ABRAHAM LINCOLN was born in humble circumstances on February 12, 1809 in a log cabin near Hodgenville (Kentucky, USA). He grew up in a poor farming family . Together with his father THOMAS, his mother NANCY and his sister SARAH, he moved once to Knob Creek and the second time to Indiana.
After the death of ABRAHAM’s mother in 1818, his father married SARAH BUSH JONSTON .
ABRAHAM LINCOLN had a good relationship with his stepmother, who accepted him and took care of his education. SARAH, also known as SALLY, provided ABRAHAM with books about the United States and its first President, GEORGE WASHINGTON. LINCOLN’s family continued to change their place of residence very often, so that ABRAHAM LINCOLN did not receive an adequate education .
THOMAS LINCOLN wanted to train his son to be a farmer and had him work neighboring fields. In 1830, at the age of twenty-one, ABRAHAM moved with his family to Illinois, where he was again to work in the fields. In 1831, however, he left his family.
The Political Rise of ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ABRAHAM LINCOLN continued his self -study and became deeply involved in politics. In 1832 he stood for election to the Illinois State Legislature and was elected to the House of Representatives on a second attempt in 1834 as a Whig representative . He was a member of Parliament until 1842. Although ABRAHAM LINCOLN was from a pro-slavery state, he himself opposed slavery . In the Illinois state legislature , of which he served until 1842, he voted against resolutions supporting the “peculiar institution” of slavery and was one of the delegates to write a protest against slavery in 1837.
After LINCOLN had tried his hand at professions such as railroad worker, merchant or postmaster, he was admitted to the bar in Springfield (Illinois) in March 1863 after long self- study . There he quickly made a name for himself as a lawyer because of his eloquence . Soon he had access to the homes of the wealthiest families.
In 1839, ABRAHAM LINCOLN fell in love with MARY ANN TODD , one of the smartest and wealthiest girls in town. They married on November 4th, 1842 and had three children together.
LINCOLN was elected to the US Congress in 1846 with a two-thirds majority and aroused open criticism of the war against Mexiconationwide attention. In addition, he worked out a draft for the gradual emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia . LINCOLN tried to prevent the spread of slavery, but gave each state the right to its own slavery policy.
With the end of his time as a member of parliament in 1849, LINCOLN devoted himself again to his work as a lawyer. After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, he then became politically active again and took his stand against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise . This abolition is wrong because slavery itself is not right.
In 1856, ABRAHAM LINCOLN joined the newly formed Republican Partywhich aimed to limit slavery to the old slave states and save the Union from breaking up. LINCOLN quickly rose to a leading position. In 1858 he ran for a seat in the Senate. Although he lost the election, he made a name for himself as a brilliant orator and adept party tactician in the campaign against Democrat STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS .
presidential election
At the time of LINCOLN, there was an increasing divergence between the agrarian south and the industrialized north of the USA. The closely related debate about slavery was a key motive for the forthcoming War of Secession (1861–1865).
In 1860, Republicans nominated ABRAHAM LINCOLN as their candidate for President . His election program included the restriction of slavery, domestic reforms and tariff reforms.
On November 6, 1860, he was elected the 16th President of the United States with an overwhelming majority .
However, the southern states were not ready to accept a Republican in the White House. In March 1861, the states of South Carolina Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, and Texas declared their independence . Under President JEFFERSON DAVIS they united to form the Confederate States of America .
Presidency and Civil War
On March 4th, 1861, ABRAHAM LINCOLN assumed his presidency. He struggled to find a way to preserve the Union, by force if necessary. The American Civil War broke out with the attack of the Confederate States on Fort Sumter in the port of Charleston in South Carolina.
Four other states joined the Confederates, which had the better trained and more experienced generals. LINCOLN waged the war in the spirit of national unity as a guarantor of equal opportunities for all citizens from the free-democratic legacy of the American Revolution.
The first great military defeatfor the north occurred on 07/21/1861. In another battle in April 1862, the Union, led by LINCOLN, lost 13,000 men and shortly thereafter another 37,000 men. Following a third defeat that killed 14,000, the Confederates took up positions twenty miles from Washington.
For tactical reasons, LINCOLN pursued the liberation of slaves rather cautiously and initially as a war measure. On September 22, 1862, he declared that he would release all Confederate slaves if the Confederate States did not agree to peace negotiations by January 1, 1863. As the Confederates continued to fight, undeterred by this deadline, ABRAHAM LINCOLN signed the document abolishing slaveryin all southern states. But the war went on.
But despite all the political and military setbacks, ABRAHAM LINCOLN’s political line proved to be viable. The actual turning point in favor of the Union finally came with the victory of the northern states in the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1-3, 1863, which claimed 40,000 lives, and the capture of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863 by GENERAL ULYSSES GRANT .
The Gettysburg Speech , which LINCOLN held on November 19, 1863 in front of
150,000 people in Gettysburg, is today regarded as one of the most important documents in American history.
“It has been 87 years since our fathers created a new nation on this continent, conceived in freedom and committed to the idea that all human beings are created equal. Now embroiled in a major civil war, we must test whether this nation can… last. … It is … up to us to be committed to the task before us – that we follow the example of the commitment of these honored dead to the task to which they gave their full dedication – that we solemnly resolve here that these dead have not died in vain – that this nation will be born in liberty – and that government of the people, by the people and for the people will never disappear from the face of this earth.”
Reunification
GENERAL GRANT , who was elevated to the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Union Armies in March 1864, took his troops territory after territory for the Northern States. As a result of this advance, all the slaves of the recovered states joined the troops of the northern states.
On November 8, 1864, LINCOLN was re-elected President by 212 electoral votes to 21 .
Five months later, on April 9, 1865, Confederate General ROBERT EDWARD LEE finally surrendered and signed the document of surrender . The northern states had won the civil war under their President ABRAHAM LINCON and America was reunited. In the era of “Reconstruction”the President endeavored to achieve national unity in the United States.
The assassination
Only five days after the end of the war, on the evening of April 14, 1865, the southern fanatic JOHN WILKES BOOTH assassinated ABRAHAM LINCOLN with a pistol in a theater near the White House . On the morning of April 15, 1865, the President died at the age of fifty-six.
However, LINCOLN itself had achieved its goals. He saved his country from self-destruction and freed it from slavery. Americans see him as the embodiment of their nation ‘s political virtues .
