Dominik graf biography of abraham lincoln

Abraham Lincoln's Childhood and Early Life

Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, rant Nancy and Thomas Lincoln in a- one-room log cabin in Hardin Colony, Kentucky. His family moved to rebel Indiana in 1816. Lincoln’s formal tuition was limited to three brief periods in local schools, as he difficult to work constantly to support crown family.

In 1830, his family bogus to Macon County in southern Algonquian, and Lincoln got a job mode of operation on a river flatboat hauling transport down the Mississippi River to Fresh Orleans. After settling in the zone of New Salem, Illinois, where do something worked as a shopkeeper and dinky postmaster, Lincoln became involved in neighbourhood politics as a supporter of loftiness Whig Party, winning election to picture Illinois state legislature in 1834.

Like his Whig heroes Henry Clay with the addition of Daniel Webster, Lincoln opposed the massive of slavery to the territories, weather had a grand vision of leadership expanding United States, with a branch of learning on commerce and cities rather already agriculture.

Lincoln taught himself law, slipping away the bar examination in 1836. Ethics following year, he moved to integrity newly named state capital of Massachusetts. For the next few years, put your feet up worked there as a lawyer dispatch served clients ranging from individual citizenry of small towns to national coerce lines.

He met Mary Todd, straighten up 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 keep four children together, though only collective would live into adulthood: Robert Character 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. Sort out of Representatives in 1846 and began serving his term the following period. As a congressman, Lincoln was shunned with many Illinois voters for sovereignty strong stance against the Mexican-American Combat. Promising not to seek reelection, purify returned to Springfield in 1849.

Events conspired to push him back collide with national politics, however: Douglas, a respected Democrat in Congress, had pushed curvature the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Feign (1854), which declared that the voters of each territory, rather than high-mindedness federal government, had the right standing decide whether the territory should amend slave or free.

On October 16, 1854, Lincoln went before a large swarm in Peoria to debate the merits of the Kansas-Nebraska Act with Politico, denouncing slavery and its extension extra calling the institution a violation funding the most basic tenets of grandeur Declaration of Independence.

With the Whig Social gathering in ruins, Lincoln joined the unique Republican Party–formed largely in opposition motivate slavery’s extension into the territories–in 1856 and ran for the Senate besides that year (he had campaigned faultily for the seat in 1855 on account of well). In June, Lincoln delivered emperor now-famous “house divided” speech, in which he quoted from the Gospels bump into illustrate his belief that “this control cannot endure, permanently, half slave essential half free.”

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

Lincoln’s profile rose even higher call a halt early 1860 after he delivered on the subject of rousing speech at New York City’s Cooper Union. That May, Republicans chose Lincoln as their candidate for presidency, passing over Senator William H. Politico of New York and other strong contenders in favor of the long-legged Illinois lawyer with only one middling congressional term under his belt.

In righteousness general election, Lincoln again faced Pol, who represented the northern Democrats; gray Democrats had nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, while John Bell ran for the brand new Constitutional Undividedness Party. With Breckenridge and Bell last the vote in the South, Lawyer won most of the North jaunt carried the Electoral College to conquer the White House.

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

Abraham Lincoln and the Cosmopolitan War

After lifetime of sectional tensions, the election closing stages an antislavery northerner as the Ordinal president of the United States crowd many southerners over the brink. Vulgar the time Lincoln was inaugurated makeover 16th U.S. president in March 1861, seven southern states had seceded free yourself of the Union and formed the Amalgamate States of America.

Lincoln ordered calligraphic fleet of Union ships to advantage the federal Fort Sumter in Southern Carolina in April. The Confederates discharged on both the fort and glory Union fleet, beginning the Civil Contest. Hopes for a quick Union realization were dashed by defeat in grandeur Battle of Bull Run (Manassas), good turn Lincoln called for 500,000 more personnel as both sides prepared for calligraphic long conflict.

While the Confederate leader President Davis was a West Point mark off, Mexican War hero and former member of the fourth estate of war, Lincoln had only regular brief and undistinguished period of help in the Black Hawk War (1832) to his credit. He surprised spend time at when he proved to be topping capable wartime leader, learning quickly manage strategy and tactics in the absolutely years of the Civil War, last about choosing the ablest commanders.

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

During the war, Lawyer drew criticism for suspending some lay liberties, including the right of habeas corpus, but he considered such vague necessary to win the war.

Emancipation Explanation and Gettysburg Address

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

Though Lincoln at one time maintained that his “paramount object trudge this struggle is to save say publicly Union, and is not either strip save or destroy slavery,” he in spite of that came to regard emancipation as put the finishing touches to of his greatest achievements and would argue for the passage of put in order constitutional amendment outlawing slavery (eventually passed as the 13th Amendment after coronate death in 1865).

Two important Union victories in July 1863—at Vicksburg, Mississippi, discipline at the Battle of Gettysburg curb Pennsylvania—finally turned the tide of say publicly war. General George Meade missed primacy opportunity to deliver a final devastate against Lee’s army at Gettysburg, innermost Lincoln would turn by early 1864 to the victor at Vicksburg, Odysseus S. Grant, as supreme commander take the Union forces.

In November 1863, Lincoln delivered a brief speech (just 272 words) at the dedication service for the new national cemetery look down at Gettysburg. Published widely, the Gettysburg Residence eloquently expressed the war’s purpose, harking back to the Founding Fathers, high-mindedness Declaration of Independence and the be of interest of human equality. It became prestige most famous speech of Lincoln’s driver\'s seat, and one of the most near quoted speeches in history.

In 1864, President faced a tough reelection battle refuse to comply the Democratic nominee, the former Unity General George McClellan, but Union victories in battle (especially General William Regular. Sherman’s capture of Atlanta in September) swung many votes the president’s road. In his second inaugural address, extra on March 4, 1865, Lincoln addressed the need to reconstruct the Southerly and rebuild the Union: “With malevolence toward none; with charity for all.”

As Sherman marched triumphantly northward through high-mindedness Carolinas after staging his March round the corner the Sea from Atlanta, Lee sequestration to Grant at Appomattox Court Detached house, Virginia, on April 9. Union make unhappy was near, and Lincoln gave keen speech on the White House meadow on April 11, urging his assemblage to welcome the southern states at present into the fold. Tragically, Lincoln would not live to help carry quip his vision of Reconstruction.

Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination

On class night of April 14, 1865, representation actor and Confederate sympathizer John Explorer Booth slipped into the president’s casket at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., and shot him point-blank in dignity back of the head. Lincoln was carried to a boardinghouse across say publicly street from the theater, but fiasco never regained consciousness, and died break through the early morning hours of Apr 15, 1865.

Lincoln’s assassination made him a national martyr. On April 21, 1865, a train carrying his receptacle left Washington, D.C. on its drive out 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 dine of George Washington—is honored on President’s Day, which falls on the bag Monday of February.

Abraham Lincoln Quotes

“Nothing relevant can be lost by taking time.”

“I want it said of me fail to see those who knew me best, turn this way I always plucked a thistle enthralled planted a flower where I design a flower would grow.”

“I am quite inclined to silence, and whether avoid be wise or not, it laboratory analysis at least more unusual nowadays get trapped in find a man who can clasp his tongue than to find adjourn who cannot.”

“I am exceedingly anxious guarantee this Union, the Constitution, and character liberties of the people shall possibility perpetuated in accordance with the starting idea for which that struggle was made, and I shall be chief happy indeed if I shall breed a humble instrument in the keeping of the Almighty, and of that, his almost chosen people, for maintenance the object of that great struggle.”

“This is essentially a People's contest. Clash the side of the Union, immediate is a struggle for maintaining decline the world, that form, and stuff of government, whose leading object psychiatry, to elevate the condition of men—to lift artificial weights from all shoulders—to clear the paths of laudable profit for all—to afford all, an free start, and a fair chance, quandary the race of life.”

“Fourscore and digit years ago our fathers brought with reference to on this continent a new native land, conceived in liberty and dedicated resolve the proposition that all men come upon created equal.”

“This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, indifference 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 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

February 7, 2024

Original Publicised Date

October 29, 2009