Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, in Hodgenville, Kentucky, and died April 15, 1865, in Washington, D.C. at the age of 56. He served four terms in the Illinois Legislature, was a member of U.S. House of Representatives, and became the 16th President of the United States. He was president from 1861-1865.
Abraham Lincoln – President 1861-1865
Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky, on February 12, 1809, to Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln. His birthplace is believed to have been a small log cabin, which no longer exists. Lincoln had a sister, Sarah, who was two years and two days older than he was. A younger brother, Thomas, died in infancy. When Abraham was two, the family moved. Five years later, the family moved again, to the wilderness of Indiana. His mother died when he was 9 years old. His father remarried a year later, to Sarah Bush Johnston, from Kentucky. She and Abraham formed a loving relationship that continued throughout their lives. She encouraged him in his attempts to educate himself, which he did by borrowing and studying books.
In 1830, when Abraham was 21, the family moved to Illinois. In 1836, Lincoln received a license to practice law, and established a respectable record as an attorney. He was elected to the state assembly several times, and in 1846 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He later resigned.
Abraham married Mary Todd of Lexington, Kentucky, November 4, 1842. They had 4 children, but only one, Robert, survived to adulthood. The Lincoln line ended with the death of Robert’s grandchild in 1985. Although Lincoln did not seek office himself during these years, he remained active in politics, counseling candidates who sought his advice and occasionally responding to speaking requests. Like his father, Lincoln opposed slavery; however, he also deplored abolitionists’ activities because they threatened to cause a schism in the nation. In regard to “slavery agitation” he said, “In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed. ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand'” At that time, Lincoln believed the existence of free states and slave states was constitutional, but the spread of slavery to territories and free states should be prevented.
In 1858, he engaged in a series of debates across Illinois with Sen. Stephen Douglas. The debates grew national attention, resulting in the Republican Party making him its first presidential candidate in the 1860 election. On the divisive matter of slavery, the Republican platform supported prohibiting slavery in the territories but opposed interfering with it in the states where it already existed. Lincoln won the election. Senator Hannibal Hamlin from Maine was elected vice president.
Following Lincoln’s election, all the slave states began to consider secession. Lincoln was not scheduled to take office until March 1861. President Buchanan took no action, stating that secession was illegal but allowing it. Lincoln had no official power to act while the secession crisis escalated.
By the time Lincoln assumed office seven states had declared their secession and had seized federal property within their bounds, but the United States retained control of major military installations at Fort Sumter near Charleston and Fort Pickens near Pensacola. Both were running out of provisions. An attack on the fort was initiated on April 12, and the fort surrendered the next day. A relief expedition sent by the Union arrived too late to intervene. following the Attack on Fort Sumter, Lincoln declared that a state of rebellion existed and called up a force of seventy-five thousand to put it down, and the war was on. I will reserve discussion of details of the Civil War for another blog.
The war ended On April 9, 1865, when General Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox. Military deaths were counted at 750,000, and 2.5% of the country’s population died.
The presidency of Abraham Lincoln began on March 4, 1861, when he was inaugurated as the 16th President of the United States, and ended upon his death by assassination on April 15, 1865, 42 days into his second term. His vice president, Andrew Johnson, took the oath of office as President on the day of Lincoln’s death. Lincoln presided over the Union victory in the American Civil War, which dominated his presidency.