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LINCOLN, Abraham
(1809–65), 16th president of the U.S. (1861–65),
who steered the Union to victory in the American Civil War and abolished
slavery.
Lincoln was born on Feb. 12, 1809, near Hodgenville, Ky.,
the son of Nancy Hanks (1784?–1818) and Thomas Lincoln
(1778–1851), pioneer farmers. At the age of two he was
taken by his parents to nearby Knob Creek and at eight to Spencer
Co., Ind. The following year his mother died. In 1819 his father
married Sarah Bush Johnston (1788–1869), a kindly widow,
who soon gained the boy’s affection.
Lincoln grew up a tall, gangling youth, who could hold his
own in physical contests and also showed great intellectual promise,
although he had little formal education. After moving with his family
to Macon Co., Ill., in 1831, he struck out on his own, taking a
cargo to New Orleans, La., on a flatboat. He then returned to Illinois
and settled in New Salem, a short-lived community on the Sangamon
River, where he split rails and clerked in a store. He gained the
respect of his fellow townspeople, including the so-called Clary Grove
boys, who had challenged him to physical combat, and was elected
captain of his company in the Black Hawk War (1832). Returning from
the war, he began an unsuccessful venture in shopkeeping that ended
when his partner died. In 1833 he was appointed postmaster but had
to supplement his income with surveying and various other jobs.
At the same time he began to study law. That he gradually paid off
his and his deceased partner’s debts firmly established
his reputation for honesty. The story of his romance with Ann Rutledge
(1816–35), a local young woman whom he knew briefly before
her untimely death, is unsubstantiated.
Defeated in 1832 in a race for the state legislature, Lincoln
was elected on the Whig ticket two years later and served in the
lower house from 1834 to 1841. He quickly emerged as one of the
leaders of the party and was one of the authors of the removal of
the capital to Springfield, where he settled in 1837. After his
admission to the bar (1836), he entered into successive partnerships
with John T. Stuart (1807–85), Stephen T. Logan (1800–80),
and William Herndon (1818–91), and soon won recognition
as an effective and resourceful attorney.
In 1842 Lincoln married Mary Todd (1818–82), the
daughter of a prominent Kentucky banker, and despite her somewhat
difficult disposition, the marriage seems to have been reasonably
successful. The Lincolns had four children, only one of whom reached
adulthood.
His birth in a slave state notwithstanding, Lincoln had long
opposed slavery. In the legislature he voted against resolutions
favorable to the “peculiar institution” and in
1837 was one of two members who signed a protest against it. Elected
to Congress in 1846, he attracted attention because of his outspoken
criticism of the war with Mexico and formulated a plan for gradual
emancipation in the District of Columbia. He was not an abolitionist,
however. Conceding the right of the states to manage their own affairs,
he merely sought to prevent the spread of human bondage.
Disappointed in a quest for federal office at the end of his
one term in Congress (1847–49), Lincoln returned to Springfield
to pursue his profession. In 1854, however, because of his alarm
at Senator Stephen A. Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act, he
became politically active again. Clearly setting forth his opposition
to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, he argued that the measure
was wrong because slavery was wrong and that Congress should keep
the territories free for actual settlers (as opposed to those who
traveled there mainly to vote for or against slavery). The following
year he ran for the U.S. Senate, but seeing that he could not win,
he yielded to Lyman Trumbull, a Democrat who opposed Douglas’s
bill. He campaigned for the newly founded Republican party in 1856,
and in 1858 he became its senatorial candidate against Douglas.
In a speech to the party’s state convention that year he warned
that “a house divided against itself cannot stand” and
predicted the eventual triumph of freedom. Meeting Douglas in a
series of debates, he challenged his opponent in effect to explain
how he could reconcile his principles of popular sovereignty with
the Dred Scott decision. In his reply, Douglas
reaffirmed his belief in the practical ability of settlers to keep
slavery out of the territories despite the Supreme Court’s denial
of their right to do so. Although Lincoln lost the election to Douglas,
the debates won him national recognition.
In 1860 the Republicans, anxious to attract as many different
factions as possible, nominated Lincoln for the presidency on a
platform of slavery restriction, internal improvements, homesteads,
and tariff reform. In a campaign against Douglas and John C. Breckinridge,
two rival Democrats, and John Bell, of the Constitutional Union
party, Lincoln won a majority of the electoral votes and was elected
president.
Immediately after the election, South Carolina, followed by
six other Southern states, took steps to secede from the Union.
Declaring that secession was illegal but that he had no power to
oppose it, President James Buchanan preferred to rely on Congress
to find a compromise. The success of this effort, however, depended on
Lincoln, the president-elect, who was open to concessions but refused
to countenance any possible extension of slavery. Thus, the Crittenden
Compromise, the most promising scheme of adjustment, failed, and a
new Southern government was inaugurated in February 1861.
When Lincoln took the oath of office on March 4, 1861, he
was confronted with a hostile Confederacy determined to expand and
threatening the remaining federal forts in the South, the most important
of which was Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, S.C. Anxious
not to offend the upper South, which had not yet seceded, Lincoln
at first refused to take decisive action. After the failure of an
expedition to Fort Pickens, Fla., however, he decided to relieve
Fort Sumter and informed the governor of South Carolina of his intention
to send food to the beleaguered garrison. The Confederates, unwilling
to permit continued federal occupation of their soil, opened fire
to reduce the fort, thus starting the Civil War. When Lincoln countered
with a call for 75,000 volunteers, the North responded with enthusiasm, but
the upper South seceded.
As commander in chief, Lincoln encountered great difficulties in
the search for capable generals. After the defeat of Irvin McDowell
(1818–85) at the First Battle of Bull Run, the president
appointed George B. McClellan to lead the eastern army but found
him excessively cautious. His Peninsular campaign against Richmond,
Va., the Confederate capital, failed, and Lincoln, whose own strategy
had not succeeded in trapping Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah
Valley of Virginia, virtually superseded McClellan with John Pope
(1822–92). When Pope was defeated at the Second Battle
of Bull Run, the president turned once more to McClellan, only to
be disappointed again. Despite his victory at Antietam, Md., the
general was so hesitant that Lincoln finally had to remove him.
The president’s next choice, Ambrose Burnside, was also
unfortunate. Decisively beaten at Fredericksburg, Va., Burnside
gave way to Joseph Hooker, who in turn was routed at Chancellorsville,
Va. Then Lincoln appointed George G. Meade, who triumphed at Gettysburg,
Pa., but failed to follow up his victory. Persisting in his determination
to discover a general who could defeat the Confederates, the president
in 1864 entrusted overall command to Ulysses S. Grant, the victor
at Fort Donelson, Tenn., Vicksburg, Miss., and Chattanooga, Tenn.
This choice was a good one. Grant, in a series of coordinated campaigns,
finally brought the war to a successful conclusion.
In dealing with the problem of emancipation, Lincoln proved
himself a masterful statesman. Carefully maneuvering to take advantage
of radical pressure to move forward and conservative entreaties
to hold back, he was able to retain the loyalty of the Democrats
and the border states while still bringing about the final abolition
of slavery. Lincoln pleased the radicals in 1861, when he signed the
first Confiscation Act, freeing slaves used by the Confederates
for military purposes. He deferred to the conservatives when he
countermanded emancipation orders of the Union generals John C.
Frémont and David Hunter (1802–86), but again
courted the radicals by reverting to a cautious antislavery program.
Thus, he exerted pressure on the border states to inaugurate compensated
emancipation, signed the bill for abolition in the District of Columbia,
and consented to the second Confiscation Act.
On July 22, 1862, in response to radical demands and diplomatic
necessity, he told his cabinet that he intended to issue an emancipation
proclamation but took care to soften the blow to the border states
by specifically exempting them. Advised to await some federal victory,
he did not make his proclamation public until September 22, following
the Battle of Antietam, when he announced that all slaves in areas
still in rebellion within 100 days would be “then, thenceforward,
and forever, free.” The final Emancipation Proclamation
followed on Jan. 1, 1863. Promulgated by the president in his capacity
as commander in chief in times of actual armed rebellion, it freed
slaves in regions held by the insurgents and authorized the creation of
black military units. Lincoln was determined to place emancipation
on a more permanent basis, however, and in 1864 he advocated the
adoption of an antislavery amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The amendment
was passed after Lincoln’s reelection, when he made use
of all the powers of his office to ensure its success in the House
of Representatives (Jan. 31, 1865).
A consummate politician, Lincoln sought to maintain harmony among
the disparate elements of his party by giving them representation
in his cabinet. Recognizing former Whigs by the appointment of William
H. Seward as secretary of state and Edward Bates (1793–1869)
as attorney general, he also extended invitations to such former
Democrats as Montgomery Blair, who became postmaster general, and
Gideon Welles (1802–78), who became secretary of the navy.
He honored local factions by appointing Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania
secretary of war and Caleb B. Smith (1808–64) of Indiana
secretary of the interior, while satisfying the border states with
Bates and Blair. At the same time, he offset the conservative Bates
with the radical Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase and later
with Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Although Lincoln was much
closer to the radicals and gradually moved toward ever more radical
measures, he did not needlessly offend the conservatives and often
collaborated with them. His careful handling of the slavery issue
is a case in point, as is his appointment of Democratic generals
and his deference to the sensibilities of the border states. In
December 1862 he foiled critics demanding the dismissal of the conservative
Seward. Refusing to accept Seward’s resignation and inducing the
radical Chase to offer to step down as well, he maintained the balance
of his cabinet by retaining both secretaries.
Lincoln’s political influence was enhanced by his
great gifts as an orator. Able to stress essentials in simple terms,
he effectively appealed to the nation in such classical short speeches
as the Gettysburg Address and his second inaugural address. Moreover,
he was a capable diplomat. Firmly rejecting Seward’s proposal in
April 1861 that the country be united by means of a foreign war,
he sought to maintain friendly relations with the nations of Europe,
used the Emancipation Proclamation to win friends for the Union,
and effectively countered Confederate efforts to gain foreign recognition.
In 1864 a number of disgruntled Republicans sought to prevent
Lincoln’s renomination. Adroitly outmaneuvering his opponents,
especially the ambitious Chase, he succeeded in obtaining his party’s
endorsement at Baltimore, Md., even though a few extremists nominated
Frémont. Lincoln’s renomination did not end his
political problems, however. Unhappy with his Proclamation of Amnesty
(December 1863), which called for the restoration of insurgent states
if 10 percent of the electorate took an oath of loyalty, Congress
in July 1864 passed the Wade-Davis Bill, which provided for more
onerous conditions and their acceptance by 50 percent of the voters.
When Lincoln used the pocket veto to kill it, some radicals sought
to displace him and in the so-called Wade-Davis Manifesto passionately attacked
the administration.
The president, nevertheless, prevailed again. His poor prospects
in August 1864 improved when the Democrats nominated Gen. McClellan
on a peace platform. Subsequent federal victories and the withdrawal of
Frémont, coupled with the resignation of the conservative
Blair, reunited the party, and in November 1864 Lincoln was triumphantly
reelected.
The president’s success at the polls enabled him
to seek to establish his own Reconstruction policies. To blunt conservative
criticism, he met with leading Confederates at Hampton Roads, Va.,
and demonstrated the impossibility of a negotiated peace. The radicals,
however, were also dissatisfied. Because of their demand for black
suffrage, Lincoln was unable to induce Congress to accept the members-elect
of the free state government of Louisiana, which he had organized.
In addition, after the fall of Richmond, he alarmed his critics
by inviting the Confederate legislature of Virginia to repeal the
secession ordinance. His Reconstruction policies, however, had been
determined by military necessity. As soon as the Confederate general
Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Va., Lincoln
withdrew the invitation to the Virginians. He again proved how close
he was to the radicals by endorsing a limited black franchise.
At his second inaugural, Lincoln, attributing the war to the
evil consequences of slavery, summed up his attitude in the famous
phrase “with malice toward none, with charity for all.” A
few weeks later, he publicly announced his support for limited black
suffrage in Louisiana. This open defiance of conservative opinion
could only have strengthened the resolve of one in his audience,
John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor of Confederate sympathies,
who had long been plotting against the president. Aroused by the
prospect of votes for blacks, he determined to carry out his assassination
scheme and on April 14, 1865, shot Lincoln at Ford’s Theater
in Washington, D.C. The president died the next day.
The subject of numerous myths, Lincoln ranks with the greatest
of American statesmen. His humanitarian instincts, brilliant speeches,
and unusual political skill ensured his hold on the electorate and
his success in saving the Union. That he also gained fame as the
Great Emancipator was due to a large degree to his excellent sense
of timing and his open-mindedness. Thus, he was able to bring about
the abolition of slavery and to advocate a policy of Reconstruction
that envisaged the gradual enfranchisement of the freedmen. It was
a disaster for the country that he did not live to carry it out.