Abraham Lincoln

(1809-1865)

Born in Kentucky to a barely literate father, encouraged by his stepmother to develop his bookish side, he spent in total only about one year in school, worked in the village store and read law on his own.

In 1834 he was elected to the Illinois legislature; by 1836 he was a licensed attorney; by 1837 he settled in Springfield, the state capital; in 1842 he married Mary Todd, who came from a relatively higher class; in 1847 he went to Washington to serve in the House of Representatives. There, although he had previously not taken a strong stand on slavery, he voted for the Wilmot Proviso, prohibiting slavery in territory acquired in the Mexican War, and he proposed prohibiting slavery in Washington. Such stands contributed to the loss of his seat after one year. Lincoln returned to Springfield and built up his law practice. He began to give speeches in a straightforward, down-to-earth style and gained supporters. He switched from the Whig Party to the new Republican party and as early as 1856 received some votes for its vice-presidential nomination.

His 1858 debated against Stephen Douglas fir the Senate gave him a national reputation, and he became the Republican candidate for president in 1860. Lincoln avoided provocative statements, but even before he became president, Southern states began to secede. In his inaugural address he tried to assure the South that he was not intent on doing away with slavery in those states where it already existed. But when he gave the order to defend the besieged Fort Sumter, either side might have fired first.

Lincoln fought the war with executive orders. He made the Congress see the point: the armed forces were not organized for a war of such ambitious extent. He himself took an active role: he outlined strategies and tactics for campaigns, prepared specific orders, concerned himself over logistics of supply, followed day-to-day movements with maps and even chased his generals to their tents in the field to make his points, all the while persuading the home front to supply still more youths for the armed forces.

Northern abolitionists attacked him for not pursuing the issue of slavery single-mindedly enough and Copperheads attacked him for pursuing the war in the first place. But he never lost sight of the true goal of the war; to restore the Union States of America to its previous condition – a union of separate but equal states.

Some accused Lincoln of being a dictator, and he was almost denied the nomination for a second term. That would have saved his life. He was not without flaws, but it would be hard to imagine a real human being who could have managed the presidency better during such a war, which was by definition a time of irreconcilable stresses and strains.

In April 1865 President Lincoln made his last public address urging the reconstruction in the spirit of generous conciliation. On April 14, 1865, while watching a comedy at Ford’s Theater in Washington, Lincoln was mortally wounded by actor and Southern patriot John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln died early the next morning at the age of 56. His secretary Seward was stabbed by a co-conspirator.

Lincoln was the first President to be assassinated.

On April 14, 1865 (it was Good Friday) President Lincoln and his wife went to Ford’s Theater in Washington to see a play called “our American Cousin”. The theater was full and the audience cheered the President as he took his seat in a box beside the stage. Once Lincoln was safely in his seat, his bodyguards moved away to watch the play themselves from seats in the gallery.

At exactly 10:13, when the play was part way through, a pistol shot rang through the darkened theater. As the President slumped forward in his seat, a man on a black felt hat and high boots jumped from the box on to the stage. He waved a gun in the air and shouted “Sic semper tyrannis” [Thus always to tyrants] and then ran out of the theater. It was discovered later that the gunman was an actor named John Wilkes Booth. He was captured a few days later, hiding in a barn in the Virginia countryside.

Lincoln was carried across the street to the house of a tailor. He died there in a downstairs bedroom the next morning.