Lincoln Logs

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American politician elected as the 16th President of the United States (1861 to 1865), and the first president from the Republican Party. more...

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His greatest contributions were the ending of American slavery and the preservation of the Union, through his outstanding leadership of the Federal (Northern) forces during the devastating American Civil War. He selected the Union generals and approved their strategies; he supervised placement of the senior civilian government officials; he oversaw foreign and domestic diplomacy; he spearheaded party patronage and operations; and he galvanized decisive public support through his many letters and speeches. Lincoln's remarkable influence was driven by his powerful rhetoric as an orator. His Gettysburg Address rededicated and reinvigorated the nation to a cry for freedom and democracy - a voice that still remains as a cherished core component of the American way of life.

Major achievements

To achieve his main goal of preserving the Union, Lincoln first ended slavery in the Confederacy through his Emancipation Proclamation (1863), then, in 1865, secured passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to abolish slavery forever. He took personal charge of Reconstruction, seeking to speedily re-unite the nation through a policy of generous reconciliation. He was opposed by the Radical Republicans, who advocated much harsher policies.

Lincoln's leadership qualities were evident. He brought in factions of widely varying opinion into his cabinet, he defused a war scare with Britain (1861), he handled the border slave states (1861), and he managed a landslide reelection in the 1864 presidential election despite criticism. Copperheads criticized him vehemently for refusing to compromise on slavery, declaring martial law, suspending the writ of habeas corpus, ordering arrests of 18,000 opponents including public officials and newspaper publishers, sacrificing the lives of hundreds of thousands of young soldiers in the civil war, and for overstepping the bounds of executive power as set forth in the Constitution. On the other hand, Radical Republicans criticized him for moving too slowly in abolishing slavery, and not being ruthless enough toward the conquered South, at war's end.

Lincoln had a lasting influence on U.S. political values by redefining republican values, promoting nationalism, and enlarging the powers of the federal government. His assassination, in 1865, made him a martyr for a call to national unity.

Scholars rank Lincoln among the top three U.S. Presidents. His life and influence have made him an icon of cherished American political freedoms and aspirations.

Lincoln 1809 to 1854

Early life

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks. He was born in a one-room log cabin on the 348 acre (1.4 km²) Sinking Spring Farm. The farm was in Nolin Creek, three miles (5 km) south of Hodgenville, Kentucky. This was the southeast part of Hardin County (now part of LaRue County), and was at that time considered the "frontier." Lincoln was named after his grandfather, who was killed in 1786 in an American Indian raid. He had no middle name. Lincoln's parents were uneducated farmers. Lincoln had one elder sister, Sarah Lincoln, who was born in 1805. He also had a younger brother, Thomas Jr, who died in infancy. Thomas Lincoln for a while was a respected and relatively affluent citizen of the Kentucky backcountry. He had purchased the Sinking Spring Farm in December 1808 for $200 cash and assumption of a debt. But Thomas lost all his property in court cases, and when Lincoln was a child the family was living in a dugout on the side of a hill in Indiana, with not even a log cabin to shelter them. His parents belonged to a Baptist church that had pulled away from a larger church because they refused to support slavery. From a very young age, Lincoln was exposed to anti-slavery sentiment. However, he never joined his parents' church, or any other church, and as a youth he ridiculed religion.

Read more at Wikipedia.org