Abraham_Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln the sixteenth president of the United States of America was born on February 12, 1809 in a one room log cabin to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Lincoln. Abraham’s grandfather, the man who he was named after had been killed in 1786 moving his family from Virginia to Kentucky in an Indian raid. Within two years of Abraham’s birth his father moved the family a few miles away to Knob Creek. Lincoln’s father owned a farm where he grew up and spent his time helping his father until he turned seven when the family moved north to Indiana. His father had a problem with slavery where it was allowed in Kentucky and so they moved to the free state of Indiana to get away from slavery, even though Lincoln’s father had once owned a slave. The family carried all of their belongings on the backs of two horses and didn’t even have a house waiting for them when they arrived in Indiana. They decided to build a house on a plot of land that looked decent to them and it was finished just after Abraham turned eight. Abraham spent a lot of time here helping his father farm, but he didn’t enjoy manual labor, he preferred reading of telling people stories and making them laugh. When Abraham was ten a terrible sickness came through the family and his mother died when she was just 34. His father remarried in 1819 to Sarah Bush Johnston, whom Abraham became very close to. When Abraham was 14 his family joined the church but Abraham didn’t want to, he mocked the preacher’s sermons. By age 15 the total amount of education Abraham Lincoln had was less than one year. In 1830 his family moved Illinois and Lincoln decided to go off on his own to Mississippi, only to see slavery and come back home. Lincoln’s first girlfriend was Ann Rutledge who died when she was 22 of typhoid fever. Lincoln ended up marrying Marry Todd from a wealthy slave holding family. The Lincoln’s had four children, Robert, Edward, William, and Thomas, Robert was the only one who survived to adulthood. These deaths had great impacts on Lincoln who suffered from clinical depression. Lincoln decided to become a lawyer and began teaching himself by reading books and studying with no one. In 1834 he decided to run for state legislature and during his campaign he did not talk much about political goals as not to create a specific group of supporters which helped his win his campaign. He was only 25 years of age. In 1837 he made a bold move by voting against slavery, only 6 out of 83 votes agreed with him. This could have ruined Lincoln’s political career because being label as an abolitionist was not very popular at the time. In 1837 when Lincoln arrived in Springfield he met a man named Joshua Speed who gave Lincoln a bed to share above the general store he ran. At the time Lincoln was still a man with very little money and few belongings. Lincoln and Speed would spend their nights with other men in Speed’s store exchanging stories and talking about politics. Soon Lincoln and Speed became very close friends and Speed was the only person Lincoln ever really got emotionally attached to. Even though the did not see each other much in later years they continued to correspond intimately. Lincoln ended up serving four terms in the Illinois legislature. Lincoln decided to practice law after serving in the Illinois legislature. He opened a firm of his own but decided to run for Congress in 1845. He did so and he won, and was a Whig when the president James Polk was a Democrat. Lincoln worked hard as a Congressman and pushed very hard for laws to outlaw slavery in Washington D.C. After serving two years in Congress he returned to practice law more than ever. In 1860 Lincoln was nominated to run for the presidency and on November 6, 1860 he was elected as the 16th president of the United Staes of America, beating Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge, and John Bell. He became the first president from the Republican party to win the presidency. His win was due to the strength of his support from the North and West. He received no ballots from 10 of the 15 southern states. His election created a stir in the southern states and six states adopted a new Constitution declaring themselves a sovereign nation. But, Lincoln declared secession illegal and refused to recognize the Confederacy. On April 12, 1861 the Civil War began when the Confederate forces fired upon Union Troops at Fort Sumter. Lincoln assumed command for the Union in the war because he realized the importance of taking immediate control and making an overall strategy to defeat the Confederate states. On January 1, 1863 as a military measure the Emancipation Proclamation was passed that abolished slavery on federal land and creating more black soldiers for the north. After the great victory at the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863 Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg address. He stated that the war was dedicated to the liberty and equality for all just as it states in the Constitution. In 1864 Lincoln was re-elected during the war and pledged to defeat the confederacy. The Civil War ended on May 9, 1865. Over 350,000 union men died and over 250,000 confederate men died fighting in the war. The Thirteenth Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865 and abolished slavery outright. On April 14 1865 while attending a play at Ford’s Theater, Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth in the back of his head, which killed the president.