Honest Abe

Coleton Cloud
Dr. Curtis
History 120-103
25 November 2012

The Legend of Abraham Lincoln
Wilson, Douglas L. Honor's Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Vintage Knopf., 1999. Print.
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States of America, serving from 1860 to 1865. From humble upbringings to becoming the most powerful man in America, "Honest Abe" is known today as a great and influential person who is often idolized in American politics. Lincoln is almost always voted the best or near-best President among historians (Wilson, 1). He helped mend the rift between the Union and the Confederacy, reuniting and reconstructing America and leading the way for his successors to twist this land of the free and home of the brave into the inspiration it is today. From his log cabin childhood to death, Abraham Lincoln was a great man whose legend lives on today. Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 to Thomas and Nancy Hawks Lincoln (Wilson 11, 12). He had an older sister, Sarah, and a brother, Thomas, who died in infancy. On the farm that Abraham was born, the family spent only about two years then moved to a farm ten miles away on Knob Creek . It was in Knob Creek where Sarah and Abraham first went to school, learning the different subjects in a log schoolhouse. In 1816, the family picked up and would move again .They moved to southwestern Indiana, where Thomas worked to turn 60 acres of forest land into a farm (Wilson, 13). In 1818, Nancy Lincoln died of an illness the settlers called "milk sickness," caused by drinking milk from cows "that had eaten snakeroot," a highly toxic herb. A depression hit, and overwhelmed the farm after her death, but all happiness was eventually restored. Thomas married a widow named Sarah Bush Johnston, and the loneliness was for the most part, all but gone. As one can see, Lincoln's childhood was simple, yet it set him up to become a great man. The next steps that Lincoln took would change his life greatly. Lincoln stayed with his father until he was twenty-two, and continued to help him plant crops (Wilson, 17). The young Lincoln had already reached his full height of 6 feet 4 inches, and was very strong (Wilson, 17). Lincoln, after having completed several odd jobs, decided to move to New Salem, Illinois. From 1831 to 1837, Lincoln stayed in the village, and constantly looked for work. Lincoln served a total of 120 days in the Black Hawk War, but never saw any fighting. Lincoln would later call his experiences serving in the war "bloody struggle with the mosquitoes” and “charges upon the wild onions" In search of a job after the war, Lincoln partnered with a man named William Berry to buy a store (Wilson, 26). The store quickly failed however, and when Berry died in 1835, Lincoln was left to pay the debts left by the store . His hard work and integrity earned him the nickname "Honest Abe" (Wilson, 36). It is evident that hard work held the key to Lincoln's successful future, and that Lincoln's honesty and integrity were respected by those of New Salem. Lincoln's life was about to take a very different turn than one would expect from a Kentucky-born farm boy. In 1832, before Lincoln partnered with Berry to buy the store, he decided to run for the Illinois state legislature. Although he did not win the election, Lincoln received 277 of his precinct's 300 votes (Wilson, 43). Lincoln did not give up, though. In 1834, he ran again for state legislature and won, serving four two-year terms in the Illinois General Assembly, Serving eight years in the Illinois state legislature left Lincoln with his sights set for something higher. After several unsuccessful attempts, Lincoln was elected to the United States House of Representatives.
However, once there, Lincoln did not make the impression he had hoped to make. Lincoln stayed out of law for a while, but couldn't stay away forever. In 1858, Lincoln was nominated to run against Stephen A. Douglas for a seat in the United States Senate. Lincoln challenged Douglas to series of debates, and Lincoln seemed to be the favorite. However, the way that Illinois was divided into districts kept Lincoln from getting a majority of the seats, and Douglas was re-elected by a vote of fifty-four to forty-six (Wilson, 66). Many of Lincoln's pursuits in government at this age were not horribly successful, but they put him in the public eye, and gave him much greater support in what was to come. Although Lincoln was not a Senator, he had his hopes set on the bigger prize: the Presidency. In 1860, he was easily nominated by the Republican Party. The delegates chose Senator Hannibal Hamlin of Maine for Vice President Because of the uneven nature of the Democratic Party at the time, and three other nominees were on the ballot beside Lincoln: John Bell of the Constitutional Union Party. John C. Breckinridge of the Southern Democratic Party, and Stephen A. Douglas of the Northern Democratic Party, the man who had won when he and Lincoln were fighting for a Senate seat only two years before Lincoln won the election easily, receiving 180 electoral votes to 72 for Breckingridge, 39 for Bell, and 12 for Douglas (Wilson, 84). Although the election was easy, Lincoln's Presidency was far from easy.
On April 12, 1861, the Civil War began, noticing a lot of Lincoln's worst fears of slavery were increasing into war. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which forbade slavery. Also, on November 19, 1863, Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, saying that, to him, the Civil War was primarily of freedom. On April 9, 1865, the Civil War ended, leaving the United States whole, although fragile, once again. Lincoln's presidency was not perfect by any means, as he met significant opposition from those in line with the Confederacy, but Lincoln's presidency was generally considered a success to some, but not to others. On April 14, 1865, Lincoln attended a performance of “Our American Cousin” at Ford's Theatre with Mary, his wife, and several other government officials. During the middle of the play, a well-known actor named John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in the back of the head, injuring him severely. Booth escaped, but was later captured and killed. President Lincoln died the next day, April 15, at 7:22 p.m. Booth killed Lincoln as an act for the Confederacy, even though the war had ended five days before Lincoln's body was buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois. The death of their beloved President left America in great sadness, and is still considered a grave event today.
There is no question that Lincoln's work from his childhood to his Presidency laid the foundation for the America we know today. Although he's been gone a while, Lincoln's legacy definitely stills lives and his image is featured on today's United States currency, on both the one-cent penny and the five-dollar bill, and sits at the Lincoln Memorial, upon a huge white throne, looking over the country he helped to protect. Lincoln was a great man and his life reflects the great American pride. There is no doubt that Lincoln truly earned his nickname: "Honest Abe."