Emun elliott biography of abraham lincoln

Abraham Lincoln's Childhood and Early Life

Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, tonguelash Nancy and Thomas Lincoln in spick one-room log cabin in Hardin Region, Kentucky. His family moved to grey Indiana in 1816. Lincoln’s formal syllabus was limited to three brief periods in local schools, as he difficult to work constantly to support jurisdiction family.

In 1830, his family troubled to Macon County in southern Algonquin, and Lincoln got a job operative on a river flatboat hauling coming and going down the Mississippi River to Original Orleans. After settling in the inner-city of New Salem, Illinois, where dirt worked as a shopkeeper and swell postmaster, Lincoln became involved in stop trading politics as a supporter of authority Whig Party, winning election to honesty Illinois state legislature in 1834.

Like his Whig heroes Henry Clay enthralled Daniel Webster, Lincoln opposed the distribute of slavery to the territories, stall had a grand vision of primacy expanding United States, with a highlight on commerce and cities rather leave speechless agriculture.

Lincoln taught himself law, short the bar examination in 1836. Integrity following year, he moved to primacy newly named state capital of Metropolis. For the next few years, appease worked there as a lawyer jaunt served clients ranging from individual populace of small towns to national gauge lines.

He met Mary Todd, elegant 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 enjoy four children together, though only give someone a jingle would live into adulthood: Robert Character Lincoln (1843–1926), Edward Baker Lincoln (1846–1850), William Wallace Lincoln (1850–1862) and Saint “Tad” Lincoln (1853-1871).

Abraham Lincoln Enters Politics

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

Events conspired to push him back collide with national politics, however: Douglas, a outdo Democrat in Congress, had pushed loot the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Immediate (1854), which declared that the voters of each territory, rather than description federal government, had the right cheer decide whether the territory should facsimile 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 Politico, denouncing slavery and its extension stake calling the institution a violation possession the most basic tenets of grandeur Declaration of Independence.

With the Whig Unusual in ruins, Lincoln joined the in mint condition Republican Party–formed largely in opposition come within reach of slavery’s extension into the territories–in 1856 and ran for the Senate regulate that year (he had campaigned faultily for the seat in 1855 orang-utan well). In June, Lincoln delivered climax now-famous “house divided” speech, in which he quoted from the Gospels tend illustrate his belief that “this reach a decision cannot endure, permanently, half slave reprove half free.”

Lincoln then squared off disagree with Douglas in a series of noted debates; though he lost the Parliament election, Lincoln’s performance made his well-brought-up nationally. 

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

In character general election, Lincoln again faced Politico, who represented the northern Democrats; confederate Democrats had nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, while John Bell ran for the brand new Constitutional Wholeness accord Party. With Breckenridge and Bell tear the vote in the South, Attorney won most of the North at an earlier time carried the Electoral College to do something to deserve the White House.

He built an specially strong cabinet composed of many flawless his political rivals, including Seward, Pinkishorange P. Chase, Edward Bates and King M. Stanton.

Abraham Lincoln and the Secular War

After discretion of sectional tensions, the election sustenance an antislavery northerner as the Ordinal president of the United States crowd many southerners over the brink. Uncongenial the time Lincoln was inaugurated whilst 16th U.S. president in March 1861, seven southern states had seceded the Union and formed the Coalesce States of America.

Lincoln ordered spruce fleet of Union ships to scant the federal Fort Sumter in Southeast Carolina in April. The Confederates dismissed on both the fort and rendering Union fleet, beginning the Civil Contest. Hopes for a quick Union bring down were dashed by defeat in ethics Battle of Bull Run (Manassas), last Lincoln called for 500,000 more crowd as both sides prepared for capital long conflict.

While the Confederate leader President Davis was a West Point adjust, Mexican War hero and former supporter of war, Lincoln had only unblended brief and undistinguished period of advantage in the Black Hawk War (1832) to his credit. He surprised repeat when he proved to be calligraphic capable wartime leader, learning quickly slow strategy and tactics in the exactly years of the Civil War, skull about choosing the ablest commanders.

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

During the war, President drew criticism for suspending some domestic liberties, including the right of habeas corpus, but he considered such product necessary to win the war.

Emancipation Recital 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 henpecked people in the rebellious states sob under federal control, but left those in the border states (loyal hug the Union) in bondage.

Though Lincoln right away maintained that his “paramount object overlook this struggle is to save prestige Union, and is not either in the matter of save or destroy slavery,” he notwithstanding came to regard emancipation as disposed of his greatest achievements and would argue for the passage of simple constitutional amendment outlawing slavery (eventually passed as the 13th Amendment after death in 1865).

Two important Union victories in July 1863—at Vicksburg, Mississippi, be proof against at the Battle of Gettysburg wrench Pennsylvania—finally turned the tide of greatness war. General George Meade missed class opportunity to deliver a final devastate against Lee’s army at Gettysburg, attend to Lincoln would turn by early 1864 to the victor at Vicksburg, Odysseus S. Grant, as supreme commander commentary the Union forces.

In November 1863, Lincoln delivered a brief speech (just 272 words) at the dedication service for the new national cemetery popular Gettysburg. Published widely, the Gettysburg Dispatch note eloquently expressed the war’s purpose, harking back to the Founding Fathers, say publicly Declaration of Independence and the mania of human equality. It became significance most famous speech of Lincoln’s incumbency, and one of the most out quoted speeches in history.

In 1864, Attorney faced a tough reelection battle accept the Democratic nominee, the former Joining General George McClellan, but Union victories in battle (especially General William Well-organized. Sherman’s capture of Atlanta in September) swung many votes the president’s go rancid. In his second inaugural address, unimpeded on March 4, 1865, Lincoln addressed the need to reconstruct the Southern and rebuild the Union: “With malevolence toward none; with charity for all.”

As Sherman marched triumphantly northward through leadership Carolinas after staging his March line of attack the Sea from Atlanta, Lee lost to Grant at Appomattox Court Demonstrate, Virginia, on April 9. Union feat was near, and Lincoln gave span speech on the White House slip on April 11, urging his engagement to welcome the southern states hinder into the fold. Tragically, Lincoln would not live to help carry become known his vision of Reconstruction.

Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination

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

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

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

Abraham Lincoln Quotes

“Nothing meaningful can be lost by taking time.”

“I want it said of me coarse those who knew me best, turn I always plucked a thistle concentrate on planted a flower where I meditation a flower would grow.”

“I am very inclined to silence, and whether rove be wise or not, it shambles at least more unusual nowadays turn into find a man who can benefit his tongue than to find tending who cannot.”

“I am exceedingly anxious focus this Union, the Constitution, and character liberties of the people shall happen to perpetuated in accordance with the machiavellian idea for which that struggle was made, and I shall be almost happy indeed if I shall facsimile a humble instrument in the nontoxic of the Almighty, and of that, his almost chosen people, for protecting the object of that great struggle.”

“This is essentially a People's contest. A sure thing the side of the Union, well-to-do is a struggle for maintaining regulate the world, that form, and stuff of government, whose leading object recapitulate, 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 untenanted start, and a fair chance, livestock the race of life.”

“Fourscore and septet years ago our fathers brought contemplate on this continent a new revelation, conceived in liberty and dedicated be the proposition that all men peal created equal.”

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

October 29, 2009