoln on slavery and Emancipation Proclamation

Lincoln met with his cabinet on July 22, 1862 for the first reading of a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Lincoln maintained that the powers of his administration to end slavery were limited by the Constitution. He expected to cause the eventual extinction of slavery by stopping its further expansion into any U.S. territory, and by persuading states to accept compensated emancipation if the state would outlaw slavery (an offer that took effect only in Washington, D.C.). Guelzo says Lincoln believed that shrinking slavery in this way would make it uneconomical, and place it back on the road to eventual extinction that the Founders had envisioned.^[151]

In July 1862, Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act, which freed the slaves of anyone convicted of aiding the rebellion. Although Lincoln believed it wasn't in Congress's remit to free any slaves, he approved the bill. He felt freeing the slaves could only be done by the Commander in Chief during wartime, and that signing the bill would help placate those in Congress who wanted to do it through legislation. In that month, Lincoln discussed a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation with his cabinet. In it, he stated that "as a fit and necessary military measure" (and according to Donald not for moral reasons) on January 1, 1863, "all persons held as a slaves" in the Confederate states will " thenceforward, and forever, be free."^[152]

In a shrewdly penned August reply to an editorial by Horace Greeley in the influential New York Tribune, with a draft of the Proclamation already on Lincoln's desk, the president subordinated the goal of ending slavery to the cause of preserving the Union, while, at the same time, preparing the public for emancipation being incomplete at first. Lincoln had decided at this point that he could not win the war without freeing the slaves, and so it was a necessity "to do more to help the cause":^{[citation needed]}

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." ... 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.^[153]

The Emancipation Proclamation, announced on September 22, 1862 and put into effect on January 1, 1863, freed slaves in territories not already under Union control. As Union armies advanced south, more slaves were liberated until all of them in Confederate territory (over three million) were freed. Lincoln 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 the abolition of slavery in the rebel states an official war goal. Lincoln then threw his energies into passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to permanently abolish slavery throughout the nation.^[154] He personally lobbied individual Congressmen for the Amendment, which was passed by the Congress in early 1865, shortly before his death.^[155] A few days after the Emancipation was announced, thirteen Republican governors met at the War Governors' Conference; they supported the president's Proclamation, but suggested the removal of General George B. McClellan as commander of the Union's Army of the Potomac.^[156] For some time, Lincoln continued earlier plans to set up colonies for the newly freed slaves. He commented favorably on colonization in the Emancipation Proclamation, but all attempts at such a massive undertaking failed. As Frederick Douglass observed, Lincoln was, "The first great man that I talked with in the United States freely who in no single instance reminded me of the difference between himself and myself, of the difference of color."^[157]

Gettysburg Address

Main article: Gettysburg Address

Although the Battle of Gettysburg was a Union victory, it was also the bloodiest battle of the war and dealt a blow to Lincoln's war effort. As the Union Army decreased in numbers due to casualties, more soldiers were needed to replace the ranks. Lincoln's 1863 military drafts were considered "odious" among many in the north, particularly immigrants. The New York Draft Riots of July 1863 were the most notable manifestation of this discontent. Writing to Lincoln in September 1863, the Governor of Pennsylvania, Andrew Gregg Curtin, warned that political sentiments were turning against Lincoln and the war effort:

If the election were to occur now, the result would be extremely doubtful, and although most of our discreet friends are sanguine of the result, my impression is, the chances would be against us. The draft is very odious in the State ... the Democratic leaders have succeeded in exciting prejudice and passion, and have infused their poison into the minds of the people to a very large extent, and the changes are against us.^[158]

Therefore, in the fall of 1863, Lincoln's principal aim was to sustain public support for the war effort. This goal became the focus of his address at the Gettysburg battlefield cemetery on November 19.

The Gettysburg Address is one of the most quoted speeches in United States history.^{[159][160][161]} It was delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, during the American Civil War, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the decisive Battle of Gettysburg. Abraham Lincoln's carefully crafted address, secondary to other presentations that day, came to be regarded as one of the greatest speeches in American history. In just over two minutes, Lincoln invoked the principles of human equality espoused by the Declaration of Independence and redefined the Civil War as a struggle not merely for the Union, but as "a new birth of freedom" that would bring true equality to all of its citizens, and that would also create a unified nation in which states' rights were no longer dominant. Beginning with the now-iconic phrase, Four score and seven years ago ..., Lincoln referred to the events of the Civil War and described the ceremony at Gettysburg as an opportunity not only to consecrate the grounds of a cemetery, but also to dedicate the living to the struggle to ensure that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth".^[162]

1864 election

Main article: United States presidential election, 1864

1864 Presidential election results

After Union victories at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga in 1863, overall victory seemed at hand, and Lincoln promoted Ulysses S. Grant General-in-Chief on March 12, 1864. When the spring campaigns turned into bloody stalemates, Lincoln supported Grant's strategy of wearing down Lee's Confederate army at the cost of heavy Union casualties. With an election looming, he easily defeated efforts to deny his renomination. At the Convention, the Republican Party selected Andrew Johnson, a War Democrat from the Southern state of Tennessee, as his running mate to form a broader coalition. They ran on the new Union Party ticket uniting Republicans and War Democrats.

Nevertheless, Republicans across the country feared that Lincoln would be defeated. Acknowledging this fear, Lincoln wrote and signed a pledge that, if he should lose the election, he would still defeat the Confederacy before turning over the White House:^[163]

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 cannot possibly save it afterwards.^[164]

Lincoln did not show the pledge to his cabinet, but asked them to sign the sealed envelope. While the Democratic platform followed the Peace wing of the party and called the war a "failure," their candidate, General George B. McClellan, supported the war and repudiated the platform. Lincoln provided Grant with new replacements and mobilized his party to support Grant and win local support for the war effort. Sherman's capture of Atlanta in September ended defeatist jitters; the Democratic Party was deeply split, with some leaders and most soldiers openly for Lincoln; the Union party was united and energized, and Lincoln was easily reelected in a landslide. He won all but three states, including 78% of the Union soldiers' vote.^[165][166]

Second Inaugural Address

Main article: Lincoln's second inaugural address

The only known photographs of Lincoln giving a speech were taken as he delivered his second inaugural address. Here, he stands in the center, with papers in his hand.

On March 4, 1865, Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address, his favorite of all his speeches. At this time, a victory over the rebels was at hand, slavery was dead, 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.^[167]

Reconstruction

Main article: Reconstruction era of the United States

Reconstruction began during the war as Lincoln and his associates pondered questions of how to reintegrate the Southern states and what to do with Confederate leaders and the freed slaves. Lincoln led the "moderates" regarding Reconstruction policy, and was usually opposed by the Radical Republicans, under Thaddeus Stevens in the House and Charles Sumner and Benjamin Wade in the Senate (though he cooperated with these men on most other issues). Determined to find a course that would reunite the nation and not alienate the South, Lincoln urged that speedy elections under generous terms be held throughout the war in areas behind Union lines. His Amnesty Proclamation of December 8, 1863, offered pardons to those who had not held a Confederate civil office, had not mistreated Union prisoners, and would sign an oath of allegiance.^[168] Critical decisions had to be made as state after state was reconquered. Of special importance were Tennessee, where Lincoln appointed Andrew Johnson as governor, and Louisiana, where Lincoln attempted a plan that would restore statehood when 10% of the voters agreed to it. The Radicals thought this policy too lenient, and passed their own plan, the Wade-Davis Bill, in 1864. When Lincoln pocket vetoed the bill, the Radicals retaliated by refusing to seat representatives elected from Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee.^[169]

Near the end of the war, Lincoln made an extended visit to Grant's headquarters at City Point, Virginia. This allowed the president to confer in person with Grant and Sherman about ending hostilities (as Sherman managed a hasty visit to Grant from his forces in North Carolina at the same time).^[170] Lincoln also was able to visit Richmond after it was taken by the Union forces and to make a public gesture of sitting at Jefferson Davis' 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." When a general asked Lincoln how the defeated Confederates should be treated, Lincoln replied, "Let 'em up easy."^[171][172] Lincoln arrived back in Washington on the evening of April 9, 1865, the day Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. The war was effectively over. The other rebel armies surrendered soon after, and there was no subsequent guerrilla warfare.^[173]

Home front

The last known high-quality photograph of Lincoln, taken March 1865

Redefining Republicanism

Lincoln's rhetoric defined the issues of the war for the nation, the world, and posterity. The Gettysburg Address defied Lincoln's own prediction that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." His second inaugural address is also greatly admired and often quoted. In recent years, historians have stressed Lincoln's use of and redefinition of republican values. As early as the 1850s, a time when most political rhetoric focused on the sanctity of the Constitution, Lincoln shifted emphasis to the Declaration of Independence as the foundation of American political values—what he called the "sheet anchor" of republicanism.^[174] The Declaration's emphasis on freedom and equality for all, rather than the Constitution's tolerance of slavers, shifted the debate. As Diggins concludes regarding the highly influential Cooper Union speech, "Lincoln presented Americans a theory of history that offers a profound contribution to the theory and destiny of republicanism itself."^[175] His position gained strength because he highlighted the moral basis of republicanism, rather than its legalisms.^[176][177] Nevertheless, in 1861 Lincoln justified the war in terms of legalisms (the Constitution was a contract, and for one party to get out of a contract all the other parties had to agree), and then in terms of the national duty to guarantee a "republican form of government" in every state.^[178] That duty was also the principle underlying federal intervention in Reconstruction. In his Gettysburg Address Lincoln redefined the American nation, arguing that it was born not in 1789 but in 1776, "conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." He declared that the sacrifices of battle had rededicated the nation to the propositions of democracy and equality, "that this nation 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." By emphasizing the centrality of the nation, he rebuffed the claims of state sovereignty. While some critics say Lincoln moved too far and too fast, they agree that he dedicated the nation to values that marked "a new founding of the nation."^[179]

Civil liberties suspended

During the Civil War, Lincoln appropriated powers no previous President had wielded: he used his war powers to proclaim a blockade, suspended the writ of habeas corpus, spent money before Congress appropriated it, and imprisoned between 15,000 and 18,000 suspected Confederate sympathizers without trial.^[180]

Domestic measures

Lincoln believed in the Whig theory of the presidency, which left Congress to write the laws while he signed them; Lincoln only exercised his veto power only four times, the only significant instance being his pocket veto of the Wade-Davis Bill.^[181] Thus, he signed the Homestead Act in 1862, making millions of acres of government-held land in the West available for purchase at very low cost. The Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act, also signed in 1862, provided government grants for state agricultural colleges in each state. The Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 and 1864 granted federal support for the construction of the United States' First Transcontinental Railroad, which was completed in 1869.^[182]

Other important legislation involved two measures to raise revenues for the Federal government: tariffs (a policy with long precedent), and a Federal income tax (which was new). In 1861, Lincoln signed the second and third Morrill Tariff (the first had become law under James Buchanan). In 1861, Lincoln signed the Revenue Act of 1861^[183] creating the first U.S. income tax. This created a flat tax of 3% on incomes above $800 ($18,910 in current dollars), which was later changed by the Revenue Act of 1862^[184] to a progressive rate structure.^[185]

Lincoln also presided over the expansion of the federal government's economic influence in several other areas. The creation of the system of national banks by the National Banking Acts of 1863, 1864, and 1865 allowed the creation of a strong national financial system. In 1862, Congress created, with Lincoln's approval, the Department of Agriculture, although that institution would not become a Cabinet-level department until 1889. The Legal Tender Act of 1862 established the United States Note, the first paper currency in United States history since the Continentals that were issued during the Revolution. This was done to increase the money supply to pay for fighting the war.

In 1862, Lincoln sent a senior general, John Pope, to put down the "Sioux Uprising" in Minnesota. Presented with 303 death warrants for convicted Santee Dakota who were accused of killing innocent farmers, Lincoln ordered a personal review of these warrants, eventually approving 39 of these for execution (one was later reprieved).^[186]

Abraham Lincoln is largely responsible for the institution of the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. Prior to Lincoln's presidency, Thanksgiving, while a regional holiday in New England since the 17th century, had only been proclaimed by the federal government sporadically, and on irregular dates. The last such proclamation was during James Madison's presidency fifty years before. In 1863, Lincoln declared the final Thursday in November to be a day of Thanksgiving, and the holiday has been celebrated annually then ever since.^[187]

Assassination

Main article: Abraham Lincoln assassination

Further information: Abraham Lincoln's burial and exhumation

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

Originally, John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and a Confederate spy from Maryland, had formulated a plan to kidnap Lincoln in exchange for the release of Confederate prisoners. After attending an April 11 speech in which Lincoln promoted voting rights for blacks, an incensed Booth changed his plans and determined to assassinate the president.^[188]

Learning that the President and First Lady would be attending Ford's Theatre, he laid his plans, assigning his co-conspirators to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward. Without his main bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon, to whom he related his famous dream regarding his own assassination, Lincoln left to attend the play Our American Cousin on April 14, 1865. As a lone bodyguard wandered, and Lincoln sat in his state box (Box 7) in the balcony, Booth crept up behind the President and waited for what he thought would be the funniest line of the play ("You sock-dologizing old man-trap"), hoping the laughter would muffle the noise of the gunshot. When the laughter began, Booth jumped into the box and aimed a single-shot, round-slug 0.44 caliber Deringer at his head, firing at point-blank range. Major Henry Rathbone momentarily grappled with Booth but was cut by Booth's knife. Booth then leaped to the stage and shouted "Sic semper tyrannis!" (Latin: Thus always to tyrants) and escaped, despite a broken leg suffered in the leap.^[189] A twelve-day manhunt ensued, in which Booth was chased by Federal agents (under the direction of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton).^[190] He was eventually cornered in a Virginia barn house and shot, dying of his wounds soon after.^[191]

Lincoln's funeral train carried his remains, as well as 300 mourners and the casket of his son, William, 1,654 miles (2,662 km) to Illinois

An army surgeon, Doctor Charles Leale, initially assessed Lincoln's wound as mortal. The President was taken across the street from the theater to the Petersen House, where he lay in a coma for nine hours before dying. Several physicians attended Lincoln, including U.S. Army Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes of the Army Medical Museum. Using a probe, Barnes located some fragments of Lincoln's skull and the ball lodged 6 inches (15 cm) inside his brain. Lincoln never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead at 7:22:10 a.m. April 15, 1865. He was the first president to be assassinated or to lie in state. Lincoln's body was carried by train in a grand funeral procession through several states on its way back to Illinois.^[192] While much of the nation mourned him as the savior of the United States, Copperheads celebrated the death of a man they considered a tyrant. The Lincoln Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, is 177 feet (54 m) tall and, by 1874, was surmounted with several bronze statues of Lincoln. To prevent repeated attempts to steal Lincoln's body and hold it for ransom, Robert Todd Lincoln had it exhumed and reinterred in concrete several feet thick in 1901.

Administration, Cabinet and Supreme Court appointments 1861–1865

Official White House portrait of Abraham Lincoln by George Peter Alexander Healy Lincoln appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States: Judge Seat State Began active service Ended active service Noah Haynes Swayne Seat 7 Virginia 18620127January 27, 1862 18810124January 24, 1881 Samuel Freeman Miller Seat 8 Maine 18620721July 21, 1862 18901013October 13, 1890 David Davis Seat 9 Maryland 18621210December 10, 1862 18770304March 4, 1877 Stephen Johnson Field Seat 10 California 18630520May 20, 1863 18971201December 1, 1897 Salmon P. Chase Seat 1 New Hampshire 18641215December 15, 1864 18730507May 7, 1873

The Lincoln Cabinet OFFICE NAME TERM President Abraham Lincoln 1861–1865 Vice President Hannibal Hamlin 1861–1865 Andrew Johnson 1865 State William H. Seward 1861–1865 War Simon Cameron 1861–1862 Edwin M. Stanton 1862–1865 Treasury Salmon P. Chase 1861–1864 William P. Fessenden 1864–1865 Hugh McCulloch 1865 Justice Edward Bates 1861–1864 James Speed 1864–1865 Post Montgomery Blair 1861–1864 William Dennison, Jr. 1864–1865 Navy Gideon Welles 1861–1865 Interior Caleb B. Smith 1861–1862 John P. Usher 1863–1865

States admitted to the Union

• West Virginia – June 20, 1863
• Nevada – October 31, 1864

Religious and philosophical beliefs

Further information: Abraham Lincoln and religion

In March 1860 in a speech in New Haven, Connecticut, Lincoln said, regarding slavery, "Whenever this question shall be settled, it must be settled on some philosophical basis. No policy that does not rest upon some philosophical public opinion can be permanently maintained." The philosophical basis for Lincoln's beliefs regarding slavery and other issues of the day require that Lincoln be examined "seriously as a man of ideas." Lincoln was a strong supporter of the American Whig version of liberal capitalism who, more than most politicians of the time, was able to express his ideas within the context of Nineteenth Century religious beliefs.^[193]

There were few people who strongly or directly influenced Lincoln's moral and intellectual development and perspectives. There was no teacher, mentor, church leader, community leader, or peer that Lincoln would credit in later years as a strong influence on his intellectual development. Lacking a formal education, Lincoln's personal philosophy was shaped by "an amazingly retentive memory and a passion for reading and learning." It was Lincoln's reading, rather than his relationships, that were most influential in shaping his personal beliefs.^[194][195]

Even as a child, Lincoln largely rejected organized religion, but the Calvinistic "doctrine of necessity" would remain a factor throughout his life. In 1846 Lincoln described the effect of this doctrine as "that the human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest by some power, over which the mind itself has no control."^[196] In April 1864, in justifying his actions regarding Emancipation, Lincoln wrote, "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it."^[197]

As Lincoln matured, and especially during his term as president, the idea of a divine will somehow interacting with human affairs increasingly influenced his public expressions. On a personal level, the death of his son Willie in February 1862 may have caused Lincoln to look towards religion for answers and solace.^[198] After Willie's death, in the summer or early fall of 1862, Lincoln attempted to put on paper his private musings on why, from a divine standpoint, the severity of the war was necessary:

The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party—and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect his purpose. I am almost ready to say this is probably true—that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere quiet power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.^[199]

Lincoln's religious skepticism was fueled by his exposure to the ideas of the Lockean Enlightenment and classical liberalism, especially economic liberalism.^[194] Consistent with the common practice of the Whig party, Lincoln would often use the Declaration of Independence as the philosophical and moral expression of these two philosophies.^[200] In a February 22, 1861 speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia Lincoln said,

I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. ... It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland; but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. This is a sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence.^[201]

He found in the Declaration justification for Whig economic policy and opposition to territorial expansion and the nativist platform of the Know Nothings. In claiming that all men were created free, Lincoln and the Whigs argued that this freedom required economic advancement, expanded education, territory to grow, and the ability of the nation to absorb the growing immigrant population.^[202]

It was the Declaration of Independence, rather than the Bible, that Lincoln most relied on to oppose any further territorial expansion of slavery. He saw the Declaration as more than a political document. To him, as well as to many abolitionists and other antislavery leaders, it was, foremost, a moral document that had forever determined valuable criteria in shaping the future of the nation.^[203]

Legacy and memorials

Further information: Cultural depictions of Abraham Lincoln

The Apotheosis of Abraham Lincoln, greeted by George Washington in heaven (an 1860s work)

Lincoln's death made the President a national martyr,^[204] regarded by historians in numerous polls as among the greatest presidents in U.S. history, usually in the top three, along with George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt.^[205] A study published in 2004, found that scholars in the fields of history and politics ranked Lincoln number one, while law scholars placed him second after Washington.^[206] Among contemporary admirers, Lincoln is usually seen as personifying classical values of honesty and 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-supporting Log Cabin Republicans to the insurance corporation Lincoln National Corporation. The Lincoln automobile brand is also named after him.

The ballistic missile submarine Abraham Lincoln (SSBN-602) and the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) were named in his honor.^[207] During the Spanish Civil War, the American faction of the International Brigades named themselves the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.^[208] Lincoln has been memorialized in many town, city, and county names,^[209] including the capital of Nebraska.^[210] Lincoln, Illinois, is the only city to be named for Abraham Lincoln before he became President.^[211]

Lincoln's name and image appear in numerous places. These include the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.,^[210] the U.S. Lincoln $5 bill and the Lincoln cent, and Lincoln's sculpture on Mount Rushmore. Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park in Hodgenville, Kentucky,^[212] Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial in Lincoln City, Indiana,^[213] and Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, Illinois,^[214] commemorate the president.^[215] In addition, New Salem, Illinois (a reconstruction of Lincoln's early adult hometown),^[216] Ford's Theatre, and Petersen House (where he died) are all preserved as museums.^[217] The state nickname for Illinois is Land of Lincoln; the slogan has appeared continuously on nearly all Illinois license plates issued since 1954.^[218]

Abraham Lincoln's birthday, February 12, was never a national holiday, but it was observed by 30 states.^[209] In 1971, Presidents Day became a national holiday, combining Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays, and replacing most states' celebration of his birthday.^[219] As of 2005, Lincoln's Birthday is a legal holiday in 10 states.^[220] The Abraham Lincoln Association was formed in 1908 to commemorate the centennial of Lincoln's birth.^[221] The Association is now the oldest group dedicated to the study of Lincoln.^[222]

To commemorate his 200th birthday in February 2009, Congress established the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission (ALBC) in 2000 to honor Lincoln.^[223] The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is located in Springfield and is run by the State of Illinois.^[224]

Lincoln owned a model 1857 Waltham William Ellery watch, with serial nmber 67613. This watch is now in the custody of the Smithsonian Museum.^[225] On March 11, 2009, the National Museum of American History found a message engraved inside Lincoln's watch by a watchmaker named Jonathan Dillon who was repairing it at the outbreak of the American Civil War. The engraving reads (in part): "Fort Sumpter was attacked by the rebels" and "thank God we have a government."^[226]

See also

Wikipedia:Books has a book on: Abraham Lincoln

American Civil War portal

Military of the United States portal

• Bibliography of Abraham Lincoln
• American School, Lincoln's economic views.
• Electoral history of Abraham Lincoln
• Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial
• Lincoln Kennedy coincidences urban legend
• Lincoln Memorial University
• Lincoln family tree
• John T. Morse's 2-volume biography of Lincoln
• Poetry of Abraham Lincoln

References

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2. ^ Holzer, p. 232.
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4. ^ Thornton, p. 101
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7. ^ Donald (1996), pp. 22, 24
8. ^ Lamb, p. 189.
9. ^ Gilgoff, Dan (February 12, 2009). "Abraham Lincoln's Religious Uncertainty". U.S. News & World Report. http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/history/2009/02/12/abraham-lincolns-religious-uncertainty.html. Retrieved 2009-10-11. 
10. ^ Donald (1996), pp. 23–24.
11. ^ Donald (1996), pp. 28, 152
12. ^ Donald (1996), p. 36
13. ^ Fehrenbacher, p. 163.
14. ^ Sandburg, pp. 22–23
15. ^ White, pp. 25, 31, 47.
16. ^ Sandberg (1974), p. 10.
17. ^ Donald (1996), pp. 55–58
18. ^ Donald (1996), pp. 67–69; Thomas, pp. 56–57, 69–70.
19. ^ Donald quotes a key phrase from the letter, "I now say, that you can now drop the subject [of marriage], dismiss your thoughts (if you ever had any) from me forever, and leave this letter unanswered, without calling forth one accusing murmur from me." Donald (1996), pp. 67–69.
20. ^ Lamb, p. 43.
21. ^ ^{a b} Sandburg, pp. 46–48.
22. ^ Donald (1996), p. 86
23. ^ Sandburg, pp. 50–51.
24. ^ White, p. 125.
25. ^ ^{a b} White, p. 126.
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27. ^ White, p. 179.
28. ^ White, pp. 181, 476.
29. ^ White, p. 181.
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31. ^ Emerson, p. page number needed
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43. ^ Abraham Lincoln, quoted in Lincoln the Politician, p. 62
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53. ^ ^{a b} McGovern, p. 33.
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55. ^ Mueller, Jean West; Wynell B. Schamel. "Teaching With Documents: Lincoln's Spot Resolutions". National Archives. http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/lincoln-resolutions/. Retrieved 2009-09-26. 
56. ^ Donald (1996), pp. 140–141.
57. ^ Donald (1996), pp. 142–143, 156, 157
58. ^ Donald (1996), pp. 156–157.
59. ^ "Abraham Lincoln's Patent Model: Improvement for Buoying Vessels Over Shoals". National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object.cfm?key=35&objkey=19. Retrieved 2008-06-17. 
60. ^ Emerson, Jason (Winter 2009). "A Man of Considerable Mechanical Genius". Invention and Technology 23 (4): 10–13. 
61. ^ Thornton, pp. 100–101.
62. ^ ^{a b} Donald (1996), p. 155.
63. ^ Dirck, p. 92.
64. ^ Handy, James S. (January 1917). "Book Review: Abraham Lincoln, the Lawyer-Statesman". Illinois Law Review (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Law Pub. Association) 11 (6): 440. 
65. ^ ^{a b c d} Donald (1996), pp. 150–151.
66. ^ McGovern, pp. 36–37.
67. ^ Goodwon, p. 792.
68. ^ Prokopowicz, pp. 94–95.
69. ^ Basler (1953), p. 255.
70. ^ White, p. 199.
71. ^ Oates, p. 119.
72. ^ White, pp. 205–208.
73. ^ McGovern, pp. 38–39.
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75. ^ Oates, pp. 138–139.
76. ^ White, p. 251.
77. ^ Harris, p. 98.
78. ^ McPherson (1993), p. 182.
79. ^ Mitchell, pp. 134–135.
80. ^ Mitchell, p. 136.
81. ^ Mitchell, p. 135.
82. ^ Mitchell, p. 141.
83. ^ Carwardine, p. 97.
84. ^ Holzer, p. 157.
85. ^ Donald (1996), p. 244.
86. ^ Oates, pp. 175–176.
87. ^ Sandburg, pp. 118–119.
88. ^ Roland, p. 24.
89. ^ Goodwin, pp. 253–254.
90. ^ Boritt 1997, p. 10.
91. ^ Boritt 1997, pp. 13, 18.
92. ^ Nevins (1950), pp. 261–272.
93. ^ Nevins (1950), pp. 277, 290, 298–305.
94. ^ Luthin, pp. 171, 197–198, 202–203, 210, 218.
95. ^ Mansch, p. 61.
96. ^ Harris, p. 243.
97. ^ White, p. 350.
98. ^ Nevins (1950), p. 312 notes that if the opposition had formed fusion tickets in every state, Lincoln still would have 169 electoral votes; he needed 152 to win the Electoral College. Potter, p. 437, and Luthin, p. 227 both conclude it was impossible for Lincoln's opponents to combine because they hated each other.
99. ^ Steven Hansen, The making of the third party system: voters and parties in Illinois, 1850-1876 (1980); Michael F. Holt, "The New Political History and the Civil War Era," Reviews in American History, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Mar., 1985), pp. 60-69 in JSTOR
100. ^ Potter, p. 325–327, 355, 445–447.
101. ^ Edgar, Walter B. (1998). South Carolina: A History. University of South Carolina Press. p. 350. ISBN 9781570032554. 
102. ^ ^{a b c} Donald (1996), p. 267.
103. ^ Potter, p. 498.
104. ^ Crofts, Daniel W. (1993). Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis. 
105. ^ White, p. 362.
106. ^ Potter, pp. 520, 569–570.
107. ^ ^{a b} White, pp. 360–361.
108. ^ Fehrenbacher, p. 192.
109. ^ McPherson, p. 115.
110. ^ White, p. 369.
111. ^ Donald (1996), p. 234.
112. ^ White, p. 388.
113. ^ Sandburg, pp. 140, 143.
114. ^ Vorenberg, p. 22.
115. ^ http://www.lib.niu.edu/2006/ih060934.html
116. ^ Goodwin, pp. 297–298.
117. ^ ^{a b} Donald (1996), p. 292.
118. ^ Nevins (2000), p. 29.
119. ^ ^{a b} Oates, p. 226
120. ^ David H. Donald, Lincoln (Simon & Schuster, 1996), 302.
121. ^ Heidler 2000, p. 174
122. ^ Mark E. Neely, the fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties (1991) pp 3-31.
123. ^ Donald (1996), p. 338, 339
124. ^ Sandburg 2007, p. 168–171
125. ^ Donald (1996), pp. 295–296 notes that major northern newspapers expected victory within 90 days.
126. ^ White Jr., p. 440
127. ^ White, p. 440
128. ^ Donald (1996), p. 360, 361
129. ^ Nevins 1960, p. 2:159–62
130. ^ Thomas, pp. 335–338, 346.
131. ^ Goodwin, p. 478, 479
132. ^ Goodwin, pp. 478–480. Lincoln reappointed McClellan owing to his military prowess, not his personality.
133. ^ Goodwin, p. 481
134. ^ Donald (1996), p. 389, 390
135. ^ Donald (1996), p. 390
136. ^ Nevins 1960, pp. 2:343–52
137. ^ White, p. 538
138. ^ Nevins 1960, pp. 2:432–50
139. ^ Donald (1996), pp. 444–445.
140. ^ Donald (1996), pp. 430–431.
141. ^ Donald (1996), p. 431.
142. ^ Donald (1996), p. 490, 491
143. ^ Heidler 2000, p. 868
144. ^ Thomas, p. 315.
145. ^ Thomas, pp. 422–424.
146. ^ White, p. 668
147. ^ Neely, Jr., Mark E. (December 2004). "Was the Civil War a Total War?". Civil War History 50 (4): 434–458. 
148. ^ Nevins (2000) (Vol. IV), pp. 6–17.
149. ^ Donald, pp. 391, 392
150. ^ Thomas, p. 434.
151. ^ Mackubin Thomas Owens (March 8, 2004). "Mackubin Thomas Owens on Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America on National Review Online". National Review. http://www.nationalreview.com/books/owens200403251139.asp. 
152. ^ Donald, pp. 364, 365
153. ^ "Letter to Horace Greeley". Abraham Lincoln Online. http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/greeley.htm. Retrieved 2008-05-21. 
154. ^ "Letter to Albert G. Hodges". Abraham Lincoln Online. 1864-04-04. http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/hodges.htm. Retrieved 2008-05-21. 
155. ^ Donald (1996), p. 555.
156. ^ J. G, Randall, Lincoln the President: Springfield to Gettysburg (1945) 2: 229-32; Allan Nevins, The War for the Union: War Becomes Revolution (1960) 2:239-40.
157. ^ Douglass, Frederick (April 2001). The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Digital Scanning. ISBN 1582183678. 
158. ^ Curtin, Andrew G. (1863-09-03). "Andrew G. Curtin to Abraham Lincoln, Friday, September 4, 1863 (Politics in Pennsylvania)". Library of Congress. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mal:@field(DOCID+@lit(d2604300)). Retrieved 2008-05-21. 
159. ^ "Introduction to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address". InfoUSA. United States Department of State. Archived from the original on 2007-08-13. http://web.archive.org/web/20070813234249/http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/25.htm. Retrieved 2007-11-30. "Few documents in the growth of American democracy are as well known or as beloved as the prose poem Abraham Lincoln delivered at the dedication of the military cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania." 
160. ^ "Gettysburg Address". Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Edition. Columbia University Press via Bartleby.com. May 2001. http://www.bartleby.com/65/ge/GettysbuAd.html. Retrieved 2007-11-30. "It is one of the most famous and most quoted of modern speeches." 
161. ^ Historian James McPherson has called it "The most eloquent expression of the new birth of freedom brought forth by reform liberalism." McPherson (2007), p. 185.
162. ^ Text at Wills, p. 263.
163. ^ Grimsley, p. 80.
164. ^ Basler (1953), p. 514.
165. ^ McGovern, p. 111.
166. ^ McPherson (2008), p. 250. There is a good discussion of Lincoln's 1864 election anxieties and the effect of Sherman's victory at Atlanta in McPherson (2008), pp. 231-250.
167. ^ Basler (1953), p. 333.
168. ^ "Proclamation of Amnesty". Bartleby.com. 1863. http://www.bartleby.com/43/37.html. Retrieved 2008-05-21. 
169. ^ Donald (1996), §20.
170. ^ This meeting was memorialized in G.P.A. Healy's famous painting "The Peacemakers". White House Historical Association. http://www.whitehousehistory.org/whha_about/whitehouse_collection/whitehouse_collection-art-06.html. Retrieved 2009-10-12. 
171. ^ Donald (1996), pp. 576, 580.
172. ^ "President Lincoln Enters Richmond, 1865". Eyewitness to History. http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/richmond.htm. Retrieved 2008-05-21. 
173. ^ "The Lincoln Log, April 9, 1865.". http://www.thelincolnlog.org/view/show_date?day=09&month=04&year=1865. 
174. ^ Jaffa, p. 399.
175. ^ Diggins, p. 307.
176. ^ Foner, p. 215.
177. ^ McPherson, pp. 61–64.
178. ^ Jaffa, p. 263.
179. ^ Wills, p. 39.
180. ^ Neely, p. 253, n. 7.
181. ^ Donald (2001), p. 137.
182. ^ Paludan, p. 116.
183. ^ Revenue Act of 1861, sec. 49, 12 Stat. 292, at 309 (August 5, 1861).
184. ^ Revenue Act of 1862, sec. 90, 12 Stat. 432, at 473 (July 1, 1862).
185. ^ Paludan, p. 111.
186. ^ Cox, Hank H. (2005). Lincoln And The Sioux Uprising of 1862. Nashville: Cumberland House Publishing. p. 182. ISBN 9781581824575. 
187. ^ National Park Service. "1863 Thanksgiving proclamation". http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/source/sb2/sb2w.htm. 
188. ^ Harrison, pp. 3–4.
189. ^ Swanson, James L.. Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer. New York: HarperCollins. p. 48. ISBN 9780060518509. 
190. ^ Swanson, James L.. Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer. New York: HarperCollins. pp. 113–115. ISBN 9780060518509. 
191. ^ Swanson, James L.. Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer. New York: HarperCollins. pp. 334–335. ISBN 9780060518509. 
192. ^ Guelzo, p. 452.
193. ^ Guelzo, pp. 18–19.
194. ^ ^{a b} Guelzo, p. 20.
195. ^ Miller, pp. 57–59.
196. ^ Donald (1996), p. 15.
197. ^ Donald (1996), p. 514.
198. ^ Wilson, pp. 251–254.
199. ^ Wilson, p. 254.
200. ^ Guelzo, p. 194.
201. ^ Jaffa, p. 258.
202. ^ Guelzo, pp. 194–195.
203. ^ Miller, p. 297.
204. ^ Naveh, p. 50
205. ^ Bose, p. 5
206. ^ Taranto, p. 264
207. ^ Sweetman, pp. 242, 256, 266
208. ^ Carroll, p. page number needed
209. ^ ^{a b} Dennis, p. 194
210. ^ ^{a b} Boritt 2006, p. 194
211. ^ Reinhart, Mark S. (2008). Abraham Lincoln on Screen: Fictional and Documentary Portrayals on Film and Television. McFarland. p. 94. ISBN 9780786435364. 
212. ^ "Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site". U.S. National Park Service. 2009-09-11. http://www.nps.gov/abli/index.htm. Retrieved 2009-09-23. 
213. ^ "Lincoln Home National Historic Site". U.S. National Park Service. 2009-09-15. http://www.nps.gov/libo/index.htm. Retrieved 2009-09-23. 
214. ^ "Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial". U.S. National Park Service. 2009-11-02. http://www.nps.gov/liho/index.htm. Retrieved 2009-09-23. 
215. ^ Merrill, pp. 312, 368
216. ^ "Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site". http://www.lincolnsnewsalem.com/. Retrieved 2009-09-23. 
217. ^ "About Ford's". http://www.fordstheatre.org/home/about-fords. Retrieved 2009-09-23. 
218. ^ "1950–1959 plate history". Ilinois DMV. http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/special/plate_history/1950_1959.pdf. Retrieved 2009-09-23. 
219. ^ Schwartz, p. 196–199
220. ^ Schauffler, p. xi
221. ^ Peterson, Merrill D. (1995). Lincoln in American Memory. Oxford University Press US. p. 263. ISBN 9780195096453. 
222. ^ Ferguson, p. 147
223. ^ Carroll, James R. (2009-01-12). "Let the Lincoln bicentennial celebrations begin". The Courier-Journal. http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20090112/NEWS01/901120364. Retrieved 2009-09-23. 
224. ^ "The Official Website of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum". Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. http://www.alplm.com/. Retrieved 2009-09-23. 
225. ^ "Abraham Lincolns Waltham Pocket Watch". Antique Time. http://www.horologist.com/gallery_9.htm. Retrieved 2009-10-28. 
226. ^ "Museum finds 'secret' message in Lincoln's watch". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE52A0FG20090311. Retrieved 2009-03-11. 

Bibliography

Main article: Bibliography of Abraham Lincoln

• Baker, Jean H. (1989). Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393305869. 
• Boritt, Gabor S. (1997). Why the Civil War Came. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195113764. 
• Boritt, G. S. (2006). The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech that Nobody Knows. Simon and Schuster. p. 194. ISBN 9780743288200. 
• Bose, Meenekshi; Mark Landis (2003). The Uses and Abuses of Presidential Ratings. Nova Publishers. p. 5. ISBN 9781590337943. 
• Carwardine, Richard (2003). Lincoln. Pearson Education Ltd. ISBN 9780582032798. 
• Carroll, Peter N. (1994). The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Americans in the Spanish Civil War. Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804722773. 
• Dennis, Matthew (2005). Red, White, and Blue Letter Days: an American Calendar. Cornell University Press. p. 194. ISBN 9780801472688. 
• Diggins, John P. (1986). The Lost Soul of American Politics: Virtue, Self-Interest, and the Foundations of Liberalism. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226148777. 
• Dirck, Brian (2008). Lincoln the Lawyer. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252076145. 
• Donald, David Herbert (1996) [1995]. Lincoln. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780684825359. 
• Donald, David Herbert (2001). Lincoln Reconsidered. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 9780375725326. 
• Emerson, James (2007). The Madness of Mary Lincoln. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 9780809327713. 
• Fehrenbacher, Don E., ed (1989). Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1859–1865. Library of America. ISBN 0940450631. 
• Ferguson, Andrew (2008). Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America. Grove Press. p. 147. ISBN 9780802143617. 
• Foner, Eric (1995) [1970]. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195094978. 
• Goodwin, Doris Kearns (2005). Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0684824906. 
• Grimsley, Mark (2001). The Collapse of the Confederacy. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0803221703. 
• Guelzo, Allen C. (1999). Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. ISBN 0-8028-3872-3. 
• Harrison, Lowell Hayes (2000). Lincoln of Kentucky. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0813121566. 
• Harris, William C. (2007). Lincoln's Rise to the Presidency. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 9780700615209. 
• Heidler, Jeanne T. (2006). The Mexican War. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 9780313327926. 
• Heidler, David S. and Jeanne T. Heidler, ed (2000). Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.. p. 174. ISBN 9780393047585. 
• Holzer, Harold (2004). Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9780743299640. 
• Holzer, Harold; Edna Greene Medford, Frank J. Williams (2006). The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views (Social, Political, Iconographic). LSU Press. ISBN 9780807131442. 
• Jaffa, Harry V. (2000). A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-8476-9952-8. 
• Lamb, Brian and Susan Swain, ed (2008). Abraham Lincoln: Great American Historians on Our Sixteenth President. New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN 9781586486761. 
• Lincoln, Abraham (2001) [1946]. Basler, Roy Prentice. ed. Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings. Da Capo Press. ISBN 9780306810756. 
• Lincoln, Abraham (1953). Basler, Roy Prentice. ed. Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (9 vols.). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 9780813501727. 
• Lincoln, Abraham (1992). Paul McClelland Angle, Earl Schenck Miers. ed. The Living Lincoln: the Man, his Mind, his Times, and the War he Fought, Reconstructed from his Own Writings. Barnes & Noble Publishing. ISBN 9781566190435. 
• Luthin, Reinhard H. (1944). The First Lincoln Campaign. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780844612928. 
• McGovern, George S.; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Sean Wilentz (2008). Abraham Lincoln. Macmillan. ISBN 9780805083453. 
• McPherson, James M. (1992). Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195076066. 
• McPherson, James M. (1993). Battle Cry of Freedom: the Civil War Era. US: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195168952. 
• McPherson, James M. (2007) [1996]. Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195117967. 
• McPherson, James M. (2008). Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief. New York: Penguin Press. ISBN 9781594201912. 
• Mansch, Larry D. (2005). Abraham Lincoln, President-Elect: The Four Critical Months from Election to Inauguration. McFarland. ISBN 078642026X. 
• Peterson, Merrill D. (1995). Lincoln in American Memory. Oxford University Press US. pp. 312, 368. ISBN 9780195096453. 
• Miller, William Lee (2002). Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-40158-X. 
• Mitchell, Thomas G. (2007). Anti-slavery politics in antebellum and Civil War America. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 9780275991685. 
• Naveh, Eyal J. (2002). Crown of Thorns: Political Martyrdom in America From Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King, Jr.. NYU Press. p. 50. ISBN 9780814757765. 
• Neely, Mark E. (1992). The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195080322. 
• Nevins, Allan (1950). Ordeal of the Union; Vol. IV: The Emergence of Lincoln: Prologue to Civil War, 1859-1861. Macmillan Publishing Company. ISBN 9780684104164. 
• Nevins, Allan (2000) [1971]. The War for the Union; Vol. I: The Improvised War: 1861–1862. Konecky & Konecky. ISBN 9781568522968. 
• Nevins, Allan (2000) [1971]. The War for the Union; Vol. IV: The Organized War to Victory: 1864–1865. Konecky & Konecky. ISBN 9781568522999. 
• Nevins, Allan (1960). The War for the Union: War becomes revolution, 1862-1863. Konecky & Konecky. ISBN 9781568522975. 
• Oates, Stephen B. (1993). With Malice Toward None: a Life of Abraham Lincoln. HarperCollins. ISBN 9780060924713. 
• Paludan, Phillip Shaw (1994). The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 9780700606719. 
• Potter, David M.; Don Edward Fehrenbacher (1976). The impending crisis, 1848–1861. HarperCollins. ISBN 9780061319297. 
• Prokopowicz, Gerald J. (2008). Did Lincoln Own Slaves?: and Other Frequently Asked Questions about Abraham Lincoln. Random House, Inc.. ISBN 9780375425417. 
• Roland, Charles Pierce (2004). An American Iliad: the Story of the Civil War. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 9780813123004. 
• Sandburg, Carl (2007) [1974]. Goodman, Edward C.. ed. Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years. Sterling Publishing Company. ISBN 9781402742880. 
• Schreiner, Samuel Agnew (2005) [1987]. The Trials of Mrs. Lincoln. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9780803293250. 
• Schauffler, Robert Haven (2005). Lincoln's Birthday. Kessinger Publishing. p. xi. ISBN 9780766198425. 
• Schwartz, Barry (2009). Abraham Lincoln in the Post-Heroic Era: History and Memory in Late Twentieth-Century America. University of Chicago Press. pp. 196–199. ISBN 9780226741888. 
• Sweetman, Jack (2002). American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775–Present. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 9781557508676. 
• Taranto, James; Leonard Leo. Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House. Simon and Schuster. p. 264. ISBN 9780743254335. 
• Thomas, Benjamin P. (2008) [1952]. Abraham Lincoln: A Biography. ISBN 9780809328871. 
• Thornton, Brian; Richard W. Donley (2005). 101 Things You Didn't Know about Lincoln: Loves and Losses, Political Power Plays, White House Hauntings. Adams Media. ISBN 9781593373993. 
• Vorenberg, Michael (2001). Final Freedom: the Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521652674. 
• White, Jr., Ronald C. (2009). A. Lincoln: A Biography. Random House, Inc.. ISBN 9781400064991. 
• Wills, Garry (1993). Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-86742-3. 
• Wilson, Douglas L. (1999). Honor's Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln. Knopf Publishing Group. ISBN 9780375703966. 

External links

Find more about Abraham Lincoln on Wikipedia's sister projects:

Definitions from Wiktionary
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Quotations from Wikiquote
Source texts from Wikisource
Images and media from Commons
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Learning resources from Wikiversity

• Abraham Lincoln at the Open Directory Project
• Abraham Lincoln at the Open Directory Project – Speeches and writings
• The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
• Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College
• Photographs of Abraham Lincoln
• Abraham Lincoln at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• The Lincoln Institute
• Digitized books about Abraham Lincoln from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library
• Mr. Lincoln's Virtual Library
• Poetry written by Abraham Lincoln
• Lincoln quotes collected by Roger Norton
• The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum Springfield, Illinois
• President Lincoln's Cottage
• US PATNo. 6,469—Manner of Buoying Vessels—A. Lincoln—1849
• National Park Service Abraham Lincoln birthplace (includes good early history)
• National Endowment for the Humanities Spotlight – Abraham Lincoln
• The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission
• Lincoln Memorial Washington, DC
• Lincoln/Net: Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project, Northern Illinois University Libraries
• Lincoln Home National Historic Site: A Place of Growth and Memory, lesson plan
• Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial: Forging Greatness during Lincoln's Youth, lesson plan
• Abraham Lincoln: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
• Essay on Abraham Lincoln and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
• The Entire Writings of Lincoln including an introduction by Theodore Roosevelt

Project Gutenberg eTexts

• List of Works by Abraham Lincoln at Project Gutenberg
• Richardson, James D. (compiler). A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents and more: Volume 6, part 1: Abraham Lincoln. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12462.  includes major (and minor) state papers, but not speeches or letters
• Lincoln's Yarns and Stories. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2517. 
• Hay, John; John George Nicolay (1890). Abraham Lincoln: a History.  "Volume 1". http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6812.  to 1856; coverage of national politics. "Volume 2". http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11708.  (1832 to 1901); covers 1856 to early 1861; coverage of national politics; part of 10 volume "life and times" by Lincoln's aides
• Nicolay, Helen (1907). The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1815.  (1866 to 1954)
• Ketcham, Henry (1901). The Life of Abraham Lincoln. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6811. ; popular
• Morse, John T. (1899). Abraham Lincoln. ; a solid scholarly biography "Volume 1". http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12800. "Volume 2". http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12801. 
• Francis Fisher Browne (1913). The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14004. ; popular
• George Haven Putnam, Litt. D. (1909). Abraham Lincoln: The People's Leader in the Struggle for National Existence. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11728. 
• Stephenson, Nathaniel W. (1922). Lincoln's Personal Life. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1713. ; popular
• Benson (Lorn Charnwood), Godfrey Rathbone (1917). Abraham Lincoln. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18379. 

Political offices
Preceded by James Buchanan	President of the United States March 4, 1861 – April 15, 1865	Succeeded by Andrew Johnson
United States House of Representatives
Preceded by John Henry	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 7th congressional district March 4, 1847 – March 4, 1849	Succeeded by Thomas L. Harris
Party political offices
Preceded by John C. Frémont	Republican Party presidential candidate 1860, 1864	Succeeded by Ulysses S. Grant
Honorary titles
Preceded by Henry Clay	Persons who have lain in state or honor in the United States Capitol rotunda April 19, 1865 – April 21, 1865	Succeeded by Thaddeus Stevens

v • d • e Abraham Lincoln Events Black Hawk War · Electoral history · 1860 election · First inauguration · Second inauguration · Judicial appointments · American Civil War · Emancipation Proclamation · Assassination · Burial and exhumation Speeches Peoria speech (1854) · "Lost Speech" (1856) · House Divided speech (1858) · Lincoln–Douglas debates (1858) · Cooper Union Address (1860) · Farewell Address (1861) · First inaugural address (1861) · Gettysburg Address (1863) · Second inaugural address (1865) Family Mary Todd Lincoln · Robert Todd Lincoln · Edward Baker Lincoln · Willie Lincoln · Tad Lincoln · Family tree Legacy Cultural depictions · Lincoln Memorial Life and views Early life · Religion · Sexuality · Slavery

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v • d • e Cabinet of 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 Montgomery Blair (1861-1864) • William Dennison (1864-1865) Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles (1861-1865) Secretary of the Interior Caleb Blood Smith (1861-1862) • John Palmer Usher (1863-1865)

v • d • e Black Hawk War (1832) Factions British Band • Fox • Ho-Chunk • Illinois Militia • Kickapoo • Sioux • Menominee • Michigan Territory Militia • Potawatomi • Sauk • United States Army People John Giles Adams • Milton Alexander • Henry Apple • Elizabeth Armstrong • Henry Atkinson • David Bailey • Black Hawk • Hugh Brady • Ebenezer Brigham • Jesse B. Brown • Thomas P. Burnett • Chakeepashipaho • Checokalako • George Davenport • Jefferson Davis • John Dement • Augustus C. Dodge • Henry Dodge • Charles Dunn • Mike Girty • Henry Gratiot • Rachel Hall • Sylvia Hall • William S. Hamilton • James D. Henry • Ioway • George W. Jones • Keewassee • Keokuk • Antoine LeClaire • Abraham Lincoln • Meommuse • Neapope • Pamaho • Pamisseu • Adam Payne • Elijah Phillips • Alexander Posey • John Hawkins Rountree • James Sample • Lucy Sample • James Semple • Winfield Scott • Shabbona • Adam Wilson Snyder • James W. Stephenson • Isaiah Stillman • Clack Stone • Joseph M. Street • James M. Strode • Felix St. Vrain • Joseph Throckmorton • Zachary Taylor • Towaunonne • Wabokieshiek • John Allen Wakefield • Wapello • Waubonsee • Weesheet • Samuel Whiteside • Places Illinois: Apple River Fort • Buffalo Grove • Dixon's Ferry • Fort Armstrong • Fort Beggs • Galena • Indian Creek • Kellogg's Grove • Plum River • Saukenuk • Stillman Creek • Stillman's Run Battle Site • Waddams Grove • Yellow Creek Michigan Territory (Wisconsin): Bad Axe River • Blue Mounds Fort • Fort Crawford • Fort Defiance • Fort Hamilton • Fort Jackson • Fort Koshkonong • Fort Union • Gratiot's Grove • Helena • Hamilton's Diggings • Pecatonica River • Roxbury • Sinsinawa Mound • Soldiers Grove • Victory • Wisconsin Heights Battlefield • Wisconsin River • Engagements Minor engagements • Battle of Stillman's Run • Buffalo Grove ambush • Plum River raid • Indian Creek massacre • St. Vrain massacre • Attacks at Fort Blue Mounds • Spafford Farm massacre • Battle of Horseshoe Bend • Battle of Waddams Grove • Battle of Kellogg's Grove • Attack at Ament's Cabin • Battle of Apple River Fort • Sinsinawa Mound raid • Battle of Wisconsin Heights • Bad Axe Massacre Other topics Black Hawk Purchase • Black Hawk Tree • Keokuk's Reserve • Neutral Ground • Warrior

Persondata
NAME	Lincoln, Abraham
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	16th President of the United States of America
DATE OF BIRTH	February 12, 1809
PLACE OF BIRTH	Hardin County, Kentucky
DATE OF DEATH	April 15, 1865
PLACE OF DEATH	Washington, D.C.

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