Happy Birthday Honest Abe
Today is Abraham Lincoln's birthday. He was born on February 9, 1809 (203 years ago today) in a one-room log cabin on the Sinking Spring Farm in Hardin County, Kentucky, Lincoln of course was the 16th President of the United States. He served from March 4, 1861 until his assassination on April 14, 1865. (He died after being in a coma for 9 hours). He is rated by many as the greatest president because he successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the Civil War. He fought to preserve the Union, while ending slavery. All of his accomplishments are all the more amazing when one considers that he was raised in a poor family and was mostly self-educated. He became a country lawyer, an Illinois state legislator, and a one-term member of the United States House of Representatives, but failed in two attempts to be elected to the United States Senate.
Lincoln is remembered for so many things. He opposed the expansion of slavery in the United States in his campaign debates and speeches, and it was probably his oratory that helped Lincoln to win the Republican nomination. A split in the Democratic Party helped him get elected president in 1860 with less than 40% of the popular vote. Before Lincoln took office, seven southern slave states declared their secession and formed the Confederacy and a crisis ignored by his predecessor was waiting on his desk on his first day of work.
When war began with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, Lincoln managed both the military and political dimensions of the war effort. He exercised unprecedented war powers, including the arrest and detention without trial of thousands of suspected secessionists. He prevented British recognition of the Confederacy by skillfully handling the Trent affair late in 1861. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and promoted the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery.
Lincoln closely supervised the war effort, especially the selection of top generals, going through a series of duds before selecting Ulysses S. Grant. He brought leaders of various factions of his party into his cabinet and pressured them to cooperate. (The story is told well in Doris Kearns Goodwin's bestseller Team of Rivals.) Under his leadership, the Union set up a naval blockade that shut down the South's normal trade, took control of the border slave states at the start of the war, and reached out to War Democrats and managed his own re-election in the 1864 presidential election.
It's trite to say that none of this was easy for Lincoln. He found his policies under attack from all sides. Radical Republicans demanded harsher treatment of the South, War Democrats desired more compromise, Copperheads wanted him to negotiate peace, and secessionists plotted his death. Lincoln fought back politically, pitting his opponents against each other, and by his powerful oratory. His Gettysburg Address has become the most quoted speech in American history.
At the close of the war, Lincoln held a moderate view of Reconstruction, seeking to speedily reunite the nation through a policy of generous reconciliation in the face of lingering and bitter divisiveness. But he would never get the chance to heal the nation. Six days after the surrender of Confederate commanding general Robert E. Lee, Lincoln was assassinated by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre. His death was the first assassination of a U.S. president and sent the northern parts of the country into mourning.
Following is a video about Lincoln that was played at the 2008 GOP convention:
Lincoln is remembered for so many things. He opposed the expansion of slavery in the United States in his campaign debates and speeches, and it was probably his oratory that helped Lincoln to win the Republican nomination. A split in the Democratic Party helped him get elected president in 1860 with less than 40% of the popular vote. Before Lincoln took office, seven southern slave states declared their secession and formed the Confederacy and a crisis ignored by his predecessor was waiting on his desk on his first day of work.
When war began with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, Lincoln managed both the military and political dimensions of the war effort. He exercised unprecedented war powers, including the arrest and detention without trial of thousands of suspected secessionists. He prevented British recognition of the Confederacy by skillfully handling the Trent affair late in 1861. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and promoted the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery.
Lincoln closely supervised the war effort, especially the selection of top generals, going through a series of duds before selecting Ulysses S. Grant. He brought leaders of various factions of his party into his cabinet and pressured them to cooperate. (The story is told well in Doris Kearns Goodwin's bestseller Team of Rivals.) Under his leadership, the Union set up a naval blockade that shut down the South's normal trade, took control of the border slave states at the start of the war, and reached out to War Democrats and managed his own re-election in the 1864 presidential election.
It's trite to say that none of this was easy for Lincoln. He found his policies under attack from all sides. Radical Republicans demanded harsher treatment of the South, War Democrats desired more compromise, Copperheads wanted him to negotiate peace, and secessionists plotted his death. Lincoln fought back politically, pitting his opponents against each other, and by his powerful oratory. His Gettysburg Address has become the most quoted speech in American history.
At the close of the war, Lincoln held a moderate view of Reconstruction, seeking to speedily reunite the nation through a policy of generous reconciliation in the face of lingering and bitter divisiveness. But he would never get the chance to heal the nation. Six days after the surrender of Confederate commanding general Robert E. Lee, Lincoln was assassinated by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre. His death was the first assassination of a U.S. president and sent the northern parts of the country into mourning.
Following is a video about Lincoln that was played at the 2008 GOP convention: