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Revision as of 18:45, 30 May 2002 by 24.56.219.32 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Abraham Lincoln was the 16th (1861-1865) President of the United States, and the first President from the Republican Party.
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Public domain picture from Handbook of Early Advertising Art. full size
Born on February 12, 1809, in Kentucky, he moved at a young age to the area near Springfield, Illinois. He served as a captain in the U.S. Army during the Black Hawk War. He later tried his hand at several business and political ventures which all proved unsuccessful. It is widely believed that Lincoln suffered from bouts of severe depression, a theory supported by Lincoln's own statements and reports of the young lawyer spending days alone in bed. It is also suggested that Lincoln may have suffered from Marfin's Syndrome, a disease which results in an elongated figure and bone structure.
Lincoln eventually married and raised a family with Mary Todd Lincoln. Mary is reported to have had some psycological difficulties of her own, and required almost constant attention from her husband. Mrs. Lincoln generaly disliked politics and her tenure as first lady was marked with some scandal as she spent lavishly to redocorate the White House and reportedly purchased an inordinate amount of hats, gloves, and other fasionable items of clothing.
First elected to the Senate, Lincoln spent most of his time in Washington alone and made less than a spectacular impression on his fellow politicians. During his presidential election, it was Lincoln's well known gift of oratry that brought public support to an otherwise unseemly presidential canidate. Lincon debated his opponent in a series of events that are well documented and which represented a national discussion on the issues that were about to split the nation in two. The Lincon/Douglas debates marked Lincoln's coming of age as a public figure and catipulted him into the White House in the most dire of times.
Shortly after his election the South made it clear that succession was inevitible and war was all but impossible to avoid. The tension was so great that Lincoln was convinced to arrive in Washington with little fanfare, in effect sneaking into the city. The South ridiculed Lincoln for this seemingly cowardly act, but the efforts at security may well have been prudent. After all, the Union's soon to be enemy was headquartered just across the Potomic. At Lincoln's Inauguration on March 4, 1861, the Turners formed Lincoln's bodyguard, and a sizable garrison of Union troops was always present in Washington, ready to protect the president and their capital from rebel invasion.
During his presidency, Lincoln is credited with freeing the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation, though this only freed the slaves in areas of the Confederacy not yet controlled by the Union. During the Civil War Lincoln held powers no previous president had weilded. He effectively suspended the writ of habeus corpus and frequenly imprision Southern spies and sympathizers without trial.
He showed tremendous leadership to the Union populance during the war as evidenced the Gettysburg Address, a speech dedicating a cemetary of union soliders from the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. While most of the speakers at the event spoke at length, some for hours, Lincoln's few choice words resonated across the nation and across history, defying Linoln's own prediction that "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." While there is little documentation of the other speechs of the day, Lincon's address- written on the back of an envelope on the train ride to Gettysburg, is regarded as one of the greatest speeches in history.
The war was a source of constant frustration for the president, and it occupied nearly all of his time. After repeated frustrations with General George McCleen's lack of effort in applying the Army of the Potomac to the war, Lincoln made a fateful decision to install a radical and somewhat scandalous army commander to McCleen's post. General U.S. Grant would apply his military knowledge and his personal charisma with the troops in an effort that would finaly bring about the close of the Civil War.
When Richmond (the confederate capital) was at long last captured, Lincon made what must have been a surreal trip to the city. He walked through its empty streets and hollow, crumbled ruins, and eventually made his way to the office of his arch rival. The Confederacy's President, Jefferson Davis, had long since evacuated- and Lincon made a point, perhaps with great political and psycological deliberation, to sit behind Davis' desk in Davis' own chair- symbolicaly saying to the nation- that the President of the United States, and the U.S. constitution held authority over the entire land.
The reconstruction of the Union weighed heavy on the President's mind. He was determined to take a course that would not further alinate the former confererate states, a course that would reunite the nation as a single people with goodwill towards all and, as Lincoln stated, "malice toward none."
Lincoln meet frequently with Grant as the war ended. The two men planned matters of reconstruction in the White House, and it was evident to all that both men held one other in high regard. During their last meeting, on April 26, 1865, Lincon invited General Grant to a social engagement for that evening. Grant declined (his wife was not eagar to spend time with Mary Todd Lincoln.)
Without the General and his wife, the first couple left to attend a play at Ford's theater. The play was "Our American Cousin's" a musical comedy. As Lincoln sat in the balcony, John Wilkes Booth, an actor and southern sympathizer, aimed a single shot, round slug pistol at the President's head and fired. He shouted "Sic temper tyrannis! (death to tyranny)," and jumped from the balcony to the stage below- breaking his leg in the process.
Booth managed to limp to his horse and escape and the mortaly wounded president was taken to a house across the street where he lay in a coma for some time before he quietly expired.
Booth and several of his companions (some who were later shown to be innocent,) were eventually captured and either hanged or imprisioned.
Lincoln's body was carried by train in a grand funeral procession through several states. The nation mourned a man who they realized in his absence, was the saviour of the United States and protector and defender of what Lincoln himself called "the government of the people, by the people, and for the people."
One of the most respected and beloved presidents, Lincoln has been memorialized in many city names, notably the capital of Nebraska, with the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., and on the penny. In polls among historians, Lincoln is often rated as the greatest president in American history.
Related articles
- Previous President: James Buchanan
- Next President: Andrew Johnson
- Vice Presidents: Hannibal Hamlin; Andrew Johnson