Abraham Lincoln Essay -- essays research papers

Abraham Lincoln was born Sunday, February 12, 1809, in a log cabin near Hodgenville, He was the son of Thomas and Nancy and he was named for his paternal grandfather. Thomas Lincoln was a carpenter and farmer. Both of Abraham's parents were members of a Baptist congregation which had separated from another church due to opposition to slavery. As Abraham grew up, he loved to read and preferred learning to working in the fields. This led to a difficult relationship with his father who was just the opposite. Abraham was constantly borrowing books from the neighbors. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, guided his country through the most devastating experience in its national history--the CIVIL WAR. He is considered by many historians to have been the greatest American president. Early Life In 1816 the Lincolns moved to Indiana, "partly on account of slavery," Abraham recalled, "but chiefly on account of difficulty in land titles in Kentucky." Land ownership was more secure in Indiana because the Land Ordinance of 1785 provided for surveys by the federal government; moreover, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 forbade slavery in the area. Lincoln's parents belonged to a faction of the Baptist church that disapproved of slavery, and this affiliation may account for Abraham's later statement that he was "naturally anti-slavery" and could not remember when he "did not so think, and feel." Indiana was a "wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods." The Lincolns' life near Little Pigeon Creek, in Perry (now Spencer) County, was not easy. Lincoln "was raised to farm work" and recalled life in this "unbroken forest" as a fight "with trees and logs and grubs." "There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education," Lincoln later recalled; he attended "some schools, so called," but for less than a year altogether. "Still, somehow," he remembered, "I could read, write, and cipher to the Rule of Three; but that was all." Lincoln's mother died in 1818, and the following year his father married a Kentucky widow, Sarah Bush Johnston. She "proved a good and kind mother." In later years Lincoln could fondly and poetically recall memories of his "childhood home." In 1828 he was able... ...booth.html", who began to conspire first to abduct Lincoln and later to kill him. On Apr. 14, 1865, five days after Robert E. Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Lincoln attended a performance of Our American Cousin at "/TOUR/ford.html" in Washington. There Booth entered the presidential box and shot Lincoln. The next morning at 7:22 Lincoln died. Lincoln's achievements--saving the Union and freeing the slaves--and his martyrdom just at the war's end assured his continuing fame. No small contribution was made by his eloquence as exemplified in the "../../TOUR/linstatue.html" l "gettysburg" (Nov. 19, 1863), in which he defined the war as a rededication to the egalitarian ideals of the Declaration of Independence, and in his second inaugural address (Mar. 4, 1865), in which he urged "malice toward none" and "charity for all" in the peace to come. Nickname: "Honest Abe"; "Illinois Rail-Splitter" Marriage: Nov. 4, 1842, to Mary Todd (1818-82) Children: Robert Todd Lincoln (1843-1926); Edward Baker Lincoln (1846-50); William Wallace Lincoln (1850-62); Thomas "Tad" Lincoln (1853-71) ?