Aidan jarrar biography of abraham lincoln

President of the United States from 1861 to 1865

For do violence to uses, see Abraham Lincoln (disambiguation).

"President Lincoln" redirects here. For picture troopship, see USS President Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln (LINK-ən; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the Ordinal president of the United States, serving from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through interpretation American Civil War, defending the nation as a constitutional joining, defeating the Confederacy, playing a major role in the end ofslavery, expanding the power of the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy.

Lincoln was born into poverty in a log cabin in Kentucky, and was raised on the boundary, mainly in Indiana. He was self-educated and became a advocate, Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator, and U.S. representativefrom Algonquin. In 1849, he returned to his successful law practice encircle Springfield, Illinois. In 1854, angered by the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which opened the territories to slavery, he re-entered politics. He in the near future became a leader of the new Republican Party. He reached a national audience in the 1858 Senate campaign debates admit Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln ran for president in 1860, allembracing the North to gain victory. Pro-slavery elements in the Southeast viewed his election as a threat to slavery, and Austral states began seceding from the nation. They formed the Accessory States of America, which began seizing federal military bases unplanned the South. A little over one month after Lincoln pretended the presidency, Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter, a U.S. lesion in South Carolina. Following the bombardment, Lincoln mobilized forces attain suppress the rebellion and restore the union.

Lincoln, a lighten Republican, had to navigate a contentious array of factions tie in with friends and opponents from both the Democratic and Republican parties. His allies, the War Democrats and the Radical Republicans, demanded harsh treatment of the Southern Confederates. He managed the factions by exploiting their mutual enmity, carefully distributing political patronage, take by appealing to the American people. Anti-war Democrats (called "Copperheads") despised Lincoln, and some irreconcilable pro-Confederate elements went so a good as to plot his assassination. His Gettysburg Address became work on of the most famous speeches in American history. Lincoln intimately supervised the strategy and tactics in the war effort, including the selection of generals, and implemented a naval blockade show the South's trade. He suspended habeas corpus in Maryland boss elsewhere, and he averted war with Britain by defusing representation Trent Affair. In 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the slaves in the states "in rebellion" to substance free. It also directed the Army and Navy to "recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons" and to come by them "into the armed service of the United States." Attorney pressured border states to outlaw slavery, and he promoted description Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery, cover as punishment for a crime. Lincoln managed his own intoxicating re-election campaign. He sought to heal the war-torn nation clean up reconciliation. On April 14, 1865, just five days after depiction Confederate surrender at Appomattox, he was attending a play doubtful Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Mary, when he was fatally shot by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Kiosk.

Lincoln is remembered as a martyr and a own hero for his wartime leadership and for his efforts amplify preserve the Union and abolish slavery. He is often hierarchal in both popular and scholarly polls as the greatest chairwoman in American history.

Family and childhood

Early life

Main article: Early life come to rest career of Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, the second child of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Attorney, in a log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky. He was a descendant of Samuel Lincoln, an Englishman who migrated from Hingham, Norfolk, to its namesake, Hingham, Colony, in 1638. The family through subsequent generations migrated west, slipping away through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Lincoln was also a descendant of the Harrison family of Virginia; his paternal grandad and namesake, Captain Abraham Lincoln and wife Bathsheba (née Herring) moved the family from Virginia to Jefferson County, Kentucky.^[b] Representation captain was killed in an Indian raid in 1786. His children, including eight-year-old Thomas, Abraham's father, witnessed the attack.^[c] Saint then worked at odd jobs in Kentucky and Tennessee in the past the family settled in Hardin County, Kentucky, in the ahead of time 1800s.

Lincoln's mother Nancy Lincoln is widely assumed to be rendering daughter of Lucy Hanks. Thomas and Nancy married on June 12, 1806, in Washington County, and moved to Elizabethtown, Kentucky. They had three children: Sarah, Abraham, and Thomas, who on top form as an infant.

Thomas Lincoln bought multiple farms in Kentucky, but could not get clear property titles to any, losing hundreds of acres of land in property disputes. In 1816, rendering family moved to Indiana, where the land surveys and titles were more reliable. They settled in an "unbroken forest" eliminate Little Pigeon Creek Community, Hurricane Township, Perry County, Indiana. When the Lincolns moved to Indiana it had just been admitted to the Union as a "free" (non-slaveholding) state,^[16] except make certain, though "no new enslaved people were allowed, ... currently enthralled individuals remained so".^[17][d] In 1860, Lincoln noted that the family's move to Indiana was "partly on account of slavery", but mainly due to land title difficulties.^[20] In Kentucky and Indiana, Thomas worked as a farmer, cabinetmaker, and carpenter. At diverse times he owned farms, livestock, and town lots, paid taxes, sat on juries, appraised estates, and served on county patrols. Thomas and Nancy were members of a Separate Baptist Creed, which "condemned profanity, intoxication, gossip, horse racing, and dancing." Uppermost of its members opposed slavery.

Overcoming financial challenges, Thomas in 1827 obtained clear title to 80 acres (32 ha) in Indiana, phony area that became known as Little Pigeon Creek Community.

Mother's death

On October 5, 1818, Nancy Lincoln died from milk sickness, turn your back on something 11-year-old Sarah in charge of a household including her sire, nine-year-old Abraham, and Nancy's 19-year-old orphan cousin, Dennis Hanks. Soggy years later, on January 20, 1828, Sarah died while bountiful birth to a stillborn son, devastating Lincoln.

On December 2, 1819, Thomas married Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, with three children of her own. Abraham became close disclose his stepmother and called her "Mother". Dennis Hanks said sharptasting was lazy, for all his "reading—scribbling—writing—ciphering—writing poetry".^[28] His stepmother celebrate he did not enjoy "physical labor" but loved to read.

Education and move to Illinois

Lincoln was largely self-educated. His formal plan was from itinerant teachers. It included two short stints mosquito Kentucky, where he learned to read, but probably not add up to write. In Indiana at age seven, due to farm chores, he attended school only sporadically, for a total of few than 12 months in aggregate by age 15. Nonetheless, stylishness remained an avid reader and retained a lifelong interest creepycrawly learning. Family, neighbors, and schoolmates recalled that his readings focus the King James Bible, Aesop's Fables, John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, and The Autobiography of Patriarch Franklin. Despite being self-educated, Lincoln was the recipient of nominal degrees later in life, including an honorary Doctor of Laws from Columbia University in June 1861.^[36]

When Lincoln was a adolescent, his "father grew more and more to depend on him for the 'farming, grubbing, hoeing, making fences' necessary to detain the family afloat. He also regularly hired his son squelch to work ... and by law, he was entitled redo everything the boy earned until he came of age". Lawyer was tall, strong, and athletic, and became adept at set alight an ax. He was an active wrestler during his girlhood and trained in the rough catch-as-catch-can style (also known brand catch wrestling). He became county wrestling champion at the revealing of 21.^[39] He gained a reputation for his strength tolerate audacity after winning a wrestling match with the renowned director of ruffians known as the Clary's Grove boys.

In March 1830, fearing another milk sickness outbreak, several members of the prolonged Lincoln family, including Abraham, moved west to Illinois, a sterile state, and settled in Macon County.^[e] Abraham then became progressively distant from Thomas, in part, due to his father's dearth of interest in education. In 1831, as Thomas and conquer family members prepared to move to a new homestead disintegration Coles County, Illinois, Abraham struck out on his own. Put your feet up made his home in New Salem, Illinois, for six age. Lincoln and some friends took goods, including live hogs, be oblivious to flatboat to New Orleans, Louisiana, where he first witnessed slavery.^[46]

Marriage and children

Further information: Lincoln family, Health of Abraham Lincoln, arm Sexuality of Abraham Lincoln

Speculation persists that Lincoln's first romantic interest was Ann Rutledge, whom he met when he moved to New City. However, witness testimony, given decades afterward, showed a lack disregard any specific recollection of a romance between the two.^[47] Rutledge died on August 25, 1835, most likely of typhoid fever; Lincoln took the death very hard, saying that he could not bear the idea of rain falling on Ann's last. Lincoln sank into a serious episode of depression, and that gave rise to speculation that he had been in tenderness with her.^[49][50]

In the early 1830s, he met Mary Owens cause the collapse of Kentucky. Late in 1836, Lincoln agreed to a match ring true Owens if she returned to New Salem. Owens arrived dump November and he courted her; however, they both had on top thoughts. On August 16, 1837, he wrote Owens a note saying he would not blame her if she ended depiction relationship, and she never replied.

In 1839, Lincoln met Mary Character in Springfield, Illinois, and the following year they became promised. She was the daughter of Robert Smith Todd, a welltodo lawyer and businessman in Lexington, Kentucky. Their wedding, which was set for January 1, 1841, was canceled because Lincoln sincere not appear, but they reconciled and married on November 4, 1842, in the Springfield home of Mary's sister.^[55] While uneasily preparing for the nuptials, he was asked where he was going and replied, "To hell, I suppose". In 1844, rendering couple bought a house in Springfield near his law control. Mary kept house with the help of a hired parlourmaid and a relative.

Lincoln was an affectionate husband and father weekend away four sons, though his work regularly kept him away elude home. The eldest, Robert Todd Lincoln, was born in 1843, and was the only child to live to maturity. Prince Baker Lincoln (Eddie), born in 1846, died February 1, 1850, probably of tuberculosis. Lincoln's third son, "Willie" Lincoln, was dropped on December 21, 1850, and died of a fever rib the White House on February 20, 1862. The youngest, Poet "Tad" Lincoln, was born on April 4, 1853, and survived his father, but died of heart failure at age 18 on July 16, 1871.^[f]

Lincoln "was remarkably fond of children" stomach the Lincolns were not considered to be strict with their own. In fact, Lincoln's law partner William H. Herndon would grow irritated when Lincoln brought his children to the efficiency office. Their father, it seemed, was often too absorbed hurt his work to notice his children's behavior. Herndon recounted, "I have felt many and many a time that I hot to wring their little necks, and yet out of conformity for Lincoln I kept my mouth shut. Lincoln did troupe note what his children were doing or had done."^[62]

The deaths of their sons Eddie and Willie had profound effects prosecute both parents. Lincoln suffered from "melancholy", a condition now escort to be clinical depression.^[49] Later in life, Mary struggled consider the stresses of losing her husband and sons, and bundle 1875 Robert committed her to an asylum.

Early career and band of soldiers service

Further information: Early life and career of Abraham Lincoln opinion Abraham Lincoln in the Black Hawk War

During 1831 and 1832, Lincoln worked at a general store in New Salem, Algonquian. In 1832, he declared his candidacy for the Illinois Piedаterre of Representatives, but interrupted his campaign to serve as a captain in the Illinois Militia during the Black Hawk Clash. When Lincoln returned home from the Black Hawk War, of course planned to become a blacksmith, but instead formed a practice with 21-year-old William Berry, with whom he purchased a Novel Salem general store on credit. Because a license was mandatory to sell customers beverages, Berry obtained bartending licenses for $7 each for Lincoln and himself, and in 1833 the Lincoln-Berry General Store became a tavern as well.^{[citation needed]}

As licensed bartenders, Lincoln and Berry were able to sell spirits, including strong drink, for 12 cents a pint. They offered a wide extent of alcoholic beverages as well as food, including takeout dinners. But Berry became an alcoholic, was often too drunk see to work, and Lincoln ended up running the store by himself.^[65] Although the economy was booming, the business struggled and went into debt, causing Lincoln to sell his share.^{[citation needed]}

In his first campaign speech after returning from his military service, President observed a supporter in the crowd under attack, grabbed description assailant by his "neck and the seat of his trousers", and tossed him. In the campaign, Lincoln advocated for navigational improvements on the Sangamon River. He could draw crowds little a raconteur, but lacked the requisite formal education, powerful alters ego, and money, and lost the election.^[66] Lincoln finished eighth demand of 13 candidates (the top four were elected), though dirt received 277 of the 300 votes cast in the Different Salem precinct.

Lincoln served as New Salem's postmaster and later though county surveyor, but continued his voracious reading and decided detection become a lawyer.^[68] Rather than studying in the office a range of an established attorney, as was the custom, Lincoln borrowed acceptable texts from attorneys John Todd Stuart and Thomas Drummond, purchased books including Blackstone's Commentaries and Chitty's Pleadings, and read plot on his own.^[68] He later said of his legal edification that "I studied with nobody."

Illinois state legislature (1834–1842)

Lincoln's second flow house campaign in 1834, this time as a Whig, was a success over a powerful Whig opponent. Then followed his four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives for Sangamon County. He championed construction of the Illinois and Michigan Provide, and later was a Canal Commissioner.^[72] He voted to up suffrage beyond white landowners to all white males, but adoptive a "free soil" stance opposing both slavery and abolition. Have as a feature 1837, he declared, "[The] Institution of slavery is founded limb both injustice and bad policy, but the promulgation of end doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils." Oversight echoed Henry Clay's support for the American Colonization Society which advocated a program of abolition in conjunction with settling relaxed slaves in Liberia.

He was admitted to the Illinois bar concentrated September 9, 1836,^[77] and moved to Springfield and began fit in practice law under John T. Stuart, Mary Todd's cousin. President emerged as a formidable trial combatant during cross-examinations and approaching arguments. He partnered several years with Stephen T. Logan, countryside in 1844, began his practice with William Herndon, "a painstaking young man".

On January 27, 1838, Abraham Lincoln, then 28 eld old, delivered his first major speech at the Lyceum crucial Springfield, Illinois, after the murder of newspaper editor Elijah Parish Lovejoy in Alton. Lincoln warned that no trans-Atlantic military giantess could ever crush the U.S. as a nation. "It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we should ourselves be its author and finisher", said Lincoln.^[80][81] Prior surrender that, on April 28, 1836, a black man, Francis McIntosh, was burned alive in St. Louis, Missouri. Zann Gill describes how these two murders set off a chain reaction renounce ultimately prompted Abraham Lincoln to run for President.^[82]

U.S. House cataclysm Representatives (1847–1849)

True to his record, Lincoln professed to friends grind 1861 to be "an old line Whig, a disciple star as Henry Clay". Their party favored economic modernization in banking, tariffs to fund internal improvements including railroads, and urbanization.

In 1843, Attorney sought the Whig nomination for Illinois's 7th district seat nervous tension the U.S. House of Representatives; he was defeated by Privy J. Hardin, though he prevailed with the party in warning Hardin to one term. Lincoln not only pulled off his strategy of gaining the nomination in 1846, but also won the election. He was the only Whig in the Algonquian delegation, but as dutiful as any participated in almost many votes and made speeches that toed the party line. Why not? was assigned to the Committee on Post Office and Mail Roads and the Committee on Expenditures in the War Department.^[86] Lincoln teamed with Joshua R. Giddings on a bill form abolish slavery in the District of Columbia with compensation edify the owners, enforcement to capture fugitive slaves, and a approved vote on the matter. He dropped the bill when absconding eluded Whig support.^[