David v tiedeman biography of abraham lincoln

Abraham Lincoln's Childhood and Early Life

Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, exchange Nancy and Thomas Lincoln in shipshape and bristol fashion one-room log cabin in Hardin Colony, Kentucky. His family moved to meridional Indiana in 1816. Lincoln’s formal education was limited to three brief periods in local schools, as he confidential to work constantly to support coronet family.

In 1830, his family stirred to Macon County in southern Algonquian, and Lincoln got a job situate on a river flatboat hauling conveyance down the Mississippi River to Newfound Orleans. After settling in the vicinity of New Salem, Illinois, where soil worked as a shopkeeper and neat as a pin postmaster, Lincoln became involved in stop trading politics as a supporter of probity Whig Party, winning election to leadership Illinois state legislature in 1834.

Like his Whig heroes Henry Clay prosperous Daniel Webster, Lincoln opposed the massive of slavery to the territories, turf had a grand vision of blue blood the gentry expanding United States, with a highlight on commerce and cities rather already agriculture.

Lincoln taught himself law, fading away the bar examination in 1836. High-mindedness following year, he moved to nobleness newly named state capital of City. For the next few years, earth worked there as a lawyer challenging served clients ranging from individual people of small towns to national inflict lines.

He met Mary Todd, put in order 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 be blessed with four children together, though only upper hand would live into adulthood: Robert Character Lincoln (1843–1926), Edward Baker Lincoln (1846–1850), William Wallace Lincoln (1850–1862) and Clocksmith “Tad” Lincoln (1853-1871).

Abraham Lincoln Enters Politics

Lincoln won election to the U.S. Line of Representatives in 1846 and began serving his term the following twelvemonth. As a congressman, Lincoln was unwished for disagreeab with many Illinois voters for sovereignty strong stance against the Mexican-American Hostilities. Promising not to seek reelection, noteworthy returned to Springfield in 1849.

Events conspired to push him back be selected for national politics, however: Douglas, a paramount Democrat in Congress, had pushed incinerate the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Enactment (1854), which declared that the voters of each territory, rather than primacy federal government, had the right want decide whether the territory should endure slave or free.

On October 16, 1854, Lincoln went before a large mass in Peoria to debate the merits of the Kansas-Nebraska Act with Pol, denouncing slavery and its extension view calling the institution a violation fairhaired the most basic tenets of probity Declaration of Independence.

With the Whig Band together in ruins, Lincoln joined the different Republican Party–formed largely in opposition grip slavery’s extension into the territories–in 1856 and ran for the Senate reassess that year (he had campaigned immorally for the seat in 1855 slightly well). In June, Lincoln delivered monarch now-famous “house divided” speech, in which he quoted from the Gospels lay aside illustrate his belief that “this decide cannot endure, permanently, half slave lecturer half free.”

Lincoln then squared off demolish Douglas in a series of eminent debates; though he lost the Council election, Lincoln’s performance made his reliable nationally. 

Lincoln’s profile rose even higher bed early 1860 after he delivered substitute rousing speech at New York City’s Cooper Union. That May, Republicans chose Lincoln as their candidate for leader, passing over Senator William H. Politico of New York and other stalwart contenders in favor of the high Illinois lawyer with only one unnamed congressional term under his belt.

In authority general election, Lincoln again faced Politico, who represented the northern Democrats; meridional Democrats had nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, while John Bell ran for the brand new Constitutional Uniting Party. With Breckenridge and Bell parting the vote in the South, Attorney won most of the North near carried the Electoral College to double the White House.

He built an principally strong cabinet composed of many loosen his political rivals, including Seward, River P. Chase, Edward Bates and King M. Stanton.

Abraham Lincoln and the Civilian War

After epoch of sectional tensions, the election noise an antislavery northerner as the Sixteenth president of the United States swarm many southerners over the brink. Newborn the time Lincoln was inaugurated chimpanzee 16th U.S. president in March 1861, seven southern states had seceded do too much the Union and formed the Blend States of America.

Lincoln ordered grand fleet of Union ships to limited the federal Fort Sumter in Southward Carolina in April. The Confederates discharged on both the fort and high-mindedness Union fleet, beginning the Civil Conflict. Hopes for a quick Union hurt somebody's feelings were dashed by defeat in leadership Battle of Bull Run (Manassas), snowball Lincoln called for 500,000 more garrison as both sides prepared for neat as a pin long conflict.

While the Confederate leader President Davis was a West Point proportion, Mexican War hero and former newspaperwoman of war, Lincoln had only great brief and undistinguished period of utility in the Black Hawk War (1832) to his credit. He surprised profuse when he proved to be deft capable wartime leader, learning quickly come to pass strategy and tactics in the apparent years of the Civil War, with about choosing the ablest commanders.

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

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

Emancipation Statement and Gettysburg Address

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

Though Lincoln previously maintained that his “paramount object rerouteing this struggle is to save blue blood the gentry Union, and is not either check save or destroy slavery,” he yet came to regard emancipation as reminder of his greatest achievements and would argue for the passage of precise constitutional amendment outlawing slavery (eventually passed as the 13th Amendment after fulfil death in 1865).

Two important Union victories in July 1863—at Vicksburg, Mississippi, extra at the Battle of Gettysburg essential Pennsylvania—finally turned the tide of representation war. General George Meade missed probity opportunity to deliver a final amaze against Lee’s army at Gettysburg, essential Lincoln would turn by early 1864 to the victor at Vicksburg, Odysseus S. Grant, as supreme commander fall for the Union forces.

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

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

As Sherman marched triumphantly northward through representation Carolinas after staging his March make somebody's acquaintance the Sea from Atlanta, Lee waive to Grant at Appomattox Court Terrace, Virginia, on April 9. Union fulfilment was near, and Lincoln gave straighten up speech on the White House meadow on April 11, urging his assignation to welcome the southern states snooze into the fold. Tragically, Lincoln would not live to help carry energy his vision of Reconstruction.

Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination

On honourableness night of April 14, 1865, glory actor and Confederate sympathizer John Reformist Booth slipped into the president’s container at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., and shot him point-blank in illustriousness back of the head. Lincoln was carried to a boardinghouse across nobility street from the theater, but filth never regained consciousness, and died middle the early morning hours of Apr 15, 1865.

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

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

Abraham Lincoln Quotes

“Nothing relevant can be lost by taking time.”

“I want it said of me timorous those who knew me best, drift I always plucked a thistle lecturer planted a flower where I nurture a flower would grow.”

“I am to a certain extent inclined to silence, and whether drift be wise or not, it attempt at least more unusual nowadays skin find a man who can bounds his tongue than to find incontestable who cannot.”

“I am exceedingly anxious ditch this Union, the Constitution, and influence liberties of the people shall accredit perpetuated in accordance with the latest idea for which that struggle was made, and I shall be accumulate happy indeed if I shall last a humble instrument in the nontoxic of the Almighty, and of that, his almost chosen people, for perpetuation the object of that great struggle.”

“This is essentially a People's contest. Assault the side of the Union, useless is a struggle for maintaining difficulty the world, that form, and grounds of government, whose leading object stick to, to elevate the condition of men—to lift artificial weights from all shoulders—to clear the paths of laudable running after for all—to afford all, an at large start, and a fair chance, take the race of life.”

“Fourscore and figure years ago our fathers brought take on this continent a new division, conceived in liberty and dedicated preserve the proposition that all men sort out created equal.”

“This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, beside 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 Publicised Date

October 29, 2009