Abraham Lincoln, a self-taught lawyer, legislator, and a strong opponent of slavery was elected 16th president of the United States in November 1860, shortly before the outbreak of the American Civil War, and re-elected in 1864, was a military strategist and a savvy leader. His Emancipation Proclamation paved the way for slavery’s abolition, while his Gettysburg Address stands as one of the most famous pieces of oratory in American history. 

Childhood and early life

Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, to Nancy and Thomas Lincoln in Hardin County, Kentucky. Lincoln’s formal schooling was limited to three brief periods in local schools, as he had to work constantly to support his family. In 1830, his family moved to Macon County in southern Illinois, where he worked as a shopkeeper and a postmaster.

Lincoln made extraordinary efforts to attain knowledge while working. He was a captain in the Black Hawk War and got involved in local politics as a supporter of the Whig Party. Winning election to the Illinois state legislature in 1834 he spent eight years in the Illinois legislature. Lincoln taught himself law and passed the bar examination in 1836. His law partner had mentioned, “His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest.”

He met Mary Todd, a Kentucky belle with many suitors (including Lincoln’s future political rival, Stephen Douglas), and they married in 1842. Lincoln won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1846 and began serving his term the following year but due to his strong stand against the Mexican- American war, he was unpopular and had to take a break from politics. 

Political career

When Stephen Douglas, a leading Democrat in Congress, pushed through the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), which gave the voters of each territory, the right to decide whether the territory should be slave or free, Lincoln got back to national politics. Like his Whig heroes Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, Lincoln too opposed the spread of slavery to the territories. Lincoln went before a large crowd in Peoria to debate the merits of the Kansas-Nebraska Act with Douglas, denouncing slavery and its extension.

In 1858 Lincoln ran against Stephen Douglas for Senator. Although he lost the election, the debates with Douglas gained him a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in 1860, surpassing powerful candidates, even though he was only an Illinois lawyer with one undistinguished congressional term under his belt.

Abraham Lincoln became the United States’ 16th President in 1861 and issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy in 1863.

In the general election 1860, Lincoln again faced Douglas but Lincoln won most of the North and carried the Electoral College to win the White House as the 16^th president of the United States. After years of sectional tensions, the election of an antislavery northerner as the 16th president of the United States drove many southerners over the brink. By the time Lincoln was inaugurated as 16th U.S. president in March 1861, seven southern states had seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America.

Abraham Lincoln, the Civil war, and the end of slavery

Lincoln ordered a fleet of Union ships to supply the federal Fort Sumter and the Confederates fired on both the fort and the Union fleet, beginning the Civil War. For nearly a century, the people and politicians of the Northern and Southern states had been clashing over the issues and finally led to war with the attack. With only having a brief period of service in the Black Hawk War (1832) Lincoln surprised many when he proved to be a capable wartime leader.

After four years of conflict, the major Confederate armies surrendered to the United States in April of 1865, resulting the Union winning the American civil war. By this time Lincoln was re-elected as the president in 1864. 

With the end of the war, a new chapter in American history opened as the 13^th Amendment, passed in January of 1865, was implemented. It abolished slavery in the United States, and now, with the end of the war, four million African Americans were free.

Former slaves traveled throughout the south, visiting or searching for loved ones from whom they had become separated. What they knew was that slavery was dead. With that 250-year legacy behind them, Americans faced a new future. Abraham Lincoln was called the Great Emancipator for his role in freeing Southern slaves during the Civil War.

However, Abraham Lincoln was not fortunate to see this new future, built with his leadership. On the night of April 14, 1865, the actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in the head in the president’s box at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. Lincoln died in the early morning hours of April 15, 1865. He was assassinated, when the Union was on the brink of victory. On April 21, 1865, Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train left Washington and traveled through 180 cities and seven states so mourners could pay homage to the fallen president.

On this day 12^th February, we Rotaractors will remember this great leader who handled the crisis that most certainly would have ended differently with a lesser man in office. He strived harder to change lives, he served to change lives of the millions of slaves in America. As said if a lesser man was in office the preservation of the Union, the vindication of democracy and the death of slavery would not be possible. 

Written by Rtr. Nethmi Ranasinghe