Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in Hardin, Kentucky. His family was originally Quaker. His parent’s name is Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks. In 1826, his family moved to Indiana. When he was eight, in 1818 his mother died. His father married Mrs. Sarah Bush Johnston in 1819.
When he was twenty-one, he moved again to the Sangamon River, Decatur, Illinois. After Lincoln and his parents settled here, in July 1831, when he was 22 years old, he left his family and arrived in New Salem. In this town, he worked as clerk in one store, as a postmaster and also a surveyor.
In April 21, 1832, Abraham Lincoln enlisted in the local militia, the Thirty-First Regiment of Illinois, following the governor's call for troops at the breakout of the Blackhawk War. He served for 51 days but witnessed no action. His fellow militiamen elected him as their captain, an honor he said which gave him "more pleasure than any I have had since". In August, he started on the road to the White House as a candidate for the state legislature, but he was defeated in first try for a seat in Illinois General Assembly as a candidate for the Whig Party. In August 1834 he was elected and for three terms following until 1841 (http://www.topicsites.com/abraham-lincoln/facts-info-history.htm).
Lincoln began to study in law in 1834 and received his license to practice law from the Illinois Supreme Court on September 9, 1836. In 1837 he moved to Springfield and became the junior law partner of John Todd Stuart, Marry Todd’s cousin. Two years later he began the member of Eighth Judicial Circuit. In 1842 he married Mary Todd. He had four sons. They are Robert Todd Lincoln, Edward Baker Lincoln, William Wallace Lincoln, and Thomas (Tad) Lincoln.
Lincoln sets up his own law practice with William H. Herndon as his junior law partner I may 1844. In August, Lincoln was elected to seat in the United States House of Representatives, as part of the Thirtieth Congress, as a candidate of the Whig Party.
On 1847, Lincoln and his family moved to Washington DC. Two years later, he proposed legislation in the United States House of Representatives to begin abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia.
Lincoln biographer Benjamin Thomas wrote about positions of Mr. Lincoln. In 1854, in Lincoln’s first major speech after re-entering politics, Lincoln pleaded: “Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and we will practices, policy, and harmonize with it. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union; but we shall have so saved it, as to make, and to keep it, the world over, shall rise up, and call us blessed, to the later generations.” (www.thecollectedworksofabrahamlincoln./II/pp/htm).
In 1858 he and Stephen A Douglas contested a seat in United States of America’s Senate from Illinois, but he was defeated and Douglas won. In 1860 he was nominated at the Republican National Convention in Chicago to represent the party for The Presidency of the United States and following November 6 was elected the 16th President of the United States defeating Stephen Douglas from Northern Democratic Party, John C. Breckinridge from Southern Democratic party, and John Bell from Constitutional Unionist Party. His Vice President was Hannibal Hamlin from Maine.
After being nominated for the Senate, he made the convention speech about slavery. He said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand; I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free,” and he said some thing in other ways again in the debates.
Historian John Hope Franklin wrote that President Lincoln: “In the fall of 1861 he made a compensation program of emancipation in Delaware. He made his friends there interested and urged them to propose it to the Delaware legislature. He went so far as to write a draft of the bill, which was provided for gradual emancipation, and he suggested the federal government to share the expenses of compensating masters for their slaves. Although these bill were much discussed, there to much oppositions to introduce them” (http://www.historyofnegroamericans.org.html).
Six weeks after his inauguration, he was elected on April 12, 1861, Fort Sumter, Charlestown Harbor, South Carolina, was attacked by Confederate Force. The Civil War was held. He issues a call for 75.000 volunteers.
Lincoln said that “The feeling is against the slavery, not against the south. The war had educated our people into abolition, and they now deny that slavery can be property. For two hundred years the country has admitted and regarded and treated the slave as property. The black must be freed. Slavery is the bone we are fighting over.” (wwww.recollectedworsofabrahamlincoln.org/p.174.htm)
On September 22, 1862, he issued preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. On January 1, 1863, he proclaimed to freeing five million slaves, with his famous last sentence: “and upon this act, sincerely believed to be in act of justice, warranted by Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God”.
He was chosen president for second term in November 1864 defeating General George B. McClellan. His vive President was Andrew Johnson. On April 9, 1865, the Civil War officially ended, with the surrender of the General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.
On April 15, 1865, the evening when he was with his wife and his friends watched the play of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater, Washington, he was shot by an actor, John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln died at seven o’clock the next morning in Petersen Boarding House. He was 56 years old. On May 3, he was buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield (McSpadden, J. Walker. 2008). Walt Whitman once said Abraham Lincoln, “was the passion of the Union of These States” (http://www. mrlincolnandthefounders.org/inside.asp?/ID=3&subjectID=2.html).
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