1. Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809 in Kentucky and grew up in Indiana. He had little formal schooling but enjoyed reading and self-educated himself. 2. Lincoln became a lawyer in Illinois and was elected to the Illinois state legislature in 1834 as a member of the Whig Party. He was then elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1846. 3. Lincoln was elected as the 16th President of the United States in 1860 on the Republican ticket. As president, he successfully led the country during the Civil War and signed the Emancipation Proclamation to end slavery. Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in April 1865.

1. Abraham Lincoln
BENEDICT S. GOMBOCZ

2. Early years and education
Early years and education
 Abraham Lincoln was born on Sunday, February 12, 1809, in a log
cabin not far from Hodgenville, Kentucky.
 The son of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, he was named after his
grandfather on his father’s side.
 Thomas Lincoln worked as a carpenter and farmer.
 Both of his parents belonged to a Baptist congregation that broke
away from another church (the Lincoln family opposed slavery).
 The family moved to southern Indiana when Abraham was seven.
 Abraham shortly went to school in Kentucky and did the same in
Indiana; he went to school with his older sister, Sarah (his younger
brother, Thomas, died as infant).
 Nancy Hanks Lincoln died of milk sickness, a disease that is the result
of drinking milk from cows which had scraped on deadly white
snakeroot in 1818, when Abraham was only nine.
 The following year, Thomas Lincoln remarried to Sarah Bush Johnston
Lincoln, and Abraham loved his new stepmother.
 Sarah bought three of her own children into the home.
 Abraham went to school at uneven interludes; he spent, all in all, less
than twelve months attending school, and he didn’t go to college.
Abraham Lincoln’s boyhood home
near Hodgenville, KY

3. Early years (cont.)
Early years (cont.)
 As he matured, Abraham enjoyed reading and liked to learn
working in the fields, which led to a complicated relationship
with his father, who was exactly the opposite.
 Abraham regularly borrowed books from his neighbors.
 His sister, who married Aaron Grigsby in 1826, died in 1828; later
that same year, Lincoln went to New Orleans via flatboat trip.
 The Lincoln family moved west to Illinois in 1830.
Lincoln in 1830, age 21

4. Life in New Orleans and Illinois
Life in New Orleans and IL
 Lincoln went on a second flatboat trip to New Orleans in 1831.
 He subsequently moved to New Salem, Illinois, and lived there until
1837; he held numerous jobs while in New Salem, such as owning a
store, reviewing, and serving as a postmaster.
 He amazed the residents with his personality, fought the town bully,
and was given the nickname “Honest Abe”.
 Lincoln, almost six feet four inches and was almost 180 pounds,
momentarily served in the Black Hawk War; he also unsuccessfully ran
for the Illinois legislature in 1832.
 He ran for the Illinois legislature again four more times: in 1834, 1836,
1838, and 1840; he won all four times.
 A member of the Whig Party, Lincoln joined the Republican Party in
1856, when that party replaced the Whig Party.
 He also studied law in his free time, becoming a lawyer in 1836.
 Rumors that Lincoln had a romance with a beautiful woman named
Ann Rutledge may be true.
 Unfortunately, Ann passed away in 1835.
Lincoln’s home in New Salem, IL

5. Marriage
Marriage
 In 1839, Lincoln met Mary Todd in Springfield.
 They were married three years later and had four children during the
next eleven years: Robert (1843-1926), Edward “Eddie” (1846-1850),
William “Willie” (1850-1862), and Thomas “Tad” (1853-1871).
 Lincoln became a successful lawyer, and in 1844, the family
purchased a home at the corner of Eighth and Jackson.
Mary Todd Lincoln, 1846-1847

6. Early political career
Early political career
 Lincoln made a successful bid for the House of Representatives in 1846.
 While serving in Washington, he became recognized for opposing the U.S.-
Mexican War (later to be known as “Mr. Polk’s war”) and slavery.
 After his term was over, he returned to Springfield and continued his law
practice, taking it more seriously than he did before.
 His father passed away in early 1851.
 The Kansas-Nebraska Act, passed in 1854, renewed Lincoln’s lack of interest in
politics; that year, Lincoln unsuccessfully ran for the Senate, but in 1856, he
won some support for the Republican nomination as vice president.
 Also in 1856, he delivered his Lost Speech.
 He opposed the Dred Scott decision of 1857 and delivered his famous “House
Divided” Speech on June 16, 1858.
 He additionally participated in a series of debates with Democrat Stephen A.
Douglas, also a resident of Illinois, in 1858.
 While he opposed expanding slavery into the territories, Lincoln was not an
abolitionist.
 Despite losing against Douglas in the Senate race, Lincoln won national
recognition, and advanced his national status by delivering a successful
speech at the Copper Institute in New York.
Lincoln in the 1858 Senate debate with
Stephen A. Douglas

7. Election to the presidency and first term
Election to the presidency and first term
 Even though William H. Seward was the preferred candidate for the Republican
presidential nomination in 1860, Lincoln won on the third ballot.
 With Hannibal Hamlin of Maine as his running mate, Lincoln won the presidential election
of November 6, 1860, during which he defeated Douglas, John Bell, and John
Breckinridge.
 The Lincolns left via train for Washington, D.C. in February 1861.
 At an eleven-year-old girl’s suggestion, the president-elect grew a beard, becoming the
first bearded president.
 On March 4, 1861, Lincoln was inaugurated as the 16th president.
 After Lincoln’s election, several Southern states, afraid of the new Republican
administration, broke away from the Union; Lincoln now dealt with the biggest internal
crisis that no U.S. president faced.
 Lincoln raised an army and chose to save the Union from falling apart after Fort Sumter
fell.
 Lincoln originally expected a short conflict; he ordered 75,000 volunteers to serve over a
three-month period.
 In spite of massive pressures, loss of life, battlefield impediments, arguing among his
Cabinet members, generals who were not prepared to fight, death threats, and so on,
Lincoln did not abandon his pro-Union policy during the Civil War.
 The Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln’s declaration of freedom for all parts of the
Confederacy that were not under Union occupation, was passed on January 1, 1863.
 On November 19, 1863, Lincoln delivered his renowned Gettysburg Address, which
devoted the battlefield to the fallen soldiers; he asked the living to complete the mission
the perished soldiers started.
Lincoln’s first inauguration, March 4, 1861

8. Domestic policies
Domestic policies
 Part of Lincoln’s domestic policies was the Homestead Act of 1862, an
act that permitted poor people in the East to acquire land in the
West.
 He also signed legislation titled the National Banking Act, which
created a national currency and also allowed the establishment of a
system of national banks.
 He additionally signed tariff legislation that gave protection to
American industry and signed a bill that approved the building of the
first transcontinental railroad.
 His foreign policy sought to prevent other countries from intervening in
the Civil War.
Homestead Act of 1862

9. Re-election and end of the Civil War
Re-election and end of the Civil War
 Ulysses S. Grant was appointed General-in-chief of the armies of the
United States in 1864.
 The Confederacy, meanwhile, was slowly nearing defeat.
 On November 8, 1864, Lincoln was re-elected with Andrew Johnson
of Tennessee as his running mate, defeating Democrat George B.
McClellan of New Jersey and his running mate, George H. Pendleton.
 On April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to
Grant at Appomattox Court House.
 Two days after Lee surrendered, Lincoln spoke to a crowd outside the
White House.
 Among other things, Lincoln showed his support for voting rights for
African Americans; this enraged a particular racist and Confederate
sympathizer in the audience: actor John Wilkes Booth, who despised
everything President Lincoln represented.
Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox
Course House, April 9, 1865

10. Assassination
Assassination
 On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, President Lincoln and his wife went to a
play, Our American Cousin, at Ford’s Theatre.
 During the play, Booth showed up at the theater, entered the President’s
Box from behind; at about 10:15 p.m., he shot the president in the back of
his head.
 As he leapt off the stage, Booth shouted Sic semper tyrannis (“Thus always
to tyrants”).
 Lincoln was brought to the Petersen House, where he was pronounced
dead the next morning at 7:22 a.m.; he was only 56.
 His assassination was the first attempt made on the life of a U.S. President
(an unsuccessful attempt was made on Andrew Jackson’s life in January
1835), and for days, the country mourned its dead leader.
 His death, ironically, was caused by deep divisions and hatreds between
the North and the South that led to the Civil War.
 Lincoln’s body was taken to Springfield from Washington, D.C. via train;
everyone, even his enemies, felt grief over his death.
 On May 4, 1865, he was buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery.
 Due to the assassination, Reconstruction took place without him; his
successor, Andrew Johnson, would preside over an unsuccessful
Reconstruction for the next four years.
President Lincoln’s assassination at Ford’s
Theatre, April 14, 1865

11. Legacy
Legacy
 Abraham Lincoln is remembered for his important role as the leader in
preserving the Union throughout the Civil War and initiating the
process that brought about the end of slavery in the United States.
 He is also remembered for his personality, his speeches and letters,
and as a man of modest origins whose fortitude and persistence led
him to his election as the nation’s 16th president.
President Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg
Address, November 19, 1863

12. Key achievements
 1. Abraham Lincoln dared to make the decision to fight to prevent division in the country.
 2. Lincoln was a persistent commander-in-chief during the Civil War who preserved the United States as one nation.
 3. Lincoln’s foreign policy succeeded in stopping foreign intervention in the Civil War.
 4. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which started the process of freedom for slaves; it also permitted African Americans to
serve in the Union army.
 5. Lincoln strongly backed the Thirteenth Amendment that officially outlawed slavery in the United States.
 6. Included in the legislation he signed was the Homestead Act of 1862, the Morill Act, the National Banking Act, and a bill that approved
the construction of the first transcontinental railroad.
 7. Lincoln set an example of effective character, leadership, and morality which his successors tried to follow; during his 2008 presidential
campaign, Barack Obama said that he would use Lincoln as a model.
 8. Both before and throughout his presidency, Lincoln delivered a number of important speeches: the House Divided Speech (1858), the
Cooper Union Address (1860), the First Inaugural Address (1861), the Gettysburg Address (1863), and the Second Inaugural Address
(1865).
 9. Lincoln wrote several letters, such as the letters to Grace Bedell, Horace Greeley, Fanny McCullough, and Lydia Bixby.
 10. His quotes are among the most well-known in the world (My favorite quote from President Lincoln: “This nation, under God, shall have
a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”)

13. Lincoln Memorial
Lincoln Memorial (exterior) Lincoln Memorial (interior)

14. March on Washington
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivering his “I Have a Dream”
speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial
Civil rights activists listening to Dr. King speak in front of
the Lincoln Memorial

15. Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library

16. References and other sites
 References: http://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln77.html
 Other sites: http://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln78.html
 Best books about Abraham Lincoln: http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1212.Best_Books_About_Abraham_Lincoln