195 Facts About Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until his assassination in 1865.

Abraham Lincoln led the United States through the American Civil War, defeating the Confederate States of America, playing a major role in the abolition of slavery, expanding the power of the federal government, and modernizing the US economy.

Abraham Lincoln was self-educated and became a lawyer, Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator, and US representative.

Abraham Lincoln reached a national audience in the 1858 Senate campaign debates against Stephen A Douglas.

Abraham Lincoln ran for president in 1860, sweeping the North to gain victory.

Abraham Lincoln managed the factions by exploiting their mutual enmity, carefully distributing political patronage, and by appealing to the American people.

Abraham Lincoln unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the border states to agree to compensated emancipation.

Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in April 1861, leading to Chief Justice Roger Taney's opinion in Ex parte Merryman, and he averted war with Britain by defusing the Trent Affair.

Abraham Lincoln closely supervised the strategy and tactics in the war effort, including the selection of generals, and implemented a naval blockade of Southern ports.

Abraham Lincoln promoted the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, which, in December 1865, abolished slavery, except as punishment for a crime.

Abraham Lincoln sought to heal the war-torn nation through reconciliation, calling for "malice toward none; with charity for all" in his second inaugural address.

Abraham Lincoln is remembered as a martyr and a national hero for his wartime leadership and for his efforts to preserve the Union and abolish slavery.

Abraham Lincoln is often ranked in both popular and scholarly polls as the greatest president in American history.

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12,1809 in a log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky.

Abraham Lincoln's children, including eight-year-old Thomas, Abraham's father, witnessed the attack.

Thomas Abraham Lincoln bought multiple farms in Kentucky but could not get clear property titles to any, losing hundreds of acres in legal disputes.

In 1860, Abraham Lincoln noted that the family's move to Indiana was "partly on account of slavery", but mainly due to land title difficulties.

On October 5,1818, Nancy Lincoln died from milk sickness, leaving 11-year-old Sarah in charge of a household including her father, nine-year-old Abraham, and Nancy's 19-year-old orphan cousin, Dennis Hanks.

Abraham Lincoln became close to his stepmother and called her "Mother".

Abraham Lincoln's stepmother acknowledged he did not enjoy "physical labor" but loved to read.

Abraham Lincoln was tall, strong, and athletic, and became adept at using an ax.

Abraham Lincoln was an active wrestler during his youth and trained in rough catch-as-catch-can style, known as catch wrestling.

Abraham Lincoln became county wrestling champion at the age of 21.

Abraham Lincoln gained a reputation for his strength and audacity after winning a wrestling match with the renowned leader of ruffians known as the Clary's Grove boys.

In March 1830, fearing another milk sickness outbreak, several members of the extended Lincoln family, including Abraham, moved west to Illinois, a free state, and settled in Macon County.

Abraham Lincoln then became increasingly distant from Thomas, in part, due to his father's lack of interest in education.

In 1831, as Thomas and other family members prepared to move to a new homestead in Coles County, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln struck out on his own.

Abraham Lincoln made his home in New Salem, Illinois, for six years.

Rutledge died on August 25,1835, most likely of typhoid fever; Abraham Lincoln took the death very hard, saying that he could not bear the idea of rain falling on Ann's grave.

Abraham Lincoln sank into a serious episode of depression, and this gave rise to speculation that he had been in love with her.

Late in 1836, Abraham Lincoln agreed to a match with Owens if she returned to New Salem.

In 1839, Abraham Lincoln met Mary Todd in Springfield, Illinois, and the following year they became engaged.

Abraham Lincoln was the daughter of Robert Smith Todd, a wealthy lawyer and businessman in Lexington, Kentucky.

Abraham Lincoln was an affectionate husband and father of four sons, though his work regularly kept him away from home.

The eldest, Robert Todd Abraham Lincoln, was born in 1843, and was the only child to live to maturity.

Edward Baker Abraham Lincoln, born in 1846, died February 1,1850, probably of tuberculosis.

Abraham Lincoln's third son, "Willie" Abraham Lincoln, was born on December 21,1850, and died of a fever at the White House on February 20,1862.

The youngest, Thomas "Tad" Abraham Lincoln, was born on April 4,1853, and survived his father, but died of heart failure at age 18 on July 16,1871.

Lincoln's law partner William H Herndon would grow irritated when Lincoln brought his children to the law office, and they misbehaved.

Abraham Lincoln did not note what his children were doing or had done.

Abraham Lincoln suffered from "melancholy", a condition now thought to be clinical depression.

Abraham Lincoln could draw crowds as a raconteur, but lacked the requisite formal education, powerful friends, and money, and lost the election.

Abraham Lincoln finished eighth out of 13 candidates, though he received 277 of the 300 votes cast in the New Salem precinct.

Abraham Lincoln served as New Salem's postmaster and later as county surveyor, but continued his voracious reading and decided to become a lawyer.

Rather than studying in the office of an established attorney, as was the custom, Abraham Lincoln borrowed legal texts from attorneys John Todd Stuart and Thomas Drummond, purchased books including Blackstone's Commentaries and Chitty's Pleadings, and read law on his own.

Abraham Lincoln's second state house campaign in 1834, this time as a Whig, was a success over a powerful Whig opponent.

Abraham Lincoln championed construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and later was a Canal Commissioner.

Abraham Lincoln voted to expand suffrage beyond white landowners to all white males, but opposed both slavery and abolition.

Abraham Lincoln was admitted to the Illinois bar on September 9,1836, and moved to Springfield and began to practice law under John T Stuart, Mary Todd's cousin.

Abraham Lincoln emerged as a formidable trial combatant during cross-examinations and closing arguments.

Abraham Lincoln partnered several years with Stephen T Logan, and in 1844, began his practice with William Herndon, "a studious young man".

Abraham Lincoln, decrying such violence, warned that, though we should not "expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow", lawlessness could.

Abraham Lincoln professed to friends in 1861 to be "an old line Whig, a disciple of Henry Clay".

In 1843, Lincoln sought the Whig nomination for Illinois's 7th district seat in the US House of Representatives; he was defeated by John J Hardin, though he prevailed with the party in limiting Hardin to one term.

Abraham Lincoln was assigned to the Committee on Post Office and Post Roads and the Committee on Expenditures in the War Department.

Abraham Lincoln supported the Wilmot Proviso, a failed proposal to ban slavery in any US territory won from Mexico.

Abraham Lincoln emphasized his opposition to Polk by drafting and introducing his Spot Resolutions.

Abraham Lincoln demanded that Polk show Congress the exact spot on which blood had been shed and prove that the spot was on American soil.

Abraham Lincoln later regretted some of his statements, especially his attack on presidential war-making powers.

Abraham Lincoln had pledged in 1846 to serve only one term in the House.

Taylor won and Abraham Lincoln hoped in vain to be appointed Commissioner of the United States General Land Office.

Abraham Lincoln handled transportation cases in the midst of the nation's western expansion, particularly river barge conflicts under the many new railroad bridges.

Abraham Lincoln represented a bridge company against a riverboat company in Hurd v Rock Island Bridge Company, a landmark case involving a canal boat that sank after hitting a bridge.

Abraham Lincoln appeared before the Illinois Supreme Court in 175 cases; he was sole counsel in 51 cases, of which 31 were decided in his favor.

Abraham Lincoln represented William "Duff" Armstrong in his 1858 trial for the murder of James Preston Metzker.

Abraham Lincoln angrily protested the judge's initial decision to exclude Cartwright's testimony about the confession as hearsay.

Abraham Lincoln argued that the testimony involved a dying declaration and was not subject to the hearsay rule.

Abraham Lincoln did not comment on the act until his "Peoria Speech" of October 1854, in which he declared his opposition to slavery.

Abraham Lincoln held out hope for rejuvenating the Whigs, though he lamented his party's growing closeness with the nativist Know Nothing movement.

In 1854, Abraham Lincoln was elected to the Illinois legislature, but before the term began the following January he declined to take his seat so that he would be eligible to run in the upcoming US Senate election.

Abraham Lincoln instructed his backers to vote for Lyman Trumbull, an antislavery Democrat who had received few votes in the earlier ballots.

Abraham Lincoln gave the final speech of the convention, calling for the preservation of the Union.

At the June 1856 Republican National Convention, though Lincoln received support to run as vice president, John C Fremont and William Dayton were on the ticket, which Lincoln supported throughout Illinois.

Buchanan prevailed, while Republican William Henry Bissell won election as Governor of Illinois, and Abraham Lincoln became a leading Republican in Illinois.

Abraham Lincoln's petition was denied in Dred Scott v Sandford.

Abraham Lincoln denounced it as the product of a conspiracy of Democrats to support the Slave Power.

Abraham Lincoln argued that the decision was at variance with the Declaration of Independence, which stated that all men were equal "in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".

In 1858, Douglas was up for re-election in the US Senate, and Abraham Lincoln hoped to defeat him.

Many in the party felt that a former Whig should be nominated in 1858, and Abraham Lincoln's 1856 campaigning and support of Trumbull had earned him a favor.

Abraham Lincoln warned that the Slave Power was threatening the values of republicanism, and he accused Douglas of distorting Jefferson's premise that all men are created equal.

Abraham Lincoln's argument assumed a moral tone, as he claimed that Douglas represented a conspiracy to promote slavery.

Douglas's argument was more legal in nature, claiming that Abraham Lincoln was defying the authority of the US Supreme Court as exercised in the Dred Scott decision.

In May 1859, Abraham Lincoln purchased the Illinois Staats-Anzeiger, a German-language newspaper that was consistently supportive; most of the state's 130,000 German Americans voted for Democrats, but the German-language paper mobilized Republican support.

In January 1860, Abraham Lincoln told a group of political allies that he would accept the presidential nomination if offered and, in the following months, several local papers endorsed his candidacy.

Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, wrote an unflattering account of Abraham Lincoln's compromising position on slavery and his reluctance to challenge the court's Dred Scott ruling, which was used against him by his political rivals.

On February 27,1860, powerful New York Republicans invited Abraham Lincoln to give a speech at Cooper Union, in which he argued that the Founding Fathers had little use for popular sovereignty and had repeatedly sought to restrict slavery.

Abraham Lincoln insisted that morality required opposition to slavery and rejected any "groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong".

Abraham Lincoln's followers organized a campaign team led by David Davis, Norman Judd, Leonard Swett, and Jesse DuBois, and Abraham Lincoln received his first endorsement.

Abraham Lincoln's success depended on his campaign team, his reputation as a moderate on the slavery issue, and his strong support for internal improvements and the tariff.

People of the Northern states knew the Southern states would vote against Abraham Lincoln and rallied supporters for Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln hired John George Nicolay as his personal secretary, who would remain in that role during the presidency.

On November 6,1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16th president.

Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president and his victory was entirely due to his support in the North and West.

President Buchanan and President-elect Abraham Lincoln refused to recognize the Confederacy, declaring secession illegal.

Abraham Lincoln supported the Corwin Amendment to the US Constitution, which passed Congress and was awaiting ratification by the required three-fourths of the states when Abraham Lincoln took office, whereupon Southern states began to secede.

On March 4,1861, in his first inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln said that, because he holds "such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable".

On February 11,1861, Abraham Lincoln gave a particularly emotional farewell address upon leaving Springfield; he would never return to Springfield alive.

En route to his inauguration, Abraham Lincoln addressed crowds and legislatures across the North.

Abraham Lincoln traveled in disguise, wearing a soft felt hat instead of his customary stovepipe hat and draping an overcoat over his shoulders while hunching slightly to conceal his height.

Abraham Lincoln directed his inaugural address to the South, proclaiming that he had no inclination to abolish slavery in the Southern states:.

However, Abraham Lincoln did select some top diplomats as part of his patronage policy.

Samuel Freeman Miller supported Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 election and was an avowed abolitionist.

Abraham Lincoln believed Chase was an able jurist, would support Reconstruction legislation, and that his appointment united the Republican Party.

Historian Allan Nevins argued that the newly inaugurated Abraham Lincoln made three miscalculations: underestimating the gravity of the crisis, exaggerating the strength of Unionist sentiment in the South, and overlooking Southern Unionist opposition to an invasion.

Abraham Lincoln's repeated efforts to avoid collision in the months between inauguration and the firing on Fort Sumter showed he adhered to his vow not to be the first to shed fraternal blood.

Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in an effort to protect the troops trying to reach Washington.

Abraham Lincoln took executive control of the war and shaped the Union military strategy.

Abraham Lincoln responded to the unprecedented political and military crisis as commander-in-chief by exercising unprecedented authority.

Abraham Lincoln expanded his war powers, imposed a blockade on Confederate ports, disbursed funds before appropriation by Congress, suspended habeas corpus, and arrested and imprisoned thousands of suspected Confederate sympathizers.

Abraham Lincoln gained the support of Congress and the northern public for these actions.

Abraham Lincoln had to reinforce Union sympathies in the border slave states and keep the war from becoming an international conflict.

Internationally, Abraham Lincoln wanted to forestall foreign military aid to the Confederacy.

Abraham Lincoln relied on his combative Secretary of State William Seward while working closely with Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Charles Sumner.

Abraham Lincoln tracked all phases of the effort, consulting with governors and selecting generals based on their success, their state, and their party.

In January 1862, after complaints of inefficiency and profiteering in the War Department, Abraham Lincoln replaced War Secretary Simon Cameron with Edwin Stanton.

Stanton worked more often and more closely with Abraham Lincoln than did any other senior official.

Abraham Lincoln began to appreciate the critical need to control strategic points, such as the Mississippi River.

Abraham Lincoln saw the importance of Vicksburg and understood the necessity of defeating the enemy's army, rather than merely capturing territory.

In directing the Union's war strategy, Abraham Lincoln valued the advice of Gen.

In June 1862, Abraham Lincoln made an unannounced visit to West Point, where he spent five hours consulting with Scott regarding the handling of the war and the staffing of the War Department.

McClellan's slow progress frustrated Abraham Lincoln, as did his position that no troops were needed to defend Washington.

In 1862, Abraham Lincoln removed McClellan for the general's continued inaction.

Abraham Lincoln elevated Henry Halleck and appointed John Pope as head of the new Army of Virginia.

Abraham Lincoln replaced Buell with William Rosecrans and McClellan with Ambrose Burnside.

Desertions during 1863 came in the thousands and increased after Fredericksburg, so Abraham Lincoln replaced Burnside with Joseph Hooker.

On July 22,1862, Abraham Lincoln reviewed a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation with his cabinet.

On January 1,1863, Abraham Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves in 10 states not then under Union control, with exemptions specified for areas under such control.

In 272 words, taking only three minutes, Abraham Lincoln asserted that the nation was "conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal".

Abraham Lincoln defined the war as dedicated to the principles of liberty and equality for all.

Abraham Lincoln declared that the deaths of so many soldiers would not be in vain, that the future of democracy would be assured, and that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth".

Abraham Lincoln was concerned that Grant might be considering a presidential candidacy in 1864.

Abraham Lincoln arranged for an intermediary to inquire into Grant's political intentions and when assured that he had none, Lincoln promoted Grant to the newly revived rank of Lieutenant General, a rank not used since George Washington.

Amid the turmoil of military actions, on June 30,1864, Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Yosemite Grant enacted by Congress, which provided unprecedented federal protection for the area now known as Yosemite National Park.

Abraham Lincoln traveled to Grant's headquarters at City Point, Virginia, to confer with Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman.

Abraham Lincoln reacted to Union losses by mobilizing support throughout the North.

Abraham Lincoln emphasized defeat of the Confederate armies over destruction for its own sake.

Abraham Lincoln refused to negotiate with the Confederacy as a coequal.

In early April, the Confederate government evacuated Richmond and Abraham Lincoln visited the conquered capital, whereupon on April 9,1865, Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Grant at Appomattox.

Abraham Lincoln signed the second and third Morrill Tariffs, the first having become law in the final months of Buchanan's tenure.

Abraham Lincoln took action against rampant fraud during the war, enacting the False Claims Act of 1863.

Abraham Lincoln closely monitored the Trent Affair in late 1861 to avoid war with Britain.

Abraham Lincoln's policy succeeded: all foreign nations were officially neutral throughout the Civil War, with none recognizing the Confederacy.

The Abraham Lincoln administration faced difficulties guarding Western settlers, railroads, and telegraph from Native American attacks.

Abraham Lincoln ordered thousands of Confederate prisoners of war be sent to put down the uprising.

Abraham Lincoln sent General John Pope as commander of the new Department of the Northwest two weeks into the hostilities.

Abraham Lincoln did not accept the Chippewa offer, as he could not control the Chippewa, and women and children were considered legitimate casualties in native American warfare.

Abraham Lincoln pardoned all but 39, and, with one getting a reprieve, the remaining 38 were executed in the largest mass execution in US history.

Less than four months later, Abraham Lincoln issued the Lieber Code, which governed wartime conduct of the Union Army, by defining command responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Abraham Lincoln prepared a confidential memorandum pledging that, if he should lose the election, he would "co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterward".

At the next cabinet meeting, Abraham Lincoln "asked each member to sign his name on the back of the document", but he did not allow them to read it.

On March 4,1865, Abraham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address.

Abraham Lincoln led the moderates in Reconstruction policy and was opposed by the Radicals, under Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner and Benjamin Wade, who otherwise remained Abraham Lincoln's allies.

In Tennessee and Arkansas, Abraham Lincoln respectively appointed Johnson and Frederick Steele as military governors.

In Louisiana, Lincoln ordered General Nathaniel P Banks to promote a plan that would reestablish statehood when 10 percent of the voters agreed, and only if the reconstructed states abolished slavery.

Democratic opponents accused Abraham Lincoln of using the military to ensure his and the Republicans' political aspirations.

Abraham Lincoln believed the federal government had limited responsibility to the millions of freedmen.

Abraham Lincoln signed Senator Charles Sumner's Freedmen's Bureau bill that set up a temporary federal agency designed to meet the immediate needs of former slaves.

Abraham Lincoln announced a Reconstruction plan that involved short-term military control, pending readmission under the control of southern Unionists.

Unlike Sumner and other Radicals, Abraham Lincoln did not see Reconstruction as an opportunity for a sweeping political and social revolution beyond emancipation.

Abraham Lincoln had long made clear his opposition to the confiscation and redistribution of land.

Abraham Lincoln believed, as most Republicans did in April 1865, that voting requirements should be determined by the states.

Abraham Lincoln assumed that political control in the South would pass to white Unionists, reluctant secessionists, and forward-looking former Confederates.

Abraham Lincoln vetoed only four bills during his presidency, including the Wade-Davis Bill with its harsh Reconstruction program.

Historians emphasized the widespread shock and sorrow, but noted that some Abraham Lincoln haters celebrated his death.

Abraham Lincoln's body was buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield and now lies within the Abraham Lincoln Tomb.

Abraham Lincoln redefined the political philosophy of republicanism in the United States.

John Patrick Diggins notes, "Abraham Lincoln presented Americans a theory of history that offers a profound contribution to the theory and destiny of republicanism itself" in the 1860 Cooper Union speech.

Abraham Lincoln expressed his position on the unconstitutionality of secession in his first inaugural address:.

Abraham Lincoln shared the sympathies that the Jacksonians professed for the common man, but he disagreed with the Jacksonian view that the government should be divorced from economic enterprise.

Abraham Lincoln stated that it was a method for uniting diverse peoples of different ethnic ancestries into a common nationality:.

Abraham Lincoln was deeply familiar with the Bible, quoting and praising it.

Abraham Lincoln was private about his position on organized religion and respected the beliefs of others.

Abraham Lincoln never made a clear profession of Christian beliefs.

Abraham Lincoln never joined a church, although he frequently attended First Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Illinois, with his wife beginning in 1852.

Abraham Lincoln believed in an all-powerful God who shaped events and by 1865 was expressing that belief in major speeches.

Abraham Lincoln was described as "ungainly" and "gawky" as a youth.

Tall for his age, Abraham Lincoln was strong and athletic as a teenager.

Abraham Lincoln dressed as a typical boy from a poor, backwoods family, with a gap between his shoes, socks, and pants that often exposed six or more inches of his shin.

Abraham Lincoln generally continued to enjoy good health throughout his life.

In 1831, Abraham Lincoln was described as six feet three or four inches tall, weighing 210 pounds, and having a ruddy complexion.

Abraham Lincoln described himself as "black" and as having "a dark complexion".

Abraham Lincoln took blue mass pills, which contained mercury, to treat constipation.

Several claims have been made that Abraham Lincoln's health was declining before the assassination, as photographs of Abraham Lincoln appear to show weight loss and muscle wasting.

Abraham Lincoln was viewed by abolitionists as a champion of human liberty.

Frederick Douglass stated that in "his company, I was never reminded of my humble origin, or of my unpopular color", and Abraham Lincoln has long been known as the Great Emancipator.

Abraham Lincoln noted that Lincoln used ethnic slurs and argued that Lincoln opposed social equality and proposed that freed slaves voluntarily move to another country.

Defenders of Abraham Lincoln retorted that he was a "moral visionary" who deftly advanced the abolitionist cause, as fast as politically possible.

David Herbert Donald opined in his 1996 biography that Abraham Lincoln was distinctly endowed with the personality trait of negative capability, defined by the poet John Keats and attributed to extraordinary leaders who were "capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason".

Abraham Lincoln has often been portrayed by Hollywood, almost always in a flattering light.

Abraham Lincoln's portrait appears on two denominations of United States currency, the penny and the $5 bill.

Abraham Lincoln was the first of five presidents to do so.

Abraham Lincoln has been memorialized in many town, city, and county names, including the capital of Nebraska.

The Abraham Lincoln Memorial is one of the most visited monuments in the nation's capital and is one of the most visited National Park Service sites in the country.

Abraham Lincoln Portrait is a 1942 classical orchestral work written by the American composer Aaron Copland to commemorate five speeches and writings of Abraham Lincoln.

The room is located off National Statuary Hall and served as the post office of the House while then-Representative Abraham Lincoln served in Congress from 1847 to 1849.