Abraham
Lincoln Biography
byname Honest Abe, the Rail-Splitter , or the Great Emancipator
( 1809 – 1865 )
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States (1861-65),
who preserved the Union during the American Civil War and brought
about the emancipation of the slaves.
Among
American heroes, Lincoln continues to have a unique appeal for his
fellow countrymen and also for people of other lands. This charm derives
from his remarkable life story-the rise from humble origins, the dramatic
death-and from his distinctively human and humane personality as well
as from his historical role as savior of the Union and emancipator
of the slaves. His relevance endures and grows especially because
of his eloquence as a spokesman for democracy. In his view, the Union
was worth saving not only for its own sake but because it embodied
an ideal, the ideal of self-government. In recent years, the political
side to Lincoln's character, and his racial views in particular, have
come under close scrutiny, as scholars continue to find him a rich
subject for research. The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., was
dedicated to him on May 30, 1922.
(born February 12, 1809, near Hodgenville, Kentucky, U.S.—died
April 15, 1865, Washington, D.C.) 16th president of the United States
(1861–65), who preserved the Union during the American Civil
War and brought about the emancipation of the slaves. (For a discussion
of the history and nature of the presidency, presidency of the United
States of America.)(In February 2009, on the 200th anniversary of
Abraham Lincoln's birth, Britannica asked two prominent contributors
to answer some Lincoln-related questions on the Britannica Blog. Noted
historian James McPherson, author Tried by War and of Britannica's
article “Translating Thought in Action: Grant's Personal Memoirs,”
addresses Lincoln's role as commander in chief during the American
Civil War; and New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik, author Angels and Ages
and of the cultural life section of Britannica's United States article,
considers Lincoln's similarities and differences with Charles Darwin,
with whom he shares his birthday.)
Among
American heroes, Lincoln continues to have a unique appeal for his
fellow countrymen and also for people of other lands. This charm derives
from his remarkable life story—the rise from humble origins,
the dramatic death—and from his distinctively human and humane
personality as well as from his historical role as saviour of the
Union and emancipator of the slaves. His relevance endures and grows
especially because of his eloquence as a spokesman for democracy.
In his view, the Union was worth saving not only for its own sake
but because it embodied an ideal, the ideal of self-government. In
recent years, the political side to Lincoln's character, and his racial
views in particular, have come under close scrutiny, as scholars continue
to find him a rich subject for research. The Lincoln Memorial in Washington,
D.C., was dedicated to him on May 30, 1922.
Life
Born in a backwoods cabin 3 miles (5 km) south of Hodgenville, Kentucky,
Lincoln was two years old when he was taken to a farm in the neighbouring
valley of Knob Creek. His earliest memories were of this home and,
in particular, of a flash flood that once washed away the corn and
pumpkin seeds he had helped his father plant. His father, Thomas Lincoln,
was the descendant of a weaver's apprentice who had migrated from
England to Massachusetts in 1637. Though much less prosperous than
some of his Lincoln forebears, Thomas was a sturdy pioneer. On June
12, 1806, he married Nancy Hanks. The Hanks genealogy is difficult
to trace, but Nancy appears to have been of illegitimate birth. She
has been described as “stoop-shouldered, thin-breasted, sad,”
and fervently religious. Thomas and Nancy Lincoln had three children:
Sarah, Abraham, and Thomas, who died in infancy.
Childhood
and youth
In December 1816, faced with a lawsuit challenging the title to his
Kentucky farm, Thomas Lincoln moved with his family to southwestern
Indiana. There, as a squatter on public land, he hastily put up a
“half-faced camp”—a crude structure of logs and
boughs with one side open to the weather—in which the family
took shelter behind a blazing fire. Soon he built a permanent cabin,
and later he bought the land on which it stood. Abraham helped to
clear the fields and to take care of the crops but early acquired
a dislike for hunting and fishing. In afteryears he recalled the “panther's
scream,” the bears that “preyed on the swine,” and
the poverty of Indiana frontier life, which was “pretty pinching
at times.” The unhappiest period of his boyhood followed the
death of his mother in the autumn of 1818. As a ragged nine-year-old,
he saw her buried in the forest, then faced a winter without the warmth
of a mother's love. Fortunately, before the onset of a second winter,
Thomas Lincoln brought home from Kentucky a new wife for himself,
a new mother for the children. Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln, a widow
with two girls and a boy of her own, had energy and affection to spare.
She ran the household with an even hand, treating both sets of children
as if she had borne them all; but she became especially fond of Abraham,
and he of her. He afterward referred to her as his “angel mother.”
His
stepmother doubtless encouraged Lincoln's taste for reading, yet the
original source of his desire to learn remains something of a mystery.
Both his parents were almost completely illiterate, and he himself
received little formal education. He once said that, as a boy, he
had gone to school “by littles”—a little now and
a little then—and his entire schooling amounted to no more than
one year's attendance. His neighbours later recalled how he used to
trudge for miles to borrow a book. According to his own statement,
however, his early surroundings provided “absolutely nothing
to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age I
did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher
to the rule of three; but that was all.” Apparently the young
Lincoln did not read a large number of books but thoroughly absorbed
the few that he did read. These included Parson Weems's Life and Memorable
Actions of George Washington (with its story of the little hatchet
and the cherry tree), Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, John Bunyan's
Pilgrim's Progress, and Aesop's Fables. From his earliest days he
must have had some familiarity with the Bible, for it doubtless was
the only book his family owned.
In
March 1830 the Lincoln family undertook a second migration, this time
to Illinois, with Lincoln himself driving the team of oxen. Having
just reached the age of 21, he was about to begin life on his own.
Six feet four inches tall, he was rawboned and lanky but muscular
and physically powerful. He was especially noted for the skill and
strength with which he could wield an ax. He spoke with a backwoods
twang and walked in the long-striding, flat-footed, cautious manner
of a plowman. Good-natured though somewhat moody, talented as a mimic
and storyteller, he readily attracted friends. But he was yet to demonstrate
whatever other abilities he possessed.
After
his arrival in Illinois, having no desire to be a farmer, Lincoln
tried his hand at a variety of occupations. As a rail-splitter, he
helped to clear and fence his father's new farm. As a flatboatman,
he made a voyage down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, Louisiana.
(This was his second visit to that city, his first having been made
in 1828, while he still lived in Indiana.) Upon his return to Illinois
he settled in New Salem, a village of about 25 families on the Sangamon
River. There he worked from time to time as storekeeper, postmaster,
and surveyor. With the coming of the Black Hawk War (1832), he enlisted
as a volunteer and was elected captain of his company. Afterward he
joked that he had seen no “live, fighting Indians” during
the war but had had “a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes.”
Meanwhile, aspiring to be a legislator, he was defeated in his first
try and then repeatedly reelected to the state assembly. He considered
blacksmithing as a trade but finally decided in favour of the law.
Already having taught himself grammar and mathematics, he began to
study law books. In 1836, having passed the bar examination, he began
to practice law.
Prairie lawyer
The next year he moved to Springfield, Illinois, the new state capital,
which offered many more opportunities for a lawyer than New Salem
did. At first Lincoln was a partner of John T. Stuart, then of Stephen
T. Logan, and finally, from 1844, of William H. Herndon. Nearly 10
years younger than Lincoln, Herndon was more widely read, more emotional
at the bar, and generally more extreme in his views. Yet this partnership
seems to have been as nearly perfect as such human arrangements ever
are. Lincoln and Herndon kept few records of their law business, and
they split the cash between them whenever either of them was paid.
It seems they had no money quarrels.
Within
a few years of his relocation to Springfield, Lincoln was earning
$1,200 to $1,500 annually, at a time when the governor of the state
received a salary of $1,200 and circuit judges only $750. He had to
work hard. To keep himself busy, he found it necessary not only to
practice in the capital but also to follow the court as it made the
rounds of its circuit. Each spring and fall he would set out by horseback
or buggy to travel hundreds of miles over the thinly settled prairie,
from one little county seat to another. Most of the cases were petty
and the fees small.
The
coming of the railroads, especially after 1850, made travel easier
and practice more remunerative. Lincoln served as a lobbyist for the
Illinois Central Railroad, assisting it in getting a charter from
the state, and thereafter he was retained as a regular attorney for
that railroad. After successfully defending the company against the
efforts of McLean county to tax its property, he received the largest
single fee of his legal career—$5,000. (He had to sue the Illinois
Central in order to collect the fee.) He also handled cases for other
railroads and for banks, insurance companies, and mercantile and manufacturing
firms. In one of his finest performances before the bar, he saved
the Rock Island Bridge, the first to span the Mississippi River, from
the threat of the river transportation interests that demanded the
bridge's removal. His business included a number of patent suits and
criminal trials. One of his most effective and famous pleas had to
do with a murder case. A witness claimed that, by the light of the
moon, he had seen Duff Armstrong, an acquaintance of Lincoln's, take
part in a killing. Referring to an almanac for proof, Lincoln argued
that the night had been too dark for the witness to have seen anything
clearly, and with a sincere and moving appeal he won an acquittal.
By
the time he began to be prominent in national politics, about 20 years
after launching his legal career, Lincoln had made himself one of
the most distinguished and successful lawyers in Illinois. He was
noted not only for his shrewdness and practical common sense, which
enabled him always to see to the heart of any legal case, but also
for his invariable fairness and utter honesty.
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