Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

George Washington

2021-03-06T05:31:21Z

Kollenbornstephen: Mark

{{Officeholder
|name=George Washington
|image=Gilbert-Stuart 1795 Washington-portrait.jpg
|party=''None''
|spouse=[[Martha Dandridge Custis Washington]]
|religion=[[Anglican]]/[[Episcopalian]]
|offices=
{{Officeholder/president
|country=the United States
|number=1st
|terms=April 30, 1789 – March 4, 1797
|vp=[[John Adams]]
|preceded=''None''
|former=y
|succeeded=[[John Adams]]
}}

|military=y
|allegiance=[[Great Britain]], [[The United States]]
|branch=Continental Army United States Army
|serviceyears=Continental Army: 1775–1783 U. S. Army: 1798–1799
|rank= Lieutenant General; General of the Armies of the United States
|commands=Continental Army United States Army
|battles=[[French and Indian War]] [[American Revolutionary War]]
|awards=Congressional Gold Medal, Thanks of Congress
}}
'''George Washington''' (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799) was the first [[president of the United States]] (1789–1797) and commander-in-chief of the [[Continental Army]]. He was the dominant military and political leader of the new [[United States of America]] from 1775 to 1797, leading the American victory over [[Britain]] in the [[American Revolution]] and was the unanimous choice to serve as president.

Along with [[Abraham Lincoln]], Washington has become the foremost icon of American [[nationalism]] and a model of the ideal [[Republicanism|republican]] union of political and military leadership. He endeared himself to Americans by his efforts to destroy monarchy and aristocracy. The archetype of Washington as the republican champion has become part of America's collective idealization of faith-based citizenship, and is immortalized in [[New York City]]'s Washington Square Arch, which depicts Washington the soldier on the left, and Washington the statesman on the right.<ref>For photographic images, see http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GV/GV046WashingtonSquareArch.htm</ref>
{{cquote|'''The [[Constitution]] is the guide, which I never will abandon. — George Washington'''}}

==Early life==
Washington was born on February 22, 1732, at Wakefield, [[Virginia]] to Augustine Washington, a wealthy planter, and his second wife, Mary Ball. He was home schooled by his father and older half-brother Lawrence, and in later life read widely. His interests were in land, in surveying, and in farming. His father died in 1743, and George lived with Lawrence. Lawrence died in 1752. Washington leased the estate from Lawrence's widow until her death in 1761, when he inherited the plantation and joined the local upper class.

===Military experience===
In 1748 he joined an expedition sent out by the sixth Lord Fairfax to survey his lands in the Shenandoah Valley. Washington was eager for a military career. The first step came in October 1753 when the lieutenant governor Robert Dinwiddie sent him to warn the French at Presque Isle (now Erie, PA.) and Fort Le Boeuf (now Waterford, PA) against making further encroachments on British-claimed territory in the Ohio Valley. The 11-week journey, some 500 miles (800 km) round-trip, was dangerous, as Washington evaded hostile [[Native American|Indians]] (allied to the French). He reported back that a frontier conflict was imminent with [[France]].

====French and Indian War====
In April 1754 Washington returned to the Ohio country as a lieutenant colonel in command of a volunteer force with the mission of checking the French and protecting an expedition sent out by the Ohio Company of Virginia to build a fort on the Ohio River, at what is now [[Pittsburgh]]. Washington discovered the French had reached the site first. They called it Fort Duquesne. In May he fired on a party of French soldiers, killing ten, including their leader, Jumonville. The French now could cite the attack on Jumonville as a cause of war. This was Washington's first battle and the first engagement of the [[French and Indian War]], which became a major war in Europe.

On July 3 at Fort Necessity he was attacked by superior French forces led by Jumonville's brother and was compelled to surrender. The terms offered were generous and Washington returned to Virginia. Washington was criticized for his imprudence, and relations cooled between him and Dinwiddie.

=====Battle of Monongahela=====
To meet the French threat the British sent Maj. Gen. Edward Braddock and two under-strength regiments of British regulars to Virginia. Washington served as aide-de-camp to Braddock on his expedition to capture Fort Duquesne. Braddock was ambushed and killed by the French and Indians in July, and the Braddock Expedition was a failure.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=4QGPDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA11 Atlantic Politics, Military Strategy and the French and Indian War]</ref> The massacre of the British forces was so complete, that rumors started to make their way around about the death of Washington himself. Washington wrote a letter to his brother, explaining that the rumors were true, and also explaining the miraculous circumstances with which he survived the incident. He wrote:

<blockquote>As I have heard since my arriv'l at this place, a circumstantial acct. of my death and dying speech, I take this early oppertunity of contradicting both, and of assuring you that I now exist and appear in the land of the living by the miraculous care of Providence, that protected me beyond all human expectation; I had 4 Bullets through my Coat, and two Horses shot under me, and yet escaped unhurt.<ref>[http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/connections/george-washington/history.html From George Washington to John Augustine Washington], July 18th, 1755</ref></blockquote>

Years later, Washington returned to the location of the battle. One of the Indian Chiefs, who was also at the battle, was informed that Washington was back in the area. He met with Washington, and he said:

<blockquote>I am a chief and ruler over my tribes. My influence extends to the waters of the great lakes and to the far blue mountains. I have traveled a long and weary path that I might see the young warrior of the great battle. It was on the day when the white man’s blood mixed with the streams of our forests that I first beheld this chief: I called to my young men and said, Mark yon tall and daring warrior? He is not of the red-coat tribe – he hath an Indian's wisdom and his warriors fight as we do – himself alone exposed. Quick, let your aim be certain and he dies. Our rifles were leveled, rifles which, but for you, knew not how to miss – 'twas all in vain, a power mightier far than we shielded you. He can not die in battle. I am old and shall soon be gathered to the great council fire of my fathers in the land of the shades, but ere I go, there is something bids me speak in the voice of prophecy:
Listen! ''The Great Spirit protects that man, and guides his destinies–he will become the chief of nations, and a people yet unborn will hail him as the founder of a mighty empire.''.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=9WBVDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT115 George Washington's Sacred Fire]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=jAEWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA79 The Guardian, Volume 28], 1877</ref></blockquote>

Another account by a second Indian warrior, also led him to believe that a greater power was guiding Washington. He said: "Washington was never born to be killed by a bullet! For I had seventeen fair fires at him with my rifle, and after all I could not bring him to the ground."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=6tc56rgYE1YC&pg=PA44 The Life of George Washington; with Curious Anecdotes, Equally Honourable to Himself, and Exemplary to His Young Countrymen. ]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=nQsiAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA190 History of the Indian Wars: To which is Prefixed a Short Account of the Discovery of America by Columbus, and of the Landing of Our Forefathers at Plymouth]</ref>

During the battle, Washington displayed courage and initiative in halting the rout that followed, and afterwards became known as the "Hero of Monongahela"<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=cq7Mwvru8nAC&pg=PR22 George Washington's First War: His Early Military Adventures]</ref>
[[Image:GW1755.jpg|thumb|right|180px|Colonel George Washington of the Virginia militia]]
=====Commander of Virginia Regiment=====
In August 1755 he was promoted to colonel and made commander in chief of all Virginia forces, responsible for the defense of a 350-mile (560-km) frontier against French and Indian attack. It was a difficult challenge militarily, but Washington met it and learned the administrative needs of commanding a major force. He was on the defensive throughout 1756 and 1757, but in 1758 he accompanied Brig. Gen. John Forbes and a large force to attack Fort Duquesne. They discovered the French had left and there was no combat. Washington returned to Virginia and resigned his commission at the end of 1758. For him, as for Virginia, the French and Indian War was over. He had been bloodied in combat, was an acknowledged leader of Virginia soldiers, knew the frontier better than anyone, and had a sterling reputation. On the other hand, he had demonstrated no remarkable strategic or tactical skills, and had displayed rashness in action against Jumonville. Washington, a very tall strong man, demonstrated great physical courage and endurance, qualities much admired in a military leader.

Ellis (2004) concludes Washington was influenced by the East, where he picked up the deferential world of British patronage and hierarchy and curried favor from the well-connected Fairfax family, but failed to get a permanent commission in the British army. From the West came experiences on the Ohio frontier, where Washington carried out surveying expeditions and military campaigns against the French and Indians. Going to war instead of to college, Ellis concludes, scarred and immunized Washington against idealism.

===Planter and family life===
On Jan. 6, 1759, Washington married [[Martha Washington|Martha Dandridge Custis]], a very wealthy widow with two young children. Washington had no children of his own, but he later adopted two of his wife's grandchildren: George Washington Parke Custis and Eleanor Custis, who married Washington's nephew Lawrence. The marriage was a comfortably happy one. It made him rich, for the Custis plantation covered some 17,000 acres and included 300 slaves and a town house in [[Williamsburg]]. Washington proved himself an able and active manager, with a keen interest in scientific agriculture and land speculation. He bought up unoccupied western lands shrewdly, even in advance of permission from London. Unlike most planters, he foresaw the risks involved in a concentration on [[tobacco]] and diversified his crops. He grew wheat as well as tobacco on his Potomac farms, and by 1772 he was exporting both fish and flour to the West Indies. By 1774 he was one of the wealthiest of landowners at a time when ownership of land involved the administration of managers, overseers, tenants, and slaves; the keeping of accounts with the tobacco factors in Britain; and the ordering from England of most tools, furniture and clothing.

The local gentry controlled local government. Washington became a vestryman (in charge of the local [[Anglican]] church) and a justice of the peace. From 1758 to 1765 he was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses for Frederick County, and from 1765 for Fairfax, although he took little part in affairs in Williamsburg. He was not a debater, speaker or pamphleteer, but nevertheless struck a conspicuous figure as a man of sound military, political and economic judgment. He had shown particular concern over bounty land due to the veterans of the French and Indian War, and he knew the Virginia frontier at first hand. Washington was America's first great entrepreneur, who saw the future of a diversified economy even in the South and achieved it for himself at least; who saw the future of the West and invested in it; and who directed all his activities with a careful and rather cold efficiency.

==American Revolution==
Washington's path to revolution reflected the American ideology of [[Republicanism, U.S.|republicanism]]; indeed, it provides "an almost textbook example of the Radical Whig ideology that historians have made the central feature of scholarship on the American Revolution for the past forty years."<ref>Ellis (2004) p. 62</ref> Personal experiences on multiple levels convinced Washington there was indeed a British conspiracy to enslave the colonies, as he saw imperial policies constantly limiting and restricting his prized autonomy. In his quests for a commission in the redcoat army, for western land, and for economic independence from British consignment merchants, Washington found himself losing out, becoming a helpless dependent.

Washington and the Continental Army triumphed by driving the 10,000 British out of [[Boston]] in March 1776. The tide turned; Washington barely survived humiliating defeats the defense of New York City that fall. He revived the nation's fortunes by crossing the Delaware River and defeating British forces in stunning victories at Trenton and Princeton over the winter of 1776–77.
[[Image:washington-deleware.jpg|right|thumb|220px|''[[Washington Crossing the Delaware]]'', by Emmanuel Leutze, 1850]]

As Ellis (2004) argues, the June 1775-March 1776 siege of Boston was the formative event in Washington's development as a military and political leader, for it was there that he first responded to the logistical problems inherent to the American cause in the Revolutionary War with his trademark determination, leadership ability, and sound decision making. He also, however, exhibited a stubborn, aloof, severe personality that "virtually precluded intimacy." Washington, dubbed "His Excellency" by the adoring American public, also became acquainted with many of his future staff members and lieutenants during this period. The British were forced out of Boston and every place in America, which declared its independence and became "the United States of America" on July 4, 1776.

[[King George III]] personally demanded the rebellion be suppressed. He sent two-thirds of his army, and half of the Royal Navy in "the largest projection of seaborne power ever attempted by a European power."<ref>Fischer (2004) p. 33</ref> The British sent 23,000 regular troops under experienced officers and sergeants, and another 10,000 trained [[Hessian (soldier)|Hessians]] supported by 70 warships. The ocean off the entire [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic]] coast came under British control, shutting down the large American merchant marine. In the face of this, Washington's forces melted away. He had more than 28,000 men under his command at the end of August when the British landed. After losing badly in New York City, at the beginning of December he had a mere 6,800. But he used them in an audacious Christmas-day attack that destroyed the Hessian garrison at Trenton, New Jersey <ref>[[Hessian (soldier)|Hessians]] lost 896 captured, 22 killed and 83 seriously wounded. Washington lost two men killed in battle, two more frozen to death, and eight wounded. Fischer (2004) pp. 254-5.</ref> and defeated the British outpost at Princeton, New Jersey. Threatened by Washington and harassed by patriotic farmer-marksmen, the British withdrew from the state of [[New Jersey]].

[[Image:Am-Rev.jpg|thumb|right|220px|Advantages (top) and disadvantages (bottom) General Washington had to cope with during the Revolution]]
In 1777 he tricked the British into dividing their forces so that one British army under General Howe confronted (and defeated) Washington in unimportant battles near [[Philadelphia]], while the main British army under general Cornwallis was forced to surrender at Saratoga, in upstate New York. This great American victory at Saratoga enabling the French to enter the war officially and make it an even contest militarily.

When the British moved in fall 1777 to capture the national capital at Philadelphia, Washington moved south to stop them, but was defeated by Howe at Brandywine (Sept 11) and Germantown (Oct 4). The British wintered in comfort in the city while Washington's army, 11,000 strong at first, had stark quarters at Valley Forge nearby. "The whole of them," said Gen. John Sullivan, were "without watch coats, one half without blankets, and more than one third without shoes . . . many of them without jackets...and not a few without shirts." Rations were scarce, as the local farmers refused to accept Continental money. Exhausted and ill, hundreds deserted to go home to their farms. Washington warned Congress: "unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place... this army must inevitably...starve, dissolve or disperse." Many in Congress grumbled about Washington's leadership and there was talk of promoting his chief critic, General Thomas Conway. However Congress and the army realized Washington was indispensable, and he remained in charge. The bright note was that Washington brought in a highly skilled European officer, General [[Friedrich von Steuben]], who systematically trained the officers and sergeants in the latest drills and maneuvering techniques of the Prussian army.<ref>Quotes from Freeman 4:570, 568.</ref>
[[Image:Washington resign commission.jpg|right|thumb|220px|John Trumbull's portrayal of General Washington resigning his commission]]
===Victory in the South 1780-1781===
The British made one last major effort in 1780–1781, invading South Carolina (and remote Georgia) in the hopes of rallying enough Loyalists to break off the southern states. Washington kept the main British army bottled up in New York City, as the southern campaigns turned into [[guerrilla warfare]] and assassination squads. The British realized they had failed and moved their army to Yorktown, Virginia, awaiting the Royal Navy to take it to New York. The British fleet did show up but was defeated by a stronger French fleet. Washington meanwhile moved his entire army and the French army to Yorktown, where they forced the British to surrender in October 1781.

King George III wanted to fight on even after losing two of his three combat armies but he lost control of [[Parliament]] and the American war was over. When the peace treaty was finalized in 1783, Washington triumphantly marched into New York City. Then to the astonishment of the world, Washington—by now the most famous man in the world—stopped the [[Newburgh Conspiracy]], resigned his commission, and went home to his plantation, setting a standard of republican belief in civilian supremacy.

Washington delivered his farewell to his officers on December 4, 1783, at [[Fraunces Tavern]] in New York City.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=duwQAQAAMAAJ&pg=PR201 The Minute Man, Volumes 11-20]</ref>

===Conflict with the Iroquois===
As part of the revolutionary war, George Washington is said to have massacred the Iroquois. The story goes as follows: On June 4, 1779, Washington ordered the Revolutionary army to invade the land of where the Iroquois tribe was to kill many of them as possible. This widely publicized story states that the invasion had devastated the tribe and their army.<ref name="usnews.com">https://www.usnews.com/news/national/articles/2008/06/27/town-destroyer-versus-the-iroquois-indians</ref><ref name="americanhistory.oxfordre.com">http://americanhistory.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-3</ref> 
The "Ho-De-No-Sau-Nee," or "League of the Iroquois," was a group of five tribes in northern New York and Pennsylvania which joined forces in 1570. As one body represented by 50 members of each tribe, they made decisions relating to trade and war. Day-to-day operations within tribes were left to the jurisdiction of their respective tribes, but matters of war had to be agreed upon by the group. In general, they seemed to side with the British in most matters. However, they also proved deceitful in certain matters, such as the sale of land which did not belong to them, but rather the Shawnee, Delaware and Cherokee.<ref>http://firstpeoplesofcanada.com/fp_treaties/fp_treaties_br1stpplafter1763.html</ref> They also generally fought with the British against the colonists.<ref>[http://theiroquoisstory.weebly.com TheIroquoisStory] retrieved 9/18/17</ref> 
This system worked until about the time of the American revolution. With many Native Americans as involved in the conflict as Europeans, the Iroquois needed to make a decision on who to fight, but could not. In the end, each tribe tried to go its own way, but most fought against the colonists in favor of the British. Even so, Iroquois made themselves enemies of the British in some cases as well.<ref name="let.rug.nl">http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/history-1994/early-america/colonial-indian-relations.php</ref> As the Iroquois Indians had been raiding the colonies' northern frontier, Washington finally ordered the "total destruction and devastation" of Iroquois settlements in order to crush their hostile Confederacy.<ref name="usnews.com"/><ref name="americanhistory.oxfordre.com"/><ref name="let.rug.nl"/> 
Revisionist history tries to portray this final strike against the Iroquois as a cruel, senseless slaughter of innocent Native Americans. It was quite the opposite, being rather a well-deserved retaliatory strike, putting an end to the ongoing aggression of the alliance. It also removed one of the military options of the British.

==Constitution==
Long before most of his contemporaries, Washington realized that independence could not be guaranteed without a standing army and that a nation strong enough to defend itself and to control the West could not exist without a central taxing power and a competent executive authority. All of those things, he admitted. ran directly counter to anti-tax, anti-centralizing sentiments that animated the Revolution. But they were necessary nonetheless, Washington insisted throughout the 1780s. Ellis (2004) concludes that Washington, succeeded in reconciling those contradictions and playing the difficult role of a semi-monarchical republican leader because he understood so well the proper use of power and could project "onto the national screen ... the same kind of controlling authority he had orchestrated within his own personality."<ref>Ellis 2004 p. 274</ref>

In 1785 Washington hosted the [[Mount Vernon Conference]] at his home, which led to both the [[Annapolis Convention]] and the creation of the Constitution.

Because of the reputation he gained in the American Revolution, Washington was a logical choice for Virginia to send as a delegate to the [[Constitutional Convention]]. There, he was quickly chosen to chair the convention. While he barely ever spoke, the delegates have been said to have designed the [[President of the United States|Presidency]] assuming he would be the first President. Other members of the Virginia delegation to the Convention were [[John Blair]], [[James Madison]], [[George Mason]], [[James McClurg]], [[Edmund Randolph]], and [[George Wythe]].

==First president==
[[File:Federal Hall Wall Street New York.jpg|thumb|Statue of George Washington, erected at the [[Federal Hall National Memorial]] on the spot where he took his oath of office in 1789.]]
In [[United States presidential election, 1789|the first Presidential election]], George Washington was enthusiastically and unanimously elected. Reluctantly, he once more assented to the call of duty. This allowed him great freedom in setting up the customs, honors and daily functioning of the new government. Washington surrounded himself with a sophisticated and intelligent group of consultants and supporters and successfully delegated most of the responsibility for the conduct of their offices to those trusted colleagues. He practiced "leading by listening".<ref>Ellis (2004) p. 175</ref>

One of Washington's greatest achievements was creating the form and style of the new government—a creation that has lasted to this day. The Constitution was vague about administrative details, and under the Confederation the national government was ineffective. Washington created a strong cabinet, with departments of State (foreign affairs), Treasury, War (military and naval affairs), along with an Attorney General. His style was formal but avoided the elaborate ceremonies and costumes of European courts. Washington consulted with his cabinet, but made the decisions himself. He served as his own chief of staff and kept a very small presidential staff in New York City (which was the national capital until it moved to Philadelphia in 1790). He ignored vice president [[John Adams]].

As president Washington employed careful restraint in exercising executive power (to prevent a backlash against centralization), and practiced calculated postponement of potentially lethal issues such as foreign war or ending slavery. His was restrained regarding such issues as the power of the Supreme Court and the abolition of slavery (he quietly favored gradual emancipation), and his absence from early pronouncements in favor of Hamilton's financial plans, allowed him to develop both a nation and an office that appeared above the day-to-day political battles. However, he played a leading role in the struggle to locate the permanent national capital in the District of Columbia and in making military and foreign policy. He believed America's future interests did not depend on Europe but on the people and lands to the nation's west. Washington's vision led to a restrained but effective use of the power of the executive office and the foundations for a strong national government.<ref>Ellis, "Inventing the Presidency." ''American Heritage'' 2004</ref>
[[File:GeneralWashingtonatChristChurc.jpg|thumb|George Washington worshipped at [[Christ Church, Philadelphia]].]]
===Hamiltonian policies===
By far the most important innovations came from Treasury Secretary [[Alexander Hamilton]]. Washington gave strong support to Hamilton's successful programs, all approved by Congress, to take over the state debts, to fund the new national debt through a tariff on imports, and to create a national bank, the first Bank of the United States. [[Thomas Jefferson]], the Secretary of State, opposed all these programs but was defeated. Hamilton set up a national network of supporters that became the [[Federalist Party]]. Washington never joined the party, but he supported most of its policies and became its iconic symbol. Jefferson and Madison set up a rival party called the [[Jeffersonian Republicans]]. Both parties set up newspapers that engaged in nasty invective. By his second term, Washington had become the target of intense attacks from the Republicans. They first portrayed him as an unwitting tool of Hamilton, but later realized that he actually did support Federalist policies.<ref>''America Afire: Jefferson, Adams, and the Revolutionary Election of 1800''. Bernard A. Weisberger.</ref>

====Whiskey Rebellion, 1794====
Washington decided on decisive action to suppress the [[Whiskey Rebellion]], in which angry farmers in western Pennsylvania were protesting the new federal tax on whiskey. He called on governors to supply militia units, which they did. Washington rode at the head of a strong army into Pennsylvania and the rebellion collapsed without a confrontation.

===French Revolution===
Washington had not traveled outside the U.S. (apart from a brief visit to Bermuda), and paid little attention to European affairs. When the French Revolution led to war in 1793 between Britain (America's leading trading partner), and France (the old ally, with a treaty still in effect), Washington and his cabinet decided on a policy of neutrality. Washington supported the [[Jay's Treaty]], designed by Hamilton to avoid war with Britain and encourage commerce. The Jeffersonians vehemently opposed the treaty, but Washington's support proved decisive, and the U.S. and Britain were on friendly terms for a decade.

===Farewell Address===
Washington reluctantly served a second term, beginning in 1793, but by 1796 he was exhausted and insisted on not running again. (Since then, no President except [[Theodore Roosevelt]] and [[Franklin Roosevelt]] has ever tried for a third term; the [[Twenty-Second Amendment]] makes this two-term limit into law.) His [[Farewell Address]], partly drafted by Hamilton and Jefferson, remains a classic statement of republicanism, calling on Americans to practice civic virtue and avoid alliances with the warring parties in Europe.
[[File:Life of George Washington - The Christian death.jpg|thumb|Washington on his death bed]]
===Retirement and death: 1797-99===
Washington returned to his beloved Mount Vernon, but his health continued to decline. In 1798 he accepted appointment as nominal head of a new national army designed to fight the French in a threatened war. (President John Adams chose him as the one man who would command respect from all factions.) His role was nominal, as Hamilton was in effective command.

Washington died in 1799 from acute epiglottitis during an influenza epidemic, and complications from extensive [[bloodletting]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=jgC36S_BdpwC&pg=PR17 Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution]</ref> Attending physicians, including his personal physician [[James Craik]], could not agree whether his condition was cynanche, an inflammation of the throat that was believed to require powerful remedies, or something that would require less radical therapeutic interventions than those his physicians had prescribed.<ref>Ben Cohen, Ben. "The Death of George Washington (1732-99) and the History of Cynanche." ''Journal of Medical Biography'' 2005 13(4): 225-231. Issn: 0967-7720</ref> [[Tobias Lear]], Washington's personal secretary, reported that his last words were "Tis well."<ref>[http://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/biography/washington-stories/tobias-lear-tells-the-tale-of-washingtons-death/ Tobias Lear Tells the Tale of Washington's Death]</ref>

==Family and personality==
[[File:Savage The Washington Family.jpg|right|thumb|The Washington Family, 1796 by [[Edward Savage]].]]
Although he had no children, Washington enjoyed a happy family life and especially enjoyed management of his tobacco plantation.

As Henriques (2006) stresses, Washington was driven by a lifelong quest for fame. He zealously guarded his reputation and took great care to ensure that he always acted properly and that he received due acknowledgment for his propriety. Washington prided himself on his honorable actions and was inordinately sensitive to criticism. Ellis (2004) stresses that Washington learned to discipline his emotions as an essential survival skill while facing dangers as a young officer in the Seven Years' War. That capacity for self-control, outwardly manifested in his famous aloofness, served Washington well again during the Revolution, not only by insulating him from criticism, but also by enabling him to curb his ambitions sufficiently to give up power at the end of the war. This earned him the universally honorable reputation that he so ardently desired. Washington was compared, in his willing surrender of power to the Roman leader [[Cincinnatus]], a comparison which drew worldwide attention and acclaim, even in Britain, the nation defeated under his leadership.<ref>For Lord Byron's poem on the subject, hailing Washington as "the first, the last, the best, the Cincinnatus of the West," see http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/2001/byron0101.html.</ref>

===Slavery===
Critics argue that Washington's status as a slaveholder, his treatment of his slaves, and his condoning of the institution of slavery besmirch his reputation as the "father of our country." Washington's stay at the President's House in Philadelphia was similarly colored by slavery - nine slaves resided both in the house and in adjacent slave quarters. As a slaveholder, Washington personally struggled to balance the moral injustice of the institution with harsh realities, such as the fact that his own slaves were intermarried with those of his wife, whom he could not legally free. In his will, Washington emancipated his 123 slaves and provided financial support for the elderly and vocational training for the young. He acted in part to remove the only stain on his carefully cultivated reputation.

==Christianity==
[[Image:W-pray.jpg|right|thumb|''The Prayer at Valley Forge'', Henry Brueckner]]
Washington was a practicing Christian who frequently attended services of several denominations and took seriously his responsibilities as vestryman of his Anglican parish. Washington frequently invoked God and commanded that chaplains be included in every regiment:

<blockquote>"The General hopes and trusts, that every officer and man, will endeavor so to live, and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier, defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country."<ref>http://www.amerisearch.net/index.php?date=2004-02-22&view=View</ref></blockquote>

During one harsh winter while encamped at [[Valley Forge]], an eyewitness reported seeing General Washington pray for God's aid to win the upcoming battles against the British. He said:

<blockquote>''"I was riding with Mr. Potts near to the Valley Forge where the army lay during the war of ye Revolution, when Mr. Potts said, 'Do you see that woods & that plain? There laid the army of Washington. It was a most distressing time of ye war, and all were for giving up the Ship but that great and good man. In that woods (pointing to a close in view) I heard a plaintive sound as of a man at prayer.... To my astonishment I saw the great George Washington on his knees alone, with his sword on one side and his cocked hat on the other. He was at Prayer to the God of the Armies, beseeching to interpose with his Divine aid, as it was ye Crisis & the cause of the country, of humanity & of the world. Such a prayer I never heard from the lips of man. "''.<ref>From ''Diary and Remembrances,'' by Rev. Nathaniel Randolph Snowden (1770-1851), who received it from an eyewitness to the scene, Valley Forge resident Isaac Potts</ref></blockquote>

Washington declared in his Inaugural Address:

<blockquote>"It would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of Providential agency."<ref>''Id.''</ref></blockquote> Comments such as this one have led some modern historians to conclude that Washington was more a deist than a Christian.

Washington told a delegation of Indians: <blockquote>"You do well to wish to learn our arts and way of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ... Congress will do everything they can to assist you in this wise intention.<ref>Original Intent, [[David Barton]], 2004, Pg. 168</ref></blockquote>

Washington declared in his Farewell Address: <blockquote>"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports." <ref>[http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r106:4:./temp/~r1068i99iE:e2427: Reading of Washington's Farewell Address -- (Senate - February 22, 2000)]</ref></blockquote>

He began his last will and testament, "In the name of God, Amen".

Washington cherished his Bible so much that he includes the following sentence in his will "To the Reverend, now Bryan, Lord Fairfax, I give a Bible in three large folio volumes, with notes, presented to me by the Right Reverend Thomas Wilson" <ref>[http://www.ashbrook.org/library/18/washington/will.html Last Will and Testament] Ashbrook Center</ref>

==Freemason==
On November 4, 1752, Washington was initiated into [[Freemasonry]] at Fredricksburg Lodge, Fredricksburg, Virginia. He was passed and raised at the same lodge, becoming a Master Mason on August 4, 1753. He later served as Worshipful Master of Alexandria Lodge No. 22 in Alexandria, Virginia. Upon his death in 1799, he was given a Masonic funeral at his wife's request.<ref>http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/washington_g/washington_g.html</ref> Despite this, Washington despised the [[Illuminati]] and the [[Jacobins]], which were closely associated with Freemasons and radicalism.<ref>Philipp, Joshua (May 29, 2019). [https://www.theepochtimes.com/washingtons-warnings-against-partisanship-related-to-the-illuminati-and-democratic-socities_2941627.html Washington’s Warnings Against Partisanship Related to the ‘Illuminati’ and ‘Democratic Socities’]. ''The Epoch Times''. Retrieved May 29, 2019.</ref>

==Parson Weems and the Cherry Tree Story==
In 1809, Mason Locke Weems (1756-1825), usually referred to as "Parson Weems," published a book entitled ''History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington.'' This book contained many fanciful stories and half-truths, intended to present Washington as a larger-than-life figure. Perhaps the most famous passage in it is Weems' recounting of a story which he attributed to an unnamed "aged lady, who was a distant relative [of Washington], and, when a girl, spent much of her time in the [Washington] family:"

:"When George," said she, "was about six years old, he was made the wealthy master of a hatchet of which, like most little boys, he was immoderately fond, and was constantly going about chopping everything that came in his way. One day, in the garden, where he often amused himself hacking his mother's pea-sticks, he unluckily tried the edge of his hatchet on the body of a beautiful young English cherry-tree, which he barked so terribly, that I don't believe the tree ever got the better of it. The next morning the old gentleman, finding out what had befallen his tree, which, by the by, was a great favorite, came into the house; and with much warmth asked for the mischievous author, declaring at the same time, that he would not have taken five guineas for his tree. Nobody could tell him anything about it. Presently George and his hatchet made their appearance. "George," said his father," do you know who killed that beautiful little cherry tree yonder in the garden?" This was a tough question; and George staggered under it for a moment; but quickly recovered himself: and looking at his father, with the sweet face of youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of all-conquering truth, he bravely cried out, "I can't tell a lie, Pa; you know I can't tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet."—"Run to my arms, you dearest boy," cried his father in transports, "run to my arms; glad am I, George, that you killed my tree; for you have paid me for it a thousand fold. Such an act of heroism in my son is more worth than a thousand trees, though blossomed with silver, and their fruits of purest gold."<ref>British spellings are as they appear in the original text.</ref><ref>Weems, George Mason (1918), ''History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington.'' [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/gw/chap2.html Chapter 2: Birth and Education], online at University of Virginia</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC22316477&id=6tc56rgYE1YC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=mason+locke+weems&as_brr=1#PPP13,M1 The Life of George Washington] with Curious Anecdotes Equally Honorable to Himself, and Exemplary to his Young Countrymen. 1837, facsimile page images at Google Books</ref>

(Notice that Weems did not represent Washington as calling it "my ''little'' hatchet;" that appears to be a "familiar misquotation.")

==Greatness==
Surveys of scholars always rank Washington as one of the two or three greatest presidents—with [[Abraham Lincoln]] his main competition.

In an October 2000 survey of 132 prominent professors of history, law, and political science, President Washington was grouped in the "Great" group, ranked 1st, with a mean score of 4.92 out of 5.00.<ref>Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House (New York, Wall Street Journal Book, 2004)</ref>

[[Image:Trumbull G. Washington.jpg|right|thumb|''George Washington'', by [[John Trumbull]]]]

==Speeches from George Washington==
*[[George Washington's First Inaugural Speech]]
*[[George Washington's First Annual Message to Congress]]
*[[George Washington's Second Inaugural Address]]
*[[George Washington's Farewell Address]]

==Quotes from George Washington==
* "I have only been an instrument in the hands of Providence"

*"The freedom of Speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter." (1783)<ref>To THE OFFICERS OF THE ARMY, Head Quarters, Newburgh, March 15, 1783, from ''The writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, '' ed. John C. Fitzpatrick, (Washington: U.S. GPO, 1931-1944)26: 224</ref>

*"Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." (1796)<ref>("FAREWELL ADDRESS" in ''Writings,'' 35:229.</ref>

*"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily."<ref>To the Secretary of State, in ''Writings,''34:266.</ref>

*"There is no such thing as coincidence. God wills the world according to his design." (1773)<ref>From The Diaries of George Washington, 1773)</ref>

*"The propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained:

*"But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed." (1796)<ref>Farewell Address; September 19, 1796</ref>

*"Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government."<ref>To Henry Lee, Oct. 31, 1786 [https://books.google.com/books?id=5CHqDr6CJLsC&pg=PA204&dq=%22are+unfit+for+their+own+%22&lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&num=30&as_brr=0&as_pt=ALLTYPES#PPA204,M1 online p 202-3]</ref>

*"Government is not [[reason]]; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."<ref>[http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/26552 The War on Reason]</ref>

''„Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labour to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men & citizens. The mere Politican, equally with the [[Piety|pious]] man ought to respect & to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private & public felicity. Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the Oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure--reason & experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. 'Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of Free Government. Who that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric.“'' [http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/farewell/intro.html The Papers of George Washington, Documents, The Farewell Address, page 20]

==Trivia==
George Washington did not have wooden teeth, as many tales have asserted. As early as his 20's, Washington had trouble with his teeth.<ref name=teeth>[http://www.mountvernon.org/digital-encyclopedia/article/false-teeth/ False Teeth]</ref> This would lead to several sets of dentures for Washington, made out of several different materials, including ivory and human teeth.

Washington's dentist was Dr. John Greenwood.<ref name=teeth />

He is rumored to have told Thomas Jefferson that a function of the Senate is to "cool off" legislation passed from the House of Representatives, similarly to how a saucer is used to cool off hot tea.<ref>[https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Senate_Created.htm United States Senate]</ref><ref>[https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/senatorial-saucer Senatorial Saucer]</ref>

Washington was an accomplished dancer. He took dancing lessons in his teenage years and enjoyed practice throughout his life.<ref>[http://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/colonial-life-today/dancing/ Dancing with General Washington]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=X1MrG9oLmvwC&pg=PT84 George Washington's Leadership Lessons: What the Father of Our Country Can Teach Us About Effective Leadership and Character]</ref>

== See also ==
*[[Washington Elm]]
*[[Gallery of American Heroes]]
*[[George Washington's Circular Address to the States]]
*[[George Washington's speech which ended the Newburgh Conspiracy]]
*[[Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation]]

==Bibliography==
[[File:Washington Houdon 1792.jpg|Right|250px|thumb|A statue of Washington by Jean-Antoine Houdon, currently in the Virginia State Capitol's Rotunda]]
===Interpretations===
* Cunliffe, Marcus. ''Washington: Man and Monument'' (1958),
* Ellis, Joseph J. ''His Excellency: George Washington'' (2004), by Pulitzer prize winner
* Ellis, Joseph J. "Inventing the Presidency." ''American Heritage'' 2004 55(5): 42–48, 50, 52–53. Issn: 0002-8738 Fulltext: online at Ebsco.
* Henriques, Peter R. ''Realistic Visionary: A Portrait of George Washington.'' (2006).
* Higginbotham, Don. ''George Washington: Uniting a Nation'' (2002)
* Higginbotham, Don, ed. ''George Washington Reconsidered''. (2001). 336 pp.
* Wood, Gordon S. "The Greatness of George Washington." ''Virginia Quarterly Review'' 1992 68(2): 189–207. Issn: 0042-675x Fulltext: in Ebsco

===Biographies===
* Alden, John R. ''George Washington: A Biography'' (1984)
* Ferling, John E. ''The First of Men: A Life of George Washington'' (1988)
* Flexner, James Thomas. ''Washington: The Indispensable Man'' (1974). short version of Flexner, ''George Washington,'' 4 vols. (1965–1972). [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=98849444 vol 1 online, 1732-1775]
* Freeman, Douglas Southall, ''George Washington,'' 7 vols. (1948–1957); Pulitzer prize; a one-volume condensed version appeared in 1968 [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=62946671 vol 1 online]
* Lillback, Peter A., ''George Washington's Sacred Fire''; 2006 [http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/george-washingtons-sacred-fire-peter-a-lillback/1100258407]

===Military===
* Alden, John Richard. ''A History of the American Revolution'' (1969).
* Bodle, Wayne. ''Valley Forge Winter: Civilians and Soldiers in War'' (2002)
* Buchanan, John. ''The Road to Valley Forge: How Washington Built the Army That Won the Revolution'' (2004) 368 pp.. [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=106756208 online edition]
* Fischer, David Hackett. ''Washington's Crossing'' (2004), Pulitzer prize winner; study of 1776-77 [http://blog.oup.com/2006/02/washingtons_cro online excerpt]
* Higginbotham, Don. ''George Washington and the American Military Tradition'' (1985);
* Higginbotham, Don. ''The War of American Independence: Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practice, 1763–1789'' (1971). an analytical history of the war
* Lengel, Edward G. ''General George Washington: A Military Life.'' (2005). 450 pp
* McCullough, David. ''1776.'' 386 pp.
* Reed, John F. ''Campaign to Valley Forge: July 1, 1777–December 19, 1777'' (1965)
* Royster, Charles. ''A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775–1783'' (1979)
* Taaffe, Stephen R. ''The Philadelphia Campaign, 1777–1778'' (2003).
* Ward, Christopher. ''The War of the Revolution,'' 2 vols., 1952, a good narrative of all the major battles.
* Wrong, George M. ''Washington and His Comrades in Arms: A Chronicle of the War of Independence'' (1921) by a Canadian scholar [https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2704 online edition]
* ''West Point Atlas'' [http://www.military.com/Resources/HistorySubmittedFileView?file=history_americanrevolution_maps.htm online version]; the maps are public domain and not copyrighted

[[Image:Washington1.jpg|thumb|right|200px|print from 1790s]]

===Political===
* Bassett, John Spencer. ''The Federalist System, 1789–1801'' (1906), survey of politics [https://books.google.com/books/pdf/____The_Federalist_System__1789_1801.pdf?vid=OCLC64662233&id=tcQtUqwJCT8C&output=pdf&sig=JEsIhspA7Iw74WFJWe0zHeZU57k online version],
* Chernow, Ron. <cite>Alexander Hamilton</cite>. Penguin Books, (2004) (ISBN 1-59420-009-2). detailed biography
* Cronin, Thomas F., ed. ''Inventing the American Presidency.'' U. Press of Kansas, 1989. 404 pp.
* Deconde, Alexander. ''Entangling Alliance: Politics & Diplomacy under George Washington'' (1958) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=14354962 online edition]
* Elkins, Stanley M. and Eric McKitrick. ''The Age of Federalism.'' (1994) the leading scholarly history of the 1790s. [http://www.questia.com/library/book/the-age-of-federalism-by-stanley-elkins-eric-mckitrick.jsp online edition]
* Fishman, Ethan M.; William D. Pederson, Mark J. Rozell, eds. ''George Washington'' (2001) essays by scholars
* Flaumenhaft; Harvey. ''The Effective Republic: Administration and Constitution in the Thought of Alexander Hamilton'' Duke University Press, 1992
* Grizzard, Frank E., Jr. ''George Washington: A Biographical Companion.'' ABC-CLIO, 2002. 436 pp. Comprehensive encyclopedia by leading scholar
* Gregg II, Gary L. and Matthew Spalding, eds. ''George Washington and the American Political Tradition.'' ISI (1999), essays by scholars
* Leibiger, Stuart. "Founding Friendship: George Washington, James Madison, and the Creation of the American Republic." U. Press of Virginia, 1999. 284 pp.
*McDonald, Forrest. ''The Presidency of George Washington''. 1988. Intellectual history showing Washington as exemplar of republicanism.
* Miller, John C. ''The Federalist Era, 1789-1801'' (1960), political survey of 1790s.
*Miller, John C. ''Alexander Hamilton: Portrait in Paradox'' (1959), full-length scholarly biography; [http://www.questia.com/library/book/alexander-hamilton-portrait-in-paradox-by-john-c-miller.jsp online edition]
* Morgan, Philip D. "'To Get Quit of Negroes': George Washington and Slavery.'' ''Journal of American Studies'' 2005 39(3): 403-429. Issn: 0021-8758
* Novak, Michael and Novak, Jana. ''Washington's God: Religion, Liberty, and the Father of Our Country.'' 2006. 282 pp. Rejects idea that Washington was a deist; he kept his religion private and was probably a Christian
* Nordham, George W. ''The Age of Washington: George Washington's Presidency, 1789-1797.'' (1989).
* Pogue, Dennis J. "George Washington: Slave Master." ''American History'' 2004 38(6): 52–61. Issn: 1076-8866 Fulltext: in Ebsco, popular history
* Rozell, Mark J., William D. Pederson, Frank J. Williams. ''George Washington and the Origins of the American Presidency'' 2000 [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=26469391 online edition]
* Riccards, Michael P. ''A Republic, If You Can Keep It: The Foundations of the American Presidency, 1700-1800.'' (1987)
* Sharp, James. ''American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis.'' (1995), survey of politics in 1790s
* Smith, Robert W. ''Keeping the Republic: Ideology and Early American Diplomacy.'' (2004)
* Spalding, Matthew. "George Washington's Farewell Address." ''The Wilson Quarterly'' v20#4 (Autumn 1996) pp: 65+.
* White, Leonard D. ''The Federalists: A Study in Administrative History'' (1956), thorough analysis of the mechanics of government in 1790s
* Henry Wiencek. ''An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America,'' 2003. 404 pp.

==Primary sources==
* George Washington. ''Writings'' (1997) (Library of America edition) 440 letters and key documents, 1184pp [http://loa.org/volume.jsp?RequestID=5&section=toc online table of contents]

===Large editions===
Four major editions of Washington's writings have appeared:<ref>See [http://loa.org/volume.jsp?RequestID=5&section=notes] for details</ref>
* ''The Writings of George Washington,'' edited by [[Jared Sparks]] (12 volumes, 1833–37)
* ''The Writings of George Washington,'' edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (14 volumes, 1889–93) [https://books.google.com/books?q=ford+%22Writings+of+George+Washington%2C%27%27&btnG=Search+Books&as_brr=1 online volumes]
* ''The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799,'' edited by John C. Fitzpatrick (39 volumes, 1931–44). [http://www.questia.com online at [[Questia]]]
* ''The Papers of George Washington,'' edited by W. W. Abbot, Dorothy Twohig, and others, is ongoing; 48 volumes have been published since 1976, and when complete this edition will be the most comprehensive edition so far. See [http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/project/volumes/order.html] for details
** Washington, George. ''The Papers of George Washington Colonial Series'' Volumes 1-10 (complete)
** Washington, George. ''The Papers of George Washington Revolutionary War Series'' Volumes 1-16
** Washington, George. ''The Papers of George Washington Confederation Series'' Volumes 1-6 (complete)
** Washington, George. ''The Papers of George Washington: Presidential Series'' University Press of Virginia. Latest volume is Vol. 12: January–May 1793. ed by Philander D. Chase, 2005. 708 pp.
** Washington, George. ''The Papers of George Washington Retirement Series'' Volumes 1-4 (complete)
* ''Documents of the American Revolution, 1770-1783'' Ed. by K.G. Davies. 21 vols. (Irish Academic University Press, 1972), all the important British documents

== References ==
{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

== External links ==
*[https://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/gw1.html White House biography]
*[http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/index.html Papers of George Washington at the University of Virginia]
*[http://www.livingtrustnetwork.com/content/lwt/wills/washingtonwill.php Last will and testament]
*[https://archive.org/details/lifegeorgewashi00mdgoog The Life of George Washington], by [[David Ramsay]]
*[https://books.google.com/books?id=xT8FAAAAYAAJ The Life of George Washington], by Mason Locke Weems
*[https://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/gw1.html White House biography]
*[https://www.pbs.org/georgewashington/ PBS biography]
*[http://georgewashington.si.edu/ Smithsonian Institute biography]
*[http://www.mountvernon.org/ George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate]
*[http://www.ipl.org/div/potus/gwashington.html Internet Public Library, list of links]
*[http://gw.ffc.navy.mil/ USS ''George Washington'' CVN-73]
*[http://www.nps.gov/wamo/historyculture/index.htm WASHINGTON MONUMENT] the 125th anniversary of the monument's completion and dedication.
*[https://librivox.org/author/354 Works by George Washington - text and free audio] - [[LibriVox]]
*[https://librivox.org/george-washington-by-calista-mccabe-courtenay/ George Washington], by Calista McCabe Courtenay - Audiobook at [[LibriVox]]
*[https://librivox.org/george-washington-by-ferdinand-schmidt/ George Washington], by Ferdinand Schmidt - Audiobook at [[LibriVox]]

{{USPresidents}}
{{Constitutional Convention}}{{Conservative Presidents}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Washington, George}}

[[Category:American Revolutionary War Commanders]]
[[Category:Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:Founding Fathers]]
[[Category:George Washington|*]]
[[Category:British History]]
[[Category:American Revolution]]
[[Category:Republicanism]]
[[Category:Conservatives]]
[[Category:Early National U.S.]]
[[Category:Virginia]]
[[Category:Featured articles]]
[[Category:Veterans]]
[[Category:Libertarians]]
[[Category:Pro Second Amendment]]
[[Category:American Gun Rights Advocates]]
[[Category:Patriots]]

Abraham Lincoln

2021-03-06T05:23:11Z

Kollenbornstephen: george

{{Officeholder
|name=Abraham Lincoln
|image=Abraham-lincoln-by-story.jpg
|party=[[Republican]]
[[National Union]] (1864)
|spouse=[[Mary Todd Lincoln]]
|religion=[[Presbyterian]]<ref>http://abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/sites/nyave.htm</ref>
|offices=
{{Officeholder/president
|country=the United States
|number=16th
|terms=March 4, 1861 – April 15, 1865
|vp=[[Hannibal Hamlin]] (1861–1865) [[Andrew Johnson]] (1865)
|preceded=[[James Buchanan]]
|former=y
|succeeded=[[Andrew Johnson]]
}}
{{Officeholder/representative
|state=Illinois
|district=7th
|terms=March 4, 1847 – March 3, 1849
|preceded=John Henry
|former=y
|succeeded=Thomas L. Harris
}}
|military=y
|allegiance=Illinois Militia
|serviceyears=1832
|battles=Black Hawk War
}}
'''Abraham Lincoln''' (February 12, 1809 - April 15, 1865) was the 16th [[President of the United States of America]] serving from 1861 to 1865. He led his country through its greatest crisis, the [[American Civil War]], abolished [[slavery]] and built the [[Republican Party]] that dominated national politics outside [[the South]] during the [[Third Party System]]. Veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) became the Grand Old Party (GOP). Lincoln converted to [[Christianity]] upon visiting the grim site of the [[Battle of Gettysburg]] and honoring the fallen soldiers there; he attended [[church]] often afterwards.<ref>https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/abraham-lincoln-consecrated-to-christ-1184005.html</ref>

Lincoln was [[homeschooled]] and virtually entirely self-taught, which likely gave him independent thinking, reliance on logic, and a desire to continue to learn as an adult.<ref>For example, Lincoln successfully proved all of Euclid's theorems while serving in Congress.</ref> His eloquence as a writer was second only to [[Thomas Jefferson]] among presidents. Lincoln was a president, like [[Ronald Reagan]] and [[Donald Trump]] after him, whose [[faith]] developed and grew while holding high public office.

Lincoln joined the newly formed anti-slavery [[Republican Party]] after the [[Whig Party]] fell apart over the issue of [[abolition]]. With a profound sense of American history, unswerving commitment to [[Republicanism]], and an almost [[Shakespeare]]an command of the language, Lincoln articulated a vision of a new birth of freedom for all Americans. The destruction of the [[Confederacy]], and of the [[Slave Power|slave power]] that menaced [[conservative]] American values, affirmed Lincoln's vision in the [[Gettysburg Address]] (1863) and guaranteed that "government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Abraham Lincoln is the only president who held a registered [[patent]] for his invention, to buoy vessels over shoals in the [[Mississippi River]]; Lincoln supported the American patent system because it "added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20120101160557/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/object-oct06.html Smithsonian description of Patent No. 6,469, which was granted on May 22, 1849 for a device for "Buoying Vessels Over Shoals"]</ref>

==Early life==
Lincoln grew up in a hard-luck, hard-scrabble environment on
the middle border. His paternal ancestors were English; they migrated from Hingham, England, to Hingham Massachusetts, in 1637. In the 1730s they moved to backwoods Pennsylvania and Virginia. His grandfather moved to Kentucky in 1782, where he was scalped by Indians raiding his farm in 1786. His father Thomas owned some farmland near Elizabethtown, where he farmed and worked as a carpenter.

Abe later wrote:
:''“I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families-- second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams, and others in Macon Counties, Illinois.”''<ref>See [http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/autobiog.htm Speeches]</ref>

Abe was born in a backwoods cabin some three miles south of Hodgenville, Kentucky. His father Thomas Lincoln was a sturdy man, committed to pioneering in the new lands of Kentucky and Indiana. He married Nancy Hanks on June 12, 1806, and together they had three children: Sarah, Abraham, and Thomas, who did not survive infancy. The family belonged to a Hardshell Baptist church; Abe ridiculed the preachers and never joined their church, or any other church.

Young Abraham's earliest memories of his days in Kentucky involved helping his father plant some seeds of corn and sunflower, and a flood that washed them away.
[[Image:Young abraham lincoln.jpg|thumb|200px|left|The oldest-known photograph of Lincoln, about 1847.]]
In December 1816 Thomas had to pack up his family and leave for southwestern Indiana after a slaveowner with a better lawyer won title to his Kentucky property.

Penniless, the family in Indiana lived in a “half-faced” camp; a crude log structure with one side open to the elements, and there the family stayed as squatters on public land until Thomas had finished a permanent cabin; he later bought the land outright on which it stood. Helping Thomas clear the land and plowing the fields was Abe, who in sharp contrast to other boys developed a strong aversion to hunting. The poverty, Lincoln recalled, was “pretty pinching” at times, and by the age of nine he was a tall, lanky boy dressed rather ragged and unkempt.

Then the fall of 1818 brought the hardest blow: Nancy had died of the “milk sickness”, leaving Abraham without the mother whom he deeply loved. Some time later, Thomas had taken the buckboard and the mule, and left Abraham and Sarah on their own for two weeks; when he returned, he was with a new wife, Sarah Bush Johnson; she immediately made up for the absence of Nancy by replacing Abraham's corn husk mattress with one of down, winning him over the first day. The new step-mother treated both children with an even hand (she herself was a widow with three children, whom she had brought), but she became very fond of Abraham, and he in turn was fond of her, referring to her as his “angel mother” for the rest of his life.

===Education===
Both of Abraham's parents were nearly completely illiterate, and he himself had not much more than one year of formal education. When he did go to school, it was by “littles” – a little here, a little there – and he would call it “blab” school, which meant that they had to recite their lessons constantly due to lack of paper, pencils, and chalk. “Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three; but that was all.” The rule of three means up to one thousand.

His step-mother encouraged his reading as much as possible, and although Abraham did not have access to a large number of books, he would read as much of what was there, and read voraciously. He read John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, ''Aesop’s Fables'', Daniel DeFoe's ''Robinson Crusoe'', Parson Weems's ''Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington'', Edward Gibbon's ''Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', and undoubtedly he read many times the only book his family actually owned, the Bible. He would walk for miles to borrow a book he heard about, and after his chores he would collapse into a heap in front of the fire and read for hours. He would say years later that his best friend was the man who let him borrow a book he hadn't read yet.

As a practicing lawyer, Lincoln gained respect for the work of [[Blackstone]] and his [[Commentaries on the Laws of England]]. Lincoln was known for giving the following advice to others in his field: "Begin with Blackstone's "''Commentaries''", and after reading it carefully through, say twice, take up Chitty's "Pleadings," Greenleaf's "Evidence," and Story's "Equity," etc., in succession."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=ldfcBd_-O8QC&pg=PT128 Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=sRwqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA40 Personal Traits of Abraham Lincoln]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=L7ZDo_sjOFMC&pg=PA77 Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President]</ref>

===The Rail-Splitter===
[[Image:Railsplitter.jpg|thumb|200px|right|An artist's impression of a young Abe Lincoln, the ''Rail-Splitter''.]]
The Lincolns moved to Illinois in March, 1830, with Abraham driving the team of oxen himself, a young man of 21, rawboned and lanky at six feet four inches tall. But the years working on the Indiana farm also made him physically powerful, and on his arrival in Illinois he was soon to demonstrate the skill with which he could wield an axe, putting it to good use by clearing the trees and laying the fence on his father’s new farm; the speed with which he could take tree trunks and split them into the rails needed for the fencing just by using his axe earned him the nickname “rail-splitter.” He could make an axe flash and bite deep; one neighbor saying “He could sink an axe deeper into wood than any man I ever saw.” After a good deal of chopping, he could take the axe by its handle and hold it straight out away from his body, without a single quiver. (Sandburg, pg. 14) Good-natured as well, he would make friends easily, despite his awkward-looking stride and backwoods language.
[[Image:Lincoln hair.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Fearing that his friends wouldn't recognize him "without a bad tousle", Lincoln messed his hair up in this picture before the photographer closed the shutter.]]
Soon, he signed on as a deckhand on a flatboat, and made a voyage down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. When he returned he settled in a small town on the Sangamon River called New Salem, working as a store keeper, surveyor, or a postmaster, the later of which allowed him to be the first to read the arriving newspapers. Then talk went about town of Lincoln's utter honesty, how he would walk six miles to return a few cents to a customer he had accidentally overcharged, or the woman that had bought some tea, and having used the wrong weight for the purchase, Lincoln made the correction and walked the many miles to her house to ensure she got the right order (Sandburg, pp 24–25).

In 1832 he enlisted in the Black Hawk War, and was elected captain of his company, but the only fighting he admitted seeing action in was the “many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes.” After he was mustered out of his company, he aspired for the state legislature, losing the contest the first time he ran, then getting elected and re-elected several times afterward. He had briefly thought about practicing the trade of blacksmithing, but his craving of reading led him to law books, which caused some serious studying. Lincoln passed the bar in 1836, and began a new career practicing law.

===Insulting letters===

In the early 1840s, Lincoln had a habit of writing critical letters that skewered his political opponents unmercifully. In 1842, after the default of the state bank, Lincoln wrote a letter to the editor of the ''Sangamo Journal'' about Illinois' governor, treasurer and auditor's refusal to accept the state's own paper money for payment of debts. The letter directly attacked James Shields, the state auditor, who then challenged Lincoln to a duel. After taking lessons in swordsmanship, Lincoln met Shields on September 22, 1842 on a Missouri sandbar. Two mutual friends rushed to the scene and talked the two combatants into cancelling the duel.<ref>[http://www.historynet.com/abraham-lincoln-prepares-to-fight-a-saber-duel.htm Abraham Lincoln prepares to fight a saber duel]</ref>

==Springfield==
The following year he moved to the new state capital of Illinois, Springfield, becoming law partners with John T. Stuart, Stephan T. Logan, and finally William H. Herndon in 1844, who, although junior in age to Lincoln by a decade, made a good, balanced partner. Few records exist of their law business, and when they got paid for their services they split the cash, no matter who was paid. Lincoln would earn $1,200 - $1,500 annually within just a few years; by comparison circuit judges earned $750. But to earn it he kept busy and worked hard; often he would climb into his buggy and travel the circuit of neighboring counties and practice before the courts there. And often the cases he would be involved in were petty

Years before he had tried, and failed, to push legislation through the state assembly to have the Sangamon River made navigable to New Salem; by 1850 the railroads were bringing business and prosperity to Illinois, and Lincoln, by virtue of the ease the railroad made in traveling to his courts, profited more. He had served as a lobbyist for the Illinois Central Railroad, enabling it to get a state charter; he would defend the company against McClean County's unsuccessful efforts to tax it. He handles cases for other railroads, banks, manufacturing, and other large companies in the state; he handled some patent suits and a few criminal trials. And he also saved the first bridge to cross the Mississippi River from demolition, when river interests demanded the bridge be taken down.

===The moonlit murder===
In Lincoln's New Salem days he was introduced to the Clary's Grove Boys, a group of rowdy men from a nearby town who came into New Salem to bully some of the townsmen. The leader of the group was Jack Armstrong, whose challenge to wrestle the New Salem men usually resulted in Armstrong quickly throwing the unfortunate man to the ground. When he saw Lincoln, Armstrong dismissed the lanky young man as a pushover. When they fought, neither man was able to throw the other. The battle ended in a draw, and the good-natured Lincoln made a new friend. Armstrong would later be one of the men to elect Lincoln to lead the company of volunteers in the Black Hawk War.<ref name="Jack Armstrong">[http://www.mrlincolnandfriends.org/inside.asp?pageID=32&subjectID=2 Jack Armstrong]</ref>

In 1856, Jack Armstrong's son, William (or "Duff"), was charged with murder. A witness claimed he had seen Duff and another kill a New Salem man late at night by the light of full moon. Lincoln pulled out an almanac and proved that the witness could not have seen anything at all, as the moon was at its quarter and had actually set over an hour before. Duff was acquitted, and Lincoln won the case.<ref name="Jack Armstrong"/>

==Politics==
[[Andrew Jackson]], the hero of New Orleans in the [[War of 1812]] and a Democrat from Tennessee, was in the White House when Lincoln first entered politics. He shared with Jackson the sympathies for the common man, but differed in the role of government as related to it; Jackson stated the government should be separated from the economic enterprise, while Lincoln was of the view that “the legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot do so well, for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities.” Lincoln most associated himself with the Whig Party, as among their members Henry Clay and Daniel Webster both advocated a government should be encouraging business, and the development of the country to that end. It was an easy choice for Lincoln: he saw Illinois as needing such aid to improve the development of its own economy.

In the Illinois State Legislature Lincoln found that politics could be detrimental and harsh, as well as rewarding. An example of the former occurred in 1836, just as he gave a speech in support of his re-election. Democrat John Forquer, also seeking election, used his response and acid tongue to denounce him. "This young man needs to be taken down" he said, pointing to Lincoln, "and I'm afraid the task devolves upon me." The success of Forquer's speech convinced some of Lincoln's own allies that his career was over.

But when Lincoln rose to make his rebuttal, he thought of Forquer, and what he had done recently in conniving with President Jackson to change parties; in reward for doing so he was made Government Land Register with a $3,000 annual salary. Forquer was then able to construct a fine new house in Springfield, complete with a curiosity residents had heard about from science but had never seen before: a lightning rod. Before he entered the state house building that day, Lincoln spent a few minutes at Forquer's house staring at the thing, and having heard Forquer's speech later on, he thought of what he saw. Lincoln's reply was blistering, and sealed Forquer's fate.

:''"Among other things he said, the gentleman commenced his speech by saying that 'this young man,' alluding to me, 'must be taken down.' I am not so young in years as I am in the tricks and the trades of a politician, but, live long or die young, I would rather die now than, like the gentleman, change my politics, and with the change receive an office worth $3,000 a year, and then feel obliged to erect a lightning-rod over my house to protect a guilty conscience from an offended God!"'' (Sandburg, pg.49)

Lincoln also proposed state funding to construct a network of roads, railroads, and canals. Both Whigs and Democrats would join in for the passing of this omnibus bill, but a business depression was created by the [[panic of 1837]], and as a result most of the provisions in the bill were abandoned. 1837 was also marked by the murder of Elijah Lovejoy, a newspaperman from Alton who was killed by a mob due to his anti-slavery views. The legislature introduced resolutions defending Southern slavery while condemning abolitionist societies, as per the U.S. Constitution. In protest of the resolutions Lincoln, with a fellow legislator, drew up a declaration which stated that slavery was “founded on both injustice and bad policy,” while also declaring that “the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than to abate its evils.”
[[Image:Lawyer Lincoln.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Lincoln in the late 1850s, about to debate his rival Stephen A. Douglas.]]
He only served one term in the United States Congress, 1847 to 1849, during which time he did little on legislative matters. He did introduce a bill calling for a gradual emancipation of slaves within the District of Columbia, but since it hinged on the approval of the white citizens there, it only caused mild anger from abolitionists as well as slave holders, and was quietly dropped. His one main issue was over the Mexican War, in which he condemned the American entry into it on false pretenses, particularly blaming current president James K. Polk. He worked toward the nomination of Zachary Taylor for the presidency, and when Taylor had won, Lincoln expected to be rewarded with the job of land commissioner, but failed. He was voted out of office by his constituents, as they felt he was too critical of the war. Disillusioned, he left politics and reentered his law practice.

==Return to politics==
He stayed out for five years, winning several cases before the courts, then in 1854 he had read in the papers that Stephan A. Douglas, his political rival and Democratic senator from Illinois, had placed before Congress a bill which would reopen the territory of the Louisiana Purchase to slavery, as well as allow settlers in the Kansas and Nebraska territories to vote for themselves whether or not they wanted it, a concept which was called “[[popular sovereignty]]” by Douglas. The resulting [[Kansas-Nebraska Act]] would do nothing more than provoke violent opposition; a border war would result between Kansas and Missouri as both pro and anti-slavery forces would cause much bloodshed; and voters in the Old Northwest, Illinois among them, would react vehemently against it, resulting in the destruction of the Whigs as a political party, and the birth of the Republicans, of which Lincoln quickly became a member.<ref>Yervand Kochar. [https://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/i_am_a_lincoln_republican_1.html I Am a Lincoln Republican], ''American Thinker'', November 14, 2009.</ref> The [[Dred Scott]] decision of 1856, in which a black man who sued for his freedom only to be told that he was never a citizen and had to remain a slave, only added more fuel to the fire, as the states were aligning slave versus free, North versus South.

As the leading member of the Republican Party in Illinois, Lincoln was nominated for the Senate seat held by Douglas at the Republican State Convention in Springfield on June 16, 1858. The acceptance speech he gave has been called the [[Lincoln's "House Divided" Speech|House Divided]] speech, after the opening lines, which were based upon Matthew 12:25:

:''If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand."  I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new -- North as well as South.''<ref>[http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/divided.htm "House Divided" Speech], ''The History Place'', June 16, 1858.</ref>

August through October, 1858 saw seven Illinois towns witnessing the [[Lincoln-Douglas debates]]; Douglas the national figure defending the choice of voters whether to accept slavery or not, and the little-known Lincoln taking a stand against slavery on political, social, and moral grounds.<ref>https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debates.htm</ref> Douglas never wavered from defending popular sovereignty, and he also played on the voters' fears of [[black integration]]. Stating blacks were inferior to whites, he appealed to racists by declaring that the government was "established upon the white basis. It was made by white men, for the benefit of white men." (TL 1, pg 106). Lincoln on the other hand knew Douglas was in a war of his own with President [[James Buchanan]]'s administration over acceptance of the Kansas constitution which barred slavery from the state, further alienating Southern Democratic support; the fear was that Douglas would be more appealing to moderate Republicans in the east. Lincoln's strategy therefore was to point out and use the vast difference between the moral indifference to slavery as embodied by Douglas's popular sovereignty, and the moral wrong that slavery actually was as embodied by Republican opposition to it. Douglas was, Lincoln insisted, a man who did not care whether slavery was "voted up or voted down." By his last debate, Lincoln would narrow the differences between himself and Douglas as the basic principle of right and wrong.

:''"That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the [[divine right of kings]]. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle."''

Douglas for his part knew how formidable his foe was, and declared that if he won, “it would be a hollow victory.” He did win, retaining his Senate seat, but by a narrow margin.

==The 1860 Election==
[[Image:Lincoln and beard.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Soon after his election, a little girl named Grace Bedell wrote to Lincoln, telling him his face would be softened by the addition of a beard; here he just started on her advice.]]
:''My friends, no one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of the Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.'' Lincoln's Farewell Speech to the citizens of Springfield, February 11, 1861.

On May 18, 1860 at the Republican National Convention held in Chicago, Lincoln was nominated on the third ballot. He then set aside his law practice and gave full-time to the direction of his campaign, with the object of first uniting the Republicans from anything with which the party could disagree over. The Democrats were already divided, having nominated Douglas in Baltimore on the Northern platform of popular sovereignty, and John C. Breckenridge who was elected on a platform of states’ rights and slavery by Southern Democrats. Lincoln won the [[United States presidential election of 1860]], winning a clear majority in popular votes as well as electoral votes, despite winning no votes in the South.
==Presidency==
For the social, political, economic and diplomatic history see [[American Civil War homefront]]

The state of South Carolina proclaimed its secession from the Union in December, 1860, soon after Lincoln's victory. To try to prevent other states from following, compromises were hurriedly pushed through Congress, one of which, the [[Corwin Amendment]], guaranteed the existence of slavery in perpetuity where it already existed. The failed [[Crittenden Compromise]] would have gone even further and permanently divided the territories between slave and free. Lincoln publicly supported the Corwin Amendment, believing that it was already implicit in the Constitution; however, he opposed the Crittenden Compromise because it would have given slavery additional protections beyond what the Constitution already gave it. Despite these attempted compromises, six more states seceded and joined with South Carolina to form the [[Confederate States of America]].

A crisis was thus forced upon Lincoln before he even entered the White House. The Confederacy claimed [[Fort Sumter]], in South Carolina's [[Charleston]] Harbor, and ordered its commander, Major [[Robert Anderson]] to turn it over. He refused. Lincoln, still in Springfield, asked [[Winfield Scott]], general in chief of the U.S. Army, to be prepared “to either hold, or retake, the forts, as the case may require, at, and after the inauguration.”

On the 4th of March, 1861, a few weeks after [[Jefferson Davis]] was inaugurated as president of the Confederacy, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as the nation's 16th president. In his [[Lincoln's First Inaugural Address|first inaugural address]] he reiterated his stance: to not interfere with slavery where it existed, to prevent slavery from spreading in the territories, but above all to preserve the Union. The substance of what he said was conciliatory, but it also mentioned the obvious

{{quotebox|In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it.<ref>Historical Document. [https://www.pbs.org/civilwar/war/lincoln_address1.html Lincoln's First Inaugural Address], ''PBS'', March 4, 1861.</ref>}}

However, communications between the fort and Charleston broke down, and Confederate general [[P.G.T. Beauregard]], believing Fort Sumter had a supply ship on the way, ordered the fort shelled on April 14, 1865. The Civil War had begun.

==Civil War==
[[File:Abraham Lincoln 1863 LOC.jpg|thumb|240px|right|Abraham Lincoln at the front.]]
Lincoln's goal was to preserve the Union; he would have been happy to preserve the peace as well, but he was willing to engage in a war to preserve it as well, a war he thought would be short. Title 10, Section 332 of the [[Insurrection Act of 1807]] was enacted in 1861 at the request of President Lincoln to increase Presidential authority to use the militia and the regular army to suppress insurrections and enforce the laws. This law was the legal basis for waging the Civil War. This law allows the President to use federal troops on his own initiative and act on his own judgment without waiting for a request from a governor.<ref>https://www.sofmag.com/understanding-the-posse-comitatus-act-and-the-insurrection-act-the-posse-comitatus-act/</ref>

After Fort Sumter he proclaimed a blockade of Southern ports and called for thousands of volunteers to enlist for ninety days. He also believed that an overland war was inevitable, and he ordered forces on a march on the Virginia front, resulting in the first great defeat for the Union at [[Bull Run]] (July 21, 1861). Shortly afterward, Lincoln issued a set of memoranda for the military, of which his basic thought was that armies in the field must advance concurrently and on several fronts.
{{cquote|
''I expect to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, or am conquered. Or my term expires, or Congress or the country forsakes me.'' – Abraham Lincoln, 1862.}}
Finding himself as the leader of a country now at war, Lincoln used a description of himself in which he let events control him, and then react to the problem. It was something of himself that was used with success as a politician. In this sense he was being practical, ready to employ an action or decision which would help the cause, and ready to abandon it and use another if the first failed. But his first insight with which he held fast to, that of taking the fight to the enemy's army, failed many times when successive generals tried to take the fight to the enemy's capitol and failed, or failed in following up on a rare victory. He had [[George McClellan]] on the Peninsula, but was beaten back during the Seven Days battles. His replacement, John Pope, lost in a repeat of Bull Run. McClellan was back again, winning a victory at [[Antietam]], but failed to follow through in capturing the enemy's army afterwards. Then [[Ambrose Burnside]], followed by [[Joseph Hooker]], led the [[Army of the Potomac]] to massive defeats at [[Fredericksburg]] and [[Chancellorsville]], respectively. Then [[George Gordon Meade]] was put in, just in time for the [[Battle of Gettysburg]]; Meade would not finish off the enemy either. [[Robert E. Lee]], the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, commented on the frequent changes in generals. “I’m afraid they’re going to find a general I cannot understand.”

Having seen what he done at [[Donelson]], [[Shiloh]], [[Vicksburg]], and [[Chattanooga]], Lincoln found the fighting general he was looking for in [[Ulysses S. Grant]]. In March 1864 he promoted Grant to lieutenant general and gave him command of all Federal armies. Grant would have his headquarters in the field with Meade's Army of the Potomac, and his subordinates William T. Sherman, Philip Sheridan, and George H. Thomas would each lead an army to take the fight to the enemy. Halleck would be given a new title, chief of staff, and remain in Washington as the presidential liaison. Secretary of War [[Edwin M. Stanton]] would be responsible for the procurement of men and supplies. By this reorganization Lincoln created the structure of the high command in which all the energies of and resources of the country were mobilized into a grand strategy for the completion of the war. It was all the more remarkable as prior to 1861, he had no knowledge of military theory or affairs; he threw himself into studying the subject that by 1864, he was considered to be something of a military genius.

==Personal life==

Ann Rutledge played a part in stories as being the first woman Lincoln may have fallen in love with. However, evidence is scant, and what surviving letters and documents there are indicate they were close friends. She died in 1835 at the age of 22, and the entire community grieved with Lincoln.
[[Image:Lincoln and tad.jpg|thumb|200px|left|The irrepressible Tad Lincoln, striking a typical pose next to his father, who could barely restrain a smile.]]
The one true love of Lincoln's life was a well-educated woman with a quick wit, [[Mary Todd]], from a well-to-do family in Springfield. Lincoln endured a courtship that lasted two years (and was broken once), before they were married on November 4, 1842. Together they would have four boys: Robert Todd, Edward Baker (“Eddie”, who died at age 4), William Wallace (“Willie”), and Thomas (“Tad”). Willie and Tad were the first children in the White House, and the halls and gardens were filled with childish romps, especially from the rambunctious, uncontrollable Tad, who once took a group of office seekers there to see the president on a trip through a confusing maze of hanging laundry; drove a herd of goats inside; got into the attic and rang the servants’ bells for hours; and succeeded in getting his doll executed for sleeping on watch.
[[Image:Mary Todd Lincoln.jpg|thumb|200px|Mary Todd Lincoln]]
The Lincolns also had their share of quarrels, and stories passed through the years tended to exaggerate them, but existing letters between the two indicate they were like any other married couple. They were devoted to each other's company, and when apart they missed each other. "I have fallen in love with her," Lincoln would write to a friend about Mary, "and have never fallen out." Mary did have fits of temper and a sense of insecurity; while in the White House she had spells of simple jealousy which she staged in front of guests; sometimes the scene would be quite embarrassing. She also rang up large bills for her personal wardrobe and redecorating the White House; Lincoln, when he found out one such bill which totaled near $20,000 and coupled with a request for Congress to appropriate the money needed to pay for it, displayed a rare occurrence of pure anger:

:''"It would stink in the nostrils of the American people to have it said the President of the United States had approved a bill overrunning an appropriation of $20,000 for flub dubs, for this damned old house, when the soldiers cannot have blankets!"'' [http://www.historyswomen.com/1stWomen/marytoddlincoln.htm]

The early deaths of Eddie in 1850 and Willie in 1863 may have played a role in Mary's eccentricity. Lincoln did what he could to support her, even pointing out the presence of a nearby building which housed a sanitarium, hinting that Mary could be placed there if she didn't control herself over Willie's death.

==On slavery==
In 1841, Lincoln had a flatboat trip down the Mississippi, and he saw sitting on board another boat a group of slaves chained together. He described the sight in a letter to Joshua Speed in 1855: “You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border.”

Though a gradualist, Lincoln hated slavery. “I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself,” he declared. “I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world; enables the enemies of free institutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites.” Lincoln often penned fragments on slavery. He would begin it by starting a hypothetical vested interest in slavery, and end it with the only logical conclusion, that is was a great moral wrong.

:''If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B.—why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A?''

:''You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.''

:''You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.''

:''But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest; you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.'' (Fragment on Slavery, April, 1854)

In 1857, in response to [[Stephen Douglas]] with a focus on the [[Dred Scott]] decision, Lincoln recalled of the brilliance of the [[Declaration of Independence]] and its authors that they:

<blockquote>constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even, though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, of all colors, everywhere.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=u63XdiM9330C&pg=PA234 The Life and Public Services of Hon. Abraham Lincoln]</ref></blockquote>

Lincoln was elected on a platform which pledged no interference with slavery where it had already existed, and he was hesitant to adopt an abolitionist policy. He was concerned about the reaction of the border states should such a policy be enacted. He was concerned about four million newly freed blacks being incorporated into the country's social, economic, and political life. Some individuals, such as General John C. Freemont, made it a point to proclaim freedom in districts which they had conquered; Lincoln revoked those proclamations. In a letter to Horace Greely, Lincoln plainly stated
:''"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that."''<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/1862/08/24/news/letter-president-lincoln-reply-horace-greeley-slavery-union-restoration-union.html</ref>

Lincoln was willing to play a major part in removing slavery altogether during the war. He first proposed an idea in which slaves were to be freed gradually by the actions of the states, with the federal government sharing the cost of compensation. None of the border states were willing to implement it, and no prominent African-American leader was willing to see newly freed blacks sent to Africa, as part of the idea called for.

But with the victory at Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln brought out an idea which he read before his cabinet, that slaves held in the Confederate States were declared to be free. He would declare it formally with his [[Emancipation Proclamation]] on January 1, 1863. Although it did not include those areas under Union control, and officially it was a war measure, it had a great deal of significance as a symbol, and European countries who had toyed with the idea of recognizing the Confederacy abandoned it and supported the Union.<ref>http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/EmanProc.html</ref>

Lincoln also felt that the freed slaves would be put back in chains at war's end, as the Proclamation itself was not constitutional. But Lincoln was prepared for something else: he drafted the [[Thirteenth Amendment]] to the Constitution, which stated slavery was illegal except for crimes committed. He also urged the Republican Party to add the proposed amendment as a plank to the 1864 presidential campaign, stating slavery was the cause of the war, and that the Proclamation had aimed “a death blow at this gigantic evil;” only by a constitutional amendment could slavery be rendered extinct. After the election, Lincoln did not wait for the new Congress. He got the two-thirds needed for ratification before the year was over, and rejoiced when his state of Illinois led the way.

:''"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just - a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."'' Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862.

===Founding Fathers===
Lincoln routinely acknowledged that a clear majority of the [[Founding Fathers]] condemned slavery.<ref name=echoes>[https://books.google.com/books?id=0PVc-rDIKRoC&pg=PA194 Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: Echoes of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer]</ref> In his sixth debate with Steven Douglass, Lincoln argued that the Founding Fathers considered slavery wrong, and firmly expected it to die a natural death.<ref>[https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/slavery.htm Lincoln on Slavery]</ref> In [[Lincoln's Cooper Union Speech]],<ref name=echoes /> as well as in Lincoln's "Peoria Speech", where he pointed out that "only argument they ever admitted in favor of slavery" was necessity, that they blamed the "British King for having permitted its introduction".<ref name=peoria>[https://books.google.com/books?id=CkqG9YhZGygC&pg=PT90 The Writings of Abraham Lincoln]</ref>

<blockquote>[[Slave Trade Act of 1794|In 1794]], they prohibited an out-going slave-trade - that is, the taking of slaves from the United States to sell.

In 1798, they prohibited the bringing of slaves from Africa, into the Mississippi Territory - this territory then comprising what are now the States of Mississippi and Alabama. This was ten years before they had the authority to do the same thing as to the States existing at the adoption of the constitution.

[[Slave Trade Act of 1800|In 1800]] they prohibited American citizens from trading in slaves between foreign countries - as, for instance, from Africa to Brazil.

[[Slave Trade Act of 1800|In 1803]] they passed a law in aid of one or two State laws, in restraint of the internal slave trade.

[[Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves|In 1807]], in apparent hot haste, they passed the law, nearly a year in advance to take effect the first day of 1808 - the very first day the constitution would permit - prohibiting the African slave trade by heavy pecuniary and corporal penalties.

[[Act to Protect the Commerce of the United States and Punish the Crime of Piracy|In 1820]], finding these provisions ineffectual, they declared the trade piracy, and annexed to it, the extreme penalty of death.

While all this was passing in the general government, five or six of the original slave States had adopted systems of gradual emancipation; and by which the institution was rapidly becoming extinct within these limits. Thus we see, the plain unmistakable spirit of that age, towards slavery, was hostility to the principle, and toleration, only by necessity.<ref name=peoria /></blockquote>

==Religion==
Abraham Lincoln, like many other people of his day, believed, at least initially, that "Religion is a private affair between a man and his God." Doubts about Lincoln's faith have arisen mainly because he never officially joined a church, which his political opponents used sometimes to accuse him. He had a love of the Bible and memorized parts of the Bible, and used biblical allusions later on in political speech. Lincoln said once that:
''"I doubt the possibility or propriety of settling the religion of Jesus Christ in the models of man-made [[creed]]s and [[dogma]]s. I cannot without mental reservations assent to long and complicated creeds and [[catechism]]s."''

He also said on another occasion:
:''"That I am not a member of any [[Christian church]] is true, but I have never denied the truth of the [[Scriptures]], and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general or of any [[denomination]] of Christians in particular."''

He also made statements that suggest a strong faith, such as when his father was ill:
:''"Tell father to remember to call upon and confide in our great, and good, and merciful Maker who will not turn away from him in any extremity. He notes the fall of a sparrow and numbers the hairs of our heads; and he will not forget the dying man who puts his trust in him. If it is to be his lot to go now, he will soon have a joyous meeting with many loved ones gone before; and where the rest of us, through the help of God, hope ere long to join them."''

As a supporter of the Christian religion and who recognized its beneficial effects, Lincoln stated to a Methodist delegation,

:''"Nobly sustained, as the Government has been, by all the churches, I would utter nothing which might in the least appear invidious against any. Yet without this, it may fairly be said, that the Methodist Episcopal Church, not less devoted than the best, is by its greatest numbers the most important of all. It is no fault in others that the Methodist Church sends more soldiers to the field, more nurses to the hospitals, and more prayers to Heaven than--any other. God bless the Methodist Church Bless all the churches; and blessed be God, who in this our great trial giveth us the churches."''<ref>[http://www.classic-literature.co.uk/american-authors/19th-century/abraham-lincoln/the-writings-of-abraham-lincoln-07/ebook-page-41.aspAbraham Lincoln, "The Writings of Abraham Lincoln"] VO7, p. 41</ref>

Regardless of Lincoln's views on faith as a youth, it seemed to grow as president. Lincoln penciled in "under God" after "one nation" for his [[Gettysburg Address]] delivered on November 19, 1863. The phrase "under God" was not in the early drafts. Mrs. Lincoln recalled her husband's last words just prior to his assassination in Ford's Theater: "He said he wanted to visit the Holy Land and see those places hallowed by the footprints of the [[Savior]]. He was saying there was no city he so much desired to see as Jerusalem."<ref>http://www.amerisearch.net/index.php?date=2004-09-08&view=View</ref>

In 1864, a close friend of Lincoln's, Joshua Speed, confided in Lincoln that he did not accept the Bible as true. Lincoln famously replied, "Take all this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier and better man".
After Lincoln was shot at Ford's theater two clergy claimed that he had made a secret trip from Washington to be baptized. Also a Roman Catholic Priest claimed that Lincoln received the sacrament of baptism in secret. Neither of these claims have any proof in White House records or his personal diary.<ref>[[God and the Oval Office]], by John C. McCollister, W Publishing, 2005.</ref>

==Lincoln's conservatism==
In his [[Lincoln's Cooper Union Speech|Cooper Union Address]], Lincoln spoke of the sectionalism which was fracturing the country as a result of slavery; the Republican Party was new in 1859, and a serious threat to slavery's existence. Lincoln and his party were called radical and destructive, but he counted himself among the earliest defenders of conservative principles, which was in essence a defense of time-honored, traditional values. Lincoln said that out of the 39 framers of the Constitution, 23 of the 39 voted on whether to prevent the spread of slavery, and that 21 of the 23 voted in favor of doing so. Lincoln therefore said that it was the pro-slavery South that was radically breaking with the tradition begun by those that created the Constitution. As Lincoln said:

:''But you say you are conservative - eminently conservative - while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live;" while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional Slave-Code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the Territories to prohibit Slavery within their limits; some for maintaining Slavery in the Territories through the judiciary; some for the "gur-reat pur-rinciple" that "if one man would enslave another, no third man should object," fantastically called "Popular Sovereignty;" but never a man among you is in favor of federal prohibition of slavery in federal territories, according to the practice of "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live.''

Again, in a speech in Columbus, Ohio, he said:

:''The chief and real purpose of the Republican Party is eminently conservative. It proposes nothing save and except to restore this government to its original tone in regard to this element of slavery, and there to maintain it, looking for no further change . . . than that which the original framers of the government themselves expected and looked forward to.''<ref>http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/pre-civil-war/1859-1860/speech-columbus-ohio-september-16-1859/</ref>

He also nominated [[conservative]] [[Stephen Johnson Field]] to the [[Supreme Court]] and foreshadowed future arguments by [[conservatives]] that opposed the [[Federal Reserve]]. Senate Minority Leader and [[Old Right]] [[Republican]] [[Everett Dirksen]], who helped write and pass the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] and the [[Civil Rights Act of 1968]], said Lincoln called himself a "conservative Republican" and that the Republican party "was the only party to still adhere to the gospel of Abraham Lincoln"<ref>https://youtu.be/lm6fnQ5no0o</ref> in a 1967 interview.

==Lincoln's style of writing==
[[Image:Lincoln seated.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Lincoln in November, 1863, about to leave for Pennsylvania. The reason for his confident look may have been within the envelope lying on the table, believed to contain his draft of the Gettysburg Address]]
A White House visitor, Orville Browning, told Lincoln's personal secretary John Nicolay one day that he had spoke to Lincoln sometime in 1861 on the subject of slavery; that if the right thing about slavery wasn't done, God just couldn't be on the side of the Union. Browning remembered Lincoln's reply: "What if the Almighty takes a different view of slavery than we do?", and right then and there Browning realized that Lincoln had thought very deeply on the subject, much deeper than Browning did.<ref>Douglas L. Wilson. [http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/books/wilson.htm Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words], ''Lincoln's Sword''.</ref>

Lincoln was known to think long and deeply on various topics, and often he would take notes, write them on little scraps of paper, and stuff them into his tall stovepipe hat for later use. When it was time for use, such as his "House Divided" speech, he pulled them out, laid them on a table, and would commence to writing. He would sift through the subject, adding this, removing that, and sometimes he would stand in his empty room and deliver it out loud to an imaginary audience, testing the effects of what he spoke, and altering it as needed. According to author Garry Wills, Lincoln brought to bear the rhetorical tone of the Greek Revival and Transcendental movements, in which spoken oratory was practiced in government and on the stage. The leading speakers of this time, and whom Lincoln looked upon, were Danial Webster and Henry Clay, both of the Senate, and Edward Everett, a speaker much in demand.

The training he had given himself also enabled him to write a simple letter or a speech on the spot. Words would flow clear when Lincoln wrote in his later years, and he didn't have to do twice one of his finest personal letters, one of consolation to Mrs. Bixby of Boston, who had lost five sons in the war.

:''Executive Mansion,''
:''Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.''

:''Dear Madam,''

:''I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.''
:''I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.''
:''I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.''

:''Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,''

:''A. Lincoln''

What many consider his masterpiece is the [[Gettysburg Address]]. Here Lincoln, going through perhaps a dozen writes and re-writes of what he had thought on the subject, entirely changed the meaning of the war itself in a mere 272 words, and in so doing, according to Wills, remaking America.

==Politics in war==
[[File:Abraham Lincoln by George Peter Alexander Healy, 1869.jpg|thumb|350px|Abraham Lincoln by George Peter Alexander Healy, 1869.]]
That there had to be a certain degree of support to win the war was a given, and Lincoln strove to have unity for that effort in the North. Politics was required, and Lincoln had a special knack for appealing to his fellows and talking to them at their own level and language. He would smooth over lingering differences, and held the loyalty of those who were antagonistic to one another.

But the Democrats remained strong, and frequently clashed. Its member included both war and peace Democrats; the peace side was called “Copperheads”, after the snake which strikes without warning while hidden. Lincoln tried conciliating with both, but with the latter he had to resort to arrest at times, most famously to an Ohio Congressman, Clement L. Valandigham, who was arrested after he had repeatedly exhorted soldiers to desert. He justified his actions on the grounds that the suspension of ''habeas corpus'' was necessary only in times of rebellion, insurrection, or when the public safety may require it, as stated in the Constitution; certainly the Civil War had met those specific conditions. Many would dissent, and openly criticize Lincoln for arbitrarily violating the Constitution that he had sworn to preserve. In response to the criticism in general, and the case of Valandigham in particular, Lincoln wrote:
:''"Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wiley agitator who induces him to desert? This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a father, or brother, or friend, into a public meeting, and there working upon his feeling, till he is persuaded to write the soldier boy, that he is fighting in a bad cause, for a wicked administration of a contemptable government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert. I think that in such a case, to silence the agitator, and save the boy, is not only constitutional, but, withal, a great mercy."''<ref>[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;cc=lincoln;type=boolean;rgn=div1;q1=soldier;op2=and;q2=deserts;op3=and;q3=agitator;singlegenre=All;view=text;subview=detail;sort=occur;idno=lincoln6;node=lincoln6%3A569 Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 6.], Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865.</ref>
Lincoln faced reelection against Democrat George McClellan in 1864, who promised a restoration of the Union, but waffled on many of its points, even abandoning the Democratic platform of armistice and peaceful separation. Lincoln was able to beat him in the election, assisted by the timely victories of Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and Sherman in Georgia. Overtures of peace from Confederates were not wholly rejected. On February 3, 1865, Lincoln met with Confederate commissioners, among them Vice President Alexander Stephens, on a steamship in Hampton Roads, Virginia. There would be peace, he insisted, if the South would quit the war, abandon slavery, and accept re-unification, and once these conditions were met he would be gracious with pardons. But his terms satisfied neither the Confederacy nor the Radical Republicans in Congress.

His postwar policy was one of compassion. As he explained to his top leaders on board a riverboat, the City Queen, he wanted peace above all else. His Second Inaugural Address expressed his point of healing the wounds caused by the war.
:''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, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."''

When asked specifically, he related the following, according to General Sherman, one of those present:
:''Mr. Lincoln was full and frank in his conversation, assuring me that in his mind he was all ready for the civil reorganization of affairs at the South as soon as the war was over; and he distinctly authorized me to assure Governor Vance and the people of North Carolina that, as soon as the rebel armies laid down their arms, and resumed their civil pursuits, they would at once be guaranteed all their rights as citizens of a common country; and that to avoid anarchy the State governments then in existence, with their civil functionaries, would be recognized by him as the government de facto till Congress could provide others.''
:''I know, when I left him, that I was more than ever impressed by his kindly nature, his deep and earnest sympathy with the afflictions of the whole people, resulting from the war, and by the march of hostile armies through the South; and that his earnest desire seemed to be to end the war speedily, without more bloodshed or devastation, and to restore all the men of both sections to their homes. In the language of his second inaugural address, he seemed to have "charity for all, malice toward none," and, above all, an absolute faith in the courage, manliness, and integrity of the armies in the field.''<ref>[http://www.sonshi.com/sherman24.html General William T. Sherman "Memoirs"], Volume 2, Chapter XXIV, April and May, 1865.</ref>

==Final curtain==

''See also: [[Assassination of Abraham Lincoln]]'' 

Lincoln received the news of Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Virginia, on April 9, and he was called out to the balcony of the White House that night by a large crowd gathered in celebration. When asked to make a speech, Lincoln noticed a band among them, and made an unusual request.
:''"I have always thought ‘Dixie’ one of the best tunes I have ever heard. Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insisted that we fairly captured it. I presented it to the Attorney General, and he gave it as his legal opinion that it is our lawful prize. I now request the band to favor me with its performance."''
He entered Richmond the following day, to the joyous delight of free blacks, who welcomed the arrival of "Father Abraham" as they called him, and he paid a visit to the Confederate White House, and sat at the desk of Jefferson Davis. The only thing he asked for was a glass of water.

Just four days later on April 14 he attended a play at Ford's Theater. It was called ''Our American Cousin'', with well-known stage actress Laura Keane and comedian Harry Hawke in the title role. Unseen to the audience was another actor making his way quietly up the stairs to the president's private box, [[John Wilkes Booth]], a Southern sympathizer who had hatched a conspiracy with a few others to kill the president and other leading officials. Booth entered the box, shot Lincoln in the head, stabbed a guest, and dropped to the stage, escaping behind the curtains. Taken across the street to a boarding house, the mortally-wounded Lincoln was laid across a small bed in humble surroundings, similar it seemed, to where he was born. He died at sunrise a few hours later.

"Now he belongs to the ages" Edwin Stanton was heard to say.

<blockquote>
''Dying as he did die, by the red hand of violence, killed, assassinated, taken off without warning, not because of personal hate…but because of his fidelity to union and liberty, he is doubly dear to us, and his memory will be precious forever.'' [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/today.html]
</blockquote>

==Liberal revisionist history==
Some liberals are taught and claim that Lincoln was a tyrant. That he alone trampled on the Constitution. That the civil war was not about slavery but about taxation. Also, he favored the white race.

The suspension of [[Habeas corpus]] is often brought up as an example. The fact remains that the South trampled the Constitution by breaking away from the Republic to form their own nation. It was the South that launched the first attack. It was the South that fought to keep slavery as a right. While Lincoln's actions may have been controversial, he made the tough decision to save the Republic. A merciful victor who was lenient on the South for their egregious actions. Freedom for the black man was the noble outcome that white Northerners gave their lives for.

Other liberals, however, claim that Lincoln was one of them, [[Censorship|trying to force the narrative]] that the racists switched parties overnight. The take his "old and tired" quote but clip it just right to make it appear that he was a liberal.

==Quotes==
[[File:Lincoln by Augustus Saint Gaudens, 1887.jpg|thumb|Bust of Lincoln by Augustus Saint Gaudens, 1887.]]
* "A friend is a man who has the same enemies you have." <ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=HgM4tztnJFcC&pg=PA275&dq=lincoln+A+friend+is+man+who+has+the+same+enemies+you+have&ei=lV4fSuv8N5TyzQS1yq21Dw Civilization's quotations P.275] by Richard Alan Krieger</ref>

* "Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it" <ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=_-WNU7VapFAC&pg=PA187&dq=Those+who+deny+freedom+to+others+deserve+it+not+for+themselves&ei=NBA8SsSUCp-EzATw0cW6BQ Black Belt Patriotism: How to Reawaken America‎ - Page 187] by Chuck Norris</ref>

* "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." <ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=Mc-aRv_xCpMC&pg=PA11&dq=Nearly+all+men+can+stand+adversity,+but+if+you+want+to+test+a+man%27s+character,+give+him+power&ei=jJFBSo7nHZbozATAipVi Law school 101: survival techniques from pre-law to being an attorney‎ - Page 11] by R. Stephanie Good</ref>
*“When I left Springfield I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ. Yes, I do love Jesus,"<ref>https://www.christianheadlines.com/slideshows/8-presidents-who-looked-to-god-for-guidance.html</ref>
*His last words: "We will visit the Holy Land, and see those places hallowed by the footsteps of the Savior. There is no city on earth I so much desire to see as Jerusalem."<ref>https://ourlostfounding.com/abraham-lincolns-last-words-no-city-on-earth/</ref>

{{Clear}}

==Basic Further reading==
* Carwardine, Richard. ''Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power'' (2003), sophisticated biography emphasizing religion and politics [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Purpose-Power-Richard-Carwardine/dp/1400096022/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336315&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]
*Donald, David Herbert. ''Lincoln'', (1995), by a conservative historian; the best scholarly biography [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-David-Herbert-Donald/dp/068482535X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336403&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]
* Gienapp, William E. ''Abraham Lincoln and Civil War America: A Biography'' (2002), short bio by scholar; stress on politics [https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Lincoln-Civil-War-America/dp/0195151003/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336352&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]; also [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=103538783 online edition]
*Goodwin, Doris Kearns. ''Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln'', (2005) well written popular narrative of Lincoln and his cabinet
* McPherson, James. ''Abraham Lincoln'' (2009), 96pp; very short overview by leading expert [https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Lincoln-James-M-McPherson/dp/0195374525/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249335698&sr=1-6 excerpt and text search]
* Neely, Mark E. ''The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia'' (1984), detailed articles on many men and movements associated with AL
* Thomas, Benjamin P. ''Abraham Lincoln: A Biography'' (1952; 2nd ed. 2008) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=25051697 online edition], very well written biography by leading scholar
*White, Ronald C. Jr. ''The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words'', (2005)
* White, A. Ronald C. ''A. Lincoln: A Biography'' (2009), good recent biography [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Biography-Ronald-White-Jr/dp/1400064996/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249335698&sr=1-7 excerpt and text search]
* Wilentz, Sean. "Who Lincoln Was" ''New Republic'' (July 15, 2009) leading scholar rips apart liberal distortions [http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=2634954a-b287-480e-9fbd-8a4663174031 online edition]
===For children===
* Stone, Tanya. ''Abraham Lincoln'' (DK Biography, 2005) [https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Lincoln-Biography-Tanya-Stone/dp/0756608341/ref=pd_ts_b_12?ie=UTF8&s=books excerpt and text search]

== Bibliography ==
=== Biographies ===
* Beveridge, Albert J. ''Abraham Lincoln: 1809-1858'' (1928). 2 vol. to 1858; notable for strong, unbiased political coverage [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=3925146 online edition]
* Burlingame, Michael. "Abraham Lincoln: A Life" (2008), 2v 2024 pp, the most highly detailed scholarly biography [https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Lincoln-Life-Michael-Burlingame/dp/0801889936/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336108&sr=1-18 excerpt and text search]
* Carwardine, Richard. ''Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power'' (2003), sophisticated biography emphasizing religion and politics [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Purpose-Power-Richard-Carwardine/dp/1400096022/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336315&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]
*Donald, David Herbert. ''Lincoln'', (1995), by a conservative historian; the best scholarly biography [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-David-Herbert-Donald/dp/068482535X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336403&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search];
* Guelzo, Allen C. ''Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President'' (1999) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=99466893 online edition], conservative religious approach
* Harris William C. ''Lincoln's Rise to the Presidency'' (2007) conservative author argues Lincoln was basically conservative [https://www.amazon.com/Lincolns-Rise-Presidency-William-Harris/dp/0700615202/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164706&sr=8-3 excerpt and text search]
* Nicolay, John George and John Hay. ''Abraham Lincoln: a History'' (1890); online at [https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6812 Volume 1] and [https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11708 Volume 2] [https://books.google.com/books?id=bDEOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=inauthor:nicolay+inauthor:hay&num=30&as_brr=1#PPP19,M1 vol 6] 10 volumes in all; highly detailed narrative of era written by Lincoln's top aides
* Luthin, Reinhard H. ''The Real Abraham Lincoln'' (1960), emphasis on politics
* Neely, Mark E. ''The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia'' (1984), detailed articles on many men and movements associated with AL
* Neely, Mark E. ''The Last Best Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America'' (1993), Pulitzer prize winning author
* Oates, Stephen B. ''With Malice Toward None: The Life of Abraham Lincoln'' (1994) [https://www.amazon.com/Malice-Toward-None-Abraham-Lincoln/dp/0060924713/ref=pd_sim_b_img_7 excerpt and text search], good biography by liberal historian
* Randall, James G. ''Lincoln the President'' (4 vol., 1945–55; reprint 2000.) analytic biography by leading conservative scholar
** ''Mr. Lincoln'' excerpts ed. by Richard N. Current (1957) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5993790 online edition]
* Sandburg, Carl. ''Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years'' (2 vol 1926); ''The War Years'' (4 vol 1939). Pulitzer Prize winning biography by famous liberal poet [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=82392773 vol. 1 online] [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=97896367 vol 2 online]
* Thomas, Benjamin P. ''Abraham Lincoln: A Biography'' (1952; 2nd ed. 2008) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=25051697 online edition], very well written biography by leading scholar
* White, A. Ronald C. ''A. Lincoln: A Biography'' (2009), good recent biography [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Biography-Ronald-White-Jr/dp/1400064996/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249335698&sr=1-7 excerpt and text search]

=== Specialty topics ===
===Prewar===
* Angle, Paul M., ''Here I Have Lived: A History of Lincoln's Springfield, 1821-1865,'' (1935) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=210869 online edition]
* Baker, Jean H. ''Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography'' (1987) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=102075782 online edition]
* Boritt, Gabor S. ''Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream'' (1994). Lincoln's economic theory and policies, by conservative historian
* Fehrenbacher, Don E. "The Origins and Purpose of Lincoln's "House-Divided" Speech," ''The Mississippi Valley Historical Review,'' Vol. 46, No. 4. (Mar., 1960), pp. 615-643. [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0161-391X%28196003%2946%3A4%3C615%3ATOAPOL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I in JSTOR]
* Foner, Eric. ''Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War'' (1970) intellectual history of different prewar faction's in AL's party
* Holzer, Harold. ''Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President'' (2004). [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Cooper-Union-President-Schuster/dp/0743299647/ref=pd_sim_b_img_44 excerpt and text search]
* Jaffa, Harry V. ''A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War'' (2000) by leading conservative
* Jaffa, Harry V. ''Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates'' (1999) [https://www.amazon.com/Crisis-House-Divided-Interpretation-Lincoln-Douglas/dp/0226391132/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196166006&sr=8-3 excerpt and text search] by leading conservative
* Nevins, Allan. ''Ordeal of the Union'' 8-volume (1947-1971). 1. Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847-1852; 2. A House Dividing, 1852-1857; 3. Douglas, Buchanan, and Party Chaos, 1857-1859. most thorough coverage of the era, with Lincoln at center
* Schneider, Thomas E. ''Lincoln's Defense of Politics: The Public Man and His Opponents in the Crisis over Slavery.'' (2006). 224 pp.

===Wartime===
===Lincoln Administration===
* Burton, Orville Vernon. ''The Age of Lincoln'' (2007), sweeping history from 1840 to 1900. [https://www.amazon.com/Age-Lincoln-Orville-Vernon-Burton/dp/0809095130/ref=pd_bbs_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196112530&sr=8-9 excerpt and text search]
* Carwardine, Richard. "Abraham Lincoln and the Fourth Estate: the White House and the Press During the American Civil War." ''American Nineteenth Century History'' 2006 7(1): 1-27. Issn: 1466-4658 Fulltext: Ebsco
* Ford, Lacy K., ed. ''A Companion to the Civil War and Reconstruction.'' Blackwell, 2005. 518 pp.
* Hendrick, Burton J. ''Lincoln's War Cabinet'' (1946) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=790159 online edition]
* Goodwin, Doris Kearns. ''Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln'' (2005)
* McPherson, James M. ''Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era'' (1988). Pulitzer Prize winner surveys all aspects of the war [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=64327148 online edition]
* Marvel, William. ''Mr. Lincoln Goes to War'' (2006), neo-Confederate attack that blames Lincoln for defeating the Confederacy and freeing the slaves by stretching the Constitution
* Nevins, Allan. ''Ordeal of the Union'' 8-volume (1947-1971). vol 5. The Improvised War, 1861–1862; 6. War Becomes Revolution, 1862–1863; 7. The Organized War, 1863–1864; 8. The Organized War to Victory, 1864–1865; most thorough coverage of the era, with Lincoln at center
* Paludan, Phillip S. ''A People's Contest: The Union and Civil War 1861-1865'' (1996), outstanding history of the homefront [https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Contest-1861-1865-Modern-Studies/dp/0700608125/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336636&sr=1-2 excerpt and text search]
* Paludan, Phillip S. ''The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln'' (1994), thorough treatment of Lincoln's administration [https://www.amazon.com/Presidency-Abraham-Lincoln-American/dp/0700607455/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336636&sr=1-4 excerpt and text search]
* Richardson, Heather Cox. ''The Greatest Nation of the Earth: Republican Economic Policies during the Civil War'' (1997)
* Williams, Kenneth P. ''Lincoln Finds a General: A Military Study of the Civil War'' (1959) 5 volumes on Lincoln's control of the war

===Lincolnia===
[[Image:DcLincMor.JPG|right|thumb]]
* Belz, Herman. ''Abraham Lincoln, Constitutionalism, and Equal Rights in the Civil War Era'' (1998)
* Belz, Herman. "Lincoln's Construction of the Executive Power in the Secession Crisis," ''Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association'' 27.1 (2006):[http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jala/27.1/belz.html online edition]
* Boritt, Gabor S. ed. ''Lincoln the War President'' (1994)
* Briggs, John Channing. ''Lincoln's Speeches Reconsidered.'' (2005). 370 pp.
* Bruce, Robert V. ''Lincoln and the Tools of War'' (1956) on weapons development during the war [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=978110 online edition]
* DiLorenzo, Thomas. ''Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe'' (2007) poorly written diatribe by a neo-Confederate
* Donald, David Herbert. ''Lincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era'' (1960)
* Donald, David Herbert. ''We Are Lincoln Men: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends'' (2003), on Lincoln's friends and associates; by leading conservative scholar
* Goodwin, Doris Kearns. "'My Whole Soul Is in It.'" ''Smithsonian'' 2006 36(10): 48+ Fulltext: at Ebsco, essay on the writing of the Emancipation Proclamation
*Hanchett, William. ''The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies'', (1983)
* Harris, William C. ''With Charity for All: Lincoln and the Restoration of the Union'' (1997). AL's plans for Reconstruction; by conservative historian
* Hofstadter, Richard. ''The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It'' (1948) ch 5: "Abraham Lincoln and the Self-Made Myth."
* McPherson, James M. ''Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution'' (1992) [https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Lincoln-Second-American-Revolution/dp/0195076060/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164807&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* Neely, Mark E. ''The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties'' (1992). Pulitzer Prize winner. [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=79055694 online version]; [https://www.amazon.com/Fate-Liberty-Abraham-Lincoln-Liberties/dp/0195080327/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164768&sr=8-2 excerpt and text search]
* Perret, Geoffrey. ''Lincoln's War: The Untold Story of America's Greatest President as Commander in Chief'' (2004). well-written but has many factual errors and questionable interpretations [https://www.amazon.com/Lincolns-War-Americas-President-Commander/dp/0375507388/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164840&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* Polsky, Andrew J. "'Mr. Lincoln's Army' Revisited: Partisanship, Institutional Position, and Union Army Command, 1861–1865." ''Studies in American Political Development'' (2002), 16: 176-207
* Potter, David M. ''Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis'' (1942)
* Randall, James G. ''Lincoln the Liberal Statesman'' (1947).
* Schmitz, Neil. "Refiguring Lincoln: Speeches and Writings, 1832-1865," ''American Literary History'', Vol. 6, No. 1. (Spring, 1994), pp. 103–118 [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0896-7148(199421)6%3A1%3C103%3ARLSAW1%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4 in JSTOR]
* Striner, Richard. ''Father Abraham: Lincoln's Relentless Struggle to End Slavery.'' (2006). 295 pp. [https://www.amazon.com/Father-Abraham-Lincolns-Relentless-Struggle/dp/0195325397/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164883&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* White Jr., Ronald C. ''Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural'' (2001) Pp. 234. [https://www.amazon.com/Lincolns-Greatest-Speech-Second-Inaugural/dp/0743212991/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164921&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* Williams, T. Harry. ''Lincoln and His Generals'' (1967).
* Wills, Garry. ''Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America'' (1993) [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Gettysburg-America-Schuster-Library/dp/0743299639/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164981&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* Wilson, Douglas L. ''Honor's Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln'' by (1999).
* Wilson, Douglas L. ''Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words'' (2007)

===Historiography and Memory===
* Boritt, Gabor S., ed. ''The Historian's Lincoln'' U. of Illinois Press, 1988, historiography [https://www.amazon.com/Historians-Lincoln-Pseudohistory-Psychohistory-History/dp/0252065441/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196165019&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* Braeman, John. "Albert J. Beveridge and Demythologizing Lincoln." ''Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association'' 2004 25(2): 1-24. Issn: 0898-4212 Fulltext: online in History Cooperative. Albert J. Beveridge (1862-1927), former US senator from Indiana began work on a multivolume biography of Abraham Lincoln in 1922. His goal was to demolish the myths surrounding Lincoln and present the facts. Beveridge tended to sympathize with the South and admire Stephen A. Douglas, as well as rely on information collected by William H. Herndon. But, he did more intense research on Lincoln's pre-presidential career than any previous biographer. Beveridge died as he reached 1858.
* Cross, Roland R. "Edgar Lee Masters's Peculiar Biographies of Abraham Lincoln and Vachel Lindsay." ''Journal of Illinois History'' 2004 7(4): 281–296. Issn: 1522–0532. The poet Edgar Lee Masters in 1931 wrote the only hostile biography of Lincoln; he debunks the "myth of Honest Abe." In Masters's view, Lincoln's actions as president was a corruption of true American ideals. The theme has occasionally resurfaced among neoconfederates and extreme libertarians who tolerate slavery but not strong government.
* Fields, Kevin. "Historiographical Trends and Interpretations of President Abraham Lincoln's Reputation and the Morality on the Slavery Question: Part I and II." ''Lincoln Herald'' Lincoln Herald 2004 106(4): 150-167 and 2005 107(1): 11–30. Issn: 0024–3671; Part 1 siscusses William Herndon, John Nicolay, and John Hay.; Part 2 notes the civil rights movement prompted historians to reevaluate Lincoln's attitude toward race and emancipation. Many continued to portray him as the pragmatic, essentially conservative, "reluctant emancipator." However, by the 1980s a postrevisionist consensus had emerged, which emphasized the evolution of Lincoln's attitudes and asserted that freedom for black slaves, and not merely the preservation of the Union, became one of his key objectives.
* McPherson, James M. "No Peace Without Victory, 1861-1865." ''American Historical Review'' 2004 109(1): Xvi, 1-18. Issn: 0002-8762 Fulltext: in History Cooperative and Ebsco.
* Peterson, Merrill D. ''Lincoln in American Memory'' (1994). how Lincoln was remembered after 1865
* Schwartz, Barry and Schuman, Howard. "History, Commemoration, and Belief: Abraham Lincoln in American Memory, 1945-2001." ''American Sociological Review'' 2005 70(2): 183–203. Issn: 0003-1224 Fulltext: in Ingenta
*Trefousse, Hans L. ''"First among Equals?" Abraham Lincoln's Reputation during His Administration.'' 2005. 199 pp.

=== Primary sources ===
* Basler, Roy P. ed. ''Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln,'' 9 vol Rutgers Univ. Press 1953–55
* Basler, Roy P. ed. ''Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, '' (1946) [http://www.questia.com/library/book/abraham-lincoln-his-speeches-and-writings-by-abraham-lincoln-roy-p-basler.jsp online edition]
* Lincoln, Abraham. ''Lincoln: Speeches and Writings'' 2 vol Library of America edition, 1989

===Memoirs and interviews===
* Chittenden, Lucius E., [https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC00587058&id=b-N27vdmIt4C&printsec=titlepage&dq=%22Recollections+of+President+Lincoln+and+His+Administration%22 ''Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration''], (1891). – [[Google Books]]
* Holzer, Harold, ed. ''Dear Mr. Lincoln: Letters to the President.'' (1993). 380 pp.
* Nicolay, John G. ed. ''Oral History of Abraham Lincoln: John G. Nicolay's Interviews and Essays.'' Michael Burlingame, ed. (1996). 186 pp. [https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Lincoln-Observations-John-Nicolay/dp/0809327384/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196165058&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* ''Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln'' edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis. (1998) 864pp, with over 600 interviews and letters about Lincoln [http://durer.press.illinois.edu/wilson/ complete text online ??] [https://books.google.com/books?id=s2gilcp4yYQC&source=gbs_navlinks_s excerpt and text search]

== See also ==
*[[American Civil War homefront]]
*[[Gallery of American Heroes]]

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==External links==
*[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/ Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln]
*[http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln.html Abraham Lincoln Online]
*[http://www.abrahamlincolnarchive.com/Home.aspx Lincoln Archive of original newspaper articles]
*[http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/ History Place: Lincoln timeline]
*[http://www.nps.gov/liho/index.htm Lincoln's Home National Historic Site]
*[https://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/al16.html White House site; short bio on Lincoln]
*[http://www.mrlincolnandfriends.org/inside.asp?pageID=112&subjectID=1 Mr. Lincoln and Friends]
*[http://www.nps.gov/archive/liho/slavery/al02.htm Declaration against slavery, Illinois State Legislature, March 3, 1837]
*[http://www.nps.gov/archive/liho/slavery/al03.htm Lincoln's letter to Joshua Speed, August 24, 1855]
*[http://www.nps.gov/archive/liho/slavery/al05.htm Speech in Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854]
*[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=lincoln;cc=lincoln;q1=erastus;q2=corning;op2=and;op3=and;rgn=works;idno=ACK7441.0001.001;didno=ACK7441.0001.001;view=image;seq=00000227 Letter to Erastus Corning and Others, June 13, 1863, in which Lincoln explains his suspention of ''habeas corpus'']
*[http://www.sonshi.com/sherman.html Memoirs of William T. Sherman ]
*[http://www.swartzentrover.com/cotor/E-Books/misc/Lincoln/ALindex.htm The Life, Public Services and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln by Henry J. Raymond]
*[http://bertschlossberg.blogspot.com/ A. Lincoln, few words/E.Everett, many words]
* [https://librivox.org/author/2233 Works by Abraham Lincoln - text and free audio] - [[LibriVox]]
*[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln1.asp First Inaugural Address]
*[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln2.asp Second Inaugural Address]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU6UacteZus]] william r rathvon i heard lincoln that day]
{{USPresidents}}
{{Nationalism}}
{{Conservative Presidents}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lincoln, Abraham}}

[[Category:Inventors]]
[[Category:Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:Republicans]]
[[Category:People who were Educated at Home]]
[[Category:United States History]]
[[Category:American Civil War]]
[[Category:Reconstruction]]
[[Category:Politicians]]
[[Category:Diplomacy]]
[[Category:Abolitionists]]
[[Category:Whig Party]]
[[Category:Conservatives]]
[[Category:Veterans]]
[[Category:Patriots]]
[[Category:Presbyterians]]

Abraham Lincoln

2021-03-06T05:20:22Z

Kollenbornstephen: Abraham lincoln

{{Officeholder
|name=Abraham Lincoln
|image=Abraham-lincoln-by-story.jpg
|party=[[Republican]]
[[National Union]] (1864)
|spouse=[[Mary Todd Lincoln]]
|religion=[[Presbyterian]]<ref>http://abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/sites/nyave.htm</ref>
|offices=
{{Officeholder/president
|country=the United States
|number=16th
|terms=March 4, 1861 – April 15, 1865
|vp=[[Hannibal Hamlin]] (1861–1865) [[Andrew Johnson]] (1865)
|preceded=[[James Buchanan]]
|former=y
|succeeded=[[Andrew Johnson]]
}}
{{Officeholder/representative
|state=Illinois
|district=7th
|terms=March 4, 1847 – March 3, 1849
|preceded=John Henry
|former=y
|succeeded=Thomas L. Harris
}}
|military=y
|allegiance=Illinois Militia
|serviceyears=1832
|battles=Black Hawk War
}}
'''Abraham Lincoln''' (February 12, 1809 - April 15, 1865) was the 16th [[President of the United States of America]] serving from 1861 to 1865. He led his country through its greatest crisis, the [[American Civil War]], abolished [[slavery]] and built the [[Republican Party]] that dominated national politics outside [[the South]] during the [[Third Party System]]. Veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) became the Grand Old Party (GOP). Lincoln converted to [[Christianity]] upon visiting the grim site of the [[Battle of Gettysburg]] and honoring the fallen soldiers there; he attended [[church]] often afterwards.<ref>https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/abraham-lincoln-consecrated-to-christ-1184005.html</ref>

Lincoln was [[homeschooled]] and virtually entirely self-taught, which likely gave him independent thinking, reliance on logic, and a desire to continue to learn as an adult.<ref>For example, Lincoln successfully proved all of Euclid's theorems while serving in Congress.</ref> His eloquence as a writer was second only to [[Thomas Jefferson]] among presidents. Lincoln was a president, like [[Ronald Reagan]] and [[Donald Trump]] after him, whose [[faith]] developed and grew while holding high public office.

Lincoln joined the newly formed anti-slavery [[Republican Party]] after the [[Whig Party]] fell apart over the issue of [[abolition]]. With a profound sense of American history, unswerving commitment to [[Republicanism]], and an almost [[Shakespeare]]an command of the language, Lincoln articulated a vision of a new birth of freedom for all Americans. The destruction of the [[Confederacy]], and of the [[Slave Power|slave power]] that menaced [[conservative]] American values, affirmed Lincoln's vision in the [[Gettysburg Address]] (1863) and guaranteed that "government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Abraham Lincoln is the only president who held a registered [[patent]] for his invention, to buoy vessels over shoals in the [[Mississippi River]]; Lincoln supported the American patent system because it "added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20120101160557/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/object-oct06.html Smithsonian description of Patent No. 6,469, which was granted on May 22, 1849 for a device for "Buoying Vessels Over Shoals"]</ref>

==Early life==
Lincoln grew up in a hard-luck, hard-scrabble environment on
the middle border. His paternal ancestors were English; they migrated from Hingham, England, to Hingham Massachusetts, in 1637. In the 1730s they moved to backwoods Pennsylvania and Virginia. His grandfather moved to Kentucky in 1782, where he was scalped by Indians raiding his farm in 1786. His father Thomas owned some farmland near Elizabethtown, where he farmed and worked as a carpenter.

Abe later wrote:
:''“I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families-- second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams, and others in Macon Counties, Illinois.”''<ref>See [http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/autobiog.htm Speeches]</ref>

Abe was born in a backwoods cabin some three miles south of Hodgenville, Kentucky. His father Thomas Lincoln was a sturdy man, committed to pioneering in the new lands of Kentucky and Indiana. He married Nancy Hanks on June 12, 1806, and together they had three children: Sarah, Abraham, and Thomas, who did not survive infancy. The family belonged to a Hardshell Baptist church; Abe ridiculed the preachers and never joined their church, or any other church.

Young Abraham's earliest memories of his days in Kentucky involved helping his father plant some seeds of corn and sunflower, and a flood that washed them away.
[[Image:Young abraham lincoln.jpg|thumb|200px|left|The oldest-known photograph of Lincoln, about 1847.]]
In December 1816 Thomas had to pack up his family and leave for southwestern Indiana after a slaveowner with a better lawyer won title to his Kentucky property.

Penniless, the family in Indiana lived in a “half-faced” camp; a crude log structure with one side open to the elements, and there the family stayed as squatters on public land until Thomas had finished a permanent cabin; he later bought the land outright on which it stood. Helping Thomas clear the land and plowing the fields was Abe, who in sharp contrast to other boys developed a strong aversion to hunting. The poverty, Lincoln recalled, was “pretty pinching” at times, and by the age of nine he was a tall, lanky boy dressed rather ragged and unkempt.

Then the fall of 1818 brought the hardest blow: Nancy had died of the “milk sickness”, leaving Abraham without the mother whom he deeply loved. Some time later, Thomas had taken the buckboard and the mule, and left Abraham and Sarah on their own for two weeks; when he returned, he was with a new wife, Sarah Bush Johnson; she immediately made up for the absence of Nancy by replacing Abraham's corn husk mattress with one of down, winning him over the first day. The new step-mother treated both children with an even hand (she herself was a widow with three children, whom she had brought), but she became very fond of Abraham, and he in turn was fond of her, referring to her as his “angel mother” for the rest of his life.

===Education===
Both of Abraham's parents were nearly completely illiterate, and he himself had not much more than one year of formal education. When he did go to school, it was by “littles” – a little here, a little there – and he would call it “blab” school, which meant that they had to recite their lessons constantly due to lack of paper, pencils, and chalk. “Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three; but that was all.” The rule of three means up to one thousand.

His step-mother encouraged his reading as much as possible, and although Abraham did not have access to a large number of books, he would read as much of what was there, and read voraciously. He read John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, ''Aesop’s Fables'', Daniel DeFoe's ''Robinson Crusoe'', Parson Weems's ''Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington'', Edward Gibbon's ''Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', and undoubtedly he read many times the only book his family actually owned, the Bible. He would walk for miles to borrow a book he heard about, and after his chores he would collapse into a heap in front of the fire and read for hours. He would say years later that his best friend was the man who let him borrow a book he hadn't read yet.

As a practicing lawyer, Lincoln gained respect for the work of [[Blackstone]] and his [[Commentaries on the Laws of England]]. Lincoln was known for giving the following advice to others in his field: "Begin with Blackstone's "''Commentaries''", and after reading it carefully through, say twice, take up Chitty's "Pleadings," Greenleaf's "Evidence," and Story's "Equity," etc., in succession."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=ldfcBd_-O8QC&pg=PT128 Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=sRwqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA40 Personal Traits of Abraham Lincoln]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=L7ZDo_sjOFMC&pg=PA77 Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President]</ref>

===The Rail-Splitter===
[[Image:Railsplitter.jpg|thumb|200px|right|An artist's impression of a young Abe Lincoln, the ''Rail-Splitter''.]]
The Lincolns moved to Illinois in March, 1830, with Abraham driving the team of oxen himself, a young man of 21, rawboned and lanky at six feet four inches tall. But the years working on the Indiana farm also made him physically powerful, and on his arrival in Illinois he was soon to demonstrate the skill with which he could wield an axe, putting it to good use by clearing the trees and laying the fence on his father’s new farm; the speed with which he could take tree trunks and split them into the rails needed for the fencing just by using his axe earned him the nickname “rail-splitter.” He could make an axe flash and bite deep; one neighbor saying “He could sink an axe deeper into wood than any man I ever saw.” After a good deal of chopping, he could take the axe by its handle and hold it straight out away from his body, without a single quiver. (Sandburg, pg. 14) Good-natured as well, he would make friends easily, despite his awkward-looking stride and backwoods language.
[[Image:Lincoln hair.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Fearing that his friends wouldn't recognize him "without a bad tousle", Lincoln messed his hair up in this picture before the photographer closed the shutter.]]
Soon, he signed on as a deckhand on a flatboat, and made a voyage down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. When he returned he settled in a small town on the Sangamon River called New Salem, working as a store keeper, surveyor, or a postmaster, the later of which allowed him to be the first to read the arriving newspapers. Then talk went about town of Lincoln's utter honesty, how he would walk six miles to return a few cents to a customer he had accidentally overcharged, or the woman that had bought some tea, and having used the wrong weight for the purchase, Lincoln made the correction and walked the many miles to her house to ensure she got the right order (Sandburg, pp 24–25).

In 1832 he enlisted in the Black Hawk War, and was elected captain of his company, but the only fighting he admitted seeing action in was the “many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes.” After he was mustered out of his company, he aspired for the state legislature, losing the contest the first time he ran, then getting elected and re-elected several times afterward. He had briefly thought about practicing the trade of blacksmithing, but his craving of reading led him to law books, which caused some serious studying. Lincoln passed the bar in 1836, and began a new career practicing law.

===Insulting letters===

In the early 1840s, Lincoln had a habit of writing critical letters that skewered his political opponents unmercifully. In 1842, after the default of the state bank, Lincoln wrote a letter to the editor of the ''Sangamo Journal'' about Illinois' governor, treasurer and auditor's refusal to accept the state's own paper money for payment of debts. The letter directly attacked James Shields, the state auditor, who then challenged Lincoln to a duel. After taking lessons in swordsmanship, Lincoln met Shields on September 22, 1842 on a Missouri sandbar. Two mutual friends rushed to the scene and talked the two combatants into cancelling the duel.<ref>[http://www.historynet.com/abraham-lincoln-prepares-to-fight-a-saber-duel.htm Abraham Lincoln prepares to fight a saber duel]</ref>

==Springfield==
The following year he moved to the new state capital of Illinois, Springfield, becoming law partners with John T. Stuart, Stephan T. Logan, and finally William H. Herndon in 1844, who, although junior in age to Lincoln by a decade, made a good, balanced partner. Few records exist of their law business, and when they got paid for their services they split the cash, no matter who was paid. Lincoln would earn $1,200 - $1,500 annually within just a few years; by comparison circuit judges earned $750. But to earn it he kept busy and worked hard; often he would climb into his buggy and travel the circuit of neighboring counties and practice before the courts there. And often the cases he would be involved in were petty

Years before he had tried, and failed, to push legislation through the state assembly to have the Sangamon River made navigable to New Salem; by 1850 the railroads were bringing business and prosperity to Illinois, and Lincoln, by virtue of the ease the railroad made in traveling to his courts, profited more. He had served as a lobbyist for the Illinois Central Railroad, enabling it to get a state charter; he would defend the company against McClean County's unsuccessful efforts to tax it. He handles cases for other railroads, banks, manufacturing, and other large companies in the state; he handled some patent suits and a few criminal trials. And he also saved the first bridge to cross the Mississippi River from demolition, when river interests demanded the bridge be taken down.

===The moonlit murder===
In Lincoln's New Salem days he was introduced to the Clary's Grove Boys, a group of rowdy men from a nearby town who came into New Salem to bully some of the townsmen. The leader of the group was Jack Armstrong, whose challenge to wrestle the New Salem men usually resulted in Armstrong quickly throwing the unfortunate man to the ground. When he saw Lincoln, Armstrong dismissed the lanky young man as a pushover. When they fought, neither man was able to throw the other. The battle ended in a draw, and the good-natured Lincoln made a new friend. Armstrong would later be one of the men to elect Lincoln to lead the company of volunteers in the Black Hawk War.<ref name="Jack Armstrong">[http://www.mrlincolnandfriends.org/inside.asp?pageID=32&subjectID=2 Jack Armstrong]</ref>

In 1856, Jack Armstrong's son, William (or "Duff"), was charged with murder. A witness claimed he had seen Duff and another kill a New Salem man late at night by the light of full moon. Lincoln pulled out an almanac and proved that the witness could not have seen anything at all, as the moon was at its quarter and had actually set over an hour before. Duff was acquitted, and Lincoln won the case.<ref name="Jack Armstrong"/>

==Politics==
[[Andrew Jackson]], the hero of New Orleans in the [[War of 1812]] and a Democrat from Tennessee, was in the White House when Lincoln first entered politics. He shared with Jackson the sympathies for the common man, but differed in the role of government as related to it; Jackson stated the government should be separated from the economic enterprise, while Lincoln was of the view that “the legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot do so well, for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities.” Lincoln most associated himself with the Whig Party, as among their members Henry Clay and Daniel Webster both advocated a government should be encouraging business, and the development of the country to that end. It was an easy choice for Lincoln: he saw Illinois as needing such aid to improve the development of its own economy.

In the Illinois State Legislature Lincoln found that politics could be detrimental and harsh, as well as rewarding. An example of the former occurred in 1836, just as he gave a speech in support of his re-election. Democrat John Forquer, also seeking election, used his response and acid tongue to denounce him. "This young man needs to be taken down" he said, pointing to Lincoln, "and I'm afraid the task devolves upon me." The success of Forquer's speech convinced some of Lincoln's own allies that his career was over.

But when Lincoln rose to make his rebuttal, he thought of Forquer, and what he had done recently in conniving with President Jackson to change parties; in reward for doing so he was made Government Land Register with a $3,000 annual salary. Forquer was then able to construct a fine new house in Springfield, complete with a curiosity residents had heard about from science but had never seen before: a lightning rod. Before he entered the state house building that day, Lincoln spent a few minutes at Forquer's house staring at the thing, and having heard Forquer's speech later on, he thought of what he saw. Lincoln's reply was blistering, and sealed Forquer's fate.

:''"Among other things he said, the gentleman commenced his speech by saying that 'this young man,' alluding to me, 'must be taken down.' I am not so young in years as I am in the tricks and the trades of a politician, but, live long or die young, I would rather die now than, like the gentleman, change my politics, and with the change receive an office worth $3,000 a year, and then feel obliged to erect a lightning-rod over my house to protect a guilty conscience from an offended God!"'' (Sandburg, pg.49)

Lincoln also proposed state funding to construct a network of roads, railroads, and canals. Both Whigs and Democrats would join in for the passing of this omnibus bill, but a business depression was created by the [[panic of 1837]], and as a result most of the provisions in the bill were abandoned. 1837 was also marked by the murder of Elijah Lovejoy, a newspaperman from Alton who was killed by a mob due to his anti-slavery views. The legislature introduced resolutions defending Southern slavery while condemning abolitionist societies, as per the U.S. Constitution. In protest of the resolutions Lincoln, with a fellow legislator, drew up a declaration which stated that slavery was “founded on both injustice and bad policy,” while also declaring that “the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than to abate its evils.”
[[Image:Lawyer Lincoln.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Lincoln in the late 1850s, about to debate his rival Stephen A. Douglas.]]
He only served one term in the United States Congress, 1847 to 1849, during which time he did little on legislative matters. He did introduce a bill calling for a gradual emancipation of slaves within the District of Columbia, but since it hinged on the approval of the white citizens there, it only caused mild anger from abolitionists as well as slave holders, and was quietly dropped. His one main issue was over the Mexican War, in which he condemned the American entry into it on false pretenses, particularly blaming current president James K. Polk. He worked toward the nomination of Zachary Taylor for the presidency, and when Taylor had won, Lincoln expected to be rewarded with the job of land commissioner, but failed. He was voted out of office by his constituents, as they felt he was too critical of the war. Disillusioned, he left politics and reentered his law practice.

==Return to politics==
He stayed out for five years, winning several cases before the courts, then in 1854 he had read in the papers that Stephan A. Douglas, his political rival and Democratic senator from Illinois, had placed before Congress a bill which would reopen the territory of the Louisiana Purchase to slavery, as well as allow settlers in the Kansas and Nebraska territories to vote for themselves whether or not they wanted it, a concept which was called “[[popular sovereignty]]” by Douglas. The resulting [[Kansas-Nebraska Act]] would do nothing more than provoke violent opposition; a border war would result between Kansas and Missouri as both pro and anti-slavery forces would cause much bloodshed; and voters in the Old Northwest, Illinois among them, would react vehemently against it, resulting in the destruction of the Whigs as a political party, and the birth of the Republicans, of which Lincoln quickly became a member.<ref>Yervand Kochar. [https://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/i_am_a_lincoln_republican_1.html I Am a Lincoln Republican], ''American Thinker'', November 14, 2009.</ref> The [[Dred Scott]] decision of 1856, in which a black man who sued for his freedom only to be told that he was never a citizen and had to remain a slave, only added more fuel to the fire, as the states were aligning slave versus free, North versus South.

As the leading member of the Republican Party in Illinois, Lincoln was nominated for the Senate seat held by Douglas at the Republican State Convention in Springfield on June 16, 1858. The acceptance speech he gave has been called the [[Lincoln's "House Divided" Speech|House Divided]] speech, after the opening lines, which were based upon Matthew 12:25:

:''If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand."  I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new -- North as well as South.''<ref>[http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/divided.htm "House Divided" Speech], ''The History Place'', June 16, 1858.</ref>

August through October, 1858 saw seven Illinois towns witnessing the [[Lincoln-Douglas debates]]; Douglas the national figure defending the choice of voters whether to accept slavery or not, and the little-known Lincoln taking a stand against slavery on political, social, and moral grounds.<ref>https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debates.htm</ref> Douglas never wavered from defending popular sovereignty, and he also played on the voters' fears of [[black integration]]. Stating blacks were inferior to whites, he appealed to racists by declaring that the government was "established upon the white basis. It was made by white men, for the benefit of white men." (TL 1, pg 106). Lincoln on the other hand knew Douglas was in a war of his own with President [[James Buchanan]]'s administration over acceptance of the Kansas constitution which barred slavery from the state, further alienating Southern Democratic support; the fear was that Douglas would be more appealing to moderate Republicans in the east. Lincoln's strategy therefore was to point out and use the vast difference between the moral indifference to slavery as embodied by Douglas's popular sovereignty, and the moral wrong that slavery actually was as embodied by Republican opposition to it. Douglas was, Lincoln insisted, a man who did not care whether slavery was "voted up or voted down." By his last debate, Lincoln would narrow the differences between himself and Douglas as the basic principle of right and wrong.

:''"That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the [[divine right of kings]]. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle."''

Douglas for his part knew how formidable his foe was, and declared that if he won, “it would be a hollow victory.” He did win, retaining his Senate seat, but by a narrow margin.

==The 1860 Election==
[[Image:Lincoln and beard.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Soon after his election, a little girl named Grace Bedell wrote to Lincoln, telling him his face would be softened by the addition of a beard; here he just started on her advice.]]
:''My friends, no one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of the Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.'' Lincoln's Farewell Speech to the citizens of Springfield, February 11, 1861.

On May 18, 1860 at the Republican National Convention held in Chicago, Lincoln was nominated on the third ballot. He then set aside his law practice and gave full-time to the direction of his campaign, with the object of first uniting the Republicans from anything with which the party could disagree over. The Democrats were already divided, having nominated Douglas in Baltimore on the Northern platform of popular sovereignty, and John C. Breckenridge who was elected on a platform of states’ rights and slavery by Southern Democrats. Lincoln won the [[United States presidential election of 1860]], winning a clear majority in popular votes as well as electoral votes, despite winning no votes in the South.
==Presidency==
For the social, political, economic and diplomatic history see [[American Civil War homefront]]

The state of South Carolina proclaimed its secession from the Union in December, 1860, soon after Lincoln's victory. To try to prevent other states from following, compromises were hurriedly pushed through Congress, one of which, the [[Corwin Amendment]], guaranteed the existence of slavery in perpetuity where it already existed. The failed [[Crittenden Compromise]] would have gone even further and permanently divided the territories between slave and free. Lincoln publicly supported the Corwin Amendment, believing that it was already implicit in the Constitution; however, he opposed the Crittenden Compromise because it would have given slavery additional protections beyond what the Constitution already gave it. Despite these attempted compromises, six more states seceded and joined with South Carolina to form the [[Confederate States of America]].

A crisis was thus forced upon Lincoln before he even entered the White House. The Confederacy claimed [[Fort Sumter]], in South Carolina's [[Charleston]] Harbor, and ordered its commander, Major [[Robert Anderson]] to turn it over. He refused. Lincoln, still in Springfield, asked [[Winfield Scott]], general in chief of the U.S. Army, to be prepared “to either hold, or retake, the forts, as the case may require, at, and after the inauguration.”

On the 4th of March, 1861, a few weeks after [[Jefferson Davis]] was inaugurated as president of the Confederacy, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as the nation's 16th president. In his [[Lincoln's First Inaugural Address|first inaugural address]] he reiterated his stance: to not interfere with slavery where it existed, to prevent slavery from spreading in the territories, but above all to preserve the Union. The substance of what he said was conciliatory, but it also mentioned the obvious

{{quotebox|In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it.<ref>Historical Document. [https://www.pbs.org/civilwar/war/lincoln_address1.html Lincoln's First Inaugural Address], ''PBS'', March 4, 1861.</ref>}}

However, communications between the fort and Charleston broke down, and Confederate general [[P.G.T. Beauregard]], believing Fort Sumter had a supply ship on the way, ordered the fort shelled on April 14, 1865. The Civil War had begun.

==Civil War==
[[File:Abraham Lincoln 1863 LOC.jpg|thumb|240px|right|Abraham Lincoln at the front.]]
Lincoln's goal was to preserve the Union; he would have been happy to preserve the peace as well, but he was willing to engage in a war to preserve it as well, a war he thought would be short. Title 10, Section 332 of the [[Insurrection Act of 1807]] was enacted in 1861 at the request of President Lincoln to increase Presidential authority to use the militia and the regular army to suppress insurrections and enforce the laws. This law was the legal basis for waging the Civil War. This law allows the President to use federal troops on his own initiative and act on his own judgment without waiting for a request from a governor.<ref>https://www.sofmag.com/understanding-the-posse-comitatus-act-and-the-insurrection-act-the-posse-comitatus-act/</ref>

After Fort Sumter he proclaimed a blockade of Southern ports and called for thousands of volunteers to enlist for ninety days. He also believed that an overland war was inevitable, and he ordered forces on a march on the Virginia front, resulting in the first great defeat for the Union at [[Bull Run]] (July 21, 1861). Shortly afterward, Lincoln issued a set of memoranda for the military, of which his basic thought was that armies in the field must advance concurrently and on several fronts.
{{cquote|
''I expect to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, or am conquered. Or my term expires, or Congress or the country forsakes me.'' – Abraham Lincoln, 1862.}}
Finding himself as the leader of a country now at war, Lincoln used a description of himself in which he let events control him, and then react to the problem. It was something of himself that was used with success as a politician. In this sense he was being practical, ready to employ an action or decision which would help the cause, and ready to abandon it and use another if the first failed. But his first insight with which he held fast to, that of taking the fight to the enemy's army, failed many times when successive generals tried to take the fight to the enemy's capitol and failed, or failed in following up on a rare victory. He had [[George McClellan]] on the Peninsula, but was beaten back during the Seven Days battles. His replacement, John Pope, lost in a repeat of Bull Run. McClellan was back again, winning a victory at [[Antietam]], but failed to follow through in capturing the enemy's army afterwards. Then [[Ambrose Burnside]], followed by [[Joseph Hooker]], led the [[Army of the Potomac]] to massive defeats at [[Fredericksburg]] and [[Chancellorsville]], respectively. Then [[George Gordon Meade]] was put in, just in time for the [[Battle of Gettysburg]]; Meade would not finish off the enemy either. [[Robert E. Lee]], the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, commented on the frequent changes in generals. “I’m afraid they’re going to find a general I cannot understand.”

Having seen what he done at [[Donelson]], [[Shiloh]], [[Vicksburg]], and [[Chattanooga]], Lincoln found the fighting general he was looking for in [[Ulysses S. Grant]]. In March 1864 he promoted Grant to lieutenant general and gave him command of all Federal armies. Grant would have his headquarters in the field with Meade's Army of the Potomac, and his subordinates William T. Sherman, Philip Sheridan, and George H. Thomas would each lead an army to take the fight to the enemy. Halleck would be given a new title, chief of staff, and remain in Washington as the presidential liaison. Secretary of War [[Edwin M. Stanton]] would be responsible for the procurement of men and supplies. By this reorganization Lincoln created the structure of the high command in which all the energies of and resources of the country were mobilized into a grand strategy for the completion of the war. It was all the more remarkable as prior to 1861, he had no knowledge of military theory or affairs; he threw himself into studying the subject that by 1864, he was considered to be something of a military genius.

==Personal life==

Ann Rutledge played a part in stories as being the first woman Lincoln may have fallen in love with. However, evidence is scant, and what surviving letters and documents there are indicate they were close friends. She died in 1835 at the age of 22, and the entire community grieved with Lincoln.
[[Image:Lincoln and tad.jpg|thumb|200px|left|The irrepressible Tad Lincoln, striking a typical pose next to his father, who could barely restrain a smile.]]
The one true love of Lincoln's life was a well-educated woman with a quick wit, [[Mary Todd]], from a well-to-do family in Springfield. Lincoln endured a courtship that lasted two years (and was broken once), before they were married on November 4, 1842. Together they would have four boys: Robert Todd, Edward Baker (“Eddie”, who died at age 4), William Wallace (“Willie”), and Thomas (“Tad”). Willie and Tad were the first children in the White House, and the halls and gardens were filled with childish romps, especially from the rambunctious, uncontrollable Tad, who once took a group of office seekers there to see the president on a trip through a confusing maze of hanging laundry; drove a herd of goats inside; got into the attic and rang the servants’ bells for hours; and succeeded in getting his doll executed for sleeping on watch.
[[Image:Mary Todd Lincoln.jpg|thumb|200px|Mary Todd Lincoln]]
The Lincolns also had their share of quarrels, and stories passed through the years tended to exaggerate them, but existing letters between the two indicate they were like any other married couple. They were devoted to each other's company, and when apart they missed each other. "I have fallen in love with her," Lincoln would write to a friend about Mary, "and have never fallen out." Mary did have fits of temper and a sense of insecurity; while in the White House she had spells of simple jealousy which she staged in front of guests; sometimes the scene would be quite embarrassing. She also rang up large bills for her personal wardrobe and redecorating the White House; Lincoln, when he found out one such bill which totaled near $20,000 and coupled with a request for Congress to appropriate the money needed to pay for it, displayed a rare occurrence of pure anger:

:''"It would stink in the nostrils of the American people to have it said the President of the United States had approved a bill overrunning an appropriation of $20,000 for flub dubs, for this damned old house, when the soldiers cannot have blankets!"'' [http://www.historyswomen.com/1stWomen/marytoddlincoln.htm]

The early deaths of Eddie in 1850 and Willie in 1863 may have played a role in Mary's eccentricity. Lincoln did what he could to support her, even pointing out the presence of a nearby building which housed a sanitarium, hinting that Mary could be placed there if she didn't control herself over Willie's death.

==On slavery==
In 1841, Lincoln had a flatboat trip down the Mississippi, and he saw sitting on board another boat a group of slaves chained together. He described the sight in a letter to Joshua Speed in 1855: “You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border.”

Though a gradualist, Lincoln hated slavery. “I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself,” he declared. “I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world; enables the enemies of free institutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites.” Lincoln often penned fragments on slavery. He would begin it by starting a hypothetical vested interest in slavery, and end it with the only logical conclusion, that is was a great moral wrong.

:''If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B.—why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A?''

:''You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.''

:''You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.''

:''But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest; you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.'' (Fragment on Slavery, April, 1854)

In 1857, in response to [[Stephen Douglas]] with a focus on the [[Dred Scott]] decision, Lincoln recalled of the brilliance of the [[Declaration of Independence]] and its authors that they:

<blockquote>constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even, though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, of all colors, everywhere.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=u63XdiM9330C&pg=PA234 The Life and Public Services of Hon. Abraham Lincoln]</ref></blockquote>

Lincoln was elected on a platform which pledged no interference with slavery where it had already existed, and he was hesitant to adopt an abolitionist policy. He was concerned about the reaction of the border states should such a policy be enacted. He was concerned about four million newly freed blacks being incorporated into the country's social, economic, and political life. Some individuals, such as General John C. Freemont, made it a point to proclaim freedom in districts which they had conquered; Lincoln revoked those proclamations. In a letter to Horace Greely, Lincoln plainly stated
:''"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that."''<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/1862/08/24/news/letter-president-lincoln-reply-horace-greeley-slavery-union-restoration-union.html</ref>

Lincoln was willing to play a major part in removing slavery altogether during the war. He first proposed an idea in which slaves were to be freed gradually by the actions of the states, with the federal government sharing the cost of compensation. None of the border states were willing to implement it, and no prominent African-American leader was willing to see newly freed blacks sent to Africa, as part of the idea called for.

But with the victory at Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln brought out an idea which he read before his cabinet, that slaves held in the Confederate States were declared to be free. He would declare it formally with his [[Emancipation Proclamation]] on January 1, 1863. Although it did not include those areas under Union control, and officially it was a war measure, it had a great deal of significance as a symbol, and European countries who had toyed with the idea of recognizing the Confederacy abandoned it and supported the Union.<ref>http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/EmanProc.html</ref>

Lincoln also felt that the freed slaves would be put back in chains at war's end, as the Proclamation itself was not constitutional. But Lincoln was prepared for something else: he drafted the [[Thirteenth Amendment]] to the Constitution, which stated slavery was illegal except for crimes committed. He also urged the Republican Party to add the proposed amendment as a plank to the 1864 presidential campaign, stating slavery was the cause of the war, and that the Proclamation had aimed “a death blow at this gigantic evil;” only by a constitutional amendment could slavery be rendered extinct. After the election, Lincoln did not wait for the new Congress. He got the two-thirds needed for ratification before the year was over, and rejoiced when his state of Illinois led the way.

:''"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just - a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."'' Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862.

===Founding Fathers===
Lincoln routinely acknowledged that a clear majority of the [[Founding Fathers]] condemned slavery.<ref name=echoes>[https://books.google.com/books?id=0PVc-rDIKRoC&pg=PA194 Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: Echoes of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer]</ref> In his sixth debate with Steven Douglass, Lincoln argued that the Founding Fathers considered slavery wrong, and firmly expected it to die a natural death.<ref>[https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/slavery.htm Lincoln on Slavery]</ref> In [[Lincoln's Cooper Union Speech]],<ref name=echoes /> as well as in Lincoln's "Peoria Speech", where he pointed out that "only argument they ever admitted in favor of slavery" was necessity, that they blamed the "British King for having permitted its introduction".<ref name=peoria>[https://books.google.com/books?id=CkqG9YhZGygC&pg=PT90 The Writings of Abraham Lincoln]</ref>

<blockquote>[[Slave Trade Act of 1794|In 1794]], they prohibited an out-going slave-trade - that is, the taking of slaves from the United States to sell.

In 1798, they prohibited the bringing of slaves from Africa, into the Mississippi Territory - this territory then comprising what are now the States of Mississippi and Alabama. This was ten years before they had the authority to do the same thing as to the States existing at the adoption of the constitution.

[[Slave Trade Act of 1800|In 1800]] they prohibited American citizens from trading in slaves between foreign countries - as, for instance, from Africa to Brazil.

[[Slave Trade Act of 1800|In 1803]] they passed a law in aid of one or two State laws, in restraint of the internal slave trade.

[[Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves|In 1807]], in apparent hot haste, they passed the law, nearly a year in advance to take effect the first day of 1808 - the very first day the constitution would permit - prohibiting the African slave trade by heavy pecuniary and corporal penalties.

[[Act to Protect the Commerce of the United States and Punish the Crime of Piracy|In 1820]], finding these provisions ineffectual, they declared the trade piracy, and annexed to it, the extreme penalty of death.

While all this was passing in the general government, five or six of the original slave States had adopted systems of gradual emancipation; and by which the institution was rapidly becoming extinct within these limits. Thus we see, the plain unmistakable spirit of that age, towards slavery, was hostility to the principle, and toleration, only by necessity.<ref name=peoria /></blockquote>

==Religion==
Abraham Lincoln, like many other people of his day, believed, at least initially, that "Religion is a private affair between a man and his God." Doubts about Lincoln's faith have arisen mainly because he never officially joined a church, which his political opponents used sometimes to accuse him. He had a love of the Bible and memorized parts of the Bible, and used biblical allusions later on in political speech. Lincoln said once that:
''"I doubt the possibility or propriety of settling the religion of Jesus Christ in the models of man-made [[creed]]s and [[dogma]]s. I cannot without mental reservations assent to long and complicated creeds and [[catechism]]s."''

He also said on another occasion:
:''"That I am not a member of any [[Christian church]] is true, but I have never denied the truth of the [[Scriptures]], and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general or of any [[denomination]] of Christians in particular."''

He also made statements that suggest a strong faith, such as when his father was ill:
:''"Tell father to remember to call upon and confide in our great, and good, and merciful Maker who will not turn away from him in any extremity. He notes the fall of a sparrow and numbers the hairs of our heads; and he will not forget the dying man who puts his trust in him. If it is to be his lot to go now, he will soon have a joyous meeting with many loved ones gone before; and where the rest of us, through the help of God, hope ere long to join them."''

As a supporter of the Christian religion and who recognized its beneficial effects, Lincoln stated to a Methodist delegation,

:''"Nobly sustained, as the Government has been, by all the churches, I would utter nothing which might in the least appear invidious against any. Yet without this, it may fairly be said, that the Methodist Episcopal Church, not less devoted than the best, is by its greatest numbers the most important of all. It is no fault in others that the Methodist Church sends more soldiers to the field, more nurses to the hospitals, and more prayers to Heaven than--any other. God bless the Methodist Church Bless all the churches; and blessed be God, who in this our great trial giveth us the churches."''<ref>[http://www.classic-literature.co.uk/american-authors/19th-century/abraham-lincoln/the-writings-of-abraham-lincoln-07/ebook-page-41.aspAbraham Lincoln, "The Writings of Abraham Lincoln"] VO7, p. 41</ref>

Regardless of Lincoln's views on faith as a youth, it seemed to grow as president. Lincoln penciled in "under God" after "one nation" for his [[Gettysburg Address]] delivered on November 19, 1863. The phrase "under God" was not in the early drafts. Mrs. Lincoln recalled her husband's last words just prior to his assassination in Ford's Theater: "He said he wanted to visit the Holy Land and see those places hallowed by the footprints of the [[Savior]]. He was saying there was no city he so much desired to see as Jerusalem."<ref>http://www.amerisearch.net/index.php?date=2004-09-08&view=View</ref>

In 1864, a close friend of Lincoln's, Joshua Speed, confided in Lincoln that he did not accept the Bible as true. Lincoln famously replied, "Take all this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier and better man".
After Lincoln was shot at Ford's theater two clergy claimed that he had made a secret trip from Washington to be baptized. Also a Roman Catholic Priest claimed that Lincoln received the sacrament of baptism in secret. Neither of these claims have any proof in White House records or his personal diary.<ref>[[God and the Oval Office]], by John C. McCollister, W Publishing, 2005.</ref>

==Lincoln's conservatism==
In his [[Lincoln's Cooper Union Speech|Cooper Union Address]], Lincoln spoke of the sectionalism which was fracturing the country as a result of slavery; the Republican Party was new in 1859, and a serious threat to slavery's existence. Lincoln and his party were called radical and destructive, but he counted himself among the earliest defenders of conservative principles, which was in essence a defense of time-honored, traditional values. Lincoln said that out of the 39 framers of the Constitution, 23 of the 39 voted on whether to prevent the spread of slavery, and that 21 of the 23 voted in favor of doing so. Lincoln therefore said that it was the pro-slavery South that was radically breaking with the tradition begun by those that created the Constitution. As Lincoln said:

:''But you say you are conservative - eminently conservative - while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live;" while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional Slave-Code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the Territories to prohibit Slavery within their limits; some for maintaining Slavery in the Territories through the judiciary; some for the "gur-reat pur-rinciple" that "if one man would enslave another, no third man should object," fantastically called "Popular Sovereignty;" but never a man among you is in favor of federal prohibition of slavery in federal territories, according to the practice of "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live.''

Again, in a speech in Columbus, Ohio, he said:

:''The chief and real purpose of the Republican Party is eminently conservative. It proposes nothing save and except to restore this government to its original tone in regard to this element of slavery, and there to maintain it, looking for no further change . . . than that which the original framers of the government themselves expected and looked forward to.''<ref>http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/pre-civil-war/1859-1860/speech-columbus-ohio-september-16-1859/</ref>

He also nominated [[conservative]] [[Stephen Johnson Field]] to the [[Supreme Court]] and foreshadowed future arguments by [[conservatives]] that opposed the [[Federal Reserve]]. Senate Minority Leader and [[Old Right]] [[Republican]] [[Everett Dirksen]], who helped write and pass the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] and the [[Civil Rights Act of 1968]], said Lincoln called himself a "conservative Republican" and that the Republican party "was the only party to still adhere to the gospel of Abraham Lincoln"<ref>https://youtu.be/lm6fnQ5no0o</ref> in a 1967 interview.

==Lincoln's style of writing==
[[Image:Lincoln seated.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Lincoln in November, 1863, about to leave for Pennsylvania. The reason for his confident look may have been within the envelope lying on the table, believed to contain his draft of the Gettysburg Address]]
A White House visitor, Orville Browning, told Lincoln's personal secretary John Nicolay one day that he had spoke to Lincoln sometime in 1861 on the subject of slavery; that if the right thing about slavery wasn't done, God just couldn't be on the side of the Union. Browning remembered Lincoln's reply: "What if the Almighty takes a different view of slavery than we do?", and right then and there Browning realized that Lincoln had thought very deeply on the subject, much deeper than Browning did.<ref>Douglas L. Wilson. [http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/books/wilson.htm Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words], ''Lincoln's Sword''.</ref>

Lincoln was known to think long and deeply on various topics, and often he would take notes, write them on little scraps of paper, and stuff them into his tall stovepipe hat for later use. When it was time for use, such as his "House Divided" speech, he pulled them out, laid them on a table, and would commence to writing. He would sift through the subject, adding this, removing that, and sometimes he would stand in his empty room and deliver it out loud to an imaginary audience, testing the effects of what he spoke, and altering it as needed. According to author Garry Wills, Lincoln brought to bear the rhetorical tone of the Greek Revival and Transcendental movements, in which spoken oratory was practiced in government and on the stage. The leading speakers of this time, and whom Lincoln looked upon, were Danial Webster and Henry Clay, both of the Senate, and Edward Everett, a speaker much in demand.

The training he had given himself also enabled him to write a simple letter or a speech on the spot. Words would flow clear when Lincoln wrote in his later years, and he didn't have to do twice one of his finest personal letters, one of consolation to Mrs. Bixby of Boston, who had lost five sons in the war.

:''Executive Mansion,''
:''Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.''

:''Dear Madam,''

:''I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.''
:''I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.''
:''I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.''

:''Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,''

:''A. Lincoln''

What many consider his masterpiece is the [[Gettysburg Address]]. Here Lincoln, going through perhaps a dozen writes and re-writes of what he had thought on the subject, entirely changed the meaning of the war itself in a mere 272 words, and in so doing, according to Wills, remaking America.

==Politics in war==
[[File:Abraham Lincoln by George Peter Alexander Healy, 1869.jpg|thumb|350px|Abraham Lincoln by George Peter Alexander Healy, 1869.]]
That there had to be a certain degree of support to win the war was a given, and Lincoln strove to have unity for that effort in the North. Politics was required, and Lincoln had a special knack for appealing to his fellows and talking to them at their own level and language. He would smooth over lingering differences, and held the loyalty of those who were antagonistic to one another.

But the Democrats remained strong, and frequently clashed. Its member included both war and peace Democrats; the peace side was called “Copperheads”, after the snake which strikes without warning while hidden. Lincoln tried conciliating with both, but with the latter he had to resort to arrest at times, most famously to an Ohio Congressman, Clement L. Valandigham, who was arrested after he had repeatedly exhorted soldiers to desert. He justified his actions on the grounds that the suspension of ''habeas corpus'' was necessary only in times of rebellion, insurrection, or when the public safety may require it, as stated in the Constitution; certainly the Civil War had met those specific conditions. Many would dissent, and openly criticize Lincoln for arbitrarily violating the Constitution that he had sworn to preserve. In response to the criticism in general, and the case of Valandigham in particular, Lincoln wrote:
:''"Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wiley agitator who induces him to desert? This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a father, or brother, or friend, into a public meeting, and there working upon his feeling, till he is persuaded to write the soldier boy, that he is fighting in a bad cause, for a wicked administration of a contemptable government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert. I think that in such a case, to silence the agitator, and save the boy, is not only constitutional, but, withal, a great mercy."''<ref>[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;cc=lincoln;type=boolean;rgn=div1;q1=soldier;op2=and;q2=deserts;op3=and;q3=agitator;singlegenre=All;view=text;subview=detail;sort=occur;idno=lincoln6;node=lincoln6%3A569 Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 6.], Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865.</ref>
Lincoln faced reelection against Democrat George McClellan in 1864, who promised a restoration of the Union, but waffled on many of its points, even abandoning the Democratic platform of armistice and peaceful separation. Lincoln was able to beat him in the election, assisted by the timely victories of Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and Sherman in Georgia. Overtures of peace from Confederates were not wholly rejected. On February 3, 1865, Lincoln met with Confederate commissioners, among them Vice President Alexander Stephens, on a steamship in Hampton Roads, Virginia. There would be peace, he insisted, if the South would quit the war, abandon slavery, and accept re-unification, and once these conditions were met he would be gracious with pardons. But his terms satisfied neither the Confederacy nor the Radical Republicans in Congress.

His postwar policy was one of compassion. As he explained to his top leaders on board a riverboat, the City Queen, he wanted peace above all else. His Second Inaugural Address expressed his point of healing the wounds caused by the war.
:''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, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."''

When asked specifically, he related the following, according to General Sherman, one of those present:
:''Mr. Lincoln was full and frank in his conversation, assuring me that in his mind he was all ready for the civil reorganization of affairs at the South as soon as the war was over; and he distinctly authorized me to assure Governor Vance and the people of North Carolina that, as soon as the rebel armies laid down their arms, and resumed their civil pursuits, they would at once be guaranteed all their rights as citizens of a common country; and that to avoid anarchy the State governments then in existence, with their civil functionaries, would be recognized by him as the government de facto till Congress could provide others.''
:''I know, when I left him, that I was more than ever impressed by his kindly nature, his deep and earnest sympathy with the afflictions of the whole people, resulting from the war, and by the march of hostile armies through the South; and that his earnest desire seemed to be to end the war speedily, without more bloodshed or devastation, and to restore all the men of both sections to their homes. In the language of his second inaugural address, he seemed to have "charity for all, malice toward none," and, above all, an absolute faith in the courage, manliness, and integrity of the armies in the field.''<ref>[http://www.sonshi.com/sherman24.html General William T. Sherman "Memoirs"], Volume 2, Chapter XXIV, April and May, 1865.</ref>

==Final curtain==

''See also: [[Assassination of Abraham Lincoln]]'' 

Lincoln received the news of Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Virginia, on April 9, and he was called out to the balcony of the White House that night by a large crowd gathered in celebration. When asked to make a speech, Lincoln noticed a band among them, and made an unusual request.
:''"I have always thought ‘Dixie’ one of the best tunes I have ever heard. Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insisted that we fairly captured it. I presented it to the Attorney General, and he gave it as his legal opinion that it is our lawful prize. I now request the band to favor me with its performance."''
He entered Richmond the following day, to the joyous delight of free blacks, who welcomed the arrival of "Father Abraham" as they called him, and he paid a visit to the Confederate White House, and sat at the desk of Jefferson Davis. The only thing he asked for was a glass of water.

Just four days later on April 14 he attended a play at Ford's Theater. It was called ''Our American Cousin'', with well-known stage actress Laura Keane and comedian Harry Hawke in the title role. Unseen to the audience was another actor making his way quietly up the stairs to the president's private box, [[John Wilkes Booth]], a Southern sympathizer who had hatched a conspiracy with a few others to kill the president and other leading officials. Booth entered the box, shot Lincoln in the head, stabbed a guest, and dropped to the stage, escaping behind the curtains. Taken across the street to a boarding house, the mortally-wounded Lincoln was laid across a small bed in humble surroundings, similar it seemed, to where he was born. He died at sunrise a few hours later.

"Now he belongs to the ages" Edwin Stanton was heard to say.

<blockquote>
''Dying as he did die, by the red hand of violence, killed, assassinated, taken off without warning, not because of personal hate…but because of his fidelity to union and liberty, he is doubly dear to us, and his memory will be precious forever.'' [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/today.html]
</blockquote>

==Liberal revisionist history==
Some liberals are taught and claim that Lincoln was a tyrant. That he alone trampled on the Constitution. That the civil war was not about slavery but about taxation. Also, he favored the white race.

The suspension of [[Habeas corpus]] is often brought up as an example. The fact remains that the South trampled the Constitution by breaking away from the Republic to form their own nation. It was the South that launched the first attack. It was the South that fought to keep slavery as a right. While Lincoln's actions may have been controversial, he made the tough decision to save the Republic. A merciful victor who was lenient on the South for their egregious actions. Freedom for the black man was the noble outcome that white Northerners gave their lives for.

Other liberals, however, claim that Lincoln was one of them, [[Censorship|trying to force the narrative]] that the racists switched parties overnight. The take his "old and tired" quote but clip it just right to make it appear that he was a liberal.

==Quotes==
[[File:Lincoln by Augustus Saint Gaudens, 1887.jpg|thumb|Bust of Lincoln by Augustus Saint Gaudens, 1887.]]
* "A friend is a man who has the same enemies you have." <ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=HgM4tztnJFcC&pg=PA275&dq=lincoln+A+friend+is+man+who+has+the+same+enemies+you+have&ei=lV4fSuv8N5TyzQS1yq21Dw Civilization's quotations P.275] by Richard Alan Krieger</ref>

* "Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it" <ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=_-WNU7VapFAC&pg=PA187&dq=Those+who+deny+freedom+to+others+deserve+it+not+for+themselves&ei=NBA8SsSUCp-EzATw0cW6BQ Black Belt Patriotism: How to Reawaken America‎ - Page 187] by Chuck Norris</ref>

* "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." <ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=Mc-aRv_xCpMC&pg=PA11&dq=Nearly+all+men+can+stand+adversity,+but+if+you+want+to+test+a+man%27s+character,+give+him+power&ei=jJFBSo7nHZbozATAipVi Law school 101: survival techniques from pre-law to being an attorney‎ - Page 11] by R. Stephanie Good</ref>
*“When I left Springfield I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ. Yes, I do love Jesus,"<ref>https://www.christianheadlines.com/slideshows/8-presidents-who-looked-to-god-for-guidance.html</ref>
*His last words: "We will visit the Holy Land, and see those places hallowed by the footsteps of the Savior. There is no city on earth I so much desire to see as Jerusalem."<ref>https://ourlostfounding.com/abraham-lincolns-last-words-no-city-on-earth/</ref>

{{Clear}}

==Basic Further reading==
* Carwardine, Richard. ''Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power'' (2003), sophisticated biography emphasizing religion and politics [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Purpose-Power-Richard-Carwardine/dp/1400096022/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336315&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]
*Donald, David Herbert. ''Lincoln'', (1995), by a conservative historian; the best scholarly biography [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-David-Herbert-Donald/dp/068482535X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336403&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]
* Gienapp, William E. ''Abraham Lincoln and Civil War America: A Biography'' (2002), short bio by scholar; stress on politics [https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Lincoln-Civil-War-America/dp/0195151003/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336352&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]; also [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=103538783 online edition]
*Goodwin, Doris Kearns. ''Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln'', (2005) well written popular narrative of Lincoln and his cabinet
* McPherson, James. ''Abraham Lincoln'' (2009), 96pp; very short overview by leading expert [https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Lincoln-James-M-McPherson/dp/0195374525/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249335698&sr=1-6 excerpt and text search]
* Neely, Mark E. ''The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia'' (1984), detailed articles on many men and movements associated with AL
* Thomas, Benjamin P. ''Abraham Lincoln: A Biography'' (1952; 2nd ed. 2008) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=25051697 online edition], very well written biography by leading scholar
*White, Ronald C. Jr. ''The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words'', (2005)
* White, A. Ronald C. ''A. Lincoln: A Biography'' (2009), good recent biography [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Biography-Ronald-White-Jr/dp/1400064996/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249335698&sr=1-7 excerpt and text search]
* Wilentz, Sean. "Who Lincoln Was" ''New Republic'' (July 15, 2009) leading scholar rips apart liberal distortions [http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=2634954a-b287-480e-9fbd-8a4663174031 online edition]
===For children===
* Stone, Tanya. ''Abraham Lincoln'' (DK Biography, 2005) [https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Lincoln-Biography-Tanya-Stone/dp/0756608341/ref=pd_ts_b_12?ie=UTF8&s=books excerpt and text search]

== Bibliography ==
=== Biographies ===
* Beveridge, Albert J. ''Abraham Lincoln: 1809-1858'' (1928). 2 vol. to 1858; notable for strong, unbiased political coverage [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=3925146 online edition]
* Burlingame, Michael. "Abraham Lincoln: A Life" (2008), 2v 2024 pp, the most highly detailed scholarly biography [https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Lincoln-Life-Michael-Burlingame/dp/0801889936/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336108&sr=1-18 excerpt and text search]
* Carwardine, Richard. ''Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power'' (2003), sophisticated biography emphasizing religion and politics [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Purpose-Power-Richard-Carwardine/dp/1400096022/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336315&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]
*Donald, David Herbert. ''Lincoln'', (1995), by a conservative historian; the best scholarly biography [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-David-Herbert-Donald/dp/068482535X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336403&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search];
* Guelzo, Allen C. ''Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President'' (1999) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=99466893 online edition], conservative religious approach
* Harris William C. ''Lincoln's Rise to the Presidency'' (2007) conservative author argues Lincoln was basically conservative [https://www.amazon.com/Lincolns-Rise-Presidency-William-Harris/dp/0700615202/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164706&sr=8-3 excerpt and text search]
* Nicolay, John George and John Hay. ''Abraham Lincoln: a History'' (1890); online at [https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6812 Volume 1] and [https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11708 Volume 2] [https://books.google.com/books?id=bDEOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=inauthor:nicolay+inauthor:hay&num=30&as_brr=1#PPP19,M1 vol 6] 10 volumes in all; highly detailed narrative of era written by Lincoln's top aides
* Luthin, Reinhard H. ''The Real Abraham Lincoln'' (1960), emphasis on politics
* Neely, Mark E. ''The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia'' (1984), detailed articles on many men and movements associated with AL
* Neely, Mark E. ''The Last Best Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America'' (1993), Pulitzer prize winning author
* Oates, Stephen B. ''With Malice Toward None: The Life of Abraham Lincoln'' (1994) [https://www.amazon.com/Malice-Toward-None-Abraham-Lincoln/dp/0060924713/ref=pd_sim_b_img_7 excerpt and text search], good biography by liberal historian
* Randall, James G. ''Lincoln the President'' (4 vol., 1945–55; reprint 2000.) analytic biography by leading conservative scholar
** ''Mr. Lincoln'' excerpts ed. by Richard N. Current (1957) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5993790 online edition]
* Sandburg, Carl. ''Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years'' (2 vol 1926); ''The War Years'' (4 vol 1939). Pulitzer Prize winning biography by famous liberal poet [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=82392773 vol. 1 online] [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=97896367 vol 2 online]
* Thomas, Benjamin P. ''Abraham Lincoln: A Biography'' (1952; 2nd ed. 2008) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=25051697 online edition], very well written biography by leading scholar
* White, A. Ronald C. ''A. Lincoln: A Biography'' (2009), good recent biography [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Biography-Ronald-White-Jr/dp/1400064996/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249335698&sr=1-7 excerpt and text search]

=== Specialty topics ===
===Prewar===
* Angle, Paul M., ''Here I Have Lived: A History of Lincoln's Springfield, 1821-1865,'' (1935) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=210869 online edition]
* Baker, Jean H. ''Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography'' (1987) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=102075782 online edition]
* Boritt, Gabor S. ''Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream'' (1994). Lincoln's economic theory and policies, by conservative historian
* Fehrenbacher, Don E. "The Origins and Purpose of Lincoln's "House-Divided" Speech," ''The Mississippi Valley Historical Review,'' Vol. 46, No. 4. (Mar., 1960), pp. 615-643. [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0161-391X%28196003%2946%3A4%3C615%3ATOAPOL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I in JSTOR]
* Foner, Eric. ''Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War'' (1970) intellectual history of different prewar faction's in AL's party
* Holzer, Harold. ''Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President'' (2004). [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Cooper-Union-President-Schuster/dp/0743299647/ref=pd_sim_b_img_44 excerpt and text search]
* Jaffa, Harry V. ''A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War'' (2000) by leading conservative
* Jaffa, Harry V. ''Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates'' (1999) [https://www.amazon.com/Crisis-House-Divided-Interpretation-Lincoln-Douglas/dp/0226391132/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196166006&sr=8-3 excerpt and text search] by leading conservative
* Nevins, Allan. ''Ordeal of the Union'' 8-volume (1947-1971). 1. Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847-1852; 2. A House Dividing, 1852-1857; 3. Douglas, Buchanan, and Party Chaos, 1857-1859. most thorough coverage of the era, with Lincoln at center
* Schneider, Thomas E. ''Lincoln's Defense of Politics: The Public Man and His Opponents in the Crisis over Slavery.'' (2006). 224 pp.

===Wartime===
===Lincoln Administration===
* Burton, Orville Vernon. ''The Age of Lincoln'' (2007), sweeping history from 1840 to 1900. [https://www.amazon.com/Age-Lincoln-Orville-Vernon-Burton/dp/0809095130/ref=pd_bbs_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196112530&sr=8-9 excerpt and text search]
* Carwardine, Richard. "Abraham Lincoln and the Fourth Estate: the White House and the Press During the American Civil War." ''American Nineteenth Century History'' 2006 7(1): 1-27. Issn: 1466-4658 Fulltext: Ebsco
* Ford, Lacy K., ed. ''A Companion to the Civil War and Reconstruction.'' Blackwell, 2005. 518 pp.
* Hendrick, Burton J. ''Lincoln's War Cabinet'' (1946) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=790159 online edition]
* Goodwin, Doris Kearns. ''Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln'' (2005)
* McPherson, James M. ''Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era'' (1988). Pulitzer Prize winner surveys all aspects of the war [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=64327148 online edition]
* Marvel, William. ''Mr. Lincoln Goes to War'' (2006), neo-Confederate attack that blames Lincoln for defeating the Confederacy and freeing the slaves by stretching the Constitution
* Nevins, Allan. ''Ordeal of the Union'' 8-volume (1947-1971). vol 5. The Improvised War, 1861–1862; 6. War Becomes Revolution, 1862–1863; 7. The Organized War, 1863–1864; 8. The Organized War to Victory, 1864–1865; most thorough coverage of the era, with Lincoln at center
* Paludan, Phillip S. ''A People's Contest: The Union and Civil War 1861-1865'' (1996), outstanding history of the homefront [https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Contest-1861-1865-Modern-Studies/dp/0700608125/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336636&sr=1-2 excerpt and text search]
* Paludan, Phillip S. ''The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln'' (1994), thorough treatment of Lincoln's administration [https://www.amazon.com/Presidency-Abraham-Lincoln-American/dp/0700607455/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336636&sr=1-4 excerpt and text search]
* Richardson, Heather Cox. ''The Greatest Nation of the Earth: Republican Economic Policies during the Civil War'' (1997)
* Williams, Kenneth P. ''Lincoln Finds a General: A Military Study of the Civil War'' (1959) 5 volumes on Lincoln's control of the war

===Lincolnia===
[[Image:DcLincMor.JPG|right|thumb]]
* Belz, Herman. ''Abraham Lincoln, Constitutionalism, and Equal Rights in the Civil War Era'' (1998)
* Belz, Herman. "Lincoln's Construction of the Executive Power in the Secession Crisis," ''Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association'' 27.1 (2006):[http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jala/27.1/belz.html online edition]
* Boritt, Gabor S. ed. ''Lincoln the War President'' (1994)
* Briggs, John Channing. ''Lincoln's Speeches Reconsidered.'' (2005). 370 pp.
* Bruce, Robert V. ''Lincoln and the Tools of War'' (1956) on weapons development during the war [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=978110 online edition]
* DiLorenzo, Thomas. ''Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe'' (2007) poorly written diatribe by a neo-Confederate
* Donald, David Herbert. ''Lincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era'' (1960)
* Donald, David Herbert. ''We Are Lincoln Men: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends'' (2003), on Lincoln's friends and associates; by leading conservative scholar
* Goodwin, Doris Kearns. "'My Whole Soul Is in It.'" ''Smithsonian'' 2006 36(10): 48+ Fulltext: at Ebsco, essay on the writing of the Emancipation Proclamation
*Hanchett, William. ''The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies'', (1983)
* Harris, William C. ''With Charity for All: Lincoln and the Restoration of the Union'' (1997). AL's plans for Reconstruction; by conservative historian
* Hofstadter, Richard. ''The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It'' (1948) ch 5: "Abraham Lincoln and the Self-Made Myth."
* McPherson, James M. ''Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution'' (1992) [https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Lincoln-Second-American-Revolution/dp/0195076060/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164807&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* Neely, Mark E. ''The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties'' (1992). Pulitzer Prize winner. [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=79055694 online version]; [https://www.amazon.com/Fate-Liberty-Abraham-Lincoln-Liberties/dp/0195080327/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164768&sr=8-2 excerpt and text search]
* Perret, Geoffrey. ''Lincoln's War: The Untold Story of America's Greatest President as Commander in Chief'' (2004). well-written but has many factual errors and questionable interpretations [https://www.amazon.com/Lincolns-War-Americas-President-Commander/dp/0375507388/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164840&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* Polsky, Andrew J. "'Mr. Lincoln's Army' Revisited: Partisanship, Institutional Position, and Union Army Command, 1861–1865." ''Studies in American Political Development'' (2002), 16: 176-207
* Potter, David M. ''Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis'' (1942)
* Randall, James G. ''Lincoln the Liberal Statesman'' (1947).
* Schmitz, Neil. "Refiguring Lincoln: Speeches and Writings, 1832-1865," ''American Literary History'', Vol. 6, No. 1. (Spring, 1994), pp. 103–118 [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0896-7148(199421)6%3A1%3C103%3ARLSAW1%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4 in JSTOR]
* Striner, Richard. ''Father Abraham: Lincoln's Relentless Struggle to End Slavery.'' (2006). 295 pp. [https://www.amazon.com/Father-Abraham-Lincolns-Relentless-Struggle/dp/0195325397/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164883&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* White Jr., Ronald C. ''Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural'' (2001) Pp. 234. [https://www.amazon.com/Lincolns-Greatest-Speech-Second-Inaugural/dp/0743212991/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164921&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* Williams, T. Harry. ''Lincoln and His Generals'' (1967).
* Wills, Garry. ''Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America'' (1993) [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Gettysburg-America-Schuster-Library/dp/0743299639/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164981&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* Wilson, Douglas L. ''Honor's Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln'' by (1999).
* Wilson, Douglas L. ''Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words'' (2007)

===Historiography and Memory===
* Boritt, Gabor S., ed. ''The Historian's Lincoln'' U. of Illinois Press, 1988, historiography [https://www.amazon.com/Historians-Lincoln-Pseudohistory-Psychohistory-History/dp/0252065441/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196165019&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* Braeman, John. "Albert J. Beveridge and Demythologizing Lincoln." ''Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association'' 2004 25(2): 1-24. Issn: 0898-4212 Fulltext: online in History Cooperative. Albert J. Beveridge (1862-1927), former US senator from Indiana began work on a multivolume biography of Abraham Lincoln in 1922. His goal was to demolish the myths surrounding Lincoln and present the facts. Beveridge tended to sympathize with the South and admire Stephen A. Douglas, as well as rely on information collected by William H. Herndon. But, he did more intense research on Lincoln's pre-presidential career than any previous biographer. Beveridge died as he reached 1858.
* Cross, Roland R. "Edgar Lee Masters's Peculiar Biographies of Abraham Lincoln and Vachel Lindsay." ''Journal of Illinois History'' 2004 7(4): 281–296. Issn: 1522–0532. The poet Edgar Lee Masters in 1931 wrote the only hostile biography of Lincoln; he debunks the "myth of Honest Abe." In Masters's view, Lincoln's actions as president was a corruption of true American ideals. The theme has occasionally resurfaced among neoconfederates and extreme libertarians who tolerate slavery but not strong government.
* Fields, Kevin. "Historiographical Trends and Interpretations of President Abraham Lincoln's Reputation and the Morality on the Slavery Question: Part I and II." ''Lincoln Herald'' Lincoln Herald 2004 106(4): 150-167 and 2005 107(1): 11–30. Issn: 0024–3671; Part 1 siscusses William Herndon, John Nicolay, and John Hay.; Part 2 notes the civil rights movement prompted historians to reevaluate Lincoln's attitude toward race and emancipation. Many continued to portray him as the pragmatic, essentially conservative, "reluctant emancipator." However, by the 1980s a postrevisionist consensus had emerged, which emphasized the evolution of Lincoln's attitudes and asserted that freedom for black slaves, and not merely the preservation of the Union, became one of his key objectives.
* McPherson, James M. "No Peace Without Victory, 1861-1865." ''American Historical Review'' 2004 109(1): Xvi, 1-18. Issn: 0002-8762 Fulltext: in History Cooperative and Ebsco.
* Peterson, Merrill D. ''Lincoln in American Memory'' (1994). how Lincoln was remembered after 1865
* Schwartz, Barry and Schuman, Howard. "History, Commemoration, and Belief: Abraham Lincoln in American Memory, 1945-2001." ''American Sociological Review'' 2005 70(2): 183–203. Issn: 0003-1224 Fulltext: in Ingenta
*Trefousse, Hans L. ''"First among Equals?" Abraham Lincoln's Reputation during His Administration.'' 2005. 199 pp.

=== Primary sources ===
* Basler, Roy P. ed. ''Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln,'' 9 vol Rutgers Univ. Press 1953–55
* Basler, Roy P. ed. ''Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, '' (1946) [http://www.questia.com/library/book/abraham-lincoln-his-speeches-and-writings-by-abraham-lincoln-roy-p-basler.jsp online edition]
* Lincoln, Abraham. ''Lincoln: Speeches and Writings'' 2 vol Library of America edition, 1989

===Memoirs and interviews===
* Chittenden, Lucius E., [https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC00587058&id=b-N27vdmIt4C&printsec=titlepage&dq=%22Recollections+of+President+Lincoln+and+His+Administration%22 ''Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration''], (1891). – [[Google Books]]
* Holzer, Harold, ed. ''Dear Mr. Lincoln: Letters to the President.'' (1993). 380 pp.
* Nicolay, John G. ed. ''Oral History of Abraham Lincoln: John G. Nicolay's Interviews and Essays.'' Michael Burlingame, ed. (1996). 186 pp. [https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Lincoln-Observations-John-Nicolay/dp/0809327384/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196165058&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* ''Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln'' edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis. (1998) 864pp, with over 600 interviews and letters about Lincoln [http://durer.press.illinois.edu/wilson/ complete text online ??] [https://books.google.com/books?id=s2gilcp4yYQC&source=gbs_navlinks_s excerpt and text search]

== See also ==
*[[American Civil War homefront]]
*[[Gallery of American Heroes]]

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==External links==
*[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/ Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln]
*[http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln.html Abraham Lincoln Online]
*[http://www.abrahamlincolnarchive.com/Home.aspx Lincoln Archive of original newspaper articles]
*[http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/ History Place: Lincoln timeline]
*[http://www.nps.gov/liho/index.htm Lincoln's Home National Historic Site]
*[https://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/al16.html White House site; short bio on Lincoln]
*[http://www.mrlincolnandfriends.org/inside.asp?pageID=112&subjectID=1 Mr. Lincoln and Friends]
*[http://www.nps.gov/archive/liho/slavery/al02.htm Declaration against slavery, Illinois State Legislature, March 3, 1837]
*[http://www.nps.gov/archive/liho/slavery/al03.htm Lincoln's letter to Joshua Speed, August 24, 1855]
*[http://www.nps.gov/archive/liho/slavery/al05.htm Speech in Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854]
*[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=lincoln;cc=lincoln;q1=erastus;q2=corning;op2=and;op3=and;rgn=works;idno=ACK7441.0001.001;didno=ACK7441.0001.001;view=image;seq=00000227 Letter to Erastus Corning and Others, June 13, 1863, in which Lincoln explains his suspention of ''habeas corpus'']
*[http://www.sonshi.com/sherman.html Memoirs of William T. Sherman ]
*[http://www.swartzentrover.com/cotor/E-Books/misc/Lincoln/ALindex.htm The Life, Public Services and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln by Henry J. Raymond]
*[http://bertschlossberg.blogspot.com/ A. Lincoln, few words/E.Everett, many words]
* [https://librivox.org/author/2233 Works by Abraham Lincoln - text and free audio] - [[LibriVox]]
*[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln1.asp First Inaugural Address]
*[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln2.asp Second Inaugural Address]

{{USPresidents}}
{{Nationalism}}
{{Conservative Presidents}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lincoln, Abraham}}

[[Category:Inventors]]
[[Category:Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:Republicans]]
[[Category:People who were Educated at Home]]
[[Category:United States History]]
[[Category:American Civil War]]
[[Category:Reconstruction]]
[[Category:Politicians]]
[[Category:Diplomacy]]
[[Category:Abolitionists]]
[[Category:Whig Party]]
[[Category:Conservatives]]
[[Category:Veterans]]
[[Category:Patriots]]
[[Category:Presbyterians]]

Abraham Lincoln

2021-03-06T05:16:45Z

Kollenbornstephen: 12

{{Officeholder
|name=Abraham Lincoln
|image=Abraham-lincoln-by-story.jpg
|party=[[Republican]]
[[National Union]] (1864)
|spouse=[[Mary Todd Lincoln]]
|religion=[[Presbyterian]]<ref>http://abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/sites/nyave.htm</ref>
|offices=
{{Officeholder/president
|country=the United States
|number=16th
|terms=March 4, 1861 – April 15, 1865
|vp=[[Hannibal Hamlin]] (1861–1865) [[Andrew Johnson]] (1865)
|preceded=[[James Buchanan]]
|former=y
|succeeded=[[Andrew Johnson]]
}}
{{Officeholder/representative
|state=Illinois
|district=7th
|terms=March 4, 1847 – March 3, 1849
|preceded=John Henry
|former=y
|succeeded=Thomas L. Harris
}}
|military=y
|allegiance=Illinois Militia
|serviceyears=1832
|battles=Black Hawk War
}}
'''Abraham Lincoln''' (February 12, 1809 - April 15, 1865) was the 16th [[President of the United States of America]] serving from 1861 to 1865. He led his country through its greatest crisis, the [[American Civil War]], abolished [[slavery]] and built the [[Republican Party]] that dominated national politics outside [[the South]] during the [[Third Party System]]. Veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) became the Grand Old Party (GOP). Lincoln converted to [[Christianity]] upon visiting the grim site of the [[Battle of Gettysburg]] and honoring the fallen soldiers there; he attended [[church]] often afterwards.<ref>https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/abraham-lincoln-consecrated-to-christ-1184005.html</ref>

Lincoln was [[homeschooled]] and virtually entirely self-taught, which likely gave him independent thinking, reliance on logic, and a desire to continue to learn as an adult.<ref>For example, Lincoln successfully proved all of Euclid's theorems while serving in Congress.</ref> His eloquence as a writer was second only to [[Thomas Jefferson]] among presidents. Lincoln was a president, like [[Ronald Reagan]] and [[Donald Trump]] after him, whose [[faith]] developed and grew while holding high public office.

Lincoln joined the newly formed anti-slavery [[Republican Party]] after the [[Whig Party]] fell apart over the issue of [[abolition]]. With a profound sense of American history, unswerving commitment to [[Republicanism]], and an almost [[Shakespeare]]an command of the language, Lincoln articulated a vision of a new birth of freedom for all Americans. The destruction of the [[Confederacy]], and of the [[Slave Power|slave power]] that menaced [[conservative]] American values, affirmed Lincoln's vision in the [[Gettysburg Address]] (1863) and guaranteed that "government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Abraham Lincoln is the only president who held a registered [[patent]] for his invention, to buoy vessels over shoals in the [[Mississippi River]]; Lincoln supported the American patent system because it "added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20120101160557/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/object-oct06.html Smithsonian description of Patent No. 6,469, which was granted on May 22, 1849 for a device for "Buoying Vessels Over Shoals"]</ref>

==Early life==
Lincoln grew up in a hard-luck, hard-scrabble environment on
the middle border. His paternal ancestors were English; they migrated from Hingham, England, to Hingham Massachusetts, in 1637. In the 1730s they moved to backwoods Pennsylvania and Virginia. His grandfather moved to Kentucky in 1782, where he was scalped by Indians raiding his farm in 1786. His father Thomas owned some farmland near Elizabethtown, where he farmed and worked as a carpenter.

Abe later wrote:
:''“I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families-- second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams, and others in Macon Counties, Illinois.”''<ref>See [http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/autobiog.htm Speeches]</ref>

Abe was born in a backwoods cabin some three miles south of Hodgenville, Kentucky. His father Thomas Lincoln was a sturdy man, committed to pioneering in the new lands of Kentucky and Indiana. He married Nancy Hanks on June 12, 1806, and together they had three children: Sarah, Abraham, and Thomas, who did not survive infancy. The family belonged to a Hardshell Baptist church; Abe ridiculed the preachers and never joined their church, or any other church.

Young Abraham's earliest memories of his days in Kentucky involved helping his father plant some seeds of corn and sunflower, and a flood that washed them away.
[[Image:Young abraham lincoln.jpg|thumb|200px|left|The oldest-known photograph of Lincoln, about 1847.]]
In December 1816 Thomas had to pack up his family and leave for southwestern Indiana after a slaveowner with a better lawyer won title to his Kentucky property.

Penniless, the family in Indiana lived in a “half-faced” camp; a crude log structure with one side open to the elements, and there the family stayed as squatters on public land until Thomas had finished a permanent cabin; he later bought the land outright on which it stood. Helping Thomas clear the land and plowing the fields was Abe, who in sharp contrast to other boys developed a strong aversion to hunting. The poverty, Lincoln recalled, was “pretty pinching” at times, and by the age of nine he was a tall, lanky boy dressed rather ragged and unkempt.

Then the fall of 1818 brought the hardest blow: Nancy had died of the “milk sickness”, leaving Abraham without the mother whom he deeply loved. Some time later, Thomas had taken the buckboard and the mule, and left Abraham and Sarah on their own for two weeks; when he returned, he was with a new wife, Sarah Bush Johnson; she immediately made up for the absence of Nancy by replacing Abraham's corn husk mattress with one of down, winning him over the first day. The new step-mother treated both children with an even hand (she herself was a widow with three children, whom she had brought), but she became very fond of Abraham, and he in turn was fond of her, referring to her as his “angel mother” for the rest of his life.

===Education===
Both of Abraham's parents were nearly completely illiterate, and he himself had not much more than one year of formal education. When he did go to school, it was by “littles” – a little here, a little there – and he would call it “blab” school, which meant that they had to recite their lessons constantly due to lack of paper, pencils, and chalk. “Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three; but that was all.” The rule of three means up to one thousand.

His step-mother encouraged his reading as much as possible, and although Abraham did not have access to a large number of books, he would read as much of what was there, and read voraciously. He read John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, ''Aesop’s Fables'', Daniel DeFoe's ''Robinson Crusoe'', Parson Weems's ''Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington'', Edward Gibbon's ''Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', and undoubtedly he read many times the only book his family actually owned, the Bible. He would walk for miles to borrow a book he heard about, and after his chores he would collapse into a heap in front of the fire and read for hours. He would say years later that his best friend was the man who let him borrow a book he hadn't read yet.

As a practicing lawyer, Lincoln gained respect for the work of [[Blackstone]] and his [[Commentaries on the Laws of England]]. Lincoln was known for giving the following advice to others in his field: "Begin with Blackstone's "''Commentaries''", and after reading it carefully through, say twice, take up Chitty's "Pleadings," Greenleaf's "Evidence," and Story's "Equity," etc., in succession."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=ldfcBd_-O8QC&pg=PT128 Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=sRwqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA40 Personal Traits of Abraham Lincoln]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=L7ZDo_sjOFMC&pg=PA77 Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President]</ref>

===The Rail-Splitter===
[[Image:Railsplitter.jpg|thumb|200px|right|An artist's impression of a young Abe Lincoln, the ''Rail-Splitter''.]]
The Lincolns moved to Illinois in March, 1830, with Abraham driving the team of oxen himself, a young man of 21, rawboned and lanky at six feet four inches tall. But the years working on the Indiana farm also made him physically powerful, and on his arrival in Illinois he was soon to demonstrate the skill with which he could wield an axe, putting it to good use by clearing the trees and laying the fence on his father’s new farm; the speed with which he could take tree trunks and split them into the rails needed for the fencing just by using his axe earned him the nickname “rail-splitter.” He could make an axe flash and bite deep; one neighbor saying “He could sink an axe deeper into wood than any man I ever saw.” After a good deal of chopping, he could take the axe by its handle and hold it straight out away from his body, without a single quiver. (Sandburg, pg. 14) Good-natured as well, he would make friends easily, despite his awkward-looking stride and backwoods language.
[[Image:Lincoln hair.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Fearing that his friends wouldn't recognize him "without a bad tousle", Lincoln messed his hair up in this picture before the photographer closed the shutter.]]
Soon, he signed on as a deckhand on a flatboat, and made a voyage down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. When he returned he settled in a small town on the Sangamon River called New Salem, working as a store keeper, surveyor, or a postmaster, the later of which allowed him to be the first to read the arriving newspapers. Then talk went about town of Lincoln's utter honesty, how he would walk six miles to return a few cents to a customer he had accidentally overcharged, or the woman that had bought some tea, and having used the wrong weight for the purchase, Lincoln made the correction and walked the many miles to her house to ensure she got the right order (Sandburg, pp 24–25).

In 1832 he enlisted in the Black Hawk War, and was elected captain of his company, but the only fighting he admitted seeing action in was the “many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes.” After he was mustered out of his company, he aspired for the state legislature, losing the contest the first time he ran, then getting elected and re-elected several times afterward. He had briefly thought about practicing the trade of blacksmithing, but his craving of reading led him to law books, which caused some serious studying. Lincoln passed the bar in 1836, and began a new career practicing law.

===Insulting letters===

In the early 1840s, Lincoln had a habit of writing critical letters that skewered his political opponents unmercifully. In 1842, after the default of the state bank, Lincoln wrote a letter to the editor of the ''Sangamo Journal'' about Illinois' governor, treasurer and auditor's refusal to accept the state's own paper money for payment of debts. The letter directly attacked James Shields, the state auditor, who then challenged Lincoln to a duel. After taking lessons in swordsmanship, Lincoln met Shields on September 22, 1842 on a Missouri sandbar. Two mutual friends rushed to the scene and talked the two combatants into cancelling the duel.<ref>[http://www.historynet.com/abraham-lincoln-prepares-to-fight-a-saber-duel.htm Abraham Lincoln prepares to fight a saber duel]</ref>

==Springfield==
The following year he moved to the new state capital of Illinois, Springfield, becoming law partners with John T. Stuart, Stephan T. Logan, and finally William H. Herndon in 1844, who, although junior in age to Lincoln by a decade, made a good, balanced partner. Few records exist of their law business, and when they got paid for their services they split the cash, no matter who was paid. Lincoln would earn $1,200 - $1,500 annually within just a few years; by comparison circuit judges earned $750. But to earn it he kept busy and worked hard; often he would climb into his buggy and travel the circuit of neighboring counties and practice before the courts there. And often the cases he would be involved in were petty

Years before he had tried, and failed, to push legislation through the state assembly to have the Sangamon River made navigable to New Salem; by 1850 the railroads were bringing business and prosperity to Illinois, and Lincoln, by virtue of the ease the railroad made in traveling to his courts, profited more. He had served as a lobbyist for the Illinois Central Railroad, enabling it to get a state charter; he would defend the company against McClean County's unsuccessful efforts to tax it. He handles cases for other railroads, banks, manufacturing, and other large companies in the state; he handled some patent suits and a few criminal trials. And he also saved the first bridge to cross the Mississippi River from demolition, when river interests demanded the bridge be taken down.

===The moonlit murder===
In Lincoln's New Salem days he was introduced to the Clary's Grove Boys, a group of rowdy men from a nearby town who came into New Salem to bully some of the townsmen. The leader of the group was Jack Armstrong, whose challenge to wrestle the New Salem men usually resulted in Armstrong quickly throwing the unfortunate man to the ground. When he saw Lincoln, Armstrong dismissed the lanky young man as a pushover. When they fought, neither man was able to throw the other. The battle ended in a draw, and the good-natured Lincoln made a new friend. Armstrong would later be one of the men to elect Lincoln to lead the company of volunteers in the Black Hawk War.<ref name="Jack Armstrong">[http://www.mrlincolnandfriends.org/inside.asp?pageID=32&subjectID=2 Jack Armstrong]</ref>

In 1856, Jack Armstrong's son, William (or "Duff"), was charged with murder. A witness claimed he had seen Duff and another kill a New Salem man late at night by the light of full moon. Lincoln pulled out an almanac and proved that the witness could not have seen anything at all, as the moon was at its quarter and had actually set over an hour before. Duff was acquitted, and Lincoln won the case.<ref name="Jack Armstrong"/>

==Politics==
[[Andrew Jackson]], the hero of New Orleans in the [[War of 1812]] and a Democrat from Tennessee, was in the White House when Lincoln first entered politics. He shared with Jackson the sympathies for the common man, but differed in the role of government as related to it; Jackson stated the government should be separated from the economic enterprise, while Lincoln was of the view that “the legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot do so well, for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities.” Lincoln most associated himself with the Whig Party, as among their members Henry Clay and Daniel Webster both advocated a government should be encouraging business, and the development of the country to that end. It was an easy choice for Lincoln: he saw Illinois as needing such aid to improve the development of its own economy.

In the Illinois State Legislature Lincoln found that politics could be detrimental and harsh, as well as rewarding. An example of the former occurred in 1836, just as he gave a speech in support of his re-election. Democrat John Forquer, also seeking election, used his response and acid tongue to denounce him. "This young man needs to be taken down" he said, pointing to Lincoln, "and I'm afraid the task devolves upon me." The success of Forquer's speech convinced some of Lincoln's own allies that his career was over.

But when Lincoln rose to make his rebuttal, he thought of Forquer, and what he had done recently in conniving with President Jackson to change parties; in reward for doing so he was made Government Land Register with a $3,000 annual salary. Forquer was then able to construct a fine new house in Springfield, complete with a curiosity residents had heard about from science but had never seen before: a lightning rod. Before he entered the state house building that day, Lincoln spent a few minutes at Forquer's house staring at the thing, and having heard Forquer's speech later on, he thought of what he saw. Lincoln's reply was blistering, and sealed Forquer's fate.

:''"Among other things he said, the gentleman commenced his speech by saying that 'this young man,' alluding to me, 'must be taken down.' I am not so young in years as I am in the tricks and the trades of a politician, but, live long or die young, I would rather die now than, like the gentleman, change my politics, and with the change receive an office worth $3,000 a year, and then feel obliged to erect a lightning-rod over my house to protect a guilty conscience from an offended God!"'' (Sandburg, pg.49)

Lincoln also proposed state funding to construct a network of roads, railroads, and canals. Both Whigs and Democrats would join in for the passing of this omnibus bill, but a business depression was created by the [[panic of 1837]], and as a result most of the provisions in the bill were abandoned. 1837 was also marked by the murder of Elijah Lovejoy, a newspaperman from Alton who was killed by a mob due to his anti-slavery views. The legislature introduced resolutions defending Southern slavery while condemning abolitionist societies, as per the U.S. Constitution. In protest of the resolutions Lincoln, with a fellow legislator, drew up a declaration which stated that slavery was “founded on both injustice and bad policy,” while also declaring that “the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than to abate its evils.”
[[Image:Lawyer Lincoln.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Lincoln in the late 1850s, about to debate his rival Stephen A. Douglas.]]
He only served one term in the United States Congress, 1847 to 1849, during which time he did little on legislative matters. He did introduce a bill calling for a gradual emancipation of slaves within the District of Columbia, but since it hinged on the approval of the white citizens there, it only caused mild anger from abolitionists as well as slave holders, and was quietly dropped. His one main issue was over the Mexican War, in which he condemned the American entry into it on false pretenses, particularly blaming current president James K. Polk. He worked toward the nomination of Zachary Taylor for the presidency, and when Taylor had won, Lincoln expected to be rewarded with the job of land commissioner, but failed. He was voted out of office by his constituents, as they felt he was too critical of the war. Disillusioned, he left politics and reentered his law practice.

==Return to politics==
He stayed out for five years, winning several cases before the courts, then in 1854 he had read in the papers that Stephan A. Douglas, his political rival and Democratic senator from Illinois, had placed before Congress a bill which would reopen the territory of the Louisiana Purchase to slavery, as well as allow settlers in the Kansas and Nebraska territories to vote for themselves whether or not they wanted it, a concept which was called “[[popular sovereignty]]” by Douglas. The resulting [[Kansas-Nebraska Act]] would do nothing more than provoke violent opposition; a border war would result between Kansas and Missouri as both pro and anti-slavery forces would cause much bloodshed; and voters in the Old Northwest, Illinois among them, would react vehemently against it, resulting in the destruction of the Whigs as a political party, and the birth of the Republicans, of which Lincoln quickly became a member.<ref>Yervand Kochar. [https://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/i_am_a_lincoln_republican_1.html I Am a Lincoln Republican], ''American Thinker'', November 14, 2009.</ref> The [[Dred Scott]] decision of 1856, in which a black man who sued for his freedom only to be told that he was never a citizen and had to remain a slave, only added more fuel to the fire, as the states were aligning slave versus free, North versus South.

As the leading member of the Republican Party in Illinois, Lincoln was nominated for the Senate seat held by Douglas at the Republican State Convention in Springfield on June 16, 1858. The acceptance speech he gave has been called the [[Lincoln's "House Divided" Speech|House Divided]] speech, after the opening lines, which were based upon Matthew 12:25:

:''If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand."  I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new -- North as well as South.''<ref>[http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/divided.htm "House Divided" Speech], ''The History Place'', June 16, 1858.</ref>

August through October, 1858 saw seven Illinois towns witnessing the [[Lincoln-Douglas debates]]; Douglas the national figure defending the choice of voters whether to accept slavery or not, and the little-known Lincoln taking a stand against slavery on political, social, and moral grounds.<ref>https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debates.htm</ref> Douglas never wavered from defending popular sovereignty, and he also played on the voters' fears of [[black integration]]. Stating blacks were inferior to whites, he appealed to racists by declaring that the government was "established upon the white basis. It was made by white men, for the benefit of white men." (TL 1, pg 106). Lincoln on the other hand knew Douglas was in a war of his own with President [[James Buchanan]]'s administration over acceptance of the Kansas constitution which barred slavery from the state, further alienating Southern Democratic support; the fear was that Douglas would be more appealing to moderate Republicans in the east. Lincoln's strategy therefore was to point out and use the vast difference between the moral indifference to slavery as embodied by Douglas's popular sovereignty, and the moral wrong that slavery actually was as embodied by Republican opposition to it. Douglas was, Lincoln insisted, a man who did not care whether slavery was "voted up or voted down." By his last debate, Lincoln would narrow the differences between himself and Douglas as the basic principle of right and wrong.

:''"That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the [[divine right of kings]]. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle."''

Douglas for his part knew how formidable his foe was, and declared that if he won, “it would be a hollow victory.” He did win, retaining his Senate seat, but by a narrow margin.

==The 1860 Election==
[[Image:Lincoln and beard.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Soon after his election, a little girl named Grace Bedell wrote to Lincoln, telling him his face would be softened by the addition of a beard; here he just started on her advice.]]
:''My friends, no one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of the Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.'' Lincoln's Farewell Speech to the citizens of Springfield, February 11, 1861.

On May 18, 1860 at the Republican National Convention held in Chicago, Lincoln was nominated on the third ballot. He then set aside his law practice and gave full-time to the direction of his campaign, with the object of first uniting the Republicans from anything with which the party could disagree over. The Democrats were already divided, having nominated Douglas in Baltimore on the Northern platform of popular sovereignty, and John C. Breckenridge who was elected on a platform of states’ rights and slavery by Southern Democrats. Lincoln won the [[United States presidential election of 1860]], winning a clear majority in popular votes as well as electoral votes, despite winning no votes in the South.
==Presidency==
For the social, political, economic and diplomatic history see [[American Civil War homefront]]

The state of South Carolina proclaimed its secession from the Union in December, 1860, soon after Lincoln's victory. To try to prevent other states from following, compromises were hurriedly pushed through Congress, one of which, the [[Corwin Amendment]], guaranteed the existence of slavery in perpetuity where it already existed. The failed [[Crittenden Compromise]] would have gone even further and permanently divided the territories between slave and free. Lincoln publicly supported the Corwin Amendment, believing that it was already implicit in the Constitution; however, he opposed the Crittenden Compromise because it would have given slavery additional protections beyond what the Constitution already gave it. Despite these attempted compromises, six more states seceded and joined with South Carolina to form the [[Confederate States of America]].

A crisis was thus forced upon Lincoln before he even entered the White House. The Confederacy claimed [[Fort Sumter]], in South Carolina's [[Charleston]] Harbor, and ordered its commander, Major [[Robert Anderson]] to turn it over. He refused. Lincoln, still in Springfield, asked [[Winfield Scott]], general in chief of the U.S. Army, to be prepared “to either hold, or retake, the forts, as the case may require, at, and after the inauguration.”

On the 4th of March, 1861, a few weeks after [[Jefferson Davis]] was inaugurated as president of the Confederacy, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as the nation's 16th president. In his [[Lincoln's First Inaugural Address|first inaugural address]] he reiterated his stance: to not interfere with slavery where it existed, to prevent slavery from spreading in the territories, but above all to preserve the Union. The substance of what he said was conciliatory, but it also mentioned the obvious

{{quotebox|In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it.<ref>Historical Document. [https://www.pbs.org/civilwar/war/lincoln_address1.html Lincoln's First Inaugural Address], ''PBS'', March 4, 1861.</ref>}}

However, communications between the fort and Charleston broke down, and Confederate general [[P.G.T. Beauregard]], believing Fort Sumter had a supply ship on the way, ordered the fort shelled on April 14, 1865. The Civil War had begun.

==Civil War==
[[File:Abraham Lincoln 1863 LOC.jpg|thumb|240px|right|Abraham Lincoln at the front.]]
Lincoln's goal was to preserve the Union; he would have been happy to preserve the peace as well, but he was willing to engage in a war to preserve it as well, a war he thought would be short. Title 10, Section 332 of the [[Insurrection Act of 1807]] was enacted in 1861 at the request of President Lincoln to increase Presidential authority to use the militia and the regular army to suppress insurrections and enforce the laws. This law was the legal basis for waging the Civil War. This law allows the President to use federal troops on his own initiative and act on his own judgment without waiting for a request from a governor.<ref>https://www.sofmag.com/understanding-the-posse-comitatus-act-and-the-insurrection-act-the-posse-comitatus-act/</ref>

After Fort Sumter he proclaimed a blockade of Southern ports and called for thousands of volunteers to enlist for ninety days. He also believed that an overland war was inevitable, and he ordered forces on a march on the Virginia front, resulting in the first great defeat for the Union at [[Bull Run]] (July 21, 1861). Shortly afterward, Lincoln issued a set of memoranda for the military, of which his basic thought was that armies in the field must advance concurrently and on several fronts.
{{cquote|
''I expect to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, or am conquered. Or my term expires, or Congress or the country forsakes me.'' – Abraham Lincoln, 1862.}}
Finding himself as the leader of a country now at war, Lincoln used a description of himself in which he let events control him, and then react to the problem. It was something of himself that was used with success as a politician. In this sense he was being practical, ready to employ an action or decision which would help the cause, and ready to abandon it and use another if the first failed. But his first insight with which he held fast to, that of taking the fight to the enemy's army, failed many times when successive generals tried to take the fight to the enemy's capitol and failed, or failed in following up on a rare victory. He had [[George McClellan]] on the Peninsula, but was beaten back during the Seven Days battles. His replacement, John Pope, lost in a repeat of Bull Run. McClellan was back again, winning a victory at [[Antietam]], but failed to follow through in capturing the enemy's army afterwards. Then [[Ambrose Burnside]], followed by [[Joseph Hooker]], led the [[Army of the Potomac]] to massive defeats at [[Fredericksburg]] and [[Chancellorsville]], respectively. Then [[George Gordon Meade]] was put in, just in time for the [[Battle of Gettysburg]]; Meade would not finish off the enemy either. [[Robert E. Lee]], the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, commented on the frequent changes in generals. “I’m afraid they’re going to find a general I cannot understand.”

Having seen what he done at [[Donelson]], [[Shiloh]], [[Vicksburg]], and [[Chattanooga]], Lincoln found the fighting general he was looking for in [[Ulysses S. Grant]]. In March 1864 he promoted Grant to lieutenant general and gave him command of all Federal armies. Grant would have his headquarters in the field with Meade's Army of the Potomac, and his subordinates William T. Sherman, Philip Sheridan, and George H. Thomas would each lead an army to take the fight to the enemy. Halleck would be given a new title, chief of staff, and remain in Washington as the presidential liaison. Secretary of War [[Edwin M. Stanton]] would be responsible for the procurement of men and supplies. By this reorganization Lincoln created the structure of the high command in which all the energies of and resources of the country were mobilized into a grand strategy for the completion of the war. It was all the more remarkable as prior to 1861, he had no knowledge of military theory or affairs; he threw himself into studying the subject that by 1864, he was considered to be something of a military genius.

==Personal life==

Ann Rutledge played a part in stories as being the first woman Lincoln may have fallen in love with. However, evidence is scant, and what surviving letters and documents there are indicate they were close friends. She died in 1835 at the age of 22, and the entire community grieved with Lincoln.
[[Image:Lincoln and tad.jpg|thumb|200px|left|The irrepressible Tad Lincoln, striking a typical pose next to his father, who could barely restrain a smile.]]
The one true love of Lincoln's life was a well-educated woman with a quick wit, [[Mary Todd]], from a well-to-do family in Springfield. Lincoln endured a courtship that lasted two years (and was broken once), before they were married on November 4, 1842. Together they would have four boys: Robert Todd, Edward Baker (“Eddie”, who died at age 4), William Wallace (“Willie”), and Thomas (“Tad”). Willie and Tad were the first children in the White House, and the halls and gardens were filled with childish romps, especially from the rambunctious, uncontrollable Tad, who once took a group of office seekers there to see the president on a trip through a confusing maze of hanging laundry; drove a herd of goats inside; got into the attic and rang the servants’ bells for hours; and succeeded in getting his doll executed for sleeping on watch.
[[Image:Mary Todd Lincoln.jpg|thumb|200px|Mary Todd Lincoln]]
The Lincolns also had their share of quarrels, and stories passed through the years tended to exaggerate them, but existing letters between the two indicate they were like any other married couple. They were devoted to each other's company, and when apart they missed each other. "I have fallen in love with her," Lincoln would write to a friend about Mary, "and have never fallen out." Mary did have fits of temper and a sense of insecurity; while in the White House she had spells of simple jealousy which she staged in front of guests; sometimes the scene would be quite embarrassing. She also rang up large bills for her personal wardrobe and redecorating the White House; Lincoln, when he found out one such bill which totaled near $20,000 and coupled with a request for Congress to appropriate the money needed to pay for it, displayed a rare occurrence of pure anger:

:''"It would stink in the nostrils of the American people to have it said the President of the United States had approved a bill overrunning an appropriation of $20,000 for flub dubs, for this damned old house, when the soldiers cannot have blankets!"'' [http://www.historyswomen.com/1stWomen/marytoddlincoln.htm]

The early deaths of Eddie in 1850 and Willie in 1863 may have played a role in Mary's eccentricity. Lincoln did what he could to support her, even pointing out the presence of a nearby building which housed a sanitarium, hinting that Mary could be placed there if she didn't control herself over Willie's death.

==On slavery==
In 1841, Lincoln had a flatboat trip down the Mississippi, and he saw sitting on board another boat a group of slaves chained together. He described the sight in a letter to Joshua Speed in 1855: “You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border.”

Though a gradualist, Lincoln hated slavery. “I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself,” he declared. “I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world; enables the enemies of free institutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites.” Lincoln often penned fragments on slavery. He would begin it by starting a hypothetical vested interest in slavery, and end it with the only logical conclusion, that is was a great moral wrong.

:''If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B.—why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A?''

:''You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.''

:''You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.''

:''But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest; you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.'' (Fragment on Slavery, April, 1854)

In 1857, in response to [[Stephen Douglas]] with a focus on the [[Dred Scott]] decision, Lincoln recalled of the brilliance of the [[Declaration of Independence]] and its authors that they:

<blockquote>constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even, though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, of all colors, everywhere.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=u63XdiM9330C&pg=PA234 The Life and Public Services of Hon. Abraham Lincoln]</ref></blockquote>

Lincoln was elected on a platform which pledged no interference with slavery where it had already existed, and he was hesitant to adopt an abolitionist policy. He was concerned about the reaction of the border states should such a policy be enacted. He was concerned about four million newly freed blacks being incorporated into the country's social, economic, and political life. Some individuals, such as General John C. Freemont, made it a point to proclaim freedom in districts which they had conquered; Lincoln revoked those proclamations. In a letter to Horace Greely, Lincoln plainly stated
:''"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that."''<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/1862/08/24/news/letter-president-lincoln-reply-horace-greeley-slavery-union-restoration-union.html</ref>

Lincoln was willing to play a major part in removing slavery altogether during the war. He first proposed an idea in which slaves were to be freed gradually by the actions of the states, with the federal government sharing the cost of compensation. None of the border states were willing to implement it, and no prominent African-American leader was willing to see newly freed blacks sent to Africa, as part of the idea called for.

But with the victory at Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln brought out an idea which he read before his cabinet, that slaves held in the Confederate States were declared to be free. He would declare it formally with his [[Emancipation Proclamation]] on January 1, 1863. Although it did not include those areas under Union control, and officially it was a war measure, it had a great deal of significance as a symbol, and European countries who had toyed with the idea of recognizing the Confederacy abandoned it and supported the Union.<ref>http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/EmanProc.html</ref>

Lincoln also felt that the freed slaves would be put back in chains at war's end, as the Proclamation itself was not constitutional. But Lincoln was prepared for something else: he drafted the [[Thirteenth Amendment]] to the Constitution, which stated slavery was illegal except for crimes committed. He also urged the Republican Party to add the proposed amendment as a plank to the 1864 presidential campaign, stating slavery was the cause of the war, and that the Proclamation had aimed “a death blow at this gigantic evil;” only by a constitutional amendment could slavery be rendered extinct. After the election, Lincoln did not wait for the new Congress. He got the two-thirds needed for ratification before the year was over, and rejoiced when his state of Illinois led the way.

:''"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just - a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."'' Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862.

===Founding Fathers===
Lincoln routinely acknowledged that a clear majority of the [[Founding Fathers]] condemned slavery.<ref name=echoes>[https://books.google.com/books?id=0PVc-rDIKRoC&pg=PA194 Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: Echoes of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer]</ref> In his sixth debate with Steven Douglass, Lincoln argued that the Founding Fathers considered slavery wrong, and firmly expected it to die a natural death.<ref>[https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/slavery.htm Lincoln on Slavery]</ref> In [[Lincoln's Cooper Union Speech]],<ref name=echoes /> as well as in Lincoln's "Peoria Speech", where he pointed out that "only argument they ever admitted in favor of slavery" was necessity, that they blamed the "British King for having permitted its introduction".<ref name=peoria>[https://books.google.com/books?id=CkqG9YhZGygC&pg=PT90 The Writings of Abraham Lincoln]</ref>

<blockquote>[[Slave Trade Act of 1794|In 1794]], they prohibited an out-going slave-trade - that is, the taking of slaves from the United States to sell.

In 1798, they prohibited the bringing of slaves from Africa, into the Mississippi Territory - this territory then comprising what are now the States of Mississippi and Alabama. This was ten years before they had the authority to do the same thing as to the States existing at the adoption of the constitution.

[[Slave Trade Act of 1800|In 1800]] they prohibited American citizens from trading in slaves between foreign countries - as, for instance, from Africa to Brazil.

[[Slave Trade Act of 1800|In 1803]] they passed a law in aid of one or two State laws, in restraint of the internal slave trade.

[[Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves|In 1807]], in apparent hot haste, they passed the law, nearly a year in advance to take effect the first day of 1808 - the very first day the constitution would permit - prohibiting the African slave trade by heavy pecuniary and corporal penalties.

[[Act to Protect the Commerce of the United States and Punish the Crime of Piracy|In 1820]], finding these provisions ineffectual, they declared the trade piracy, and annexed to it, the extreme penalty of death.

While all this was passing in the general government, five or six of the original slave States had adopted systems of gradual emancipation; and by which the institution was rapidly becoming extinct within these limits. Thus we see, the plain unmistakable spirit of that age, towards slavery, was hostility to the principle, and toleration, only by necessity.<ref name=peoria /></blockquote>

==Religion==
Abraham Lincoln, like many other people of his day, believed, at least initially, that "Religion is a private affair between a man and his God." Doubts about Lincoln's faith have arisen mainly because he never officially joined a church, which his political opponents used sometimes to accuse him. He had a love of the Bible and memorized parts of the Bible, and used biblical allusions later on in political speech. Lincoln said once that:
''"I doubt the possibility or propriety of settling the religion of Jesus Christ in the models of man-made [[creed]]s and [[dogma]]s. I cannot without mental reservations assent to long and complicated creeds and [[catechism]]s."''

He also said on another occasion:
:''"That I am not a member of any [[Christian church]] is true, but I have never denied the truth of the [[Scriptures]], and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general or of any [[denomination]] of Christians in particular."''

He also made statements that suggest a strong faith, such as when his father was ill:
:''"Tell father to remember to call upon and confide in our great, and good, and merciful Maker who will not turn away from him in any extremity. He notes the fall of a sparrow and numbers the hairs of our heads; and he will not forget the dying man who puts his trust in him. If it is to be his lot to go now, he will soon have a joyous meeting with many loved ones gone before; and where the rest of us, through the help of God, hope ere long to join them."''

As a supporter of the Christian religion and who recognized its beneficial effects, Lincoln stated to a Methodist delegation,

:''"Nobly sustained, as the Government has been, by all the churches, I would utter nothing which might in the least appear invidious against any. Yet without this, it may fairly be said, that the Methodist Episcopal Church, not less devoted than the best, is by its greatest numbers the most important of all. It is no fault in others that the Methodist Church sends more soldiers to the field, more nurses to the hospitals, and more prayers to Heaven than--any other. God bless the Methodist Church Bless all the churches; and blessed be God, who in this our great trial giveth us the churches."''<ref>[http://www.classic-literature.co.uk/american-authors/19th-century/abraham-lincoln/the-writings-of-abraham-lincoln-07/ebook-page-41.aspAbraham Lincoln, "The Writings of Abraham Lincoln"] VO7, p. 41</ref>

Regardless of Lincoln's views on faith as a youth, it seemed to grow as president. Lincoln penciled in "under God" after "one nation" for his [[Gettysburg Address]] delivered on November 19, 1863. The phrase "under God" was not in the early drafts. Mrs. Lincoln recalled her husband's last words just prior to his assassination in Ford's Theater: "He said he wanted to visit the Holy Land and see those places hallowed by the footprints of the [[Savior]]. He was saying there was no city he so much desired to see as Jerusalem."<ref>http://www.amerisearch.net/index.php?date=2004-09-08&view=View</ref>

In 1864, a close friend of Lincoln's, Joshua Speed, confided in Lincoln that he did not accept the Bible as true. Lincoln famously replied, "Take all this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier and better man".
After Lincoln was shot at Ford's theater two clergy claimed that he had made a secret trip from Washington to be baptized. Also a Roman Catholic Priest claimed that Lincoln received the sacrament of baptism in secret. Neither of these claims have any proof in White House records or his personal diary.<ref>[[God and the Oval Office]], by John C. McCollister, W Publishing, 2005.</ref>

==Lincoln's conservatism==
In his [[Lincoln's Cooper Union Speech|Cooper Union Address]], Lincoln spoke of the sectionalism which was fracturing the country as a result of slavery; the Republican Party was new in 1859, and a serious threat to slavery's existence. Lincoln and his party were called radical and destructive, but he counted himself among the earliest defenders of conservative principles, which was in essence a defense of time-honored, traditional values. Lincoln said that out of the 39 framers of the Constitution, 23 of the 39 voted on whether to prevent the spread of slavery, and that 21 of the 23 voted in favor of doing so. Lincoln therefore said that it was the pro-slavery South that was radically breaking with the tradition begun by those that created the Constitution. As Lincoln said:

:''But you say you are conservative - eminently conservative - while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live;" while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional Slave-Code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the Territories to prohibit Slavery within their limits; some for maintaining Slavery in the Territories through the judiciary; some for the "gur-reat pur-rinciple" that "if one man would enslave another, no third man should object," fantastically called "Popular Sovereignty;" but never a man among you is in favor of federal prohibition of slavery in federal territories, according to the practice of "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live.''

Again, in a speech in Columbus, Ohio, he said:

:''The chief and real purpose of the Republican Party is eminently conservative. It proposes nothing save and except to restore this government to its original tone in regard to this element of slavery, and there to maintain it, looking for no further change . . . than that which the original framers of the government themselves expected and looked forward to.''<ref>http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/pre-civil-war/1859-1860/speech-columbus-ohio-september-16-1859/</ref>

He also nominated [[conservative]] [[Stephen Johnson Field]] to the [[Supreme Court]] and foreshadowed future arguments by [[conservatives]] that opposed the [[Federal Reserve]]. Senate Minority Leader and [[Old Right]] [[Republican]] [[Everett Dirksen]], who helped write and pass the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] and the [[Civil Rights Act of 1968]], said Lincoln called himself a "conservative Republican" and that the Republican party "was the only party to still adhere to the gospel of Abraham Lincoln"<ref>https://youtu.be/lm6fnQ5no0o</ref> in a 1967 interview.

==Lincoln's style of writing==
[[Image:Lincoln seated.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Lincoln in November, 1863, about to leave for Pennsylvania. The reason for his confident look may have been within the envelope lying on the table, believed to contain his draft of the Gettysburg Address]]
A White House visitor, Orville Browning, told Lincoln's personal secretary John Nicolay one day that he had spoke to Lincoln sometime in 1861 on the subject of slavery; that if the right thing about slavery wasn't done, God just couldn't be on the side of the Union. Browning remembered Lincoln's reply: "What if the Almighty takes a different view of slavery than we do?", and right then and there Browning realized that Lincoln had thought very deeply on the subject, much deeper than Browning did.<ref>Douglas L. Wilson. [http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/books/wilson.htm Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words], ''Lincoln's Sword''.</ref>

Lincoln was known to think long and deeply on various topics, and often he would take notes, write them on little scraps of paper, and stuff them into his tall stovepipe hat for later use. When it was time for use, such as his "House Divided" speech, he pulled them out, laid them on a table, and would commence to writing. He would sift through the subject, adding this, removing that, and sometimes he would stand in his empty room and deliver it out loud to an imaginary audience, testing the effects of what he spoke, and altering it as needed. According to author Garry Wills, Lincoln brought to bear the rhetorical tone of the Greek Revival and Transcendental movements, in which spoken oratory was practiced in government and on the stage. The leading speakers of this time, and whom Lincoln looked upon, were Danial Webster and Henry Clay, both of the Senate, and Edward Everett, a speaker much in demand.

The training he had given himself also enabled him to write a simple letter or a speech on the spot. Words would flow clear when Lincoln wrote in his later years, and he didn't have to do twice one of his finest personal letters, one of consolation to Mrs. Bixby of Boston, who had lost five sons in the war.

:''Executive Mansion,''
:''Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.''

:''Dear Madam,''

:''I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.''
:''I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.''
:''I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.''

:''Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,''

:''A. Lincoln''

What many consider his masterpiece is the [[Gettysburg Address]]. Here Lincoln, going through perhaps a dozen writes and re-writes of what he had thought on the subject, entirely changed the meaning of the war itself in a mere 272 words, and in so doing, according to Wills, remaking America.

==Politics in war==
[[File:Abraham Lincoln by George Peter Alexander Healy, 1869.jpg|thumb|350px|Abraham Lincoln by George Peter Alexander Healy, 1869.]]
That there had to be a certain degree of support to win the war was a given, and Lincoln strove to have unity for that effort in the North. Politics was required, and Lincoln had a special knack for appealing to his fellows and talking to them at their own level and language. He would smooth over lingering differences, and held the loyalty of those who were antagonistic to one another.

But the Democrats remained strong, and frequently clashed. Its member included both war and peace Democrats; the peace side was called “Copperheads”, after the snake which strikes without warning while hidden. Lincoln tried conciliating with both, but with the latter he had to resort to arrest at times, most famously to an Ohio Congressman, Clement L. Valandigham, who was arrested after he had repeatedly exhorted soldiers to desert. He justified his actions on the grounds that the suspension of ''habeas corpus'' was necessary only in times of rebellion, insurrection, or when the public safety may require it, as stated in the Constitution; certainly the Civil War had met those specific conditions. Many would dissent, and openly criticize Lincoln for arbitrarily violating the Constitution that he had sworn to preserve. In response to the criticism in general, and the case of Valandigham in particular, Lincoln wrote:
:''"Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wiley agitator who induces him to desert? This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a father, or brother, or friend, into a public meeting, and there working upon his feeling, till he is persuaded to write the soldier boy, that he is fighting in a bad cause, for a wicked administration of a contemptable government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert. I think that in such a case, to silence the agitator, and save the boy, is not only constitutional, but, withal, a great mercy."''<ref>[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;cc=lincoln;type=boolean;rgn=div1;q1=soldier;op2=and;q2=deserts;op3=and;q3=agitator;singlegenre=All;view=text;subview=detail;sort=occur;idno=lincoln6;node=lincoln6%3A569 Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 6.], Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865.</ref>
Lincoln faced reelection against Democrat George McClellan in 1864, who promised a restoration of the Union, but waffled on many of its points, even abandoning the Democratic platform of armistice and peaceful separation. Lincoln was able to beat him in the election, assisted by the timely victories of Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and Sherman in Georgia. Overtures of peace from Confederates were not wholly rejected. On February 3, 1865, Lincoln met with Confederate commissioners, among them Vice President Alexander Stephens, on a steamship in Hampton Roads, Virginia. There would be peace, he insisted, if the South would quit the war, abandon slavery, and accept re-unification, and once these conditions were met he would be gracious with pardons. But his terms satisfied neither the Confederacy nor the Radical Republicans in Congress.

His postwar policy was one of compassion. As he explained to his top leaders on board a riverboat, the City Queen, he wanted peace above all else. His Second Inaugural Address expressed his point of healing the wounds caused by the war.
:''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, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."''

When asked specifically, he related the following, according to General Sherman, one of those present:
:''Mr. Lincoln was full and frank in his conversation, assuring me that in his mind he was all ready for the civil reorganization of affairs at the South as soon as the war was over; and he distinctly authorized me to assure Governor Vance and the people of North Carolina that, as soon as the rebel armies laid down their arms, and resumed their civil pursuits, they would at once be guaranteed all their rights as citizens of a common country; and that to avoid anarchy the State governments then in existence, with their civil functionaries, would be recognized by him as the government de facto till Congress could provide others.''
:''I know, when I left him, that I was more than ever impressed by his kindly nature, his deep and earnest sympathy with the afflictions of the whole people, resulting from the war, and by the march of hostile armies through the South; and that his earnest desire seemed to be to end the war speedily, without more bloodshed or devastation, and to restore all the men of both sections to their homes. In the language of his second inaugural address, he seemed to have "charity for all, malice toward none," and, above all, an absolute faith in the courage, manliness, and integrity of the armies in the field.''<ref>[http://www.sonshi.com/sherman24.html General William T. Sherman "Memoirs"], Volume 2, Chapter XXIV, April and May, 1865.</ref>

==Final curtain==

''See also: [[Assassination of Abraham Lincoln]]'' 

Lincoln received the news of Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Virginia, on April 9, and he was called out to the balcony of the White House that night by a large crowd gathered in celebration. When asked to make a speech, Lincoln noticed a band among them, and made an unusual request.
:''"I have always thought ‘Dixie’ one of the best tunes I have ever heard. Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insisted that we fairly captured it. I presented it to the Attorney General, and he gave it as his legal opinion that it is our lawful prize. I now request the band to favor me with its performance."''
He entered Richmond the following day, to the joyous delight of free blacks, who welcomed the arrival of "Father Abraham" as they called him, and he paid a visit to the Confederate White House, and sat at the desk of Jefferson Davis. The only thing he asked for was a glass of water.

Just four days later on April 14 he attended a play at Ford's Theater. It was called ''Our American Cousin'', with well-known stage actress Laura Keane and comedian Harry Hawke in the title role. Unseen to the audience was another actor making his way quietly up the stairs to the president's private box, [[John Wilkes Booth]], a Southern sympathizer who had hatched a conspiracy with a few others to kill the president and other leading officials. Booth entered the box, shot Lincoln in the head, stabbed a guest, and dropped to the stage, escaping behind the curtains. Taken across the street to a boarding house, the mortally-wounded Lincoln was laid across a small bed in humble surroundings, similar it seemed, to where he was born. He died at sunrise a few hours later.

"Now he belongs to the ages" Edwin Stanton was heard to say.

<blockquote>
''Dying as he did die, by the red hand of violence, killed, assassinated, taken off without warning, not because of personal hate…but because of his fidelity to union and liberty, he is doubly dear to us, and his memory will be precious forever.'' [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/today.html]
</blockquote>

==Liberal revisionist history==
Some liberals are taught and claim that Lincoln was a tyrant. That he alone trampled on the Constitution. That the civil war was not about slavery but about taxation. Also, he favored the white race.

The suspension of [[Habeas corpus]] is often brought up as an example. The fact remains that the South trampled the Constitution by breaking away from the Republic to form their own nation. It was the South that launched the first attack. It was the South that fought to keep slavery as a right. While Lincoln's actions may have been controversial, he made the tough decision to save the Republic. A merciful victor who was lenient on the South for their egregious actions. Freedom for the black man was the noble outcome that white Northerners gave their lives for.

Other liberals, however, claim that Lincoln was one of them, [[Censorship|trying to force the narrative]] that the racists switched parties overnight. The take his "old and tired" quote but clip it just right to make it appear that he was a liberal.

==Quotes==
[[File:Lincoln by Augustus Saint Gaudens, 1887.jpg|thumb|Bust of Lincoln by Augustus Saint Gaudens, 1887.]]
* "A friend is a man who has the same enemies you have." <ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=HgM4tztnJFcC&pg=PA275&dq=lincoln+A+friend+is+man+who+has+the+same+enemies+you+have&ei=lV4fSuv8N5TyzQS1yq21Dw Civilization's quotations P.275] by Richard Alan Krieger</ref>

* "Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it" <ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=_-WNU7VapFAC&pg=PA187&dq=Those+who+deny+freedom+to+others+deserve+it+not+for+themselves&ei=NBA8SsSUCp-EzATw0cW6BQ Black Belt Patriotism: How to Reawaken America‎ - Page 187] by Chuck Norris</ref>

* "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." <ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=Mc-aRv_xCpMC&pg=PA11&dq=Nearly+all+men+can+stand+adversity,+but+if+you+want+to+test+a+man%27s+character,+give+him+power&ei=jJFBSo7nHZbozATAipVi Law school 101: survival techniques from pre-law to being an attorney‎ - Page 11] by R. Stephanie Good</ref>
*“When I left Springfield I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ. Yes, I do love Jesus,"<ref>https://www.christianheadlines.com/slideshows/8-presidents-who-looked-to-god-for-guidance.html</ref>
*His last words: "We will visit the Holy Land, and see those places hallowed by the footsteps of the Savior. There is no city on earth I so much desire to see as Jerusalem."<ref>https://ourlostfounding.com/abraham-lincolns-last-words-no-city-on-earth/</ref>

{{Clear}}

==Basic Further reading==
* Carwardine, Richard. ''Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power'' (2003), sophisticated biography emphasizing religion and politics [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Purpose-Power-Richard-Carwardine/dp/1400096022/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336315&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]
*Donald, David Herbert. ''Lincoln'', (1995), by a conservative historian; the best scholarly biography [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-David-Herbert-Donald/dp/068482535X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336403&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]
* Gienapp, William E. ''Abraham Lincoln and Civil War America: A Biography'' (2002), short bio by scholar; stress on politics [https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Lincoln-Civil-War-America/dp/0195151003/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336352&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]; also [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=103538783 online edition]
*Goodwin, Doris Kearns. ''Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln'', (2005) well written popular narrative of Lincoln and his cabinet
* McPherson, James. ''Abraham Lincoln'' (2009), 96pp; very short overview by leading expert [https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Lincoln-James-M-McPherson/dp/0195374525/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249335698&sr=1-6 excerpt and text search]
* Neely, Mark E. ''The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia'' (1984), detailed articles on many men and movements associated with AL
* Thomas, Benjamin P. ''Abraham Lincoln: A Biography'' (1952; 2nd ed. 2008) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=25051697 online edition], very well written biography by leading scholar
*White, Ronald C. Jr. ''The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words'', (2005)
* White, A. Ronald C. ''A. Lincoln: A Biography'' (2009), good recent biography [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Biography-Ronald-White-Jr/dp/1400064996/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249335698&sr=1-7 excerpt and text search]
* Wilentz, Sean. "Who Lincoln Was" ''New Republic'' (July 15, 2009) leading scholar rips apart liberal distortions [http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=2634954a-b287-480e-9fbd-8a4663174031 online edition]
===For children===
* Stone, Tanya. ''Abraham Lincoln'' (DK Biography, 2005) [https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Lincoln-Biography-Tanya-Stone/dp/0756608341/ref=pd_ts_b_12?ie=UTF8&s=books excerpt and text search]

== Bibliography ==
=== Biographies ===
* Beveridge, Albert J. ''Abraham Lincoln: 1809-1858'' (1928). 2 vol. to 1858; notable for strong, unbiased political coverage [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=3925146 online edition]
* Burlingame, Michael. "Abraham Lincoln: A Life" (2008), 2v 2024 pp, the most highly detailed scholarly biography [https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Lincoln-Life-Michael-Burlingame/dp/0801889936/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336108&sr=1-18 excerpt and text search]
* Carwardine, Richard. ''Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power'' (2003), sophisticated biography emphasizing religion and politics [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Purpose-Power-Richard-Carwardine/dp/1400096022/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336315&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]
*Donald, David Herbert. ''Lincoln'', (1995), by a conservative historian; the best scholarly biography [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-David-Herbert-Donald/dp/068482535X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336403&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search];
* Guelzo, Allen C. ''Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President'' (1999) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=99466893 online edition], conservative religious approach
* Harris William C. ''Lincoln's Rise to the Presidency'' (2007) conservative author argues Lincoln was basically conservative [https://www.amazon.com/Lincolns-Rise-Presidency-William-Harris/dp/0700615202/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164706&sr=8-3 excerpt and text search]
* Nicolay, John George and John Hay. ''Abraham Lincoln: a History'' (1890); online at [https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6812 Volume 1] and [https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11708 Volume 2] [https://books.google.com/books?id=bDEOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=inauthor:nicolay+inauthor:hay&num=30&as_brr=1#PPP19,M1 vol 6] 10 volumes in all; highly detailed narrative of era written by Lincoln's top aides
* Luthin, Reinhard H. ''The Real Abraham Lincoln'' (1960), emphasis on politics
* Neely, Mark E. ''The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia'' (1984), detailed articles on many men and movements associated with AL
* Neely, Mark E. ''The Last Best Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America'' (1993), Pulitzer prize winning author
* Oates, Stephen B. ''With Malice Toward None: The Life of Abraham Lincoln'' (1994) [https://www.amazon.com/Malice-Toward-None-Abraham-Lincoln/dp/0060924713/ref=pd_sim_b_img_7 excerpt and text search], good biography by liberal historian
* Randall, James G. ''Lincoln the President'' (4 vol., 1945–55; reprint 2000.) analytic biography by leading conservative scholar
** ''Mr. Lincoln'' excerpts ed. by Richard N. Current (1957) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5993790 online edition]
* Sandburg, Carl. ''Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years'' (2 vol 1926); ''The War Years'' (4 vol 1939). Pulitzer Prize winning biography by famous liberal poet [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=82392773 vol. 1 online] [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=97896367 vol 2 online]
* Thomas, Benjamin P. ''Abraham Lincoln: A Biography'' (1952; 2nd ed. 2008) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=25051697 online edition], very well written biography by leading scholar
* White, A. Ronald C. ''A. Lincoln: A Biography'' (2009), good recent biography [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Biography-Ronald-White-Jr/dp/1400064996/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249335698&sr=1-7 excerpt and text search]

=== Specialty topics ===
===Prewar===
* Angle, Paul M., ''Here I Have Lived: A History of Lincoln's Springfield, 1821-1865,'' (1935) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=210869 online edition]
* Baker, Jean H. ''Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography'' (1987) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=102075782 online edition]
* Boritt, Gabor S. ''Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream'' (1994). Lincoln's economic theory and policies, by conservative historian
* Fehrenbacher, Don E. "The Origins and Purpose of Lincoln's "House-Divided" Speech," ''The Mississippi Valley Historical Review,'' Vol. 46, No. 4. (Mar., 1960), pp. 615-643. [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0161-391X%28196003%2946%3A4%3C615%3ATOAPOL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I in JSTOR]
* Foner, Eric. ''Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War'' (1970) intellectual history of different prewar faction's in AL's party
* Holzer, Harold. ''Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President'' (2004). [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Cooper-Union-President-Schuster/dp/0743299647/ref=pd_sim_b_img_44 excerpt and text search]
* Jaffa, Harry V. ''A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War'' (2000) by leading conservative
* Jaffa, Harry V. ''Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates'' (1999) [https://www.amazon.com/Crisis-House-Divided-Interpretation-Lincoln-Douglas/dp/0226391132/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196166006&sr=8-3 excerpt and text search] by leading conservative
* Nevins, Allan. ''Ordeal of the Union'' 8-volume (1947-1971). 1. Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847-1852; 2. A House Dividing, 1852-1857; 3. Douglas, Buchanan, and Party Chaos, 1857-1859. most thorough coverage of the era, with Lincoln at center
* Schneider, Thomas E. ''Lincoln's Defense of Politics: The Public Man and His Opponents in the Crisis over Slavery.'' (2006). 224 pp.

===Wartime===
===Lincoln Administration===
* Burton, Orville Vernon. ''The Age of Lincoln'' (2007), sweeping history from 1840 to 1900. [https://www.amazon.com/Age-Lincoln-Orville-Vernon-Burton/dp/0809095130/ref=pd_bbs_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196112530&sr=8-9 excerpt and text search]
* Carwardine, Richard. "Abraham Lincoln and the Fourth Estate: the White House and the Press During the American Civil War." ''American Nineteenth Century History'' 2006 7(1): 1-27. Issn: 1466-4658 Fulltext: Ebsco
* Ford, Lacy K., ed. ''A Companion to the Civil War and Reconstruction.'' Blackwell, 2005. 518 pp.
* Hendrick, Burton J. ''Lincoln's War Cabinet'' (1946) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=790159 online edition]
* Goodwin, Doris Kearns. ''Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln'' (2005)
* McPherson, James M. ''Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era'' (1988). Pulitzer Prize winner surveys all aspects of the war [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=64327148 online edition]
* Marvel, William. ''Mr. Lincoln Goes to War'' (2006), neo-Confederate attack that blames Lincoln for defeating the Confederacy and freeing the slaves by stretching the Constitution
* Nevins, Allan. ''Ordeal of the Union'' 8-volume (1947-1971). vol 5. The Improvised War, 1861–1862; 6. War Becomes Revolution, 1862–1863; 7. The Organized War, 1863–1864; 8. The Organized War to Victory, 1864–1865; most thorough coverage of the era, with Lincoln at center
* Paludan, Phillip S. ''A People's Contest: The Union and Civil War 1861-1865'' (1996), outstanding history of the homefront [https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Contest-1861-1865-Modern-Studies/dp/0700608125/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336636&sr=1-2 excerpt and text search]
* Paludan, Phillip S. ''The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln'' (1994), thorough treatment of Lincoln's administration [https://www.amazon.com/Presidency-Abraham-Lincoln-American/dp/0700607455/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249336636&sr=1-4 excerpt and text search]
* Richardson, Heather Cox. ''The Greatest Nation of the Earth: Republican Economic Policies during the Civil War'' (1997)
* Williams, Kenneth P. ''Lincoln Finds a General: A Military Study of the Civil War'' (1959) 5 volumes on Lincoln's control of the war

===Lincolnia===
[[Image:DcLincMor.JPG|right|thumb]]
* Belz, Herman. ''Abraham Lincoln, Constitutionalism, and Equal Rights in the Civil War Era'' (1998)
* Belz, Herman. "Lincoln's Construction of the Executive Power in the Secession Crisis," ''Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association'' 27.1 (2006):[http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jala/27.1/belz.html online edition]
* Boritt, Gabor S. ed. ''Lincoln the War President'' (1994)
* Briggs, John Channing. ''Lincoln's Speeches Reconsidered.'' (2005). 370 pp.
* Bruce, Robert V. ''Lincoln and the Tools of War'' (1956) on weapons development during the war [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=978110 online edition]
* DiLorenzo, Thomas. ''Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe'' (2007) poorly written diatribe by a neo-Confederate
* Donald, David Herbert. ''Lincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era'' (1960)
* Donald, David Herbert. ''We Are Lincoln Men: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends'' (2003), on Lincoln's friends and associates; by leading conservative scholar
* Goodwin, Doris Kearns. "'My Whole Soul Is in It.'" ''Smithsonian'' 2006 36(10): 48+ Fulltext: at Ebsco, essay on the writing of the Emancipation Proclamation
*Hanchett, William. ''The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies'', (1983)
* Harris, William C. ''With Charity for All: Lincoln and the Restoration of the Union'' (1997). AL's plans for Reconstruction; by conservative historian
* Hofstadter, Richard. ''The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It'' (1948) ch 5: "Abraham Lincoln and the Self-Made Myth."
* McPherson, James M. ''Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution'' (1992) [https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Lincoln-Second-American-Revolution/dp/0195076060/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164807&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* Neely, Mark E. ''The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties'' (1992). Pulitzer Prize winner. [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=79055694 online version]; [https://www.amazon.com/Fate-Liberty-Abraham-Lincoln-Liberties/dp/0195080327/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164768&sr=8-2 excerpt and text search]
* Perret, Geoffrey. ''Lincoln's War: The Untold Story of America's Greatest President as Commander in Chief'' (2004). well-written but has many factual errors and questionable interpretations [https://www.amazon.com/Lincolns-War-Americas-President-Commander/dp/0375507388/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164840&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* Polsky, Andrew J. "'Mr. Lincoln's Army' Revisited: Partisanship, Institutional Position, and Union Army Command, 1861–1865." ''Studies in American Political Development'' (2002), 16: 176-207
* Potter, David M. ''Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis'' (1942)
* Randall, James G. ''Lincoln the Liberal Statesman'' (1947).
* Schmitz, Neil. "Refiguring Lincoln: Speeches and Writings, 1832-1865," ''American Literary History'', Vol. 6, No. 1. (Spring, 1994), pp. 103–118 [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0896-7148(199421)6%3A1%3C103%3ARLSAW1%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4 in JSTOR]
* Striner, Richard. ''Father Abraham: Lincoln's Relentless Struggle to End Slavery.'' (2006). 295 pp. [https://www.amazon.com/Father-Abraham-Lincolns-Relentless-Struggle/dp/0195325397/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164883&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* White Jr., Ronald C. ''Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural'' (2001) Pp. 234. [https://www.amazon.com/Lincolns-Greatest-Speech-Second-Inaugural/dp/0743212991/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164921&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* Williams, T. Harry. ''Lincoln and His Generals'' (1967).
* Wills, Garry. ''Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America'' (1993) [https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Gettysburg-America-Schuster-Library/dp/0743299639/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196164981&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* Wilson, Douglas L. ''Honor's Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln'' by (1999).
* Wilson, Douglas L. ''Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words'' (2007)

===Historiography and Memory===
* Boritt, Gabor S., ed. ''The Historian's Lincoln'' U. of Illinois Press, 1988, historiography [https://www.amazon.com/Historians-Lincoln-Pseudohistory-Psychohistory-History/dp/0252065441/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196165019&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* Braeman, John. "Albert J. Beveridge and Demythologizing Lincoln." ''Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association'' 2004 25(2): 1-24. Issn: 0898-4212 Fulltext: online in History Cooperative. Albert J. Beveridge (1862-1927), former US senator from Indiana began work on a multivolume biography of Abraham Lincoln in 1922. His goal was to demolish the myths surrounding Lincoln and present the facts. Beveridge tended to sympathize with the South and admire Stephen A. Douglas, as well as rely on information collected by William H. Herndon. But, he did more intense research on Lincoln's pre-presidential career than any previous biographer. Beveridge died as he reached 1858.
* Cross, Roland R. "Edgar Lee Masters's Peculiar Biographies of Abraham Lincoln and Vachel Lindsay." ''Journal of Illinois History'' 2004 7(4): 281–296. Issn: 1522–0532. The poet Edgar Lee Masters in 1931 wrote the only hostile biography of Lincoln; he debunks the "myth of Honest Abe." In Masters's view, Lincoln's actions as president was a corruption of true American ideals. The theme has occasionally resurfaced among neoconfederates and extreme libertarians who tolerate slavery but not strong government.
* Fields, Kevin. "Historiographical Trends and Interpretations of President Abraham Lincoln's Reputation and the Morality on the Slavery Question: Part I and II." ''Lincoln Herald'' Lincoln Herald 2004 106(4): 150-167 and 2005 107(1): 11–30. Issn: 0024–3671; Part 1 siscusses William Herndon, John Nicolay, and John Hay.; Part 2 notes the civil rights movement prompted historians to reevaluate Lincoln's attitude toward race and emancipation. Many continued to portray him as the pragmatic, essentially conservative, "reluctant emancipator." However, by the 1980s a postrevisionist consensus had emerged, which emphasized the evolution of Lincoln's attitudes and asserted that freedom for black slaves, and not merely the preservation of the Union, became one of his key objectives.
* McPherson, James M. "No Peace Without Victory, 1861-1865." ''American Historical Review'' 2004 109(1): Xvi, 1-18. Issn: 0002-8762 Fulltext: in History Cooperative and Ebsco.
* Peterson, Merrill D. ''Lincoln in American Memory'' (1994). how Lincoln was remembered after 1865
* Schwartz, Barry and Schuman, Howard. "History, Commemoration, and Belief: Abraham Lincoln in American Memory, 1945-2001." ''American Sociological Review'' 2005 70(2): 183–203. Issn: 0003-1224 Fulltext: in Ingenta
*Trefousse, Hans L. ''"First among Equals?" Abraham Lincoln's Reputation during His Administration.'' 2005. 199 pp.

=== Primary sources ===
* Basler, Roy P. ed. ''Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln,'' 9 vol Rutgers Univ. Press 1953–55
* Basler, Roy P. ed. ''Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, '' (1946) [http://www.questia.com/library/book/abraham-lincoln-his-speeches-and-writings-by-abraham-lincoln-roy-p-basler.jsp online edition]
* Lincoln, Abraham. ''Lincoln: Speeches and Writings'' 2 vol Library of America edition, 1989

===Memoirs and interviews===
* Chittenden, Lucius E., [https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC00587058&id=b-N27vdmIt4C&printsec=titlepage&dq=%22Recollections+of+President+Lincoln+and+His+Administration%22 ''Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration''], (1891). – [[Google Books]]
* Holzer, Harold, ed. ''Dear Mr. Lincoln: Letters to the President.'' (1993). 380 pp.
* Nicolay, John G. ed. ''Oral History of Abraham Lincoln: John G. Nicolay's Interviews and Essays.'' Michael Burlingame, ed. (1996). 186 pp. [https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Lincoln-Observations-John-Nicolay/dp/0809327384/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196165058&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* ''Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln'' edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis. (1998) 864pp, with over 600 interviews and letters about Lincoln [http://durer.press.illinois.edu/wilson/ complete text online ??] [https://books.google.com/books?id=s2gilcp4yYQC&source=gbs_navlinks_s excerpt and text search]

== See also ==
*[[American Civil War homefront]]
*[[Gallery of American Heroes]]

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==External links==

william r rathvon was nine years old when he witnessed lincoln at gettysberg
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU6UacteZus] i heard lincoln that day

*[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/ Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln]
*[http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln.html Abraham Lincoln Online]
*[http://www.abrahamlincolnarchive.com/Home.aspx Lincoln Archive of original newspaper articles]
*[http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/ History Place: Lincoln timeline]
*[http://www.nps.gov/liho/index.htm Lincoln's Home National Historic Site]
*[https://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/al16.html White House site; short bio on Lincoln]
*[http://www.mrlincolnandfriends.org/inside.asp?pageID=112&subjectID=1 Mr. Lincoln and Friends]
*[http://www.nps.gov/archive/liho/slavery/al02.htm Declaration against slavery, Illinois State Legislature, March 3, 1837]
*[http://www.nps.gov/archive/liho/slavery/al03.htm Lincoln's letter to Joshua Speed, August 24, 1855]
*[http://www.nps.gov/archive/liho/slavery/al05.htm Speech in Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854]
*[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=lincoln;cc=lincoln;q1=erastus;q2=corning;op2=and;op3=and;rgn=works;idno=ACK7441.0001.001;didno=ACK7441.0001.001;view=image;seq=00000227 Letter to Erastus Corning and Others, June 13, 1863, in which Lincoln explains his suspention of ''habeas corpus'']
*[http://www.sonshi.com/sherman.html Memoirs of William T. Sherman ]
*[http://www.swartzentrover.com/cotor/E-Books/misc/Lincoln/ALindex.htm The Life, Public Services and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln by Henry J. Raymond]
*[http://bertschlossberg.blogspot.com/ A. Lincoln, few words/E.Everett, many words]
* [https://librivox.org/author/2233 Works by Abraham Lincoln - text and free audio] - [[LibriVox]]
*[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln1.asp First Inaugural Address]
*[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln2.asp Second Inaugural Address]

{{USPresidents}}
{{Nationalism}}
{{Conservative Presidents}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lincoln, Abraham}}

[[Category:Inventors]]
[[Category:Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:Republicans]]
[[Category:People who were Educated at Home]]
[[Category:United States History]]
[[Category:American Civil War]]
[[Category:Reconstruction]]
[[Category:Politicians]]
[[Category:Diplomacy]]
[[Category:Abolitionists]]
[[Category:Whig Party]]
[[Category:Conservatives]]
[[Category:Veterans]]
[[Category:Patriots]]
[[Category:Presbyterians]]