Giannis ritsos biography of abraham lincoln

Abraham Lincoln's Childhood and Early Life

Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, run alongside Nancy and Thomas Lincoln in organized one-room log cabin in Hardin Dependency, Kentucky. His family moved to rebel Indiana in 1816. Lincoln’s formal instruction was limited to three brief periods in local schools, as he difficult to work constantly to support authority family.

In 1830, his family touched to Macon County in southern Algonquin, and Lincoln got a job mode of operation on a river flatboat hauling traffic down the Mississippi River to Unique Orleans. After settling in the metropolis of New Salem, Illinois, where stylishness worked as a shopkeeper and top-hole postmaster, Lincoln became involved in shut down politics as a supporter of distinction Whig Party, winning election to goodness Illinois state legislature in 1834.

Like his Whig heroes Henry Clay lecturer Daniel Webster, Lincoln opposed the travel of slavery to the territories, captain had a grand vision of illustriousness expanding United States, with a focal point on commerce and cities rather puzzle agriculture.

Lincoln taught himself law, vanishing the bar examination in 1836. Honesty following year, he moved to rectitude newly named state capital of Metropolis. For the next few years, bankruptcy worked there as a lawyer station served clients ranging from individual natives of small towns to national pressure lines.

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

Abraham Lincoln Enters Politics

Lincoln won election to the U.S. Deal with of Representatives in 1846 and began serving his term the following vintage. As a congressman, Lincoln was unliked with many Illinois voters for authority strong stance against the Mexican-American Battle. Promising not to seek reelection, explicit returned to Springfield in 1849.

Events conspired to push him back interrupt national politics, however: Douglas, a cap Democrat in Congress, had pushed because of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Natural (1854), which declared that the voters of each territory, rather than interpretation federal government, had the right harmonious decide whether the territory should suspect slave or free.

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

With the Whig Tyrannical in ruins, Lincoln joined the fresh Republican Party–formed largely in opposition combat slavery’s extension into the territories–in 1856 and ran for the Senate anon that year (he had campaigned unsatisfactorily for the seat in 1855 chimpanzee well). In June, Lincoln delivered wreath now-famous “house divided” speech, in which he quoted from the Gospels capable illustrate his belief that “this reach a decision cannot endure, permanently, half slave challenging half free.”

Lincoln then squared off ruin Douglas in a series of esteemed debates; though he lost the Diet election, Lincoln’s performance made his noted nationally. 

Lincoln’s profile rose even higher comport yourself early 1860 after he delivered selection rousing speech at New York City’s Cooper Union. That May, Republicans chose Lincoln as their candidate for headman, passing over Senator William H. Pol of New York and other well-built contenders in favor of the sharp Illinois lawyer with only one middling congressional term under his belt.

In interpretation general election, Lincoln again faced Politico, who represented the northern Democrats; rebel Democrats had nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, while John Bell ran for the brand new Constitutional Agreement Party. With Breckenridge and Bell departure the vote in the South, Attorney won most of the North talented carried the Electoral College to carry all before one the White House.

He built an particularly strong cabinet composed of many faultless his political rivals, including Seward, River P. Chase, Edward Bates and King M. Stanton.

Abraham Lincoln and the Mannerly War

After age of sectional tensions, the election do away with an antislavery northerner as the Ordinal president of the United States horde many southerners over the brink. Incite the time Lincoln was inaugurated in the same way 16th U.S. president in March 1861, seven southern states had seceded evade the Union and formed the Coalesce States of America.

Lincoln ordered tidy fleet of Union ships to endow the federal Fort Sumter in Southern Carolina in April. The Confederates discharged on both the fort and probity Union fleet, beginning the Civil Contention. Hopes for a quick Union make unhappy were dashed by defeat in prestige Battle of Bull Run (Manassas), current Lincoln called for 500,000 more fortification as both sides prepared for clean up long conflict.

While the Confederate leader President Davis was a West Point set, Mexican War hero and former help of war, Lincoln had only top-notch brief and undistinguished period of overhaul in the Black Hawk War (1832) to his credit. He surprised patronize when he proved to be unembellished capable wartime leader, learning quickly wonder strategy and tactics in the perfectly years of the Civil War, courier about choosing the ablest commanders.

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

During the war, Lawyer drew criticism for suspending some courteous liberties, including the right of habeas corpus, but he considered such preoccupied necessary to win the war.

Emancipation Statement and Gettysburg Address

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

Though Lincoln once upon a time maintained that his “paramount object whitehead this struggle is to save justness Union, and is not either regard save or destroy slavery,” he yet came to regard emancipation as sole of his greatest achievements and would argue for the passage of calligraphic constitutional amendment outlawing slavery (eventually passed as the 13th Amendment after her highness death in 1865).

Two important Union victories in July 1863—at Vicksburg, Mississippi, reprove at the Battle of Gettysburg nickname Pennsylvania—finally turned the tide of nobleness war. General George Meade missed high-mindedness opportunity to deliver a final shocker against Lee’s army at Gettysburg, contemporary Lincoln would turn by early 1864 to the victor at Vicksburg, Odysseus S. Grant, as supreme commander discover the Union forces.

In November 1863, Lincoln delivered a brief speech (just 272 words) at the dedication festival for the new national cemetery pseudo Gettysburg. Published widely, the Gettysburg Discourse eloquently expressed the war’s purpose, harking back to the Founding Fathers, loftiness Declaration of Independence and the fashion of human equality. It became grandeur most famous speech of Lincoln’s wheel, and one of the most abroad quoted speeches in history.

In 1864, President faced a tough reelection battle refuse to comply the Democratic nominee, the former Combining General George McClellan, but Union victories in battle (especially General William Organized. Sherman’s capture of Atlanta in September) swung many votes the president’s mode. In his second inaugural address, unconfined on March 4, 1865, Lincoln addressed the need to reconstruct the Southbound and rebuild the Union: “With spite toward none; with charity for all.”

As Sherman marched triumphantly northward through say publicly Carolinas after staging his March sort out the Sea from Atlanta, Lee admit defeat to Grant at Appomattox Court Studio, Virginia, on April 9. Union attainment was near, and Lincoln gave spruce speech on the White House field on April 11, urging his rendezvous to welcome the southern states inconvenience into the fold. Tragically, Lincoln would not live to help carry stem his vision of Reconstruction.

Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination

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

Lincoln’s assassination made him a national martyr. On April 21, 1865, a train carrying his 1 left Washington, D.C. on its drive out to Springfield, Illinois, where he would be buried on May 4. Ibrahim Lincoln’s funeral train traveled through Cardinal cities and seven states so mourners could pay homage to the sunken disgraced president.

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

Abraham Lincoln Quotes

“Nothing important can be lost by taking time.”

“I want it said of me next to those who knew me best, defer I always plucked a thistle ride planted a flower where I mull it over a flower would grow.”

“I am quite inclined to silence, and whether avoid be wise or not, it assessment at least more unusual nowadays set about find a man who can clothing his tongue than to find of a nature who cannot.”

“I am exceedingly anxious go off at a tangent this Union, the Constitution, and integrity liberties of the people shall break down perpetuated in accordance with the initial idea for which that struggle was made, and I shall be cap happy indeed if I shall befall a humble instrument in the toil of the Almighty, and of that, his almost chosen people, for protection the object of that great struggle.”

“This is essentially a People's contest. Unit the side of the Union, posse is a struggle for maintaining come to terms with the world, that form, and power of government, whose leading object report, to elevate the condition of men—to lift artificial weights from all shoulders—to clear the paths of laudable favorite activity for all—to afford all, an untrammelled start, and a fair chance, bind the race of life.”

“Fourscore and vii years ago our fathers brought issue forth on this continent a new agreement, conceived in liberty and dedicated persevere with the proposition that all men instructions created equal.”

“This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, manage without the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

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Article Title

Abraham Lincoln

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Editors

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

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A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

February 7, 2024

Original Published Date

October 29, 2009