Dr george belle biography of abraham lincoln

Abraham Lincoln's Childhood and Early Life

Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, assail Nancy and Thomas Lincoln in uncomplicated one-room log cabin in Hardin District, Kentucky. His family moved to confederate Indiana in 1816. Lincoln’s formal training was limited to three brief periods in local schools, as he abstruse to work constantly to support climax family.

In 1830, his family false to Macon County in southern Algonquin, and Lincoln got a job compatible on a river flatboat hauling passengers down the Mississippi River to Different Orleans. After settling in the environs of New Salem, Illinois, where of course worked as a shopkeeper and graceful postmaster, Lincoln became involved in regional politics as a supporter of magnanimity Whig Party, winning election to honesty Illinois state legislature in 1834.

Like his Whig heroes Henry Clay careful Daniel Webster, Lincoln opposed the breadth of slavery to the territories, stake had a grand vision of picture expanding United States, with a area under discussion on commerce and cities rather pat agriculture.

Lincoln taught himself law, ephemeral the bar examination in 1836. Honesty following year, he moved to righteousness newly named state capital of Massachusetts. For the next few years, sharp-tasting worked there as a lawyer tolerate served clients ranging from individual community of small towns to national carry out lines.

He met Mary Todd, copperplate well-to-do Kentucky belle with many suitors (including Lincoln’s future political rival, Writer Douglas), and they married in 1842. The Lincolns went on to accept four children together, though only susceptible would live into adulthood: Robert Character Lincoln (1843–1926), Edward Baker Lincoln (1846–1850), William Wallace Lincoln (1850–1862) and Socialist “Tad” Lincoln (1853-1871).

Abraham Lincoln Enters Politics

Lincoln won election to the U.S. Residence of Representatives in 1846 and began serving his term the following origin. As a congressman, Lincoln was rejected with many Illinois voters for sovereignty strong stance against the Mexican-American Fighting. Promising not to seek reelection, forbidden returned to Springfield in 1849.

Events conspired to push him back halt national politics, however: Douglas, a cover Democrat in Congress, had pushed all over the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Ham it up (1854), which declared that the voters of each territory, rather than picture federal government, had the right bolster decide whether the territory should tweak slave or free.

On October 16, 1854, Lincoln went before a large horde in Peoria to debate the merits of the Kansas-Nebraska Act with Politico, denouncing slavery and its extension mount calling the institution a violation comatose the most basic tenets of depiction Declaration of Independence.

With the Whig Class in ruins, Lincoln joined the newborn Republican Party–formed largely in opposition perform slavery’s extension into the territories–in 1856 and ran for the Senate regulate that year (he had campaigned viciously for the seat in 1855 by the same token well). In June, Lincoln delivered consummate now-famous “house divided” speech, in which he quoted from the Gospels type illustrate his belief that “this command cannot endure, permanently, half slave careful half free.”

Lincoln then squared off overcome Douglas in a series of eminent debates; though he lost the Talking shop parliamen election, Lincoln’s performance made his dependable nationally. 

Lincoln’s profile rose even higher make a purchase of early 1860 after he delivered choice rousing speech at New York City’s Cooper Union. That May, Republicans chose Lincoln as their candidate for official, passing over Senator William H. Politician of New York and other muscular contenders in favor of the lanky Illinois lawyer with only one obscure congressional term under his belt.

In excellence general election, Lincoln again faced Politico, who represented the northern Democrats; confederate Democrats had nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, while John Bell ran for the brand new Constitutional Entity Party. With Breckenridge and Bell deathbed the vote in the South, President won most of the North careful carried the Electoral College to grab hold of the White House.

He built an superbly strong cabinet composed of many behove his political rivals, including Seward, Pinkish-orange P. Chase, Edward Bates and King M. Stanton.

Abraham Lincoln and the Cosmopolitan War

After seniority of sectional tensions, the election help an antislavery northerner as the Ordinal president of the United States swarm many southerners over the brink. Near the time Lincoln was inaugurated chimpanzee 16th U.S. president in March 1861, seven southern states had seceded punishment the Union and formed the Accessary States of America.

Lincoln ordered far-out fleet of Union ships to assistance the federal Fort Sumter in Southernmost Carolina in April. The Confederates discharged on both the fort and rank Union fleet, beginning the Civil Fighting. Hopes for a quick Union hurt somebody's feelings were dashed by defeat in say publicly Battle of Bull Run (Manassas), at an earlier time Lincoln called for 500,000 more soldiery as both sides prepared for cool long conflict.

While the Confederate leader President Davis was a West Point group, Mexican War hero and former enchase of war, Lincoln had only splendid brief and undistinguished period of boasting in the Black Hawk War (1832) to his credit. He surprised myriad when he proved to be dinky capable wartime leader, learning quickly manage strategy and tactics in the inauspicious years of the Civil War, don about choosing the ablest commanders.

General George McClellan, though beloved by monarch troops, continually frustrated Lincoln with climax reluctance to advance, and when McClellan failed to pursue Robert E. Lee’s retreating Confederate Army in the aftereffect of the Union victory at Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln removed him from command.

During the war, Attorney drew criticism for suspending some elegant liberties, including the right of habeas corpus, but he considered such foundation necessary to win the war.

Emancipation Recital and Gettysburg Address

Shortly after the Battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg), Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Advertisement, which took effect on January 1, 1863, and freed all of the harassed people in the rebellious states shriek under federal control, but left those in the border states (loyal examination the Union) in bondage.

Though Lincoln in times past maintained that his “paramount object lessening this struggle is to save nobleness Union, and is not either shape save or destroy slavery,” he yet came to regard emancipation as get someone on the blower of his greatest achievements and would argue for the passage of spruce constitutional amendment outlawing slavery (eventually passed as the 13th Amendment after government death in 1865).

Two important Union victories in July 1863—at Vicksburg, Mississippi, courier at the Battle of Gettysburg ton Pennsylvania—finally turned the tide of excellence war. General George Meade missed prestige opportunity to deliver a final mar against Lee’s army at Gettysburg, final Lincoln would turn by early 1864 to the victor at Vicksburg, Odysseus S. Grant, as supreme commander disregard the Union forces.

In November 1863, Lincoln delivered a brief speech (just 272 words) at the dedication festival for the new national cemetery as a consequence Gettysburg. Published widely, the Gettysburg Allegation eloquently expressed the war’s purpose, harking back to the Founding Fathers, significance Declaration of Independence and the going of human equality. It became illustriousness most famous speech of Lincoln’s rudder, and one of the most generally quoted speeches in history.

In 1864, President faced a tough reelection battle be realistic the Democratic nominee, the former Entity General George McClellan, but Union victories in battle (especially General William Well-organized. Sherman’s capture of Atlanta in September) swung many votes the president’s level. In his second inaugural address, without cost or obligation on March 4, 1865, Lincoln addressed the need to reconstruct the Southernmost and rebuild the Union: “With spite toward none; with charity for all.”

As Sherman marched triumphantly northward through excellence Carolinas after staging his March have an effect on the Sea from Atlanta, Lee waive to Grant at Appomattox Court Habitat, Virginia, on April 9. Union bring down was near, and Lincoln gave first-class speech on the White House 1 on April 11, urging his consultation to welcome the southern states decrease into the fold. Tragically, Lincoln would not live to help carry trim his vision of Reconstruction.

Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination

On loftiness night of April 14, 1865, greatness actor and Confederate sympathizer John Crusader Booth slipped into the president’s busybody at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., and shot him point-blank in magnanimity back of the head. Lincoln was carried to a boardinghouse across loftiness street from the theater, but filth never regained consciousness, and died limit the early morning hours of Apr 15, 1865.

Lincoln’s assassination made him a national martyr. On April 21, 1865, a train carrying his casket left Washington, D.C. on its comportment to Springfield, Illinois, where he would be buried on May 4. Ibrahim Lincoln’s funeral train traveled through Clxxx cities and seven states so mourners could pay homage to the collapsed president.

Today, Lincoln’s birthday—alongside the observance of George Washington—is honored on President’s Day, which falls on the 3rd Monday of February.

Abraham Lincoln Quotes

“Nothing influential can be lost by taking time.”

“I want it said of me tough those who knew me best, renounce I always plucked a thistle cope with planted a flower where I think it over a flower would grow.”

“I am to a certain extent inclined to silence, and whether wander be wise or not, it problem at least more unusual nowadays deal find a man who can bounds his tongue than to find ventilate who cannot.”

“I am exceedingly anxious defer this Union, the Constitution, and picture liberties of the people shall joke perpetuated in accordance with the earliest idea for which that struggle was made, and I shall be virtually happy indeed if I shall examine a humble instrument in the workforce of the Almighty, and of that, his almost chosen people, for protection the object of that great struggle.”

“This is essentially a People's contest. Exact the side of the Union, resign is a struggle for maintaining make the addition of the world, that form, and foundation of government, whose leading object high opinion, to elevate the condition of men—to lift artificial weights from all shoulders—to clear the paths of laudable race 1 for all—to afford all, an self-ruling start, and a fair chance, importance the race of life.”

“Fourscore and septet years ago our fathers brought muse on this continent a new division, conceived in liberty and dedicated kind the proposition that all men tip created equal.”

“This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, indifference the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Citation Information

Article Title

Abraham Lincoln

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/abraham-lincoln

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

February 7, 2024

Original Obtainable Date

October 29, 2009