Abraham Lincoln

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American lawyer, politician and U.S. President. As one of the most respected figures in history and most famous leaders of the United States, he held office from 1861-1865. Lincoln was a member of the Legislature from 1834-1841, a U.S. Representative from 1847-1849 and the issuer of the Emancipation Proclamation on 1 January 1863. He was assassinated on 14 April 1865 in Washington, DC. Lincoln's dad, Thomas, was a farmer and carpenter. His mom, Nancy Hanks, died in 1818, when Abe was just nine. His older sister, Sarah, died in adulthood and a younger brother, Thomas, died in infancy. As a youth, Lincoln liked public speaking and would climb onto stumps near a store in Gentryville and hold forth with speeches and jokes. His entertainment-starved neighbors and relatives would gather around and shake their heads at his wit and verbal facility. These performances were inspired by wandering evangelists, politicians and lawyers. He thought nothing of walking many miles to watch a good lawyer in action. In a brief, third-person autobiography written at the behest of the Chicago Press & Tribune in 1860, Lincoln described his education as amounting to an aggregate of one year. He was never in a college or academy. As a young man, he tried many professions, including rail splitter, flat boatman, storekeeper, postmaster, surveyor and lawyer. Coming of age in the 1820s, Lincoln was taller and stronger than most, but he had a gift of encouraging others to see in themselves their own kind side; he showed an empathy that allowed others to do their best. A lover of books, Lincoln was much taken with the life of George Washington, especially his great gamble in crossing the Delaware to take Trenton in December 1776. He became a lawyer-politician, successful as a lawyer but only modestly lucky at politics. He served in the Illinois State legislature from 1834 to 1841 and in 1846, won a seat in Congress. He pledged to serve only one term and returned to Illinois in 1849. Lincoln pursued his career as a well-paid litigator; spent time with his family; studied Euclidean geometry to discipline his mind; memorized passages from Shakespeare; and brooded about thwarted ambition. During the 1830s and 1840s the issue of slavery was being hotly debated. Lincoln was opposed to the expansion of slavery into America's new western territories but was willing to let it continue in the South. He began thinking and speaking about this issue and in 1856, joined the Republicans, a new party which had absorbed part of the Whig Party, where he was talked up as a possible vice presidential candidate. Two years later he ran for the U.S. Senate against Stephen Douglas. Their debates drew thousands of people and newspapers covered them nationwide. He became a national leader, even though he lost the election. In the spring of 1860, at the Republican convention in Chicago, he was nominated to run for President, and won that November. With the Republicans now in power in Washington, the Southern states, which were Democrat, began to secede from the Union, calling themselves the Confederate Sates of America. Lincoln could have recognized the Confederacy and avoided war, but he decided that the Union had to be preserved. On 21 April 1861 the Confederacy fired on Ft. Sumter, beginning the Civil War. Running a war was difficult at first but by 1862, Lincoln was a highly effective war president. In 1863 he faced a pinnacle year; on 1 January 1863 he issued the Emancipation Proclamation and was firmly leading the war effort, delivering the Gettysburg Address, shepherding a contentious Cabinet. With Northerners and Southerners hating each other, Lincoln urged Americans to free themselves from hatred. "With malice toward none, with charity toward all," he said in March 1865 as he put forth a highly charitable Reconstruction program. Lincoln first met Mary Todd, 21, when he was 30 at a dance in Springfield, IL, 1839. They were a contrast in many ways; he was tall, thin, and brooding; she was short, round, and gleeful. He had simple tastes; hers were expensive. He sought to control his emotions; she allowed hers free rein, including her volatile temper. They were both interested in poetry and politics and liked each other immediately. Their courtship and engagement was rocky. In early 1841, Lincoln broke it all off, just as he had done in an earlier engagement with a woman named Mary Owens, and plunged into one of the worst depressions of a lifetime of extreme moodiness. As he struggled with his melancholia, friends feared he might do himself damage and removed sharp objects from his sight. It took him 18 months of reflection to resolve his demons. Finally, in the summer of 1842, he got back together with Mary. They were married on 4 November 1842 and had their first son, Robert, was born nine months later. Three more sons followed - Edward, who was three when he died of tuberculosis, William (Willie), who died at age 11, and Thomas (Tad) who died of tuberculosis at 18. Mary never fully recovered from Edward's death and gave in to extravagant grief and frequently illnesses. In 1861 the tensions of the presidency added to her instability. With Willie's death in 1862 she lost all restraint, spending wildly, angering servants and shouting hysterically in the corridors of the White House. After Lincoln was shot she took to her bed for 40 days and wore widow's black for the rest of her life. In her last years, she took to drinking an opium elixir while endlessly packing and repacking her 64 trunks of clothing. She died in 1882 in Springfield, IL, quite mad. Robert, the only Lincoln offspring to live to adulthood, became a successful lawyer, politician, and chairman of the board of the Pullman Company. He died in 1926, just short of his 83rd birthday. Lincoln's favorite entertainment was the theater and on 14 April 1865, he, Mary, and another couple went to see the comedy "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater. At 10:13 P.M.., as Lincoln talked with his wife about a visit to the Holy Land, a rabidly racist actor, John Wilkes Booth, aimed a derringer at the president's head and fired a single shot. Lincoln never regained consciousness but died in a house across the street from the theater the next day at 7:22 AM, Washington, D.C. Abraham Lincoln's parents: (no time of birth for any) Thomas Lincoln: born Jan. 20 1770 - died Jan 17 1851 Nancy Hanks: born Feb. 4 1784 - died Oct. 5 1818 And the midwife who delivered baby Abe herself! Margaret La Rue Walters: born Dec. 11 1789 married Conrad Walters: 9/11/1804 died:Oct. 26th 1864 Sister Sara Lincoln born Feb. 10, 1807, Nolin Creek, KY; married Aaron Grigsby Aug 2, 1829; dies in childbirth (baby stillborn) Jan. 28, 1828 Mother Nancy and Father Thomas Lincoln married Jun.12, 1806 Link to Wikipedia biography