ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I-Life
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in Hodgenville, Kentucky, United States. His
parents were Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks. His family was very poor. Abraham had one
brother and one sister. His brother died in childhood. They grew up in a small log cabin, with just
one room inside. Although slavery was legal in Kentucky at that time, Lincoln's father, who was a
religious Baptist, refused to own any slaves. When Lincoln was seven years old, his family moved
to Indiana. Later they moved to Illinois. In his childhood he helped his father on the farm, but
when he was 22 years old he left home and moved to New Salem, Illinois, where he worked in
a general store. Later, he said that he had gone to school for just one year, but that was enough
to learn how to read, write, and do simple math. In 1842, he married Mary Todd Lincoln. They
had four children, but three of them died when they were very young. Abraham Lincoln was
sometimes called Abe Lincoln or "Honest Abe" after he ran miles to give a customer the right
amount of change. The nickname "Honest Abe" came from a time when he started a business
that failed. Instead of running away like many people would have, he stayed and worked to pay
off his debt.[6]

II-Early political career

Lincoln started his political career in 1832 when he ran for the IGA Illinois General Assembly, but
he lost the election. He served as a captain in the Illinois militia during the Black Hawk War, a war
with Native American tribes. When he moved to Springfield in 1837, he began to work as
a lawyer. Soon, he became one of the most highly respected lawyers in Illinois. [7][8] In 1837, as a
member of the Illinois General Assembly, Lincoln issued a written protest of its passage of a
resolution stating that slavery could not be abolished in Washington, D.C. In 1841, he won a court
case (Bailey v. Cromwell). He represented a black woman who claimed she had already been
freed and could not be sold as a slave. In 1847, he lost a case (Matson v. Rutherford)
representing a slave owner (Robert Matson) claiming return of fugitive slaves. After he moved to
Illinois, he worked as a shopkeeper and postmaster. He rode the circuit of courts for many years.
When he was 21, he worked on a flatboat that carried freight. He joined the Independent Spy
Corp. At first, he was a member of the Whig Party. He later became a Republican. Lincoln ran for
senate against Stephen A. Douglas. Douglas won. In 1846, Lincoln joined the Whig Party and
was elected to one term in the House of Representatives. After that, he ignored his political
career and instead worked as a lawyer. In 1854, in reaction to the passage of the Kansas-
Nebraska Act, Lincoln became involved in politics again. He joined the Republican Party, which
had recently been formed in opposition to the expansion of slavery. In 1858, he wanted to
become senator; although this was unsuccessful, the debates drew national attention to
him. The Republican Party nominated him for the Presidential election of 1860.
III-Presidency

A sketch of candidate Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln was chosen as a candidate for the elections in 1860 for different reasons. Among these
reasons were that his views on slavery were less extreme than those of other people who wanted
to be candidates. Lincoln was from what was then one of the Western states, and had a bigger
chance of winning the election there. Other candidates that were older or more  experienced than
him had enemies inside the party. Lincoln's family was poor, which added to the Republican
position of free labor, the opposite of slave labor. Lincoln won the election in 1860, and was made
the 16th President of the United States. He won with almost no votes in the South. For the first
time, a president had won the election because of the large support he got from the states in the
North.[14] During his presidency Lincoln became well-known because of his large stovepipe hat. He
used his tall hat to store papers and documents when he was traveling.

IV-Lincoln and the Civil War

The first photographic image of the new president

After Lincoln's election in 1860, seven States (South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida,
Georgia, Texas and Louisiana) formed the Confederate States of America. When the United
States refused to surrender Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, the Confederates
attacked the fort, beginning the American Civil War. Later, four more states (Arkansas, Virginia,
Tennessee, and North Carolina) joined the Confederacy for a total of eleven. In his whole period
as President, he had to rebuild the Union with military force and many bloody battles. He also had
to stop the "border states", like Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland, from leaving the Union and
joining the Confederacy.
Lincoln was not a general, and had only been in the army for a short time during the  Black Hawk
War.[16] However, he still took a major role in the war, often spending days and days in the War
Department. His plan was to cut off the South by surrounding it with ships, control the  Mississippi
River, and take Richmond, the Confederate capital. He often clashed with generals in the field,
especially George B. McClellan, and fired generals who lost battles or were
not aggressive enough. Eventually, he made Ulysses S. Grant the top general in the army.

V-Emancipation Proclamation
With the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, Lincoln ordered the freedom of all
slaves in those states still in rebellion during the American Civil War. It did not actually
immediately free all those slaves however, since those areas were still controlled by the rebelling
states of the Confederacy. Only a small number of slaves already behind Union lines were
immediately freed. As the Union army advanced, nearly all four million slaves were effectively
freed. Some former slaves joined the Union army. The Proclamation also did not free slaves in
the slave states that had remained loyal to the Union (the federal government of the US). Neither
did it apply to areas where Union forces had already regained control. [1]Until the Thirteenth
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865, only the states had power to end slavery within their
own borders, so Lincoln issued the proclamation as a war measure.
The Proclamation made freeing the slaves a Union goal for the war, and put an end to
movements in European nations (especially in Great Britain and France) that would have
recognized the Confederacy as an independent nation. Lincoln then sponsored a constitutional
amendment to free all slaves. The Thirteenth Amendment, making slavery illegal everywhere in
the United States, was passed late in 1865, eight months after Lincoln was assassinated.

Gettysburg Address
Lincoln made a famous speech after the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 called the Gettysburg
Address. The battle was very important, and many soldiers from both sides died. The speech was
given at the new cemetery for the dead soldiers. It is one of the most famous speeches in
American history.

Second term and assassination

Lincoln was reelected president in 1864 and re-inaugurated March 4 1865. Soon afterwards, it
appeared likely that the Union would win the Civil War. Lincoln proposed lenient terms for
restoring self-government in the states that had rebelled. On April 9 1865, the leading
Confederate general, Robert E. Lee, surrendered his armies. On April 11, 1865, Lincoln gave a
speech in which he promoted voting rights for blacks.

Shown in the presidential booth of Ford's Theatre, from left to right, are assassin John Wilkes Booth,
Abraham Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln, Clara Harris, and Henry Rathbone
On April 14th, Lincoln went to attend a play with his wife at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C..
During the third act of the play, John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and a Confederate spy
from Maryland, entered the presidential box and shot Lincoln at point-blank range, mortally
wounding him. An unconscious Lincoln was carried across the street to Petersen House. He was
placed diagonally on the bed because his tall frame would not fit normally on the smaller bed.  He
remained in a coma for nine hours before dying the next morning. According to some accounts, at
his last drawn breath, on the morning after the assassination, he smiled broadly and then expired.
Lincoln was the first American president to be assassinated.
Booth escaped, but died from shots fired during his capture on April 26.

Legacy

Lincoln, painting by George Peter Alexander Healy in 1869

Lincoln has been consistently ranked both by scholars] and the publicas one of the greatest U.S.
presidents. He is often considered the greatest president for his leadership during the American
Civil War and his eloquence in speeches such as the Gettysburg Address.