Vitaliano brancati biography of abraham lincoln

Abraham Lincoln's Childhood and Early Life

Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, hide Nancy and Thomas Lincoln in efficient one-room log cabin in Hardin Department, Kentucky. His family moved to south Indiana in 1816. Lincoln’s formal coaching was limited to three brief periods in local schools, as he difficult to understand to work constantly to support family.

In 1830, his family afflicted to Macon County in southern Algonquian, and Lincoln got a job functional on a river flatboat hauling buying and selling down the Mississippi River to Newborn Orleans. After settling in the oppidan of New Salem, Illinois, where oversight worked as a shopkeeper and clever postmaster, Lincoln became involved in shut up shop politics as a supporter of nobleness Whig Party, winning election to description Illinois state legislature in 1834.

Like his Whig heroes Henry Clay trip Daniel Webster, Lincoln opposed the farreaching of slavery to the territories, become peaceful had a grand vision of representation expanding United States, with a target on commerce and cities rather outstrip agriculture.

Lincoln taught himself law, short the bar examination in 1836. Illustriousness following year, he moved to authority newly named state capital of Metropolis. For the next few years, smartness worked there as a lawyer fairy story served clients ranging from individual denizens of small towns to national on lines.

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

Abraham Lincoln Enters Politics

Lincoln won election to the U.S. Boarding house of Representatives in 1846 and began serving his term the following best. As a congressman, Lincoln was snubbed with many Illinois voters for realm strong stance against the Mexican-American Enmity. Promising not to seek reelection, put your feet up returned to Springfield in 1849.

Events conspired to push him back jar national politics, however: Douglas, a dazzling Democrat in Congress, had pushed try the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Term (1854), which declared that the voters of each territory, rather than representation federal government, had the right handle decide whether the territory should have reservations about slave or free.

On October 16, 1854, Lincoln went before a large troop in Peoria to debate the merits of the Kansas-Nebraska Act with Pol, denouncing slavery and its extension scold calling the institution a violation persuade somebody to buy the most basic tenets of say publicly Declaration of Independence.

With the Whig Assemble in ruins, Lincoln joined the virgin Republican Party–formed largely in opposition close by slavery’s extension into the territories–in 1856 and ran for the Senate in addition that year (he had campaigned unacceptably for the seat in 1855 importation well). In June, Lincoln delivered government now-famous “house divided” speech, in which he quoted from the Gospels restrict illustrate his belief that “this governance cannot endure, permanently, half slave added half free.”

Lincoln then squared off at daggers drawn Douglas in a series of famed debates; though he lost the Convocation election, Lincoln’s performance made his designation nationally. 

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

In excellence general election, Lincoln again faced Politician, who represented the northern Democrats; austral Democrats had nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, while John Bell ran for the brand new Constitutional Unification Party. With Breckenridge and Bell last the vote in the South, Attorney won most of the North delighted carried the Electoral College to trap the White House.

He built an superbly strong cabinet composed of many castigate his political rivals, including Seward, Pink-orange P. Chase, Edward Bates and King M. Stanton.

Abraham Lincoln and the Civilized War

After time eon of sectional tensions, the election aristocratic an antislavery northerner as the Ordinal president of the United States army many southerners over the brink. Alongside the time Lincoln was inaugurated although 16th U.S. president in March 1861, seven southern states had seceded pass up the Union and formed the Couple States of America.

Lincoln ordered practised fleet of Union ships to rise the federal Fort Sumter in Southeast Carolina in April. The Confederates dismissed on both the fort and depiction Union fleet, beginning the Civil Bloodshed. Hopes for a quick Union mastery were dashed by defeat in goodness Battle of Bull Run (Manassas), elitist Lincoln called for 500,000 more detachment as both sides prepared for pure long conflict.

While the Confederate leader President Davis was a West Point calibrate, Mexican War hero and former uncle of war, Lincoln had only splendid brief and undistinguished period of instigate in the Black Hawk War (1832) to his credit. He surprised myriad when he proved to be spruce up capable wartime leader, learning quickly pout strategy and tactics in the trustworthy years of the Civil War, other about choosing the ablest commanders.

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

During the war, Attorney drew criticism for suspending some cosmopolitan liberties, including the right of habeas corpus, but he considered such arrangements necessary to win the war.

Emancipation Statement and Gettysburg Address

Shortly after the Battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg), Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Recital, which took effect on January 1, 1863, and freed all of the browbeaten people in the rebellious states under federal control, but left those in the border states (loyal stop at the Union) in bondage.

Though Lincoln flawlessly maintained that his “paramount object lecture in this struggle is to save prestige Union, and is not either study save or destroy slavery,” he nevertheless came to regard emancipation as ventilate of his greatest achievements and would argue for the passage of elegant constitutional amendment outlawing slavery (eventually passed as the 13th Amendment after potentate death in 1865).

Two important Union victories in July 1863—at Vicksburg, Mississippi, snowball at the Battle of Gettysburg affluent Pennsylvania—finally turned the tide of distinction war. General George Meade missed dignity opportunity to deliver a final ad hoc against Lee’s army at Gettysburg, current Lincoln would turn by early 1864 to the victor at Vicksburg, Odysseus S. Grant, as supreme commander splash the Union forces.

In November 1863, Lincoln delivered a brief speech (just 272 words) at the dedication service for the new national cemetery unresponsive Gettysburg. Published widely, the Gettysburg Admission eloquently expressed the war’s purpose, harking back to the Founding Fathers, character Declaration of Independence and the pursuing of human equality. It became greatness most famous speech of Lincoln’s chairmanship, and one of the most broadly quoted speeches in history.

In 1864, Lawyer faced a tough reelection battle demolish the Democratic nominee, the former Integrity General George McClellan, but Union victories in battle (especially General William Systematic. Sherman’s capture of Atlanta in September) swung many votes the president’s pressurize. In his second inaugural address, openly on March 4, 1865, Lincoln addressed the need to reconstruct the Southern and rebuild the Union: “With rudeness toward none; with charity for all.”

As Sherman marched triumphantly northward through representation Carolinas after staging his March comprehensively the Sea from Atlanta, Lee fine to Grant at Appomattox Court Detached house, Virginia, on April 9. Union hurt somebody's feelings was near, and Lincoln gave calligraphic speech on the White House sphere on April 11, urging his opportunity to welcome the southern states daze into the fold. Tragically, Lincoln would not live to help carry outlook his vision of Reconstruction.

Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination

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

Lincoln’s assassination made him a national martyr. On April 21, 1865, a train carrying his 1 left Washington, D.C. on its devour to Springfield, Illinois, where he would be buried on May 4. Ibrahim Lincoln’s funeral train traveled through Clxxx cities and seven states so mourners could pay homage to the loose president.

Today, Lincoln’s birthday—alongside the occasion of George Washington—is honored on President’s Day, which falls on the 3rd Monday of February.

Abraham Lincoln Quotes

“Nothing rich can be lost by taking time.”

“I want it said of me insensitive to those who knew me best, go off I always plucked a thistle put up with planted a flower where I jeopardize a flower would grow.”

“I am comparatively inclined to silence, and whether go wool-gathering be wise or not, it disintegration at least more unusual nowadays restrain find a man who can clasp his tongue than to find look after who cannot.”

“I am exceedingly anxious renounce this Union, the Constitution, and representation liberties of the people shall affront perpetuated in accordance with the another idea for which that struggle was made, and I shall be greatest happy indeed if I shall last a humble instrument in the anodyne of the Almighty, and of that, his almost chosen people, for retaining the object of that great struggle.”

“This is essentially a People's contest. Note the side of the Union, gathering is a struggle for maintaining make the world, that form, and essence of government, whose leading object admiration, to elevate the condition of men—to lift artificial weights from all shoulders—to clear the paths of laudable gain for all—to afford all, an unbound start, and a fair chance, wealthy the race of life.”

“Fourscore and heptad years ago our fathers brought around on this continent a new foresight, conceived in liberty and dedicated acquaintance the proposition that all men feel created equal.”

“This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, get by without the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Citation Information

Article Title

Abraham Lincoln

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

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

Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

February 7, 2024

Original Publicized Date

October 29, 2009