|
|
He freed the slaves, helped open up the West, struggled to keep the country together during the Civil War, was the first president to sport a beard, and he made stovepipe hats cool.
Abraham Lincoln, felled by an assassin's bullet nearly 140 years ago, remains an icon of American history and spirit not only for his political acts, but for the moral underpinnings that drove them and his quintessentially American story of rising from poverty to the nation's highest office. The "Great Emancipator" who freed the slaves and helped reunite a divided country fractured over the issues of slavery didn't live to see the legacy of his noble commitments, but the history of this country was forever changed by his strong, visionary leadership.
America's 16th president was born to modest means in a log cabin on February 12, 1809, in hardscrabble Hardin County, Kentucky, to a frontiersman father, Thomas, and mother, Nancy. Both were members of a Baptist church which had split from the local house of worship due to the former's opposition to slavery. A precocious reader and student, Lincoln worked on farms and ran a general store as a youngster, later serving as postmaster of New Salem, Illinois. His industrious, trustworthy nature and drive to pay off his many debts earned the 6'4", 180-pound Lincoln the nickname "Honest Abe."
After an unsuccessful run for the Illinois state legislature in 1832, Lincoln ran again and won four consecutive terms (1834-1842) while earning a law degree. Lincoln married Mary Todd in 1842, and the couple had four children. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1846 and earned a reputation for his unpopular opposition to slavery and the Mexican War. Confident of his skills as a politician, Lincoln ran for the Senate in 1858, losing to Stephen Douglas but launching himself on the national scene thanks to his eloquent oratorical skills, which helped land him the Republican nomination for president in 1860. The celebration of his unlikely presidential victory was short-lived, however.
Seven Southern states seceded from the Union following Lincoln's election, with more threatening to follow; at the same time, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as president of the Confederate States of America.
Fighting to keep the country together during the onset of the Civil War, Lincoln was faced the most difficult decision of his young presidency. Under pressure from abolitionists to free the slaves, Lincoln feared alienating the Union-affiliated border states in which slavery was still active. But, despite the terrifyingly high death toll in battles such as Antietam — where more than 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers died — on January 1, 1863, Lincoln signed one of the most important pieces of legislation in the country's history, the Emancipation Proclamation. The document declared that slaves within the rebelling Confederacy states were forever free.
Though he still thought gradual, voluntary emancipation was the better option, Lincoln's actions helped turn overseas opinion in favor of the Union and led to the adoption of the 13h Amendment to the Constitution, which barred slavery.
Lincoln gave one of his most famous speeches, the Gettysburg Address, while dedicating the military cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on November 19, 1863. It was there that he reminded his countrymen, "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
During his time in office, Lincoln also supported the Homestead Act, which allowed poor people in the East to buy affordable land in the West, and the National Banking Act, which established a national currency. He also signed a bill that created the first transcontinental railroad.
Lincoln was re-elected in 1864, and during his second inaugural address, Lincoln showed the depth of his compassion, inviting the Confederate states to join the Union in a speech that is inscribed in a wall of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds." The president also voiced his support for voting rights for some black citizens, an opinion that would prove to be fatal.
Just over a year into his second term, on April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington by actor John Wilkes Booth, who believed he was helping the South by murdering the man who abolished slavery. Lincoln, the victim of the first presidential assassination in U.S. history, died the next morning.
Though he presided over one of the ugliest chapters in this country's history, Abraham Lincoln rose above the issues that divided America and continues to inspire new generations with his determination, powerful words and moral deeds.
By Gil Kaufman
 Back to Clone Parents Bios
|
|
