Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln in 1863

16th President of the United States
In office March 4, 1861 – April 15, 1865
Vice President	Hannibal Hamlin (1861–1865) Andrew Johnson (Mar–Apr. 1865)
Preceded by	James Buchanan
Succeeded by	Andrew Johnson
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 7th district
In office March 4, 1847 – March 3, 1849
Preceded by	John Henry
Succeeded by	Thomas L. Harris
Member of the Illinois House of Representatives from Sangamon County
In office December 1, 1834 – December 4, 1842
Preceded by	Achilles Morris

Personal details
Born	(1809-02-12)February 12, 1809 Hodgenville, Kentucky, U.S.
Died	April 15, 1865(1865-04-15) (aged 56) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Manner of death	Assassination by gunshot
Resting place	Lincoln Tomb
Political party	Whig (before 1856) Republican (after 1856)
Other political affiliations	National Union (1864–1865)
Height	6 ft 4 in (193 cm)^[1]
Spouse	Mary Todd (m. 1842)
Children	Robert Edward Willie Tad
Parents	Thomas Lincoln Nancy Hanks
Occupation	Politician lawyer
Signature
Military service
Branch/service	Illinois Militia
Years of service	April–July 1832
Rank	Captain^[a] Private^[a]
Battles/wars	Black Hawk War (non-combatant)

Abraham Lincoln^[b] (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 of America, playing a major role in the abolition of slavery, expanding the power of the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy.

Lincoln was born into poverty in Kentucky and 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, but the South viewed his election as a threat to slavery, and Southern states began seceding to form the Confederate States of America. A month after Lincoln assumed the presidency, Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter, starting the Civil War.

Lincoln, a moderate Republican, had to navigate a contentious array of factions in managing the war effort. He 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. 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. Lincoln closely supervised the strategy and tactics in the war effort, including the selection of generals, and implemented a naval blockade of Southern ports. He promoted the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which, in 1865, abolished slavery, except as punishment for a crime. Lincoln managed his own successful 1864 re-election campaign. He sought to heal the war-torn nation through reconciliation, calling for "malice toward none; with charity for all" in his second inaugural address. On April 14, 1865, five days after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, he was attending a play at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., when he was fatally shot by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth.

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

Personal

Political

16th President of the United States

Tenure

Presidential campaigns

1860
- election
- convention
1864
- election
- convention

Speeches and works

Inaugural speeches
- first
- second
State of the Union
- 1861
- 1862
- 1863
- 1864
Lyceum
Peoria
Lost Speech
House Divided
Cooper Union
Farewell address
Gettysburg

Assassination

Legacy

Bibliography

Topical guide

Family and childhood

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Early life

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Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in a log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky.^[2]^[1] The second child of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, he was a descendant of Samuel Lincoln, an Englishman who migrated from England to Massachusetts in 1638. The family through subsequent generations migrated west, passing through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.^[3] Lincoln was also a descendant of the Harrison family of Virginia; his paternal grandfather and namesake, Captain Abraham Lincoln, moved the family from Virginia to Jefferson County, Kentucky.^[c] The captain was killed in an Indian raid in 1786.^[5] Thomas, Abraham's father, then worked at odd jobs in Kentucky and Tennessee before the family settled in Hardin County, Kentucky, in the early 1800s.^[6] Lincoln's mother Nancy Lincoln is widely assumed to have been the daughter of Lucy Hanks.^[7] Thomas and Nancy married on June 12, 1806, and moved to Elizabethtown, Kentucky.^[8] They had three children: Sarah, Abraham, and Thomas, who died as an infant.^[9]

Thomas Lincoln bought multiple farms in Kentucky but could not get clear property titles to any, losing hundreds of acres in legal disputes.^[10] In 1816, the family moved to Indiana, where the land surveys and titles were more reliable.^[11] They settled in an "unbroken forest"^[12] in Little Pigeon Creek Community, Indiana.^[13] In Kentucky and Indiana, Thomas worked as a farmer, cabinetmaker, and carpenter.^[14] At various times he owned farms, livestock, and town lots, appraised estates, and served on county patrols. Thomas and Nancy were members of a Separate Baptist Church, which "condemned profanity, intoxication, gossip, horse racing, and dancing." Most of its members opposed slavery.^[15] Overcoming financial challenges, Thomas in 1827 obtained clear title to 80 acres (32 ha) in Little Pigeon Creek Community.^[16]

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.^[17] Ten years later, on January 20, 1828, Sarah died while giving birth to a stillborn son, devastating Lincoln.^[18] On December 2, 1819, Thomas married Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow with three children of her own.^[1] Abraham became close to his stepmother and called her "Mother".^[19]

Education and move to Illinois

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Lincoln was largely self-educated.^[20] His formal schooling was from itinerant teachers. It included two short stints in Kentucky, where he learned to read, but probably not to write. In Indiana at age seven,^[21] due to farm chores, he attended school only sporadically, for a total of less than 12 months by age 15.^[22] Nonetheless, he remained an avid reader and retained a lifelong interest in learning.^[23]

When Lincoln was a teen, his "father grew more and more to depend on him for the 'farming, grubbing, hoeing, making fences' necessary to keep the family afloat. He also regularly hired his son out to work ... and by law, he was entitled to everything the boy earned until he came of age".^[24] Lincoln was tall, strong, and athletic, and became adept at using an ax.^[25] He and some friends took goods by flatboat to New Orleans, Louisiana, where he first witnessed slave markets.^[1]

In March 1830, fearing another milk sickness outbreak, several members of the extended Lincoln family, including Abraham, moved west to Illinois and settled in Macon County.^[26] Abraham became increasingly distant from Thomas, in part due to his father's lack of interest in education;^[27] he would later refuse to attend his father's deathbed or funeral.^[1]

Marriage and children

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Some historians, such as Michael Burlingame, identify Lincoln's first romantic interest as Ann Rutledge, whom he met when he moved to New Salem.^[28] Lewis Gannett, however, disputes that the evidence supports a romantic relationship between the two.^[29] David Herbert Donald states that "How that friendship [between Lincoln and Rutledge] developed into a romance cannot be reconstructed from the record".^[30] Rutledge died on August 25, 1835. Lincoln took the death very hard, sinking into a serious depression and contemplating suicide.^[31]^[32]^[33]^[34]

In the early 1830s, he met Mary Owens from Kentucky.^[35] Late in 1836, Lincoln agreed to a match with Owens if she returned to New Salem. Owens arrived that November and he courted her, but they both had second thoughts. On August 16, 1837, he wrote Owens a letter saying he would not blame her if she ended the relationship, and she never replied.^[36]

In 1839, Lincoln met Mary Todd in Springfield, Illinois, and the following year they became engaged.^[37] She was the daughter of Robert Smith Todd, a wealthy lawyer and businessman in Lexington, Kentucky.^[38] Lincoln initially broke off the engagement in early 1841, but the two were reconciled and married on November 4, 1842.^[39] In 1844, the couple bought a house in Springfield near his law office.^[40]

The marriage was turbulent; Mary was verbally abusive and at times physically violent towards her husband.^[41] They had four sons. The eldest, Robert Todd Lincoln, was born in 1843, and was the only child to live to maturity. Edward Baker Lincoln (Eddie), born in 1846, died February 1, 1850, probably of tuberculosis. Lincoln's third son, "Willie" Lincoln, was born on December 21, 1850, and died of a fever at the White House on February 20, 1862. The youngest, Thomas "Tad" Lincoln, was born on April 4, 1853, and died of edema at age 18 on July 16, 1871.^[42]

Lincoln "was remarkably fond of children",^[43] and the Lincolns were not considered to be strict with their own.^[44] The deaths of Eddie and Willie had profound effects on both parents. Lincoln suffered from "melancholy", a condition now thought to be clinical depression.^[32] Later in life, Mary struggled with the stresses of losing her husband and sons, and in 1875 Robert committed her to an asylum.^[45]

Early vocations and militia service

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In 1831, Thomas moved the family to a new homestead in Coles County, Illinois, after which Abraham struck out on his own.^[46] He made his home in New Salem, Illinois, for six years.^[47] During 1831 and 1832, Lincoln worked at a general store in New Salem, Illinois.^[48] He gained a reputation for strength and courage after winning a wrestling match with the leader of ruffians known as the Clary's Grove boys.^[49] In 1832, he declared his candidacy for the Illinois House of Representatives, though he interrupted his campaign to serve as a captain in the Illinois Militia during the Black Hawk War.^[48] He was elected the captain of his militia company but did not see combat.^[50] In his political campaigning, Lincoln advocated for navigational improvements on the Sangamon River.^[51] He could draw crowds as a raconteur, but lacked name recognition, powerful friends, and money, and lost the election.^[52]

When Lincoln returned home from the war, he planned to become a blacksmith, but instead purchased a New Salem general store in partnership with William Berry. Because a license was required to sell customers beverages, Berry obtained bartending licenses for Lincoln and himself, and in 1833 the Lincoln-Berry General Store became a tavern as well.^[53] But Berry was "an undisciplined, hard-drinking fellow", and Lincoln "was too soft-hearted to deny anyone credit";^[54] although the economy was booming, the business struggled and went into debt, prompting Lincoln to sell his share.^[53] Lincoln served as New Salem's postmaster and later as county surveyor, but he continued his voracious reading and decided to become a lawyer.^[55] Rather than studying in the office of an established attorney, as was the custom, 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.^[56] He later said of his legal education that he "studied with nobody."^[57]

Early political offices and prairie lawyer

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Illinois state legislature (1834–1842)

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Lincoln's second state house campaign in 1834, this time as a Whig, was a success over a powerful Whig opponent.^[58] Then followed his four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives for Sangamon County.^[59] As a representative, he championed construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal.^[60] Lincoln voted to expand suffrage beyond white landowners to all white males, but opposed both slavery and abolition.^[61] In 1837, he declared, "slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils."^[62] He echoed Henry Clay's support for the American Colonization Society, which advocated abolition in conjunction with settling freed slaves in Liberia.^[63]

Lincoln was admitted to the Illinois bar on September 9, 1836.^[64]^[65] He moved to Springfield and began to practice law under John T. Stuart, Mary Todd's cousin.^[66] He emerged as a formidable trial combatant during cross-examinations and closing arguments. He partnered several years with Stephen T. Logan and, in 1844, began his practice with William Herndon, "a studious young man".^[67]

On January 27, 1838, Lincoln delivered a major speech at the Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois, after the murder of anti-slavery newspaper editor Elijah Parish Lovejoy. Lincoln denounced the "mobocratic spirit ... now abroad in the land", indirectly attacking Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party, and anti-abolitionism.^[68] He was criticized in the press for a planned duel with James Shields, whom he had ridiculed in letters published under the name "Aunt Rebecca"; though the duel ultimately did not take place, "the affair embarrassed Lincoln terribly".^[69]

U.S. House of Representatives (1847–1849)

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Lincoln professed to friends in 1861 to be "an old line Whig, a disciple of Henry Clay".^[70] Their party favored economic modernization in banking, and tariffs to fund internal improvements including railroads, and urbanization.^[71] In 1843, Lincoln sought the Whig nomination for Illinois's 7th district seat in the U.S. House of Representatives; John J. Hardin was the successful candidate, though Lincoln prevailed with the party in limiting Hardin to one term.^[72] Lincoln not only pulled off his strategy of gaining the nomination in 1846, but also won the election.^[73] The only Whig in the Illinois delegation, he participated in almost all votes and made speeches that toed the party line.^[74] He was assigned to the Committee on Post Office and Post Roads and the Committee on Expenditures in the War Department.^[75] Lincoln teamed with Joshua R. Giddings on a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, but dropped the bill when it eluded Whig support.^[76]^[77]

Early political views

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Lincoln spoke against the Mexican–American War, for which he said President James K. Polk "had some strong motive... to involve the two countries in a war, and trusting to escape scrutiny, by fixing the public gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military glory—that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood".^[78] He supported the Wilmot Proviso, a failed proposal to ban slavery in any U.S. territory won from Mexico.^[79] Lincoln emphasized his opposition to Polk by drafting and introducing his Spot Resolutions. The war had begun with a killing of American soldiers in disputed territory, and Polk insisted that Mexican soldiers had "invaded our territory and shed the blood of our fellow-citizens on our own soil";^[80] Lincoln demanded that Polk tell Congress the exact spot, "implying that this spot was actually Mexican soil".^[1] The resolution cost Lincoln political support in his district, and newspapers derisively nicknamed him "spotty Lincoln".^[1] Lincoln later regretted some of his statements, especially his attack on presidential war-making powers.^[81]

Lincoln had pledged in 1846 to serve only one term in the House. Realizing Clay was unlikely to win the presidency, he supported General Zachary Taylor for the Whig nomination in the 1848 presidential election.^[82] Taylor won and Lincoln hoped in vain to be appointed Commissioner of the United States General Land Office.^[83] The administration offered to appoint him secretary of the Oregon Territory as consolation.^[84] This would have disrupted his legal and political career in Illinois, so he declined and resumed his law practice.^[85]

Prairie lawyer

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In his Springfield practice, Lincoln handled "virtually every kind of business that could come before a prairie lawyer".^[86] Twice a year for sixteen years he appeared for 10 consecutive weeks in county seats in the Midstate county courts.^[87] Lincoln handled transportation cases in the midst of the nation's western expansion, particularly river barge conflicts under the many new railroad bridges. As a riverboat man, Lincoln initially favored those interests, but he represented whoever hired him.^[88] He 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.^[89] In 1849 he received a patent for a flotation device for the movement of boats in shallow water. The idea was never commercialized, but it made Lincoln the only president to hold a patent.^[90] 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.^[91] From 1853 to 1860, one of his largest clients was the Illinois Central Railroad.^[92]

Lincoln represented William "Duff" Armstrong in his 1858 trial for the murder of James Preston Metzker.^[93] The case is famous for Lincoln's use of a fact established by judicial notice to challenge the credibility of an eyewitness. After a witness testified to seeing the crime in the moonlight, Lincoln produced a Farmers' Almanac showing the Moon was at a low angle, drastically reducing visibility. Armstrong was acquitted.^[93] In an 1859 murder case, he defended "Peachy" Quinn Harrison, the grandson of Peter Cartwright, Lincoln's political opponent.^[94] Harrison was charged with the murder of Greek Crafton who, according to Cartwright, said as he lay dying that he had "brought it upon myself" and that he forgave Harrison.^[95] Lincoln angrily protested the judge's initial decision to exclude Cartwright's claim as hearsay. Lincoln argued that the testimony involved a dying declaration and was not subject to the hearsay rule. Instead of holding Lincoln in contempt of court as expected, the judge, a Democrat, admitted the testimony into evidence, resulting in Harrison's acquittal.^[93]

Republican politics (1854–1860)

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Emergence as Republican leader

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The Compromise of 1850 failed to alleviate tensions over slavery between the slave-holding South and the free North.^[96] As the slavery debate in the Nebraska and Kansas territories became particularly acrimonious, Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas proposed popular sovereignty as a compromise; the measure would allow the electorate of each territory to decide the status of slavery. The legislation alarmed many Northerners, who sought to prevent the spread of slavery, but Douglas's Kansas–Nebraska Act narrowly passed Congress in May 1854.^[97] Lincoln's Peoria Speech of October 1854, in which he declared his opposition to slavery,^[98] was one of over 170 speeches he delivered in the next six years on the topic of excluding slavery from the territories.^[1] Lincoln's attacks on the Kansas–Nebraska Act marked his return to political life.^[99]

Nationally, the Whigs were irreparably split by the Kansas–Nebraska Act and other ineffective efforts to compromise on the slavery issue. Reflecting on the demise of his party, Lincoln wrote in 1855, "I think I am a whig; but others say there are no whigs, and that I am an abolitionist.... I now do no more than oppose the extension of slavery."^[100] The new Republican Party was formed as a northern party dedicated to antislavery, drawing from the antislavery wing of the Whig Party and combining Free Soil, Liberty, and antislavery Democratic Party members,^[101] Lincoln resisted early Republican entreaties, fearing that the new party would become a platform for extreme abolitionists.^[102] Lincoln held out hope for rejuvenating the Whigs, though he lamented his party's growing closeness with the nativist Know Nothing movement.^[103] In 1854, Lincoln was elected to the Illinois legislature, but before the term began he declined to take his seat so that he would be eligible to run in the upcoming U.S. Senate election.^[104] At that time, senators were elected by state legislatures.^[105] After leading in the first six rounds of voting, he was unable to obtain a majority. Lincoln instructed his backers to vote for Lyman Trumbull, an antislavery Democrat who had received few votes in the earlier ballots. Lincoln's decision to withdraw enabled his Whig supporters and Trumbull's antislavery Democrats to combine and defeat the mainstream Democratic candidate, Joel Aldrich Matteson.^[106]

1856 campaign

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Violent political confrontations in Kansas continued, and opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act remained strong throughout the North. As the 1856 elections approached, Lincoln joined the Republicans and attended the Bloomington Convention, where the Illinois Republican Party was established. The convention platform endorsed Congress's right to regulate slavery in the territories and backed the admission of Kansas as a free state. Lincoln gave the final speech of the convention, calling for the preservation of the Union.^[107] At the June 1856 Republican National Convention, though Lincoln received support to run as vice president, John C. Frémont and William Dayton were on the ticket, which Lincoln supported throughout Illinois. The Democrats nominated James Buchanan and the Know-Nothings nominated Millard Fillmore.^[108] Buchanan prevailed, while Republican William Henry Bissell won election as Governor of Illinois, and Lincoln became a leading Republican in Illinois.^[109]^[d]

Dred Scott v. Sandford

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Dred Scott was a slave whose master took him from a slave state to a territory that was free as a result of the Missouri Compromise. After Scott was returned to the slave state, he petitioned a federal court for his freedom. His petition was denied in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857).^[111] In his opinion, Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote that Black people were not citizens and derived no rights from the Constitution, and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional for infringing upon slave owners' "property" rights. While many Democrats hoped that Dred Scott would end the dispute over slavery in the territories, the decision sparked further outrage in the North.^[112] Lincoln denounced it as the product of a conspiracy of Democrats to support the Slave Power.^[113] He 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".^[114]

Lincoln–Douglas debates and Cooper Union speech

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In 1858, Douglas was up for re-election in the U.S. Senate, and Lincoln hoped to defeat him. Many in the party felt that a former Whig should be nominated in 1858, and Lincoln's 1856 campaigning and support of Trumbull had earned him a favor.^[115] For the first time, Illinois Republicans held a convention to agree upon a Senate candidate, and Lincoln won the nomination with little opposition.^[116] Lincoln accepted the nomination with great enthusiasm and zeal. After his nomination he delivered his House Divided Speech: "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other."^[117] The speech created a stark image of the danger of disunion.^[118] When informed of Lincoln's nomination, Douglas stated, "[Lincoln] is the strong man of the party ... and if I beat him, my victory will be hardly won."^[119]

The Senate campaign featured seven debates between Lincoln and Douglas. These are the most famous political debates in American history; they had an atmosphere akin to a prizefight and drew thousands.^[120] 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. In his Freeport Doctrine, Douglas argued that, despite the Dred Scott decision, which he claimed to support,^[121] local settlers, under the doctrine of popular sovereignty, should be free to choose whether to allow slavery within their territory, and he accused Lincoln of having joined the abolitionists.^[122] 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 Lincoln was defying the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court as exercised in the Dred Scott decision.^[123]

Though the Republican legislative candidates won more popular votes, the Democrats won more seats, and the legislature re-elected Douglas. However, Lincoln's articulation of the issues had given him a national political presence.^[124] In May 1859, 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.^[125] In the aftermath of the 1858 election, newspapers frequently mentioned Lincoln as a potential Republican presidential candidate. While Lincoln was popular in the Midwest, he lacked support in the Northeast and was unsure whether to seek the office.^[126] In January 1860, Lincoln told a group of political allies that he would accept the presidential nomination if offered and, in the following months, William O. Stoddard's Central Illinois Gazette, the Chicago Press & Tribune, and other local papers endorsed his candidacy.^[127]

On February 27, 1860, powerful New York Republicans invited 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. He insisted that morality required opposition to slavery and rejected any "groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong".^[128] Many in the audience thought he appeared awkward and even ugly.^[129] But Lincoln demonstrated intellectual leadership, which brought him into contention. Journalist Noah Brooks reported, "No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience".^[130] Historian David Herbert Donald described the speech as "a superb political move for an unannounced presidential aspirant."^[131] In response to an inquiry about his ambitions, Lincoln said, "The taste is in my mouth a little".^[132]

1860 presidential election

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On May 9–10, 1860, the Illinois Republican State Convention was held in Decatur.^[133] Exploiting his embellished frontier legend (clearing land and splitting fence rails), Lincoln's supporters adopted the label of "The Rail Candidate".^[134] On May 18 at the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Lincoln won the nomination on the third ballot.^[1] A former Democrat, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, was nominated for vice president to balance the ticket.^[135]

Throughout the 1850s, Lincoln had doubted the prospects of civil war, and his supporters rejected claims that his election would incite secession.^[136] When Douglas was selected as the candidate of the Northern Democrats, delegates from eleven slave states walked out of the Democratic convention; they opposed Douglas's position on popular sovereignty, and selected incumbent Vice President John C. Breckinridge as their candidate.^[137] A group of former Whigs and Know Nothings formed the Constitutional Union Party and nominated John Bell of Tennessee. Lincoln and Douglas competed for votes in the North, while Bell and Breckinridge primarily found support in the South.^[115] A nationwide militaristic Republican youth organization, the Wide Awakes, "turned it into one of the most excited elections in American history" and "triggered massive popular enthusiasm".^[138] People of the Northern states knew the Southern states would vote against Lincoln and rallied supporters for him.^[139]

As Douglas and the other candidates campaigned, Lincoln gave no speeches, relying on the enthusiasm of the Republican Party. The party did the legwork that produced majorities across the North. Republican speakers focused first on the party platform, and second on Lincoln's life story, emphasizing his childhood poverty. The goal was to demonstrate the power of "free labor", which allowed a common farm boy to work his way to the top by his own efforts.^[140] The Republican Party's production of campaign literature dwarfed the combined opposition; a Chicago Tribune writer produced a pamphlet that detailed Lincoln's life and sold 100,000–200,000 copies.^[141] Though he did not give public appearances, many sought to visit and write to Lincoln. In the runup to the election, he took an office in the Illinois state capitol to deal with the influx of attention. He also hired John George Nicolay as his personal secretary, who would remain in that role during the presidency.^[142]

On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the 16th president. He was the first Republican president and his victory was entirely due to his support in the North and West. No ballots were cast for him in 10 of the 15 Southern slave states, and he won only two of 996 counties in all the Southern states.^[143] Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes, or 39.8 percent of the total in a four-way race, carrying the free Northern states, as well as California and Oregon, and winning the Electoral vote decisively.^[144]

Presidency (1861–1865)

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Lincoln's first inaugural at the United States Capitol on March 4, 1861 with the Capitol dome above the rotunda still under construction.

Headlines in The New York Times following Lincoln's first inauguration portended imminent hostilities.

First term

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Secession and inauguration

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The South was outraged by Lincoln's election, and in response secessionists implemented plans to leave the Union before he took office in March 1861.^[145]^[1] On December 20, 1860, South Carolina adopted an ordinance of secession; by February 1, 1861, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed.^[146] Six of these states declared themselves to be a sovereign nation, the Confederate States of America, selecting Jefferson Davis as its provisional president.^[147] The upper South and border states (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas) initially rejected the secessionist appeal.^[148] President Buchanan and President-elect Lincoln refused to recognize the Confederacy, declaring secession illegal.^[149] On February 11, 1861, Lincoln gave a particularly emotional farewell address upon leaving Springfield for Washington.^[150]

Lincoln and the Republicans rejected the proposed Crittenden Compromise as contrary to the Party's platform of free-soil in the territories.^[151] 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".^[152] Lincoln supported the Corwin Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which passed Congress and was awaiting ratification by the required three-fourths of the states when Lincoln took office, whereupon Southern states began to secede. That doomed amendment would have protected slavery in states where it already existed.^[153] On March 4, 1861, in his first inaugural address, 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".^[154]

Due to secessionist plots, unprecedented attention to security was given to him and his train. En route to his inauguration, Lincoln addressed crowds and legislatures across the North.^[155] 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 slightly to conceal his height. On February 23, 1861, he arrived in Washington, D.C., which was placed under substantial military guard. Many in the opposition press criticized his secretive journey; opposition newspapers mocked Lincoln with caricatures showing him sneaking into the capital.^[156] 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."
— First inaugural address, 4 March 1861^[157]

Lincoln cited his plans for banning the expansion of slavery as the key source of conflict between North and South, stating "One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute." 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 battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."^[158] The failure of the Peace Conference of 1861 signaled that legislative compromise was impossible. By March 1861, no leaders of the insurrection had proposed rejoining the Union on any terms. Meanwhile, Lincoln and the Republican leadership agreed that the dismantling of the Union could not be tolerated.^[159]

Personnel

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Lincoln cabinet^[160]
Office	Name	Term

President	Abraham Lincoln	1861–1865

Vice President	Hannibal Hamlin	1861–1865
Vice President
Andrew Johnson	1865

Secretary of State	William H. Seward	1861–1865

Secretary of the Treasury	Salmon P. Chase	1861–1864

	William P. Fessenden	1864–1865
Hugh McCulloch	1865

Secretary of War	Simon Cameron	1861–1862
Secretary of War
Edwin M. Stanton	1862–1865

Attorney General	Edward Bates	1861–1864
Attorney General
James Speed	1864–1865

Postmaster General	Montgomery Blair	1861–1864
Postmaster General
William Dennison Jr.	1864–1865

Secretary of the Navy	Gideon Welles	1861–1865

Secretary of the Interior	Caleb Blood Smith	1861–1862
Secretary of the Interior
John Palmer Usher	1863–1865

In the selection and use of his cabinet Lincoln employed the strengths of his rivals in a manner that emboldened his 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."^[161] Goodwin described the group in her biography of Lincoln as a Team of Rivals.^[162] Lincoln named his main political rival, William H. Seward, as Secretary of State.^[163] However, Lincoln quickly appointed some top diplomats "to counteract Confederate efforts at gaining recognition from European nations".^[164]

Lincoln's philosophy on court nominations was that "we cannot ask a man what he will do, and if we should, and he should answer us, we should despise him for it. Therefore we must take a man whose opinions are known."^[165] Lincoln made five appointments to the Supreme Court. Noah Haynes Swayne was against slavery and a prominent corporate lawyer.^[166] Samuel Freeman Miller was an avowed abolitionist and received widespread support from Iowa politicians.^[167] David Davis was Lincoln's campaign manager in 1860 and had served as a judge in the Illinois court circuit where Lincoln practiced.^[168] Democrat Stephen Johnson Field, a previous California Supreme Court justice, provided geographic and political balance.^[169] Finally, Lincoln appointed his Treasury Secretary, Salmon P. Chase, as Chief Justice. Lincoln believed Chase was an able jurist, would support Reconstruction legislation, and that his appointment would unite the Republican Party.^[170]

Supreme Court Justices^[171]
Justice	Nominated	Appointed
Noah Haynes Swayne	January 21, 1862	January 24, 1862
Samuel Freeman Miller	July 16, 1862	July 16, 1862
David Davis	December 1, 1862	December 8, 1862
Stephen Johnson Field	March 6, 1863	March 10, 1863
Salmon Portland Chase (Chief Justice)	December 6, 1864	December 6, 1864

Commander-in-Chief

[edit]

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, apparently "consider[ing] hostilities to be probable".^[172] On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Union troops at Fort Sumter.^[173] Donald concludes:

His 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. 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.^[174]

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; Kentucky remained neutral. The Fort Sumter attack rallied the North to defend the nation.^[175] As 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 charges.^[176]

John Merryman, a Maryland officer arrested for hindering U.S. troop movements, petitioned Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney to issue a writ of habeas corpus. In June, in Ex parte Merryman, Taney, not ruling on behalf of the Supreme Court,^[177] issued the writ, believing that the Constitution authorized only Congress and not the president to suspend it.^[e] But Lincoln engaged in nonacquiescence and persisted with the policy of suspension in select areas.^[178] Under the suspension, 15,000 civilians were detained without trial; several, including Copperhead leader Clement L. Vallandigham, were tried in military courts for "treasonable" actions, an approach which was highly criticized.^[1]

Early Union military strategy

[edit]

Lincoln took executive control of the war and shaped the Union military strategy. He responded to the unprecedented political and military crisis as commander-in-chief by exercising unprecedented authority. He 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. Lincoln gained the support of Congress and the northern public for these actions. Lincoln also had to reinforce Union sympathies in the border slave states and keep the war from becoming an international conflict.^[179] It was clear from the outset that bipartisan support was essential to success, and that any compromise alienated factions on both sides of the aisle. Copperheads (anti-war Democrats) criticized Lincoln for refusing to compromise on slavery; the Radical Republicans (who demanded harsh treatment against secession) criticized him for moving too slowly in abolishing slavery.^[180] On August 6, 1861, Lincoln signed the Confiscation Act of 1861, which authorized judicial proceedings to confiscate and free slaves who were used to support the Confederates. The law had little practical effect, but it signaled political support for abolishing slavery.^[181]

A group of men sitting at a table as another man creates money on a wooden machine. — *Running the Machine*, an 1864 political cartoon satirizing Lincoln and his administration, including William Fessenden, Edwin Stanton, William Seward, Gideon Welles, Lincoln, and others

Lincoln's war strategy had two priorities: ensuring that Washington was well-defended and conducting an aggressive war effort for a prompt, decisive victory.^[f] Twice a week, Lincoln met with his cabinet. Occasionally, Lincoln's wife, Mary, prevailed on him to take a carriage ride, concerned that he was working too hard.^[183] Lincoln selected civilian generals from varied political and ethnic backgrounds "to secure their and their constituents' support for the war effort and ensure that the war became a national struggle".^[184] In January 1862, after complaints of inefficiency and profiteering in the War Department, Lincoln replaced War Secretary Simon Cameron with Edwin Stanton.^[185] Stanton worked more often and more closely with Lincoln than did any other senior official. According to Stanton's biographers Benjamin Thomas and Harold Hyman, "Stanton and Lincoln virtually conducted the war together".^[186]

For his edification Lincoln relied on a book by his chief of staff General Henry Halleck, Elements of Military Art and Science. Lincoln began to appreciate the critical need to control strategic points, such as the Mississippi River.^[187] Lincoln saw the importance of Vicksburg and understood the necessity of defeating the enemy's army, rather than merely capturing territory.^[188] In directing the Union's war strategy, Lincoln valued the advice of Winfield Scott, even after his retirement as Commanding General of the United States Army. In June 1862, Lincoln made an unannounced visit to West Point, where he spent five hours consulting with Scott regarding the handling of the war.^[189]

Internationally, Lincoln wanted to forestall foreign military aid to the Confederacy.^[190] He relied on his combative Secretary of State William Seward while working closely with Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Charles Sumner.^[191] In 1861 the U.S. Navy illegally intercepted a British mail ship, the Trent, on the high seas and seized two Confederate envoys. Although the North celebrated the seizure, Britain protested vehemently, and the Trent Affair threatened war between the Americans and the British. Lincoln ended the crisis by releasing the two diplomats.^[192]

General McClellan

[edit]

After the Union rout at Bull Run and Winfield Scott's retirement, Lincoln appointed Major General George B. McClellan general-in-chief.^[193] McClellan spent months planning his Virginia Peninsula Campaign. McClellan's slow progress frustrated Lincoln, as did his position that no troops were needed to defend Washington. McClellan, in turn, blamed the failure of the campaign on Lincoln's reservation of troops for the capital.^[194] In 1862, Lincoln removed McClellan as general-in-chief for the general's continued inaction. He elevated Henry Halleck to the post and appointed John Pope as head of the new Army of Virginia.^[195] But in the summer of 1862 Pope was soundly defeated at the Second Battle of Bull Run, forcing him to retreat to Washington. Soon after, the Army of Virginia was disbanded.^[196]

Despite his dissatisfaction with McClellan's failure to reinforce Pope, Lincoln restored him to command of all forces around Washington, which included both the Army of the Potomac and the remains of the Army of Virginia.^[197] Two days later, General Robert E. Lee's forces crossed the Potomac River into Maryland, leading to the Battle of Antietam.^[198] That battle, a Union victory, was among the bloodiest in American history.^[199] A crisis of command occurred for Lincoln when McClellan then resisted the president's demand that he pursue Lee's withdrawing army, while General Don Carlos Buell likewise refused orders to move the Army of the Ohio against rebel forces in eastern Tennessee. Lincoln replaced Buell with William Rosecrans and McClellan with Ambrose Burnside. The appointments were both politically neutral and adroit on Lincoln's part.^[200] Against presidential advice Burnside launched an offensive across the Rappahannock River and was defeated by Lee at Fredericksburg in December.^[201] Facing low morale and discontent among the troops, Lincoln replaced Burnside with Joseph Hooker.^[202] In the spring of 1863, Lincoln ordered attacks by Hooker on Lee north of Richmond, Rosecrans on Chattanooga, Grant on Vicksburg, and a naval assault on Charleston.^[203] Hooker was routed by Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May, then resigned in June and was replaced by George Meade.^[204] Meade followed Lee north into Pennsylvania and defeated him in the Gettysburg campaign but then failed to effectively block Lee's orderly retreat to Virginia, despite Lincoln's demands. At the same time, Grant captured Vicksburg and gained control of the Mississippi River.^[205]

Emancipation Proclamation

[edit]

Before Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, two Union generals issued their own emancipation orders, but Lincoln overrode both: he found that the decision to emancipate was not within the generals' power, and that it might upset loyal border states enough for them to secede.^[206] However, in June 1862, Congress passed an act banning slavery in all federal territories, which Lincoln signed.^[207] In July, the Confiscation Act of 1862 was enacted.^[208] Its section 9 freed slaves "within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United States". On July 22, 1862, Lincoln reviewed a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation with his cabinet.^[209] Copperheads argued that emancipation was a stumbling block to peace and reunification, but Republican editor Horace Greeley of the New-York Tribune, in his public letter, "The Prayer of Twenty Millions", implored Lincoln to embrace emancipation.^[210] In a public letter of August 22, 1862, Lincoln replied to Greeley, writing that while he personally wished all men could be free, his first obligation as president was to preserve the Union:^[211]

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.^[1]

On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation,^[212] freeing the slaves in 10 states not then under Union control,^[213] with exemptions specified for areas under such control.^[214] Lincoln's comment on signing the Proclamation was: "I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper."^[215] On New Year's Eve in 1862, African Americans – enslaved and free – gathered across the United States to hold Watch Night ceremonies for "Freedom's Eve", looking toward the stroke of midnight and the promised fulfillment of the Proclamation.^[216] With the abolition of slavery in the rebel states now a military objective, Union armies advancing south "enable[d] thousands of slaves to escape to freedom".^[217]

As Lincoln had hoped, the Proclamation removed the threat that countries, especially Britain and France, that opposed slavery would support the Confederacy.^[218] The Proclamation was immediately denounced by Copperhead Democrats, who opposed the war and advocated restoring the union by allowing slavery. It was also seen as a betrayal of his promise to Southern Unionists not to tamper with slavery; Emerson Etheridge, then Clerk of the House of Representatives, joined an unsuccessful plot to give Democrats and Southern Unionists control of the House.^[219] As a result of the Proclamation, enlisting freedmen became official policy. In a letter to Tennessee military governor Andrew Johnson, Lincoln wrote, "The bare sight of fifty thousand armed, and drilled black soldiers on the banks of the Mississippi would end the rebellion at once".^[220]

Gettysburg Address (1863)

[edit]

Lincoln spoke at the dedication of the Gettysburg battlefield cemetery on November 19, 1863.^[221] In 272 words, taking only three minutes, Lincoln asserted that the nation was "conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal". He defined the war as dedicated to the principles of liberty and equality for all. He 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".^[222] The Address became the most quoted speech in American history.^[223]

After victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving holiday, to be celebrated on the 26th, the final Thursday of November 1863.^[165]

Promoting General Grant

[edit]

General Ulysses Grant's victories at the Battle of Shiloh and in the Vicksburg campaign impressed Lincoln. Responding to criticism of Grant after Shiloh, Lincoln said, "I can't spare this man. He fights."^[224] Meade's failure to capture Lee's army after Gettysburg and Grant's success at Chattanooga persuaded Lincoln to promote Grant to commander of all Union armies.^[1] Grant then waged the bloody Overland Campaign, which exacted heavy losses on both sides.^[225]

Amid the turmoil of military actions, on June 30, 1864, Lincoln signed into law the Yosemite Grant enacted by Congress, which provided unprecedented federal protection for the area now known as Yosemite National Park.^[226] According to Rolf Diamant and Ethan Carr, "[T]he Yosemite Grant was a direct consequence of the war ... an embodiment of the ongoing process of remaking government ... an intentional assertion of a steadfast belief in the eventual Union victory."^[227] Lincoln reacted to Union losses by mobilizing support throughout the North.^[228] Lincoln authorized Grant to target infrastructure—plantations, railroads, and bridges—to weaken the South's morale and fighting ability. He emphasized defeat of the Confederate armies over destruction for its own sake.^[229] As Grant continued to weaken Lee's forces, efforts to discuss peace began. At one point, Confederate Vice President Stephens led a meeting with Lincoln, Seward, and others at Hampton Roads. Lincoln refused to negotiate with the Confederacy as a coequal.^[230] In early April, the Confederate government evacuated Richmond and Lincoln visited the conquered capital, whereupon on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Grant at Appomattox.^[231]

Fiscal and monetary policy

[edit]

Both sides of a one-dollar bill — One dollar "Greenback"

After the Battle of Fort Sumter, Lincoln and Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase faced the challenge of funding a wartime economy. Congress quickly approved Lincoln's request to assemble a 500,000-man army, but it initially resisted raising taxes.^[232] After the Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run, Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1861, which imposed the first U.S. federal income tax. The act created a flat tax of three percent on incomes above $800 ($28,000 in current dollars). This taxation reflected the increasing amount of wealth held in stocks and bonds rather than property, which the federal government had taxed in the past.^[233] As the average urban worker made approximately $600 per year, the income tax burden fell primarily on the rich.^[234] Lincoln also signed the second and third Morrill Tariffs, the first having become law in the final months of Buchanan's tenure. These tariffs raised import duties considerably and were designed both to raise revenue and to protect domestic manufacturing against foreign competition. During the war, the tariff also helped manufacturers offset the burden of new taxes.^[235] Throughout the war, Congress debated whether to raise additional revenue primarily by increasing tariff rates, which most strongly affected rural areas in the West, or by increasing income taxes, which most strongly affected wealthier individuals in the Northeast.^[236] The revenue measures of 1861 proved inadequate for funding the war, forcing Congress to pass further bills to generate revenue.^[237]

In February 1862, Congress passed the Legal Tender Act, which authorized the minting of $150 million of "greenbacks"—the first banknotes issued by the U.S. government since the end of the American Revolution. Greenbacks were not backed by gold or silver, but rather by the government's promise to honor their value. By the end of the war, $450 million worth of greenbacks were in circulation.^[238] Congress also passed the Revenue Act of 1862, which established an excise tax affecting nearly every commodity,^[239] as well as the first national inheritance tax.^[240] The Revenue Act of 1862 also added a progressive tax structure to the federal income tax, implementing a tax of five percent on incomes above $10,000.^[241] To collect these taxes, Congress created the Office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.^[240]

Despite these new measures, funding the war continued to be a challenge.^[242] The government continued to issue greenbacks and borrow large amounts of money, and the U.S. national debt grew from $65 million in 1860 to $2 billion in 1866.^[238] The Revenue Act of 1864 represented a compromise between those who favored a more progressive tax structure and those who favored a flat tax.^[243] It established a five-percent tax on incomes greater than $600, a ten-percent tax on incomes above $10,000, and it raised taxes on businesses.^[240] In early 1865, Congress levied a tax of ten percent on incomes above $5000.^[244] By the end of the war, the income tax constituted about one-fifth of the federal government's revenue,^[240] though it was intended as a temporary wartime measure.^[245] Lincoln also took action against rampant fraud during the war, enacting the False Claims Act of 1863. This imposed civil and criminal penalties for false claims and made it possible for private citizens to file false claims (qui tam) lawsuits on behalf of the U.S. government.^[246]^[247] Hoping to stabilize the currency, Chase convinced Congress to pass the National Banking Act in February 1863, as well as a second banking act in 1864. Those acts established the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to oversee "national banks" subject to federal, rather than state, regulation. In return for investing a third of their capital in federal bonds, these national banks were authorized to issue federal banknotes.^[242] After Congress imposed a tax on private banknotes in March 1865, federal banknotes became the dominant form of paper currency.^[234]

Foreign policy

[edit]

Lincoln had "limited familiarity with diplomatic practices" but had a "substantial influence on U.S. diplomacy" as the Union attempted to avoid war with Britain and France.^[248] At the start of the war, Russia was the lone great power to support the Union, while the other European powers had varying degrees of sympathy for the Confederacy. Lincoln's policy succeeded: all foreign nations were officially neutral throughout the Civil War, with none recognizing the Confederacy.^[249] European leaders saw the division of the United States as having the potential to eliminate, or at least greatly weaken, a growing rival. They looked for ways to exploit the inability of the U.S. to enforce the Monroe Doctrine. Spain invaded the Dominican Republic in 1861, while France established a puppet regime in Mexico.^[250] However, many in Europe also hoped for a quick end to the war, both for humanitarian reasons and because of the economic disruption it caused.^[251]

Lincoln's foreign policy was deficient in 1861 in terms of appealing to European public opinion. The European aristocracy (the dominant class in every major country) was "absolutely gleeful in pronouncing the American debacle as proof that the entire experiment in popular government had failed." Union diplomats had to explain that United States was not committed to the ending of slavery, and instead they argued that secession was unconstitutional. Confederate spokesmen, on the other hand, were more successful by ignoring slavery and instead focusing on their struggle for liberty, their commitment to free trade, and the essential role of cotton in the European economy.^[252] However, the Confederacy's hope that cotton exports would compel European interference did not come to fruition, as Britain found alternative sources of cotton and experienced economic growth in industries that did not rely on cotton.^[253] Though the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately end the possibility of European intervention, it rallied European public opinion to the Union by adding abolition as a Union war goal. Any chance of a European intervention in the war ended with the Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, as European leaders came to believe that the Confederate cause was doomed.^[254]

Native Americans

[edit]

The Lincoln administration faced difficulties guarding Western settlers, railroads, and telegraph from Native American attacks.^[255] On August 17, 1862, the Dakota War broke out in Minnesota. Hundreds of settlers were killed and 30,000 were displaced from their homes.^[256] Some feared incorrectly that it might represent a Confederate conspiracy to start a war on the Northwestern frontier.^[257] Lincoln ordered thousands of Confederate prisoners of war be sent to put down the uprising. When the Confederacy protested, Lincoln revoked the policy and none arrived in Minnesota.^[258] Lincoln sent General John Pope as commander of the new Department of the Northwest.^[259] Serving under Pope was Minnesota Congressman Henry Hastings Sibley. Minnesota's governor had made Sibley a Colonel United States Volunteers to command the U.S. force tasked with fighting the war and that eventually defeated Little Crow's forces at the Battle of Wood Lake.^[260]

A war crimes trial led by Sibley sentenced 303 Dakota warriors to death.^[258] Lincoln pardoned all but 39, and, with one getting a reprieve, the remaining 38 were executed in the largest mass execution in U.S. history.^[261] Less than four months later, Lincoln issued the Lieber Code, which governed wartime conduct of the Union Army, by defining command responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity.^[262] Congressman Alexander Ramsey told Lincoln in 1864 that he would have gotten more re-election support in Minnesota had he executed all 303. Lincoln responded, "I could not afford to hang men for votes."^[263]

Second term

[edit]

Reelection

[edit]

Lincoln ran for reelection in 1864, while uniting the main Republican factions along with War Democrats Edwin M. Stanton and Andrew Johnson. Lincoln used conversation and his patronage powers—greatly expanded from peacetime—to build support and fend off the Radicals' efforts to replace him.^[264] At its convention, the Republican Party selected Johnson as his running mate. To broaden his coalition to include War Democrats as well as Republicans, Lincoln ran under the label of the new National Union Party.^[265] Grant's bloody stalemates damaged Lincoln's re-election prospects, and many Republicans feared defeat; Lincoln rejected pressure for a peace settlement.^[1] 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".^[1]^[266] At the next cabinet meeting, Lincoln "asked each member to sign his name on the back of the document", but he did not allow them to read it.^[267]

Victories at Atlanta and in the Shenandoah Valley turned public opinion, and Lincoln was re-elected.^[1] On March 4, 1865, Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address. Historian Mark Noll places the speech "among the small handful of semi-sacred texts by which Americans conceive their place in the world;" it is inscribed in the Lincoln Memorial.^[268] Lincoln closed his speech with these words:

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.^[269]

Reconstruction

[edit]

Reconstruction preceded the war's end, as Lincoln and his associates considered the reintegration of the nation, and the fates of Confederate leaders and freed slaves. When a general asked Lincoln how the defeated Confederates were to be treated, Lincoln replied, "Let 'em up easy."^[270] Lincoln's main goal was to keep the union together, so he proceeded by focusing not on whom to blame, but on how to rebuild the nation.^[271] Lincoln led the moderates in Reconstruction policy and was opposed by the Radicals, under Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner and Benjamin Wade, who otherwise remained Lincoln's allies. Determined to reunite the nation and not alienate the South, Lincoln urged that speedy elections under generous terms be held. His Amnesty Proclamation of December 8, 1863, offered pardons to those who had not held a Confederate civil office and had not mistreated Union prisoners, if they signed an oath of allegiance.^[272]

As Southern states fell, they needed leaders while their administrations were restored. In Tennessee and Arkansas, 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 Lincoln of using the military to ensure his and the Republicans' political aspirations. The Radicals denounced his policy as too lenient, and passed their own plan, the 1864 Wade–Davis Bill, which Lincoln vetoed. The Radicals retaliated by refusing to seat elected representatives from Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee.^[273]

After implementing the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln increased pressure on Congress to outlaw slavery nationwide with a constitutional amendment. By December 1863 an amendment was brought to Congress.^[274] The Senate passed it on April 8, 1864, but the first vote in the House of Representatives fell short of the required two-thirds majority. Passage became part of Lincoln's reelection platform, and after his reelection, the second attempt in the House passed on January 31, 1865.^[275] After ratification by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states, it became the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on December 6, 1865.^[276]

Lincoln believed the federal government had limited responsibility to the millions of freedmen. He 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. The law opened land for a lease of three years with the ability to purchase title for the freedmen. Lincoln announced a Reconstruction plan that involved short-term military control, pending readmission under the control of southern Unionists.^[277] Eric Foner argues:^[278]

Unlike Sumner and other Radicals, Lincoln did not see Reconstruction as an opportunity for a sweeping political and social revolution beyond emancipation. He had long made clear his opposition to the confiscation and redistribution of land. He believed, as most Republicans did in April 1865, that voting requirements should be determined by the states. He assumed that political control in the South would pass to white Unionists, reluctant secessionists, and forward-looking former Confederates. But time and again during the war, Lincoln, after initial opposition, had come to embrace positions first advanced by abolitionists and Radical Republicans. ... Lincoln undoubtedly would have listened carefully to the outcry for further protection for the former slaves. ... It is entirely plausible to imagine Lincoln and Congress agreeing on a Reconstruction policy that encompassed federal protection for basic civil rights plus limited black suffrage, along the lines Lincoln proposed just before his death.

Lincoln vetoed only four bills during his presidency, including the Wade-Davis Bill with its harsh Reconstruction program.^[279] The 1862 Homestead Act made millions of acres of Western government-held land available for purchase at low cost. The 1862 Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act provided government grants for agricultural colleges in each state. The Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 and 1864 granted federal support for the construction of the United States' first transcontinental railroad, which was completed in 1869.^[280] The passage of the Homestead Act and the Pacific Railway Acts was enabled by the absence of Southern congressmen and senators who had opposed the measures in the 1850s.^[281]

Assassination

[edit]

John Wilkes Booth was a well-known actor and a Confederate spy from Maryland; though he never joined the Confederate army, he had contacts with the Confederate secret service.^[282] After attending Lincoln's last public address, on April 11, 1865, in which Lincoln stated his preference that the franchise be conferred on some Black men, specifically "on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers",^[283] Booth plotted to assassinate the President.^[284] When Booth learned of the Lincolns' intent to attend a play with General Grant, he planned to assassinate Lincoln and Grant at Ford's Theatre.^[285] Lincoln and his wife attended the play Our American Cousin on the evening of April 14. At the last minute, Grant decided to go to New Jersey to visit his children instead of attending.^[286]

At 10:15 pm, Booth entered the back of Lincoln's theater box, crept up from behind, and fired at the back of Lincoln's head, mortally wounding him. Lincoln's guest, Major Henry Rathbone, momentarily grappled with Booth, but Booth stabbed him and escaped.^[287] After being attended by Doctor Charles Leale and two other doctors, Lincoln was taken across the street to Petersen House. After remaining in a coma for nine hours, Lincoln died at 7:22 am on April 15.^[288]^[g] Stanton said, "Now he belongs to the ages."^[293]^[h] Lincoln's body was placed in a flag-wrapped coffin, which was loaded into a hearse and escorted to the White House by Union soldiers.^[294] President Johnson was sworn in later that same day.^[295] Two weeks later, Booth was located, shot and killed at a farm in Virginia by Sergeant Boston Corbett. Secretary of War Stanton had issued orders that Booth be taken alive, so Corbett was initially arrested to be court martialed. Stanton declared him a patriot and dismissed the charge.^[296]

Funeral and burial

[edit]

From April 19 to 21, Lincoln lay in state, first in the White House and then in the Capitol rotunda. The caskets containing Lincoln's body and the body of his third son Willie then traveled for three weeks on a funeral train^[297] following a circuitous route from Washington D.C. to Springfield, Illinois, stopping at many cities for memorials attended by hundreds of thousands. Many others gathered along the tracks as the train passed with bands, bonfires, and hymn singing^[298] or in silent grief. Historians emphasized the widespread shock and sorrow, but noted that some Lincoln haters celebrated his death.^[299] Poet Walt Whitman composed "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" to eulogize Lincoln.^[300] Lincoln's body was buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield and now lies within the Lincoln Tomb.^[301]

Philosophy and religious views

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Philosophy of republicanism

[edit]

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Lincoln redefined the political philosophy of republicanism in the United States.^[302] Lincoln called the Declaration of Independence, which found "self-evident" that all men are created equal and have an "unalienable" right to liberty, the "sheet anchor" of republicanism, at a time when the Constitution, which "tolerated slavery", was the focus of most political discourse.^[303] John Patrick Diggins notes, "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.^[304]

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

I hold, that in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments.... Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade, by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it—break it, so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?^[305]

As a Whig activist Lincoln was a spokesman for business interests, favoring high tariffs, banks, infrastructure improvements, and railroads, in opposition to Jacksonian democrats.^[306] 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.^[307] Nevertheless, Lincoln admired Andrew Jackson's steeliness and patriotism.^[308] According to historian Sean Wilentz, "just as the Republican Party of the 1850s absorbed certain elements of Jacksonianism, so Lincoln, whose Whiggery had always been more egalitarian than that of other Whigs, found himself absorbing some of them as well."^[308]

William C. Harris found that Lincoln's "reverence for the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, the laws under it, and the preservation of the Republic and its institutions strengthened his conservatism."^[309] James G. Randall emphasizes his tolerance and moderation "in his preference for orderly progress, his distrust of dangerous agitation, and his reluctance toward ill digested schemes of reform." Randall concludes that "he was conservative in his complete avoidance of that type of so-called 'radicalism' which involved abuse of the South, hatred for the slaveholder, thirst for vengeance, partisan plotting, and ungenerous demands that Southern institutions be transformed overnight by outsiders."^[310]

Political philosophy of reunification

[edit]

Lincoln sitting with his hand on his chin and his elbow on his leg. — *Abraham Lincoln*

In an 1858 speech, Lincoln alluded to a form of American civic nationalism as closely related to his view of the nature of democracy and originating from the tenets of the Declaration of Independence as a force for national unity. Lincoln stated that it was a method for uniting diverse peoples of different ethnic ancestries into a common nationality:

If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," and then they feel that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote the Declaration, and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.
— Lincoln's address to Chicago voters, July 10, 1858^[311]

In Lincoln's first inaugural address, he denounced secession as anarchy and explained that majority rule had to be balanced by constitutional restraints. He said, "A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks, and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people."^[312]^[313]

Religious skepticism and providence

[edit]

As a young man Lincoln was a religious skeptic.^[314] He was deeply familiar with the Bible, quoting and praising it.^[315] He was private about his position on organized religion and respected the beliefs of others.^[316] He never made a clear profession of Christian beliefs.^[317] Throughout his public career, Lincoln often quoted Scripture.^[318] His three most famous speeches—the House Divided Speech, the Gettysburg Address, and his second inaugural—all contain such quotes. In the 1840s Lincoln subscribed to the Doctrine of Necessity, a belief that the human mind was controlled by a higher power.^[319] After the death of his son Edward in 1850 he more frequently expressed a dependence on God.^[320] He never joined a church, although he frequently attended First Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Illinois, with his wife beginning in 1852.^[321]^[i] While president, Lincoln often attended services at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.^[322]

In the 1850s Lincoln rarely used the language or imagery of the evangelicals; instead, he regarded the republicanism of the Founding Fathers with an almost religious reverence.^[323] The death of his son Willie in February 1862 may have caused him to look toward religion for solace.^[324] After Willie's death, he questioned the divine necessity of the war's severity. He wrote at this time that God "could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest."^[325]

Lincoln believed in an all-powerful God who shaped events and by 1865 was expressing that belief in major speeches.^[317] By the end of the war, he increasingly appealed to the Almighty for solace and to explain events, writing on April 4, 1864, to a newspaper editor in Kentucky:

I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God.^[326]

This spirituality can best be seen in his second inaugural address, in which Lincoln explains that the cause, purpose, and result of the war was God's will.^[327] Lincoln's frequent use of religious imagery and language toward the end of his life may have reflected his own personal beliefs or might have been a device to reach his audiences, who were mostly evangelical Protestants.^[328]

Health and appearance

[edit]

Lincoln was described as "ungainly" and "gawky" as a youth.^[329] Tall for his age, Lincoln was strong and athletic as a teenager. He was a good wrestler, participated in jumping, throwing, and footraces, and "was almost always victorious."^[330] His stepmother remarked that he cared little about clothing.^[331] 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. His lack of interest in his attire continued as an adult.^[332]

Lincoln generally continued to enjoy good health throughout his life. In 1831, Lincoln was described as six feet three or four inches tall, weighing 210 pounds, and having a ruddy complexion.^[329] Later descriptions mentioned Lincoln's dark hair and dark complexion, which were also evident in photographs taken during his tenure as president. William H. Herndon described Lincoln as having "very dark skin"; his cheeks as "leathery and saffron-colored"; and "his hair was dark, almost black".^[333] Lincoln described himself as "black" and as having "a dark complexion".^[334] Lincoln's detractors also remarked on his appearance. For example, during the Civil War, the Charleston Mercury described him as having "the dirtiest complexion" and asked "Faugh! After him what white man would be President?"^[335]

Among the illnesses that Lincoln is either documented or speculated to have suffered from are depression,^[32] smallpox,^[336] and malaria.^[337]^[338] He took blue mass pills, which contained mercury,^[339] to treat constipation.^[340] It is unknown to what extent this may have resulted in mercury poisoning.^[341] Several claims have been made that Lincoln's health was declining before the assassination, as photographs of Lincoln appear to show weight loss and muscle wasting.^[342] It has also been proposed that he could have had a rare genetic disorder such as Marfan syndrome^[343] or multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2B.^[342]^[344]

Legacy

[edit]

Bureau of Engraving and Printing portrait of Lincoln as president

Historical reputation

[edit]

In surveys of U.S. scholars ranking presidents since 1948, the top three presidents are generally Lincoln, George Washington, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, although the order varies.^[345]^[j] Between 1999 and 2011, Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan were the top-ranked presidents in eight public opinion surveys, according to Gallup.^[347] A 2004 study found that scholars in history and politics ranked Lincoln number one, while legal scholars placed him second after Washington.^[348]

Lincoln's assassination made him a national martyr. He was viewed by abolitionists as a champion of human liberty. Many, though not all, in the South considered Lincoln as a man of outstanding ability.^[349] Historians have said he was "a classical liberal" in the 19th-century sense.^[350]^[351] In the New Deal era, liberals honored Lincoln as an advocate of the common man who they claimed would have supported the welfare state,^[352] and Lincoln became a favorite of liberal intellectuals across the world.^[353] Sociologist Barry Schwartz argues that in the 1930s and 1940s Lincoln provided the nation with "a moral symbol inspiring and guiding American life."^[354] Schwartz argues that Lincoln's American reputation grew slowly from the late 19th century until the Progressive Era (1900–1920s), when he emerged as one of America's most venerated heroes, even among white Southerners. The high point came in 1922 with the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.^[355] However, Schwartz also finds that since World War II Lincoln's symbolic power has lost relevance, and this "fading hero is symptomatic of fading confidence in national greatness." He suggested that postmodernism and multiculturalism have diluted greatness as a concept.^[356] By the 1970s Lincoln had become a hero to political conservatives^[357]—apart from neo-Confederates such as Mel Bradford, who denounced his treatment of the white South—for his intense nationalism, his support for business, his insistence on stopping the spread of slavery, his acting on Lockean and Burkean principles on behalf of both liberty and tradition, and his devotion to the principles of the Founding Fathers.^[358] Republicans linked Lincoln's name to their party.

Frederick Douglass stated that in "his company, I was never reminded of my humble origin, or of my unpopular color",^[359] and Lincoln has long been known as the Great Emancipator.^[360] By the late 1960s, however, some Black intellectuals denied that Lincoln deserved that title.^[361]^[362] Lerone Bennett Jr. won wide attention when he called Lincoln a white supremacist in 1968.^[363] He noted that Lincoln used ethnic slurs and argued that Lincoln opposed social equality and proposed that freed slaves voluntarily move to another country.^[364] Defenders of Lincoln retorted that he was a "moral visionary" who deftly advanced the abolitionist cause, as fast as politically possible.^[365]

David Herbert Donald opined in his 1996 biography that 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".^[366] Lincoln has often been portrayed by Hollywood, almost always in a flattering light.^[367]^[368] Lincoln has also been admired by political figures outside the U.S., including German political theorist Karl Marx,^[369] Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi,^[370] former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf,^[371] leader of the Italian Risorgimento, Giuseppe Garibaldi,^[372] and Libyan revolutionary Muammar Gaddafi.^[373]

Memorials and commemorations

[edit]

Lincoln's portrait appears on two denominations of United States currency, the penny and the $5 bill. He appears on postage stamps across the world.^[374]^[375] While he is usually portrayed bearded, he did not grow a beard until 1860 at the suggestion of 11-year-old Grace Bedell. He was the first of five presidents to do so.^[376] He has been memorialized in many town, city, and county names,^[377] including the capital of Nebraska.^[378] The United States Navy Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) is named after Lincoln, the second Navy ship to bear his name.^[379] The Lincoln Memorial is one of the most visited monuments in the nation's capital^[380] and is one of the most visited National Park Service sites in the country.^[381] Ford's Theatre, among the most visited sites in Washington, D.C.,^[381] is across the street from Petersen House, where Lincoln died.^[382] Memorials in Springfield, Illinois, include the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Lincoln's home, and his tomb.^[383] A portrait carving of Lincoln appears with those of three other presidents on Mount Rushmore, which receives about 3 million visitors a year.^[384]

A statue of Lincoln completed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens that influenced later sculptors^[385] stands in Lincoln Park, Chicago, with recastings given as diplomatic gifts standing in Parliament Square, London, and Parque Lincoln, Mexico City.^[386]^[387]^[388] Lincoln Portrait is a 1942 classical orchestral work written by the American composer Aaron Copland to commemorate five speeches and writings of Lincoln.^[389] In 2019, Congress officially dedicated a room in the United States Capitol to Abraham Lincoln.^[390] 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.^[391]^[392] Several states commemorate "President's Day" as "Washington–Lincoln Day".^[393]^[394]

Lincoln's image carved into the stone of Mount Rushmore
The Lincoln memorial postage stamp of 1866 was issued by the U.S. Post Office exactly one year after Lincoln's assassination.
Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
The Lincoln cent, an American coin portraying Lincoln

See also

[edit]

Notes

[edit]

^ ^a ^b Discharged from command-rank of Captain and re-enlisted at rank of Private.
^ /ˈlɪŋkən/ LINK-ən
^ The identity of Lincoln's grandmother Bathsheba Herring, though without certainty, is the consensus of multiple Lincoln biographers. She was the daughter of Alexander and Abigail Herring (née Harrison).^[4]
^ Eric Foner contrasts the abolitionists and anti-slavery Radical Republicans of the Northeast, who saw slavery as a sin, with the conservative Republicans, who thought it was bad because it hurt white people and blocked progress. Foner argues that Lincoln was in the middle, opposing slavery primarily because it violated the republicanism principles of the Founding Fathers, especially the equality of all men and democratic self-government as expressed in the Declaration of Independence.^[110]
^ Article I, section 9, clause 2 provides that the writ of habeas corpus may be suspended in cases of rebellion, but it does not state who may suspend it.
^ Major Northern newspapers, however, demanded more—they expected victory within 90 days.^[182]
^ At the moment of death some observers said his face seemed to relax into a smile.^[289]^[290]^[291]^[292]
^ Other versions of the quotation have been offered, including "He now belongs to the ages," "He is a man for the ages," and "Now he belongs to the angels." Gopnik, Adam, "Angels and Ages: Lincoln's language and its legacy," The New Yorker, May 21, 2007.
^ On claims that Lincoln was baptized by an associate of Alexander Campbell, see Martin, Jim (1996). "The secret baptism of Abraham Lincoln". Restoration Quarterly. 38 (2). Archived from the original on October 19, 2012. Retrieved May 27, 2012.
^ While the book Rating The Presidents: A Ranking of U.S. Leaders, From the Great and Honorable to the Dishonest and Incompetent acknowledges that polls have rated Lincoln among the top presidents since 1948, the authors find him to be among the two best presidents, along with Franklin Delano Roosevelt.^[346]

References

[edit]

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^ Donald 1996, pp. 20–22.
^ Warren 2017, pp. 3–4.
^ Harrison 1935, p. 276.
^ Warren 2017, p. 4.
^ Donald 1996, p. 21.
^ Bartelt 2008, p. 79.
^ Warren 2017, p. 9.
^ Warren 2017, pp. 9–10.
^ Donald 1996, pp. 22–24.
^ Warren 2017, p. 13.
^ Warren 2017, p. 26.
^ Warren 2017, pp. 16, 43.
^ Bartelt 2008, pp. 34, 156.
^ Donald 1996, p. 24.
^ Bartelt 2008, pp. 24, 104.
^ Bartelt 2008, pp. 22–23, 77.
^ Donald 1996, pp. 34, 116.
^ Donald 1996, pp. 26–27.
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^ Donald 1996, p. 29.
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^ White 2009, p. 251.
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^ Donald 1996, p. 223.
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^ White 2009, pp. 307–308.
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^ Donald 1996, p. 241.
^ Donald 1996, p. 244.
^ Donald 1996, p. 245.
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^ Donald 1996, p. 253.
^ Grinspan, Jon. "'Young men for war': the Wide Awakes and Lincoln's 1860 presidential campaign". Journal of American History. 96 (2): 377. JSTOR 25622297.
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^ Donald 1996, p. 254.
^ Donald 1996, pp. 251–252.
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^ White 2009, p. 362.
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^ Donald 1996, pp. 349–352.
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^ Goodwin 2005, pp. 478–480.
^ Goodwin 2005, p. 481.
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^ Burlingame 2008, v. 2 pp. 484–486; Donald 1996, pp. 429–431.
^ Donald 1996, pp. 422–423.
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^ Donald 1996, pp. 444–447.
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^ "The United States Congress outlaws slavery and involuntary servitude in all U.S. territories, June 20, 1862". This Abominable Slavery. University of Utah. Retrieved April 28, 2025.
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^ "Emancipation Proclamation (1863)". National Archives. Retrieved April 28, 2025.
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^ "The Historical Legacy of Juneteenth". National Museum of African American History and Culture. June 19, 2019. Retrieved June 13, 2022.
^ McPherson, James M. (March 1995). "Who Freed the Slaves?". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 139 (1): 9. JSTOR 986716.
^ Robert E. May (1995). "History and Mythology: The Crisis over British Intervention in the Civil War". The Union, the Confederacy, and the Atlantic rim. Purdue University Press. pp. 29–68. ISBN 978-1-55753-061-5.
^ Robert B. Jones, "Henry Emerson Etheridge," NCpedia. Originally published in the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 1986.
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^ Paludan 1994, p. 111.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Pollack, Sheldon D. (2014). "The First National Income Tax, 1861–1872" (PDF). Tax Lawyer. 67 (2).
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^ Hamer, Sean (1996). "Lincoln's law: constitutional and policy issues posed by the qui tam provisions of the false claims act". Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy. 6 (2): 89–106.
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^ ^a ^b Burlingame 2008, v. 2 p. 481.
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Thomas, Benjamin Platt; Hyman, Harold Melvin (1962). Stanton: The Life and Times of Lincoln's Secretary of War. Alfred A. Knopf.

Trostel, Scott D. (2002). The Lincoln Funeral Train: The Final Journey and National Funeral for Abraham Lincoln. Cam-Tech Publishing. ISBN 978-0-925436-21-4. Archived from the original on July 12, 2013.
Vile, John R. (2003). "Lincoln, Abraham (1809–1865)". Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments: Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues 1789–2002 (2nd ed.). ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-85109-428-8.
Vorenberg, Michael (2001). Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-65267-4.
Warren, Louis A. (1991). Lincoln's Youth: Indiana Years, Seven to Twenty-One, 1816–1830 (PDF). Indiana Historical Society. ISBN 0-87195-063-4 – via University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign University Library.
Warren, Louis A. (2017). Lincoln's Youth: Indiana Years, Seven to Twenty-One, 1816–1830 (Classic Reprint). Fb&c Limited. ISBN 978-0-282-90830-0.
Weisman, Steven R. (2002). The Great Tax Wars: Lincoln to Wilson—The Fierce Battles over Money and Power That Transformed the Nation. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-85068-0.
White, Ronald C. (2009). A. Lincoln: A Biography. Random House. ISBN 978-1-58836-775-4.

White, Jonathan W. (2011). Abraham Lincoln and Treason in the Civil War: The Trials of John Merryman. Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 9780807142158.

Wilentz, Sean (2012). "Abraham Lincoln and Jacksonian Democracy". Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Archived from the original on August 18, 2016.
Wills, Garry (2012). Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4391-2645-5.
Wilson, Douglas L. (1997). Lincoln Before Washington: New Perspectives on the Illinois Years. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-02331-5.
Wilson, Douglas L.; Davis, Rodney O.; Wilson, Terry; Herndon, William Henry; Weik, Jesse William (1998). Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln. University of Illinois Press. pp. 35–36. ISBN 978-0-252-02328-6.
Wilson, Douglas L. (1999). Honor's Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-76581-9.
Wilson, Douglas L. (2007). Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-1-4000-4039-1.
Winkle, Kenneth J. (2001). The Young Eagle: The Rise of Abraham Lincoln. Taylor Trade Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4617-3436-9.

Work, David (2024). Lincoln's Political Generals. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252056888.

Zarefsky, David (1993). Lincoln, Douglas, and Slavery: In the Crucible of Public Debate. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-97876-5.

External links

[edit]

Library resources about
Abraham Lincoln

By Abraham Lincoln

United States Congress. "Abraham Lincoln (id: L000313)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Works by or about Abraham Lincoln at the Internet Archive
Works by Abraham Lincoln at Project Gutenberg
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
Abraham Lincoln Association
Abraham Lincoln: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
Papers of Abraham Lincoln Digital Library from Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library — A digitization of all documents written by or to Abraham Lincoln during his lifetime
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln – complete collected works as edited by Basler et al. (1958) – an online edition available through University of Michigan Library Digital Collections
Lincoln/Net: Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project – Northern Illinois University Digital Library
The Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division in the Library of Congress
"Writings of Abraham Lincoln" from C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History, June 18, 2001

Abraham Lincoln

16th President of the United States (1861–1865)
U.S. Representative for IL–7 (1847–1849)

Presidency

Speeches

Life
and views

Homes
and places

Legacy and
memorials

Family tree
Mary Todd Lincoln (wife)
Robert Todd Lincoln (son)
Edward Baker Lincoln (son)
William Wallace Lincoln (son)
Thomas "Tad" Lincoln III (son)
Mary Todd "Mamie" Lincoln (granddaughter)
Jessie Harlan Lincoln (granddaughter)
Thomas Lincoln (father)
Nancy Hanks Lincoln (mother)
Sarah Bush Lincoln (stepmother)
Sarah Lincoln Grigsby (sister)
Abraham Lincoln (grandfather)
Mordecai Lincoln (uncle)
Mary Lincoln Crume (aunt)
John Hanks (cousin)
Joseph Hanks (great-grandfather)
Samuel Lincoln (17th-century ancestor)
Mary Lincoln Beckwith (great-granddaughter)
Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith (great-grandson)
Old Bob (horse)
Fido (dog)

← James Buchanan
Andrew Johnson →

Category
Outline

Offices and distinctions

U.S. House of Representatives
Preceded by John Henry	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 7th congressional district 1847–1849	Succeeded by Thomas Harris
Party political offices
Preceded by John Frémont	Republican nominee for President of the United States 1860, 1864	Succeeded by Ulysses Grant
Political offices
Preceded by James Buchanan	President of the United States 1861–1865	Succeeded by Andrew Johnson
Honorary titles
Preceded by Henry Clay	Persons who have lain in state or honor in the United States Capitol rotunda 1865	Succeeded by Thaddeus Stevens

Articles related to Abraham Lincoln

v t e Presidents of the United States
Presidents and presidencies	George Washington (1789–1797) John Adams (1797–1801) Thomas Jefferson (1801–1809) James Madison (1809–1817) James Monroe (1817–1825) John Quincy Adams (1825–1829) Andrew Jackson (1829–1837) Martin Van Buren (1837–1841) William Henry Harrison (1841) John Tyler (1841–1845) James K. Polk (1845–1849) Zachary Taylor (1849–1850) Millard Fillmore (1850–1853) Franklin Pierce (1853–1857) James Buchanan (1857–1861) Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865) Andrew Johnson (1865–1869) Ulysses S. Grant (1869–1877) Rutherford B. Hayes (1877–1881) James A. Garfield (1881) Chester A. Arthur (1881–1885) Grover Cleveland (1885–1889) Benjamin Harrison (1889–1893) Grover Cleveland (1893–1897) William McKinley (1897–1901) Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909) William Howard Taft (1909–1913) Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921) Warren G. Harding (1921–1923) Calvin Coolidge (1923–1929) Herbert Hoover (1929–1933) Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945) Harry S. Truman (1945–1953) Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961) John F. Kennedy (1961–1963) Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–1969) Richard Nixon (1969–1974) Gerald Ford (1974–1977) Jimmy Carter (1977–1981) Ronald Reagan (1981–1989) George H. W. Bush (1989–1993) Bill Clinton (1993–2001) George W. Bush (2001–2009) Barack Obama (2009–2017) Donald Trump (2017–2021) Joe Biden (2021–2025) Donald Trump (2025–present)
Presidency timelines	Washington J. Adams McKinley T. Roosevelt Taft Wilson Harding Coolidge Hoover F. D. Roosevelt Truman Eisenhower Kennedy L. B. Johnson Nixon Ford Carter Reagan G. H. W. Bush Clinton G. W. Bush Obama Trump Biden
Category List

Republican Party

History

Presidential
tickets,
national
conventions,
and
presidential
primaries

Presidential
administrations

Lincoln (1861–1865)
Johnson (1865–1868)
Grant (1869–1877)
Hayes (1877–1881)
Garfield (1881)
Arthur (1881–1885)
Harrison (1889–1893)
McKinley (1897–1901)
Roosevelt (1901–1909)
Taft (1909–1913)
Harding (1921–1923)
Coolidge (1923–1929)
Hoover (1929–1933)
Eisenhower (1953–1961)
Nixon (1969–1974)
Ford (1974–1977)
Reagan (1981–1989)
G. H. W. Bush (1989–1993)
G. W. Bush (2001–2009)
Trump (2017–2021; 2025–present)

U.S. Senate
leaders
and
Conference
chairs

J. P. Hale (1859–1862)
Anthony (1862–1884)
Sherman (1884–1885)
Edmunds (1885–1891)
Sherman (1891–1897)
Allison (1897–1908)
E. Hale (1908–1911)
Cullom (1911–1913)
Gallinger (1913–1918)
Lodge (1918–1924)
Curtis (1924–1929)
Watson (1929–1933)
McNary (1933–1940)
Austin (1940–1941)
McNary (1941–1944)
White (1944–1949)
Wherry (1949–1952)
Bridges (1952–1953)
Taft (1953)
Knowland (1953–1959)
Dirksen (1959–1969)
Scott (1969–1977)
Baker (1977–1979)
Stevens (1979–1980)
Baker (1980–1985)
Dole (1985–1996)
Lott (1996–2003)
Frist (2003–2007)
McConnell (2007–2025)
Thune (2025–present)

U.S. House
leaders,
Speakers,
and
Conference
chairs

Pennington (1860–1861)
Grow (1861–1863)
Colfax (1863–1869)
Pomeroy (1869)
Blaine (1869–1875)
McCrary (1875–1877)
Hale (1877–1879)
Frye (1879–1881)
Keifer (1881–1883)
Cannon (1883–1889)
Reed (1889–1891)
T. J. Henderson (1891–1895)
Reed (1895–1899)
D. B. Henderson (1899–1903)
Cannon (1903–1911)
Mann (1911–1919)
Gillett (1919–1925)
Longworth (1925–1931)
Snell (1931–1939)
Martin (1939–1959)
Halleck (1959–1965)
Ford (1965–1973)
Rhodes (1973–1981)
Michel (1981–1995)
Gingrich (1995–1999)
Hastert (1999–2007)
Boehner (2007–2015)
Ryan (2015–2019)
McCarthy (2019–2023)
Johnson (2023–present)

RNC

Chairs

Chair elections

2009
2011
2013
2015
2017
2019
2021
2023
2024

Parties by
state and
territory

State

Territory

Affiliated
organizations

Congress	House Conference Legislative Digest Steering and Policy Committees Senate Conference Policy Committee Factions Freedom Caucus Problem Solvers Caucus Republican Governance Group Republican Study Committee
Fundraising groups	National Republican Congressional Committee National Republican Redistricting Trust National Republican Senatorial Committee Republican Attorneys General Association Republican Governors Association
Sectional groups	College Republicans Chairmen Congressional Hispanic Conference Log Cabin Republicans National Black Republican Association Republican Hindu Coalition Republican Jewish Coalition Republican National Hispanic Assembly Republicans Abroad Teen Age Republicans Young Republicans Republicans Overseas High School Republican National Federation
Factional groups	Republican Main Street Partnership Republican Majority for Choice Republican Liberty Caucus Republican National Coalition for Life ConservAmerica Liberty Caucus Ripon Society The Wish List

Related

Illinois's delegation(s) to the 30th United States Congress (ordered by seniority)

30th

Senate: ▌S. Breese (D) · ▌S. Douglas (D)

House:

▌O. Ficklin (D)
▌J. McClernand (D)
▌R. Smith (ID)
▌J. Wentworth (D)
▌A. Lincoln (W)
▌T. Turner (D)
▌W. Richardson (D)

Historical anti-slavery parties in the United States

Presidential tickets

Liberty Party	James G. Birney/Thomas Earle (1840) James G. Birney/Thomas Morris (1844) Gerrit Smith/Charles C. Foote (1848) William Goodell/S. M. Bell (1852) Gerrit Smith/Samuel McFarland (1856) Gerrit Smith/Samuel McFarland (1860)
Free Soil Party	Martin Van Buren/Charles F. Adams (1848) John P. Hale/George W. Julian (1852)
Republican Party	John C. Frémont/William L. Dayton (1856) Abraham Lincoln/Hannibal Hamlin (1860)
National Union Party	Abraham Lincoln/Andrew Johnson (1864)

National conventions

Other party leaders

Related groups

Hall of Fame for Great Americans inductees

(← 1852) 1856 United States presidential election (1860 →)

Democratic Party
(Convention)

Nominees	President: James Buchanan Vice President: John C. Breckinridge
Other candidates	Lewis Cass Stephen A. Douglas Franklin Pierce (incumbent)

Republican Party
(Convention)

Nominees	President: John C. Frémont Vice President: William L. Dayton
Other candidates	Nathaniel P. Banks Abraham Lincoln John McLean Robert F. Stockton

American Party

Nominees	President: Millard Fillmore Vice President: Andrew J. Donelson
Other candidates	George Law

Other 1856 elections: House
Senate

(← 1856) 1860 United States presidential election (1864 →)

Republican Party
(Convention)

Nominees	President: Abraham Lincoln Vice President: Hannibal Hamlin
Other candidates	Edward Bates Simon Cameron Salmon P. Chase William L. Dayton John McLean William H. Seward Benjamin Wade

Democratic Party (Southern)
(Convention)

Nominees	President: John C. Breckinridge (incumbent VP) Vice President: Joseph Lane
Other candidates	Daniel S. Dickinson

Constitutional Union Party
(Convention)

Nominees	President: John Bell Vice President: Edward Everett
Other candidates	John J. Crittenden William A. Graham Sam Houston William C. Rives

Democratic Party (Northern)
(Conventions)

Nominees	President: Stephen A. Douglas Vice President: Herschel V. Johnson
Other candidates	Daniel S. Dickinson James Guthrie Robert M. T. Hunter Andrew Johnson

Other 1860 elections: House
Senate

(← 1860) 1864 United States presidential election (1868 →)

National Union Party
(Convention)

Nominees	President: Abraham Lincoln (incumbent) Vice President: Andrew Johnson
Other candidates	President: Ulysses S. Grant Vice President: Benjamin Butler Daniel S. Dickinson Hannibal Hamlin (incumbent) Lovell Rousseau

Democratic Party
(Convention)

Nominees	President: George B. McClellan Vice President: George H. Pendleton
Other candidates	President: Thomas H. Seymour Vice President: George W. Cass Augustus C. Dodge Daniel W. Voorhees

Other 1864 elections: House
Senate

American Civil War

Origins

Origins	Timeline leading to the War Bleeding Kansas Border states Compromise of 1850 John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry Kansas-Nebraska Act Lincoln–Douglas debates Missouri Compromise Nullification crisis Origins of the American Civil War Panic of 1857 Popular sovereignty Secession South Carolina Declaration of Secession States' rights Proclamation 80
Slavery	African Americans Cornerstone Speech Crittenden Compromise Dred Scott v. Sandford Emancipation Proclamation Fire-Eaters Fugitive slave laws Plantations in the American South Positive good Slave Power Slavery in the United States Treatment of slaves in the United States Uncle Tom's Cabin
Abolitionism	Abolitionism in the United States Susan B. Anthony James G. Birney John Brown Frederick Douglass William Lloyd Garrison Lane Debates on Slavery Elijah Parish Lovejoy J. Sella Martin Lysander Spooner George Luther Stearns Thaddeus Stevens Charles Sumner Caning Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad

Combatants
Theaters
Campaigns
Battles
States

Combatants

Union	Army Navy Marine Corps Revenue Cutter Service
Confederacy	Army Navy Marine Corps

Theaters

Major campaigns

Major battles

Involvement

States and
territories

Cities

Leaders

Confederate

Military	R. H. Anderson Beauregard Bragg Buchanan Cooper Early Ewell Forrest Gorgas Hill Hood Jackson A. S. Johnston J. E. Johnston Lee Longstreet Morgan Mosby Polk Price Semmes E. K. Smith Stuart Taylor Wheeler
Civilian	Benjamin Bocock Breckinridge Davis Hunter Mallory Memminger Seddon Stephens

Union

Military	Anderson Buell Burnside Butler Du Pont Farragut Foote Frémont Grant Halleck Hooker Hunt McClellan McDowell Meade Meigs Ord Pope D. D. Porter Rosecrans Scott Sheridan Sherman Thomas
Civilian	Adams Chase Ericsson Hamlin Lincoln Pinkerton Seward Stanton Stevens Wade Welles

Aftermath

Constitution

Reconstruction Amendments

Reconstruction

Post-
Reconstruction

Monuments
and memorials

Union	List Grand Army of the Republic memorials to Lincoln
Confederate	List artworks in Capitol memorials to Davis memorials to Lee Removal

Cemeteries

Veterans

Related topics

Military	Arms Armies Campaign Medal Cavalry Confederate Home Guard Confederate railroads Confederate revolving cannon Field artillery Infantry Medal of Honor recipients Medicine Naval battles Official Records Partisan rangers POW camps Rations Signal Corps Turning point Union corps badges U.S. Balloon Corps U.S. Home Guard U.S. Military Railroad
Political	Committee on the Conduct of the War Confederate States presidential election of 1861 Confiscation Act of 1861 Confiscation Act of 1862 Copperheads Diplomacy Emancipation Proclamation Habeas Corpus Act of 1863 Hampton Roads Conference National Union Party Politicians killed Radical Republicans Trent Affair Union Leagues U.S. Presidential Election of 1864 War Democrats
Music	Battle Hymn of the Republic Dixie John Brown's Body A Lincoln Portrait Marching Through Georgia Maryland, My Maryland When Johnny Comes Marching Home Daar kom die Alibama
By ethnicity	African Americans German Americans Irish Americans Italian Americans Native Americans Catawba Cherokee Choctaw Seminole
Other topics	Baltimore riot of 1861 Battlefield preservation Bibliography Confederate war finance Confederate States dollar Espionage Confederate Secret Service Great Hanging at Gainesville Great Revival of 1863 Gender issues Juneteenth Naming the war New York City Gold Hoax of 1864 New York City riots of 1863 Photographers Richmond riots of 1863 Salt Supreme Court cases Tokens U.S. Sanitary Commission Women soldiers
Related	List of films and television shows about the American Civil War

Reconstruction era

Participants

Federal government	Presidents Abraham Lincoln Andrew Johnson Ulysses S. Grant Rutherford B. Hayes Congress 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 Radical Republicans Moderate Republicans Conservative Republicans African-American senators African-American representatives Reconstruction Amendments United States Congressional Joint Committee on Reconstruction United States House Select Committee on Reconstruction Federal judiciary Taney Court Chase Court Waite Court Federal bureaucracy Edwin Stanton Freedmen's Bureau Justice Department
State governments	Southern United States Confederate States of America
Others	African Americans Free people of color Freedman Politicians Carpetbaggers Ku Klux Klan Scalawag Redeemers White League Red Shirts Democratic Party Bourbon Democrat Horatio Seymour Samuel J. Tilden Republican Party Stalwarts Charles Sumner Thaddeus Stevens Lyman Trumbull Benjamin Wade John Bingham James Mitchell Ashley Freedman's Savings Bank Women during the Reconstruction era

Elections

Presidential	1864 DNC National Union Convention Radical Democracy Party 1868 DNC RNC 1872 DNC RNC Liberal Republican Party Straight-Out Democratic Party Victoria Woodhull 1876 DNC RNC Greenback Convention Prohibition Convention Electoral Commission Compromise of 1877
U.S. Senate	1864–65 1866–67 1868–69 1870–71 1872–73 1874–75 1876–77
U.S. House	1864–65 1866–67 1868–69 1870–71 1872–73 1874–75 1876–77
Gubernatorial	1863 Alabama California Connecticut Kentucky Massachusetts Minnesota New Hampshire Ohio Pennsylvania Virginia Vermont Wisconsin West Virginia 1864 Connecticut Illinois Indiana Louisiana Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Missouri New Hampshire Vermont West Virginia 1865 Connecticut Florida Louisiana Massachusetts Minnesota New Jersey Ohio South Carolina Vermont Wisconsin 1866 Connecticut Delaware Massachusetts Maine Michigan North Carolina Oregon Pennsylvania Texas Vermont West Virginia 1867 California Connecticut Massachusetts Maryland Maine Minnesota Ohio Vermont Wisconsin 1868 Alabama Connecticut Florida Illinois Indiana Louisiana Massachusetts Maine Michigan Missouri North Carolina New Jersey South Carolina Vermont West Virginia 1869 Connecticut Iowa Massachusetts Maine Minnesota Mississippi Ohio Pennsylvania Rhode Island Virginia Vermont Wisconsin 1870 Alabama Connecticut Delaware Massachusetts Maine Michigan Missouri Oregon Rhode Island South Carolina Vermont West Virginia 1871 California Connecticut Iowa Kentucky Massachusetts Maryland Maine Minnesota New Jersey Ohio Rhode Island Wisconsin 1872 Alabama Connecticut Florida Illinois Indiana Louisiana Massachusetts Maine Michigan Missouri North Carolina Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina Vermont West Virginia 1873 Connecticut Iowa Massachusetts Maine Minnesota Mississippi Ohio Texas Virginia Wisconsin 1874 Alabama Connecticut Delaware Kansas Massachusetts Maine Michigan Missouri New Jersey Nevada Oregon South Carolina Vermont 1875 California Connecticut Iowa Kentucky Massachusetts Maryland Maine Minnesota Ohio Ohio Wisconsin 1876 Alabama Colorado Connecticut April Connecticut November Florida Illinois Indiana Kansas Louisiana Massachusetts Maine Michigan Missouri North Carolina Rhode Island South Carolina Vermont West Virginia
U.S. elections	1864 1866 1868 1870 1872 1874 1876

Key events

Prelude	American Indian Wars Slavery in the United States A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) The Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women (1838) Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1839) Seneca Falls Convention (1848) National Women's Rights Convention (1850) American Civil War Confiscation Act of 1861 Confiscation Act of 1862 District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act (1862) Militia Act of 1862
1863	Emancipation Proclamation General Order No. 143 Lincoln's presidential Reconstruction Ten percent plan National Bank Act Women's Loyal National League New York City draft riots 1863 State of the Union Address
1864	Wade–Davis Bill 1864 elections 1864 State of the Union Address
1865	13th Amendment Second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln Address Black Codes Special Field Orders No. 15 Freedmen's Bureau Freedmen's Bureau bills Confederates surrender at Appomattox Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Shaw University New Departure 1865 State of the Union Address Founding of the Ku Klux Klan
1866	Civil Rights Act of 1866 Memphis massacre of 1866 New Orleans Massacre of 1866 Swing Around the Circle Southern Homestead Act of 1866 Fort Smith Conference and Cherokee Reconstruction Treaty of 1866 Choctaw and Chickasaw Treaty of Washington of 1866 Tennessee readmitted to Union Petition for Universal Freedom National Labor Union Ex parte Garland Ex parte Milligan Slave Kidnapping Act of 1866 1866 elections
1867	Tenure of Office Act Command of Army Act Indian Peace Commission Knights of the White Camelia Pulaski riot Reconstruction Acts Reconstruction military districts Constitutional conventions of 1867 Habeas Corpus Act of 1867 Peonage Act of 1867 First impeachment inquiry into Andrew Johnson 1867 State of the Union Address
1868	14th Amendment Second impeachment inquiry into Andrew Johnson Impeachment of Andrew Johnson Timeline Impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson Impeachment managers investigation Articles of impeachment Arkansas readmitted to Union Florida readmitted to Union North Carolina readmitted to Union South Carolina readmitted to Union Louisiana readmitted to Union Alabama readmitted to Union Opelousas massacre Fourth Reconstruction Act Georgia v. Stanton 1868 elections 1868 State of the Union Address
1869	National Woman Suffrage Association American Woman Suffrage Association Alabama Claims Proposed annexation of Santo Domingo Board of Indian Commissioners Public Credit Act of 1869 Black Friday (1869) Ex parte McCardle First transcontinental railroad 1869 State of the Union Address
1870	15th Amendment Enforcement Act of 1870 Justice Department Naturalization Act of 1870 Kirk–Holden war Shoffner Act 1870 elections 1870 State of the Union Address
1871	Ku Klux Klan hearings Second Enforcement Act Ku Klux Klan Act Alcorn State University Meridian race riot of 1871 Treaty of Washington New York custom house ring Civil service commission United States expedition to Korea 1871 State of the Union Address
1872	General Mining Act of 1872 Crédit Mobilier scandal Modoc War Star Route scandal Salary Grab Act Amnesty Act 1872 elections 1872 State of the Union Address
1873	Panic of 1873 Colfax massacre Timber Culture Act Slaughter-House Cases Virginius Affair Coinage Act of 1873 Long Depression Comstock laws 1873 State of the Union Address
1874	Brooks–Baxter War Battle of Liberty Place Coushatta massacre Red River War Timber Culture Act White League Election Massacre of 1874 Vicksburg massacre Black Hills Gold Rush Sanborn incident Anti-Moiety Acts 1874 elections 1874 State of the Union Address
1875	United States v. Cruikshank Civil Rights Act of 1875 Red Shirts Mississippi Plan Clifton Riot of 1875 Yazoo City Riot of 1875 Specie Payment Resumption Act Whiskey Ring Wheeler Compromise Delano affair Pratt & Boyd 1875 State of the Union Address
1876	Hamburg massacre South Carolina civil disturbances of 1876 Ellenton massacre Great Sioux War of 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn United States v. Reese Trader post scandal Centennial Exposition Cattellism Safe burglary conspiracy 1876 elections 1876 State of the Union Address
1877	Electoral Commission Compromise of 1877 Nez Perce War Desert Land Act Great Railroad Strike of 1877
Aftermath	Posse Comitatus Act (1878) Civil Rights Cases (1883) United States v. Harris (1883) Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Williams v. Mississippi (1898) Wilmington insurrection of 1898 Giles v. Harris (1903) Disenfranchisement

Aspects

Historiography	Bibliography of the Reconstruction era James Shepherd Pike The Prostrate State (1874) James Bryce The American Commonwealth (1888) Claude G. Bowers The Tragic Era (1929) Columbia University John Burgess Walter Lynwood Fleming Dunning School William Archibald Dunning Charles A. Beard Howard K. Beale W. E. B. Du Bois Black Reconstruction in America (1935) C. Vann Woodward Joel Williamson William R. Brock The American Crisis (1963) John Hope Franklin From Slavery to Freedom (1947) After Slavery (1965) Leon Litwack Been in the Storm So Long (1979) Eric Foner Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (1988) Kenneth M. Stampp Steven Hahn A Nation Under Our Feet (2003) The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution (2019)
Memory	Winslow Homer A Visit from the Old Mistress (1876) Thomas Dixon Jr. The Leopard's Spots (1902) The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (1905) D. W. Griffith The Birth of a Nation (1915) United Daughters of the Confederacy Gone with the Wind (1939) David W. Blight Race and Reunion (2001)
Legacy	Women's suffrage in the United States Labor history of the United States Gilded Age Jim Crow era Civil rights movement American frontier
Other topics	African American founding fathers of the United States Forty acres and a mule Habeas corpus History of the United States (1865–1917) Paramilitary Race (human categorization) Reconstruction Treaties Suffrage Technological and industrial history of the United States White supremacy Whitecapping

Category

Individuals lain in state, in honor and in repose in the United States

State funerals in the United States

Lain in state

US Capitol rotunda	Clay (1852) Lincoln (1865, funeral) Stevens (1868) Sumner (1874) Wilson (1875) Garfield (1881) Logan (1886) McKinley (1901) L'Enfant (1909) Dewey (1917) Unknown Soldier for World War I (1921) Harding (1923) W. H. Taft (1930) Pershing (1948) R. A. Taft (1953) Unknown Soldiers for World War II and the Korean War (1958) Kennedy (1963, funeral) MacArthur (1964) H. Hoover (1964) Eisenhower (1969) Dirksen (1969) J. E. Hoover (1972) Johnson (1973) Humphrey (1978) Blassie / Unknown Soldier for the Vietnam War (1984) Pepper (1989) Reagan (2004, funeral) Ford (2006–07, funeral) Inouye (2012) McCain (2018) Bush (2018, funeral) Lewis (2020) Dole (2021) Reid (2022) Carter (2024–25, funeral)
National Statuary Hall	Cummings (2019) Ginsburg (2020, funeral) Young (2022)
House Chamber	Hooper (1875)
Herbert C. Hoover Building	Brown (1996)
Old Senate Chamber	Chase (1873)

Lain in honor

US Capitol rotunda	Chestnut and Gibson (1998) Parks (2005) Graham (2018) Sicknick (2021) Evans (2021) Williams (2022)

Lain in repose

East Room	Harrison (1841) Taylor (1850) Lincoln (1865, funeral) McKinley (1901) Harding (1923) Roosevelt (1945) Kennedy (1963, funeral)
Great Hall of the US Supreme Court	Warren (1974) Marshall (1993) Burger (1995) Brennan (1997) Blackmun (1999) Rehnquist (2005) Scalia (2016) Stevens (2019) Ginsburg (2020, funeral) O'Connor (2023)
Senate Chamber	Byrd (2010) Lautenberg (2013)

Bold: Presidents and chief justices

v t e Mount Rushmore
Shrine of Democracy
Construction	Gutzon Borglum (sculptor) Lincoln Borglum (assistant sculptor) Luigi Del Bianco (chief carver) Walter K. Long (assisted) Doane Robinson (conceived idea) Peter Norbeck (political promoter, Norbeck-Williamson Act of 1929)
Subjects	George Washington Thomas Jefferson Theodore Roosevelt Abraham Lincoln
Museum	Lincoln Borglum Museum
Location	Black Hills of South Dakota
Legacy	In popular culture Mount Rushmore Anniversary coins National symbols of the United States
Related	Charles E. Rushmore (namesake) 2020 fireworks celebration Mount Rushmore Syndrome USS Rushmore (LSD-14) USS Rushmore (LSD-47)

Authority control databases
International	ISNI 2 VIAF 2 FAST WorldCat 2
National	Germany United States France BnF data Japan Italy Australia Czech Republic Russia Spain Portugal Netherlands Norway Taiwan Latvia Croatia Chile Greece Korea Sweden Poland 2 Vatican Israel Catalonia Belgium
Academics	CiNii
Artists	ULAN MusicBrainz KulturNav Discography of American Historical Recordings FID
People	Netherlands US Congress Trove Deutsche Biographie DDB
Other	IdRef NARA SNAC Te Papa (New Zealand) RISM