Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865), sometimes called Abe Lincoln and nicknamed Honest Abe, the Rail Splitter, and the Great Emancipator, was the 16th President of the United States (1861 to 1865), and the first president from the Republican Party.

Early life

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in a one-room log cabin on 348 acre (1.4 km²) Sinking Spring Farm in the Southeast part of Hardin County, Kentucky, then considered the frontier (now part of LaRue Co., in Nolin Creek, three miles (5 km) south of Hodgenville), to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks. Lincoln was named after his deceased grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, who was in a conflict with local Indians. He was given just his grandfather's first and last name and was not given any middle name. Lincoln's parents were largely uneducated. Later, when Lincoln became more renown, reporters and storytellers often exaggerated the poverty and obscurity of Lincoln's birth. In fact, Lincoln's father Thomas was a respected and relatively affluent citizen of the Kentucky backcountry. He had purchased the Sinking Spring Farm in December 1808 for $200 cash and assumption of a debt. His parents belonged to a Baptist church that had pulled away from a larger church because they refused to support slavery. Therefore, from a very young age, Lincoln was exposed to anti-slavery sentiment.

Related Topics:
February 12 - 1809 - Hardin County, Kentucky - Frontier - LaRue Co. - Hodgenville - Thomas Lincoln - Nancy Hanks - Indians - 1808

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Three years after purchasing the property, a prior land claim filed in Hardin Circuit Court forced the Lincolns to move. Thomas continued legal action until he lost the case in 1815. Money spent on the lawsuit contributed to family difficulties. In 1811, they were able to lease 30 acres (0.1 km²) of a 230 acre (0.9 km²) farm on Knob Creek a few miles away, where they then moved. In a valley of the Rolling Fork River, this was some of the best farmland in the area. At this time, Lincoln's father was a respected community member and a successful farmer and carpenter. Lincoln's earliest recollections are from this farm. In 1815, another claimant sought to eject the family from the Knob Creek farm. Frustrated with litigation and lack of security provided by Kentucky courts, Thomas decided to move to Indiana, which had been surveyed by the federal government, making land titles more secure. Historians believe that these problems motivated Abraham to later learn surveying and become an attorney.

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In 1816, when Lincoln was seven years old, he and his parents moved to Spencer County, Indiana, he would state "partly on account of slavery" and partly because of economic difficulties in Kentucky (mostly derived from losing two homes and financing years of litigation). In 1830, after more economic and land-title difficulties in Indiana, the family settled on government land along the Sangamon River on a site selected by Lincoln's father in Macon County, Illinois, near the present city of Decatur. The following winter was especially brutal, and the family nearly moved back to Indiana. When his father relocated the family to a nearby site the following year, the 22-year-old Lincoln struck out on his own, canoeing down the Sangamon to homestead on his own in Sangamon County, Illinois (now in Menard County), in the village of New Salem. Later that year, hired by New Salem businessman Denton Offutt and accompanied by friends, he took goods from New Salem to New Orleans via flatboat on the Sangamon, Illinois and Mississippi rivers. While in New Orleans, he may have witnessed a slave auction that left an indelible impression on him for the rest of his life. Whether he actually witnessed a slave auction at that time or not, living in a country with a considerable slave presence, he probably saw similar atrocities from time to time.

Related Topics:
Spencer County, Indiana - Sangamon River - Macon County, Illinois - Decatur - Canoe - Sangamon County, Illinois - Menard County - New Salem - Denton Offutt - New Orleans - Flatboat - Illinois - Mississippi - River

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Early career

Lincoln began his political career in 1832 at the age of 23 with a campaign for the Illinois General Assembly as a member of the Whig Party. The centerpiece of his platform was the undertaking of navigational improvements on the Sangamon River in the hopes of attracting steamboat traffic to the river, which would allow sparsely populated, poor areas along and near the river to grow and prosper. He served as a captain in a company of the Illinois militia drawn from New Salem during the Black Hawk War, although he never saw combat. Writing after being elected by his peers that he had not had "any such success in life which gave him so much satisfaction."

Related Topics:
1832 - Illinois General Assembly - Whig Party - Sangamon River - Steamboat - Illinois - Militia - Black Hawk War

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He later tried his hand at several business and political ventures, and failed at them all. He held an Illinois state liquor license and operated several taverns. Finally, after coming across the second volume of Sir William Blackstone's four-volume Commentaries on the Laws of England, he taught himself the law, and was admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1837. That same year, he moved to Springfield, Illinois and began to practice law with Stephen T. Logan. He became one of the most highly respected and successful lawyers in the state of Illinois, and became steadily more prosperous. Lincoln served four successive terms in the Illinois House of Representatives, as a representative from Sangamon County, beginning in 1834. In 1837 he made his first protest against slavery in the Illinois House, stating that the institution was "founded on both injustice and bad policy." http://www.hti.umich.edu/l/lincoln/

Related Topics:
Sir William Blackstone - Commentaries on the Laws of England - Law - Illinois Bar - Springfield, Illinois - Stephen T. Logan - Illinois House of Representatives - Sangamon County

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Lincoln shared a bed with Joshua Fry Speed from 1837 to 1841 in Springfield. While many claim it was not uncommon in the mid-19th century for men to share a bed (just as two men today may share a house or an apartment), C.A. Tripp's 2005 biography, The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, suggesting that their relationship may also have been sexual, has generated a great deal of controversy.

Related Topics:
Joshua Fry Speed - C.A. Tripp - 2005 - The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln

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In 1841, Lincoln entered law practice with William Herndon, a fellow member of the Whig Party. In 1856, both men joined the fledgling Republican Party. Following Lincoln's assassination, Herndon began collecting stories about Lincoln from those who knew him in central Illinois, eventually publishing a book, Herndon's Lincoln.

Related Topics:
1841 - William Herndon - 1856 - Republican Party

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Marriage

On November 4, 1842, Lincoln married Mary Todd. President Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln had four sons.

Related Topics:
November 4 - 1842 - Mary Todd

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• Robert Todd Lincoln: b. August 1, 1843 in Springfield, Illinois; d. July 26, 1926 in Manchester, Vermont.
• Edward Baker Lincoln: b. March 10, 1846 in Springfield, Illinois; d. February 1, 1850 in Springfield, Illinois. (Named after a close friend of Lincoln's, Congressman Edward D. Baker.)
• William Wallace Lincoln: b. December 21, 1850 in Springfield, Illinois; d. February 20, 1862 in Washington, D.C.
• Thomas "Tad" Lincoln: b. April 4, 1853 in Springfield, Illinois; d. July 16, 1871 in Chicago, Illinois.

Only Robert survived into adulthood. Of Robert's three children, only Jessie Lincoln had any children (2 - Mary Lincoln Beckwith and Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith). Neither Robert Beckwith nor Mary Beckwith had any children, so Abraham Lincoln's bloodline ended when Robert Beckwith (Lincoln's great-grandson) died on December 24, 1985.

Related Topics:
December 24 - 1985

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http://members.aol.com/beaufait/biography/geneology.htm

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