Oftentimes when we take a look at the storied history of our US presidents, we see what each president has contributed to our great nation, the United States of America. Personally, I look at the stamp they put on our history. Always up for debate is who made the most impact during their presidency. And it not only includes their presidency but how their lives before the presidency shaped them into the great men who led us as a people since our 1st president George Washington. When I think of the presidents who changed our country’s history, Abraham Lincoln immediately comes to my mind. Lincoln served as the 16th US president of the United States. However, his journey to becoming the 16th president started much earlier.
Early Life
Abraham was born in a cabin near Hodgenville, Kentucky on February 12, 1809. In 1816, his father Thomas moved the family to Indiana due to a land dispute. When young Abraham was nine years old his mother died, leaving him lonely and the coming winter that much colder. Luckily, before the next winter came his father remarried to a widow, Sarah Bush Johnston who also had children of her own. His new stepmother often encouraged him to read, even though both his parents were illiterate and he didn’t have much of an education. His education amounted to about a year’s worth of school attendance. He would often walk miles to borrow books to read. In March 1830, his father moved his family to Illinois, where the 21-year-old Abraham made a living as a rail splitter. After settling in New Salem, Illinois, and with the Black Hawk War coming in 1832, Abraham volunteered and was elected captain by their fellow volunteers. He didn’t see combat but had “a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes.”
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Early Politics
In 1834 Abraham was elected to the Illinois state legislature as a member of the Whig Party. Around this time, he considered blacksmithing but decided to learn and practice law. He started studying law books and began practicing law after passing the bar examination in 1836. In 1837 he moved to Springfield, Illinois, and began to practice in the John T. Stuart law firm. In 1844, he became a partner with William Herndon practicing law. In his early years as a lawyer Lincoln made a decent living but found he needed to supplement his income and joined the circuit courts as it made its way around Illinois.
Family
Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd on November 4, 1842. Mary came from a distinguished family and a lot of people wondered why she had even gotten with him. Eventually, they had four children, all of whom were boys. Robert was the only child to survive to adulthood, as the other three passed away during childhood.
Out of the most prominent politicians of his time, he mostly admired Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. They wanted the US government to help the economy with the establishment of a national bank and a program to help improve transportation. Lincoln felt the West needed such help with this thing and from the beginning, he associated with the Whig Party of Clay and Webster.
Politics
Lincoln used his four terms in the Illinois State Legislature from 1834-1840 to protest the murder of Elijah Lovejoy, an antislavery newspaperman, and subsequent resolutions introduced by the legislature to defend slavery as “sacred” by virtue of the federal Constitution. He also used his one term as a member of the House of Representatives between 1847-1849 to propose a bill for the gradual emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia, but it was never seriously considered. He spoke out against the Mexican-American War and didn’t agree with the current president, James Polk, who said that Mexico started the war in the first place. He helped campaign for a new presidential candidate in Zachary Taylor. Meanwhile, hoping to get a new job for all the work he put in to help make Zachary Taylor’s polls successful, he was upset when he didn’t get that job, he decided not to run again for a second term and instead returned home to continue practicing law.
Presidency
After being out of the political spotlight for around five years, Lincoln saw and seized an opportunity to re-enter politics. In 1854 Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, repealing the Missouri Compromise, which allowed the individual states and territories to decide whether to allow slavery or not. This gave rise to the Republican Party, after which his views on slavery moved to more moral indignation. He then joined the Republican Party in 1856.
In 1857, the Supreme Court issued a controversial decision in Scott v. Sanford, which declared African Americans weren’t citizens and had no inherent rights. Lincoln believed the founding fathers intended that all men were created with certain inalienable rights. In one of his most famous speeches, he declared: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” He challenged US senator Stephen Douglas for him, but at the end lost to Douglas. However, Lincoln gained national recognition and was starting to be named as a potential candidate.
In 1860, a campaign was started for Lincoln and the candidacy of the president. He beat out more well know people to represent the Republican party and, although he received 40% of the popular vote he beat out three others to become the 16th president of the United States. Before he was even inaugurated, seven states had already seceded from the union to form the Confederate States of America. By April Fort Sumter was under attack and on April 12, 1861, the Civil War would start and unbeknownst to them would end up being the deadliest and costliest war in history.
The Civil War
It was at this point that President Lincoln realized he was determined to preserve the union at all costs. The Confederates accused him of being the aggressor, but they are the ones who fired the shots at Fort Sumter first. He suspended the writ of habeas corpus and detained those suspected of sympathizing with the Confederates without a warrant. Because of the way he felt, he was often at odds with most of the American people, his own cabinet, and his generals.
During the beginning years of the Civil War, President Lincoln experimented with commanding personnel and organization. After accepting the resignation of General Winfield Scott, who was general in charge of the US Army, he put George B. McClellan in charge of the armies. After he noticed a slowing in his progress of McClellan, he demoted him to command just the Army of the Potomac. He then, in search of a successor, looked west only to find Ulysses S. Grant an efficient leader. Shortly after, he promoted Grant to lieutenant general of all federal armies.
The Emancipation Proclamation
At this time there was still a lot of antislavery sentiment going around, and Lincoln wanted to change that. He issued his final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. At first, the decree only applied to states in Confederate control, and didn’t free many slaves, but served more as a symbol of the future. Later the 13th amendment was added to the constitution, and Lincoln helped with the fundamental law.
Following the Emancipation Proclamation, the war was starting to improve, but the Confederates escaped any major blows to their war effort and Lincoln did not think he would sit for a second presidential term in office. That is until he went up against his old general McClellan and beat him decisively garnering 55% of the popular vote.
Post War
At the end of the Civil War, President Lincoln’s policy was the previously seceded states be restored as soon as possible. However, He didn’t have a program for the region set in place. He hoped in the South that the freedman and the whites could live together cohesively in and out of their old relationship with each other, to be better prepared for the future.
On April 18, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, who advocated for slavery and had ties to the South, shot President Lincoln at the Ford Theatre in Washington. He died the next morning. There is a reason he is called the Great Emancipator. He helped support and get the antislavery amendment passed. He guided the nation through a horrible four years of war for something he believed in. He also delivered one of the most famous speeches in the Gettysburg Address. For the things he did for this great country, he will forever be my favorite president.
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