Biography of Abraham Lincoln
By: Jeanne Christine Lu Valdez BESTS requirement
Jeanne Christine Lu Valdez HRAs BESTS 2011 - 2012
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Biography of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, the second child of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Lincoln (ne Hanks), in a one-room log cabin on the Sinking Spring Farm in Hardin County, Kentucky, (now LaRue County). Lincoln's paternal grandfather and namesake, Abraham, had moved his family from Virginia to Jefferson County, Kentucky, where he was ambushed and killed in an Indian raid in 1786, with his children, including Lincoln's father Thomas, looking on. Thomas was left to make his own way on the frontier. In 1858 Lincoln wrote that his first known ancestor was Samuel Lincoln who migrated from Norwich, England in 1638 to Hingham (or Hanghim), Massachusetts. Lincoln's mother, Nancy, was the daughter of Lucy Hanks, and was born in what is now Mineral County, West Virginia, then part of Virginia. Lucy moved with Nancy to Kentucky. Nancy Hanks married Thomas, who became a respected citizen. He bought and sold several farms, including the Sinking Spring Farm. The family attended a Separate Baptists church, which had high moral standards and opposed alcohol, dancing, and slavery. Thomas enjoyed considerable status in Kentuckywhere he sat on juries, appraised estates, served on country slave patrols, and guarded prisoners. By the time his son Abraham was born, Thomas owned two 600-acre (240 ha) farms, several town lots, livestock, and horses. He was among the richest men in the county. However, in 1816, Thomas lost all of his land in court cases because of faulty property titles. In 1831, he settled in New Salem, near Springfield; in 1842, he married Mary Todd, daughter of a prominent family. Lincoln pursued the law and politics, both successfully. As a Whig he served in the state legislature (183441) and in the House of Representatives (184749), where he criticized the Mexican War. The slavery expansion controversy prompted his re-entry into public life in 1854, now in the new Republican Party. His national stature was enhanced when he challenged and lost to Stephen A. Douglas for the U.S. Senate in 1858. He married Mary Todd, and they had four boys, only one of whom lived to maturity. In 1858 Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator. He lost the election, but in debating with Douglas he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in 1860. On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the sixteenth president of the United States, beating Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge of the Southern Democrats, and John Bell of the new Constitutional Union Party. He was the first president from the Republican Party. Winning entirely on the strength of his support in the North and West, no ballots were cast for him in ten of the fifteen Southern slave states, and he won only two of 996 counties in all the Southern states. Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes, Douglas 1,376,957 votes, Breckinridge 849,781 votes, and Bell 588,789 votes. Turnout was 82.2 percent, with Lincoln winning the free Northern states, as well as California and Oregon. Douglas won Missouri, and split New Jersey with Lincoln. Bell won Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, and Breckinridge won the rest of the South. The States' Electoral votes were decisive: Lincoln had 180 and his opponents added together had only 123. There were fusion tickets in which all of Lincoln's opponents combined to support the same slate of Electors in New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, but even if the anti-Lincoln vote had been combined in every state, Lincoln still would have won a majority in the Electoral College. As Lincoln's election became evident, secessionists made clear their intent to leave the Union before he took office the next March. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina took the lead by adopting an ordinance of secession; by February 1, 1861, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed. Six of these states then adopted a constitution and declared them to be a sovereign nation, the Confederate States of America. The upper South and Border States (Delaware, Jeanne Christine Lu Valdez HRAs BESTS 2011 - 2012 Page 2
Biography of Abraham Lincoln
Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas) listened to, but initially rejected, the secessionist appeal. President Buchanan and President-elect Lincoln refused to recognize the Confederacy, declaring secession illegal. The Confederacy selected Jefferson Davis as their provisional President on February 9, 1861.
As President, he built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. Further, he rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union cause. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy. Lincoln never let the world forget that the Civil War involved an even larger issue. This he stated most movingly in dedicating the military cemetery at Gettysburg: "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Lincoln won re-election in 1864, as Union military triumphs heralded an end to the war. In his planning for peace, the President was flexible and generous, encouraging Southerners to lay down their arms and join speedily in reunion. The spirit that guided him was clearly that of his Second Inaugural Address, now inscribed on one wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C.: "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.... "
After attending an April 11, 1865, speech in which Lincoln promoted voting rights for blacks, an incensed Booth changed his plans and became determined to assassinate the president. Learning that the President, First Lady, and head Union general Ulysses S. Grant would be attending Ford's Theatre, Booth formulated a plan with co-conspirators to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson, Secretary of State William H. Seward and General Grant. Without his main bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln left to attend the play Our American Cousin on April 14. Grant along with his wife chose at the last minute to travel to Philadelphia instead of attending the play. Lincoln's bodyguard, John Parker, left Ford's Theater during intermission to join Lincoln's coachman for drinks in the Star Saloon next door. The now unguarded President sat in his state box in the balcony. Seizing the opportunity, Booth crept up from behind and at about 10:13 pm, aimed at the back of Lincoln's head and fired at point-blank range, mortally wounding the President. Major Henry Rathbone momentarily grappled with Booth but Booth stabbed him and escaped. After being on the run for ten days, Booth was tracked down and found on a farm in Virginia, some 30 miles (48 km) south of Washington D.C. After a brief fight, Booth was killed by Union soldiers on April 26. An Army surgeon, Doctor Charles Leale, assessed Lincoln's wound as mortal. The dying man was taken across the street to Petersen House. After being in a coma for nine hours, Lincoln died at 7:22 am on April 15. Presbyterian minister Phineas Densmore Gurley, then present, was asked to offer a prayer, after which Secretary of War Stanton saluted and said, "Now he belongs to the ages." Jeanne Christine Lu Valdez HRAs BESTS 2011 - 2012 Page 3
Biography of Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln's flag-enfolded body was then escorted in the rain to the White House by bareheaded Union officers, while the city's church bells rang. Vice President Johnson was sworn in as President at 10:00 am the day after the assassination. Lincoln lay in state in the East Room, and then in the Capitol Rotunda from April 19 April 21. For three weeks his funeral train brought the body to cities across the North for large-scale memorials attended by hundreds of thousands, as well as many people who gathered in informal trackside tributes with bands, bonfires and hymn singing.
Bibliography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexuality_of_Abraham_Lincoln http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=image&fr=ytff1msgr&va=abraham+lincoln http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/abrahamlincoln http://www.answers.com/topic/abraham-lincoln
Jeanne Christine Lu Valdez HRAs BESTS 2011 - 2012
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