Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), considered by many to be one of the greatest American Presidents, presided over the Civil War as the 16th president of the United States. Idolized by the North and hated by the South, Lincoln pursued his goal of keeping the Union together despite the fervent desire by southerners to secede. Approaching secession with the mind of the attorney that Lincoln was, he declared it illegal and managed, or mismanaged in the view of some, the resultant war. He is also famous for his Gettysburg Address, affirming the commitment of America to equality for all with the words: "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.."

Homeschooled in his youth, Lincoln became a successful attorney in Illinois who was known for his integrity and his piercing cross-examinations. He lost many more political races than he won, and served briefly in Congress as a Whig opposed to the Mexican War. That cost him reelection.

Lincoln opposed slavery. "In 1837 with one other representative from Sangamon county, named Dan Stone, he protested against a series of resolutions, adopted by the Illinois General Assembly, expressing disapproval of the formation of abolition societies." [1]

In 1858 he ran for the U.S. Senate against the dynamic speaker Stephen Douglas, who defeated him. But Lincoln ran a strong enough race that Douglas was forced to alienate some of his supporters with his Freeport Doctrine, and when both ran for president two years later in 1860, Lincoln won easily without even campaigning. His victory precipitated the Civil War, as many southern states believed that he would abolish slavery, abolition being a core plank of the Republican party.

Lincoln was perhaps the only President who appeared to greatly increase his Christian faith while in office. As a congressmen in the 1840s, Lincoln distinguished himself by redoing the geometric proofs in the great work of Euclid, and prided himself on logic rather than faith. From 1860 to 1863 Lincoln continued to rely entirely on logical arguments in his speeches and approach to the Civil War. But on the way to the cemetery in Gettysburg in November 1863, Lincoln apparently found God and inserted after "one nation" the phrase "under God" into his pre-written Gettysburg Address. The following year Lincoln won reelection, and his Second Inaugural Address was filled with spiritual references lacking from his First Inaugural Address.

Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington D.C. on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, a few days after the Civil War's official end, and passed away the next day. He became a martyr to the North and a cause for revenge against the South, from where the assassin had come.

Currency

Lincoln is depicted on the penny and the five-dollar bill.

References

• Gettysburg Address

Quotations

"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Letter To Henry L. Pierce and Others" (April 6, 1859), p. 376.