Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War, defeating the Confederate States and playing a major role in the abolition of slavery. Born in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky, Lincoln was raised on the frontier. He was self-educated and became a lawyer, Illinois state legislator, and U.S. representative. Angered by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, which opened the territories to slavery, he became a leader of the new Republican Party. He reached a national audience in the 1858 Senate campaign debates against Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election, becoming the first Republican president. His victory prompted a majority of the slave states to begin seceding and form the Confederate States. A month after Lincoln assumed the presidency, Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter, starting the Civil War. As a moderate Republican, Lincoln had to navigate conflicting political opinions from contentious factions during the war effort. He closely supervised the Union's strategy and tactics, including the selection of generals and the implementation of a naval blockade of Southern ports. He suspended the writ of habeas corpus in April 1861, an action that Chief Justice Roger Taney found in Ex parte Merryman that only Congress could do, and he averted war with Britain by defusing the Trent Affair. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the slaves in the states "in rebellion" to be free. On November 19, 1863, he delivered the Gettysburg Address, which became one of the most famous speeches in American history. He promoted the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which, in 1865, abolished chattel slavery. Following his re-election in 1864, he sought to heal the war-torn nation through Reconstruction. On April 14, 1865, five days after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, Lincoln was fatally shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., becoming the first U.S. president to be assassinated. 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. He is consistently ranked in both popular and scholarly polls as among the greatest presidents in American history. ### Presidency === First term === ==== Secession and inauguration ==== After Lincoln's election, secessionists implemented plans to leave the Union before he took office in March 1861. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina adopted an ordinance of secession; by February 1, 1861, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had followed. Six of these states declared themselves to be a sovereign nation, the Confederate States of America, selecting Jefferson Davis as its provisional president. The upper South and border states (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas) initially rejected the secessionist appeal. President Buchanan and President-elect Lincoln refused to recognize the Confederacy, declaring secession illegal. On February 11, 1861, Lincoln gave a particularly emotional farewell address upon leaving Springfield for Washington. Lincoln and the Republicans rejected the proposed Crittenden Compromise as contrary to the party's platform of free-soil in the territories. Lincoln said, "I will suffer death before I consent ... to any concession or compromise which looks like buying the privilege to take possession of this government to which we have a constitutional right". Lincoln supported the Corwin Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would have protected slavery in states where it already existed. The amendment passed Congress and was awaiting ratification by the required three-fourths of the states when Southern states began to secede. On March 4, 1861, in his first inaugural address, Lincoln said that, because he held "such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express, and irrevocable". Due to secessionist plots, careful attention was paid to Lincoln's security and the train he took to Washington. The president-elect evaded suspected assassins in Baltimore. He traveled in disguise, wearing a soft felt hat instead of his customary stovepipe hat and draping an overcoat over his shoulders while hunching to conceal his height. On February 23, 1861, he arrived in Washington, D.C., which was placed under military guard. Many in the opposition press criticized his secretive journey; opposition newspapers mocked Lincoln with caricatures showing him sneaking into the capital. Lincoln directed his inaugural address to the South, proclaiming once again that he had no inclination to abolish slavery in the Southern states: Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States, that by the accession of a Republican Administration, their property, and their peace, and personal security, are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed, and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." The president ended his address with an appeal to the people of the South: "We are not enemies, but friends.... The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone ... will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched ... by the better angels of our nature". According to Donald, the failure of the Peace Conference of 1861 to attract the attendance of seven of the Confederate states signaled that legislative compromise was not a practical expectation. ==== Personnel ==== In selecting his cabinet, Lincoln chose the men he found the most competent, even when they had been his opponents for the presidency. Lincoln commented on his thought process, "We need the strongest men of the party in the Cabinet. We needed to hold our own people together. I had looked the party over and concluded that these were the very strongest men. Then I had no right to deprive the country of their services." Doris Kearns Goodwin described the group in her 2005 biography of Lincoln as a "team of rivals". Lincoln named his main political opponent, William H. Seward, as Secretary of State. Lincoln made five appointments to the Supreme Court. Noah Haynes Swayne, a prominent corporate lawyer from Ohio, replaced John McLean after the latter's death in April 1861. Like McLean, Swayne opposed slavery. Samuel Freeman Miller, who replaced Peter V. Daniel, was an avowed abolitionist and received widespread support from Iowa politicians. David Davis was Lincoln's campaign manager in 1860 and had served as a judge in the Illinois court circuit where Lincoln practiced. Democrat Stephen Johnson Field, a previous California Supreme Court justice, provided geographic and political balance. After the death of Roger B. Taney, Lincoln appointed his former secretary of the treasury, Salmon P. Chase, to replace Taney as chief justice. Lincoln believed Chase was an able jurist who would support Reconstruction legislation and that his appointment would unite the Republican Party. ==== Commander-in-Chief ==== In early April 1861, Major Robert Anderson, commander of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, advised that he was nearly out of food. After considerable debate, Lincoln decided to send provisions; according to Michael Burlingame, he "could not be sure that his decision would precipitate a war, though he had good reason to believe that it might". On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Union troops at Fort Sumter, starting the American Civil War. Donald concludes: His repeated efforts to avoid collision ... showed that he adhered to his vow not to be the first to shed fraternal blood. But he had also vowed not to surrender the forts.... The only resolution of these contradictory positions was for the Confederates to fire the first shot. The April 12 and 13 attack on Fort Sumter rallied the Northern public to see military action against the South as necessary to defend the nation. On April 15, Lincoln called for 75,000 militiamen to recapture forts, protect Washington, and preserve the Union. This call forced states to choose whether to secede or to support the Union. North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas seceded. As the Northern states sent regiments south, on April 19 Baltimore mobs in control of the rail links attacked Union troops who were changing trains. Local leaders' groups later burned critical rail bridges to the capital and the Army responded by arresting local Maryland officials. Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus, allowing arrests without formal charges. John Merryman, a Maryland officer arrested for hindering U.S. troop movements, successfully petitioned Supreme Court Chief Justice Taney to issue a writ of habeas corpus. In an opinion titled Ex parte Merryman, Taney, not ruling on behalf of the Supreme Court, wrote that the Constitution…