Who was Abraham Lincoln?
Abraham Lincoln grew up poor on the frontier of Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. He taught himself law and became a Whig lawmaker in Illinois, then served a single term in Congress. The fight over slavery in new territories pulled him back into public life in the 1850s. His 1858 debates with Stephen Douglas made him famous, and in 1860 he became the first Republican elected president. Southern states began leaving the Union before he took office. Lincoln led the North through four years of war and backed the Thirteenth Amendment. John Wilkes Booth shot him in April 1865, just days after General Lee surrendered.
Political views
- Fought to keep slavery out of the new western territories.Source: millercenter.org
- Said he was a follower of Henry Clay's Whig program, which included high tariffs to shield American industry.Source: en.wikipedia.org
- Signed the Homestead Act, which let ordinary settlers claim public land.Source: archives.gov
- Suspended the writ of habeas corpus in parts of the country while the war went on.Source: millercenter.org
- Proclaimed in 1863 that enslaved people in the rebel states were free.Source: archives.gov
- For a time backed voluntary colonization, the idea of resettling freed Black people abroad, before he dropped it.Source: millercenter.org
- Used the Gettysburg Address to describe democracy as rule by ordinary citizens and for their benefit.Source: avalon.law.yale.edu
Legacy
Historians regularly place Lincoln at or near the top of presidential rankings. Admirers say he saved the Union, ended slavery and gave the country a lasting language of democracy in the Gettysburg Address and his second inaugural speech. Both major parties still claim him. Critics have many complaints. Democrats at the time, and civil libertarians since, attacked his arrests of civilians and his suspension of habeas corpus. Some scholars say he was slow on emancipation, pointing to his colonization schemes. States' rights defenders object to his use of force against secession. His views on race also shifted a good deal over the years.
In their own words
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.”