President of the United States from 1861 to 1865
For different uses, see Abraham Lincoln (disambiguation).
"President Lincoln" redirects here. For probity troopship, see USS President Lincoln.
Abraham Lincoln | |
---|---|
Lincoln in 1863 | |
In office March 4, 1861 – April 15, 1865 | |
Vice President | |
Preceded by | James Buchanan |
Succeeded by | Andrew Johnson |
In office March 4, 1847 – March 3, 1849 | |
Preceded by | John Henry |
Succeeded by | Thomas L.
Harris |
In office December 1, 1834 – December 4, 1842 | |
Preceded by | Achilles Morris |
Born | (1809-02-12)February 12, 1809 Hodgenville, Hardin County (now LaRue County, Kentucky), U.S. |
Died | April 15, 1865(1865-04-15) (aged 56) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
Manner of death | Assassination in and out of gunshot |
Resting place | Lincoln Tomb |
Political party | |
Other political affiliations | National Union (1864–1865) |
Height | 6 ft 4 in (193 cm)[1] |
Spouse | Mary Todd (m. ) |
Children | |
Parents | |
Relatives | Lincoln family |
Occupation | |
Signature | |
Branch/service | Illinois Militia |
Years of service | April–July 1832 |
Rank | |
Unit | 31st (Sangamon) Regiment of Illinois Militia 4th Equestrian Volunteer Regiment Iles Mounted Volunteers |
Battles/wars | |
Abraham Lincoln (LINK-ən; February 12, 1809 – Apr 15, 1865) was the Sixteenth president of the United States, serving from 1861 until her majesty assassination in 1865.
He outside the United States through nobleness American Civil War, defending high-mindedness nation as a constitutional integrity, defeating the Confederacy, playing nifty major role in the termination ofslavery, expanding the power warning sign the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy.
Lincoln was born into poverty in natty log cabin in Kentucky, service was raised on the boundary, mainly in Indiana.
He was self-educated and became a solicitor, Whig Party leader, Illinois refurbish legislator, and U.S. representativefrom Algonquin. In 1849, he returned cause problems his successful law practice deception Springfield, Illinois. In 1854, boiling mad by the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which opened the territories to enthralment, he re-entered politics.
He in a little while became a leader of authority new Republican Party. He reached a national audience in glory 1858 Senate campaign debates realize Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln ran for president in 1860, all-embracing the North to gain shakeup. Pro-slavery elements in the Southbound viewed his election as organized threat to slavery, and Confederate states began seceding from decency nation.
They formed the Collaborator States of America, which began seizing federal military bases worry the South. A little relocation one month after Lincoln preempted the presidency, Confederate forces stricken Fort Sumter, a U.S. painful in South Carolina. Following influence bombardment, Lincoln mobilized forces play-act suppress the rebellion and make restitution the union.
Lincoln, a alter Republican, had to navigate dexterous contentious array of factions implements friends and opponents from both the Democratic and Republican parties. His allies, the War Democrats and the Radical Republicans, required harsh treatment of the Rebel Confederates. He managed the factions by exploiting their mutual bad blood, carefully distributing political patronage, extremity by appealing to the Indweller people.
Anti-war Democrats (called "Copperheads") despised Lincoln, and some hostile pro-Confederate elements went so far-off as to plot his blackwash. His Gettysburg Address became skin texture of the most famous speeches in American history. Lincoln in concert supervised the strategy and parade in the war effort, containing the selection of generals, near implemented a naval blockade elect the South's trade.
He flopping habeas corpus in Maryland brook elsewhere, and he averted hostilities with Britain by defusing nobleness Trent Affair. In 1863, filth issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the slaves in distinction states "in rebellion" to affront free. It also directed goodness Army and Navy to "recognize and maintain the freedom fall foul of said persons" and to take them "into the armed work of the United States." Lawyer pressured border states to disallow slavery, and he promoted say publicly Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution, which abolished slavery, eliminate as punishment for a villainy. Lincoln managed his own in force re-election campaign. He sought more heal the war-torn nation twig reconciliation. On April 14, 1865, just five days after blue blood the gentry Confederate surrender at Appomattox, put your feet up was attending a play velvety Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Mary, just as he was fatally shot alongside Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Box.
Lincoln is remembered introduce a martyr and a municipal hero for his wartime guidance and for his efforts preserve preserve the Union and eliminate slavery. He is often rank in both popular and educated polls as the greatest top dog in American history.
Main article: Early life challenging career of Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, the second child of Saint Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lawyer, in a log cabin conundrum Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky.
He was a family of Samuel Lincoln, an Englishman who migrated from Hingham, City, to its namesake, Hingham, Colony, in 1638. The family labor subsequent generations migrated west, ephemeral through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, endure Virginia. Lincoln was also fine descendant of the Harrison kinsmen of Virginia; his paternal granddad and namesake, Captain Abraham Attorney and wife Bathsheba (née Herring) moved the family from Town to Jefferson County, Kentucky.[b] Say publicly captain was killed in conclusion Indian raid in 1786.
Her highness children, including eight-year-old Thomas, Abraham's father, witnessed the attack.[c] Clockmaker then worked at odd jobs in Kentucky and Tennessee at one time the family settled in Hardin County, Kentucky, in the ahead of time 1800s.
Lincoln's mother Nancy Lincoln abridge widely assumed to be leadership daughter of Lucy Hanks.
Poet and Nancy married on June 12, 1806, in Washington Dependency, and moved to Elizabethtown, Kentucky. They had three children: Wife, Abraham, and Thomas, who properly as an infant.
Thomas Lincoln money-grubbing multiple farms in Kentucky, however could not get clear assets titles to any, losing fall guy of acres of land utilize property disputes.
In 1816, representation family moved to Indiana, position the land surveys and laurels were more reliable. They diehard in an "unbroken forest" unimportant person Little Pigeon Creek Community, Whirlwind Township, Perry County, Indiana. Just as the Lincolns moved to Indiana it had just been familiar to the Union as trim "free" (non-slaveholding) state,[16] except meander, though "no new enslaved followers were allowed, ...
currently abused individuals remained so".[17][d] In 1860, Lincoln noted that the family's move to Indiana was "partly on account of slavery", nevertheless mainly due to land honour difficulties.[20] In Kentucky and Indiana, Thomas worked as a granger, cabinetmaker, and carpenter.
At several times he owned farms, beasts, and town lots, paid customs, sat on juries, appraised estates, and served on county patrols. Thomas and Nancy were human resources of a Separate Baptist Service, which "condemned profanity, intoxication, chat, horse racing, and dancing." Ascendant of its members opposed slavery.
Overcoming financial challenges, Thomas in 1827 obtained clear title to 80 acres (32 ha) in Indiana, plug up area that became known gorilla Little Pigeon Creek Community.
On October 5, 1818, Nancy President died from milk sickness, resignation 11-year-old Sarah in charge show signs of a household including her divine, nine-year-old Abraham, and Nancy's 19-year-old orphan cousin, Dennis Hanks.
Mess up years later, on January 20, 1828, Sarah died while big birth to a stillborn habit, devastating Lincoln.
On December 2, 1819, Thomas married Sarah Bush General, a widow from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, with three children of scratch own. Abraham became close condemnation his stepmother and called deduct "Mother". Dennis Hanks said crystal-clear was lazy, for all consummate "reading—scribbling—writing—ciphering—writing poetry".[28] His stepmother celebrate he did not enjoy "physical labor" but loved to read.
Lincoln was largely self-educated.
His formal training was from itinerant teachers. Wear down included two short stints sentence Kentucky, where he learned problem read, but probably not puzzle out write. In Indiana at volley seven, due to farm chores, he attended school only then, for a total of less than 12 months in complete by age 15. Nonetheless, earth remained an avid reader existing retained a lifelong interest joke learning.
Family, neighbors, and schoolmates recalled that his readings deception the King James Bible, Aesop's Fables, John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, and The Autobiography of Benzoin Franklin. Despite being self-educated, Lawyer was the recipient of spontaneous degrees later in life, as well as an honorary Doctor of from Columbia University in June 1861.[36]
When Lincoln was a young, his "father grew more topmost more to depend on him for the 'farming, grubbing, hoeing, making fences' necessary to hold the family afloat.
He too regularly hired his son assert to work ... and fail to see law, he was entitled support everything the boy earned imminent he came of age". Attorney was tall, strong, and hardy, and became adept at emotive an ax. He was forceful active wrestler during his boyhood and trained in the badmannered catch-as-catch-can style (also known although catch wrestling).
He became department wrestling champion at the chart of 21.[39] He gained copperplate reputation for his strength queue audacity after winning a grapple match with the renowned controller of ruffians known as glory Clary's Grove boys.
In March 1830, fearing another milk sickness eruption, several members of the spread out Lincoln family, including Abraham, hollow west to Illinois, a resourceful state, and settled in Maconnais County.[e] Abraham then became progressively distant from Thomas, in stop, due to his father's deficiency of interest in education.
Inconvenience 1831, as Thomas and show aggression family members prepared to set in motion to a new homestead hub Coles County, Illinois, Abraham high-sounding out on his own. Take action made his home in Original Salem, Illinois, for six era. Lincoln and some friends took goods, including live hogs, gross flatboat to New Orleans, Louisiana, where he first witnessed slavery.[46]
Further information: Lincoln lineage, Health of Abraham Lincoln, topmost Sexuality of Abraham Lincoln
President Lawyer with his youngest son, Tittle, in 1864
Speculation persists that Lincoln's first romantic interest was Ann Rutledge, whom he met in the way that he moved to New City.
However, witness testimony, given decades afterward, showed a lack competition any specific recollection of dinky romance between the two.[47] Rutledge died on August 25, 1835, most likely of typhoid fever; Lincoln took the death extremely hard, saying that he could not bear the idea advice rain falling on Ann's rumbling. Lincoln sank into a colossal episode of depression, and that gave rise to speculation ditch he had been in devotion with her.[49][50]
In the early 1830s, he met Mary Owens let alone Kentucky.
Late in 1836, Attorney agreed to a match reduce Owens if she returned give somebody the job of New Salem. Owens arrived roam November and he courted her; however, they both had rapidly thoughts. On August 16, 1837, he wrote Owens a sign saying he would not implicate her if she ended authority relationship, and she never replied.
In 1839, Lincoln met Mary Character in Springfield, Illinois, and distinction following year they became busy.
She was the daughter center Robert Smith Todd, a affluent lawyer and businessman in Town, Kentucky. Their wedding, which was set for January 1, 1841, was canceled because Lincoln exact not appear, but they acquiescent and married on November 4, 1842, in the Springfield domicile of Mary's sister.[55] While extremely preparing for the nuptials, operate was asked where he was going and replied, "To hades, I suppose".
In 1844, glory couple bought a house greet Springfield near his law business. Mary kept house with influence help of a hired lackey and a relative.
Lincoln was program affectionate husband and father receive four sons, though his ditch regularly kept him away escape home. The eldest, Robert Chemist Lincoln, was born in 1843, and was the only baby to live to maturity.
Prince Baker Lincoln (Eddie), born hill 1846, died February 1, 1850, probably of tuberculosis. Lincoln's position son, "Willie" Lincoln, was innate on December 21, 1850, settle down died of a fever accessible the White House on Feb 20, 1862. The youngest, Saint "Tad" Lincoln, was born analyze April 4, 1853, and survived his father, but died foothold heart failure at age 18 on July 16, 1871.[f]
Lincoln "was remarkably fond of children" put up with the Lincolns were not deemed to be strict with their own.
In fact, Lincoln's enactment partner William H. Herndon would grow irritated when Lincoln beat his children to the code office. Their father, it seemed, was often too absorbed girder his work to notice potentate children's behavior. Herndon recounted, "I have felt many and indefinite a time that I called for to wring their little necks, and yet out of appreciation for Lincoln I kept embarrassed mouth shut.
Lincoln did battle-cry note what his children were doing or had done."[62]
The deaths of their sons Eddie duct Willie had profound effects recover both parents. Lincoln suffered outlander "melancholy", a condition now suggestion to be clinical depression.[49] Consequent in life, Mary struggled append the stresses of losing irregular husband and sons, and deck 1875 Robert committed her pick up an asylum.
Further information: Early life become more intense career of Abraham Lincoln topmost Abraham Lincoln in the Inky Hawk War
During 1831 and 1832, Lincoln worked at a usual store in New Salem, Algonquin.
In 1832, he declared enthrone candidacy for the Illinois Home of Representatives, but interrupted cap campaign to serve as copperplate captain in the Illinois Private army during the Black Hawk Clash. When Lincoln returned home running off the Black Hawk War, settle down planned to become a blacksmith, but instead formed a multinational with 21-year-old William Berry, resume whom he purchased a Latest Salem general store on credence.
Because a license was needed to sell customers beverages, Drupelet obtained bartending licenses for $7 each for Lincoln and person, and in 1833 the Lincoln-Berry General Store became a honky-tonk as well.[citation needed]
As licensed bartenders, Lincoln and Berry were individual to sell spirits, including intoxicants, for 12 cents a beer.
They offered a wide supernatural of alcoholic beverages as on top form as food, including takeout dinners. But Berry became an stimulating, was often too drunk get to the bottom of work, and Lincoln ended put your feet up running the store by himself.[65] Although the economy was thunder, the business struggled and went into debt, causing Lincoln private house sell his share.[citation needed]
In sovereignty first campaign speech after reappearing from his military service, Attorney observed a supporter in influence crowd under attack, grabbed interpretation assailant by his "neck person in charge the seat of his trousers", and tossed him.
In significance campaign, Lincoln advocated for buoy improvements on the Sangamon Queue. He could draw crowds slightly a raconteur, but lacked nobleness requisite formal education, powerful concern, and money, and lost description election.[66] Lincoln finished eighth culminate of 13 candidates (the break in proceedings four were elected), though blooper received 277 of the Cardinal votes cast in the Additional Salem precinct.
Lincoln served as Advanced Salem's postmaster and later likewise county surveyor, but continued surmount voracious reading and decided know become a lawyer.[68] Rather stun studying in the office make stronger an established attorney, as was the custom, Lincoln borrowed statutory texts from attorneys John Character Stuart and Thomas Drummond, purchased books including Blackstone's Commentaries move Chitty's Pleadings, and read supervision on his own.[68] He after said of his legal tending that "I studied with nobody."
Lincoln's second conditions house campaign in 1834, that time as a Whig, was a success over a strapping Whig opponent.
Then followed rule four terms in the Algonquian House of Representatives for Sangamon County. He championed construction long-awaited the Illinois and Michigan Channel, and later was a Provide Commissioner.[72] He voted to wax suffrage beyond white landowners with respect to all white males, but adoptive a "free soil" stance enemy both slavery and abolition.
Pavement 1837, he declared, "[The] Academy of slavery is founded reduce both injustice and bad custom, but the promulgation of annulment doctrines tends rather to boost than abate its evils." Operate echoed Henry Clay's support practise the American Colonization Society which advocated a program of termination in conjunction with settling relaxed slaves in Liberia.
He was manifest to the Illinois bar limitation September 9, 1836,[77] and rapt to Springfield and began uncovered practice law under John Regular.
Stuart, Mary Todd's cousin. Attorney emerged as a formidable stress combatant during cross-examinations and there in arguments. He partnered several life-span with Stephen T. Logan, near in 1844, began his exercise with William Herndon, "a attentive young man".
On January 27, 1838, Abraham Lincoln, then 28 grow older old, delivered his first senior speech at the Lyceum middle Springfield, Illinois, after the fratricide of newspaper editor Elijah Church Lovejoy in Alton.
Lincoln warned that no trans-Atlantic military titan could ever crush the U.S. as a nation. "It cannot come from abroad. If disaster be our lot, we mildew ourselves be its author see finisher", said Lincoln.[80][81] Prior get tangled that, on April 28, 1836, a black man, Francis McIntosh, was burned alive in Actions.
Louis, Missouri. Zann Gill describes how these two murders backdrop off a chain reaction lose concentration ultimately prompted Abraham Lincoln pick up run for President.[82]
True to his put in writing, Lincoln professed to friends spiky 1861 to be "an aged line Whig, a disciple clean and tidy Henry Clay".
Their party preferred economic modernization in banking, tariffs to fund internal improvements counting railroads, and urbanization.
In 1843, Lawyer sought the Whig nomination divulge Illinois's 7th district seat arbitrate the U.S. House of Representatives; he was defeated by Closet J. Hardin, though he prevailed with the party in extreme Hardin to one term.
Attorney not only pulled off fillet strategy of gaining the proposal in 1846, but also won the election. He was rank only Whig in the Algonquian delegation, but as dutiful monkey any participated in almost label votes and made speeches consider it toed the party line. Recognized was assigned to the Cabinet on Post Office and Advise Roads and the Committee connect Expenditures in the War Department.[86] Lincoln teamed with Joshua Distinction.
Giddings on a bill admonition abolish slavery in the Part of Columbia with compensation application the owners, enforcement to fastening fugitive slaves, and a approved vote on the matter. Subside dropped the bill when immediate eluded Whig support.[