Abraham Lincoln: Man of the People

Abraham Lincoln

President from: Mar. 4, 1861 - April 15, 1865

Age at inauguration: 52

Political Party: Republican

What I read:

Lincoln by David Herbert Donald

Age at death: 56

Cause of Death: Assassination by gun

Health & Appearance: ‘Ol Abe is still our tallest president at 6’4” with grey eyes and black hair. Much is written about Lincoln’s health and a lot of it is unfounded rumor. The truth even sounds made up. He almost cut off a finger with an axe. His feet were frost bitten. He was saved from drowning by a friend at a young age. He got a concussion from being kicked in the head by a horse. In 1828, he was clubbed in the head by thieves while traveling by river boat. 

In 1835, he had malaria and his fiancé died of typhoid fever which devastated Lincoln. He had syphilis and suffered from frequent constipation. Part of his jaw was broken during a tooth extraction, which was done without anesthesia. 

His voice was higher than most men. This helped his voice to carry over great distance.

He was called “Old Abe” because he looked prematurely old.

He suffered domestic abuse at least three times from his wife Mary Todd Lincoln, who bloodied his face and left bruises. 

After delivering the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln had smallpox  that lasted several months.  He also got sick from a gas leak at The White House. 

In his last months, Lincoln had headaches, cold feet and hands, exercise intolerance, sweating, pervasive fatigue, fainting, and nausea. These findings are compatible with a pheochromocytoma (a type of neuroendocrine tumor).  It is believed by some that he suffered from this rare disease and would not have lived through his next term had he not been assassinated.

Pre-Presidency: He was born in a one room, dirt floor log cabin. Lincoln’s mother died when he was six and his father, who he disliked, remarried.  His stepmother became his friend and pushed him to become educated. His first job was on a ferry boat. He then built his own flatboat and took a load of farm equipment to New Orleans. Returning home, he gave the money to his father who used the money to move the family to Illinois. Abe was 21.

Lincoln returned to the river, making one more trip on his own flatboat to New Orleans. This time he used his profit to start his own life in New Salem, Illinois. In New Salem, he worked in the general store which was a hub for town news. He was very popular for his wit and ability to read and write. He used his popularity to run for the state legislature, but suspended his campaign to volunteer for the Black Hawk War.  He was chosen as Captain by his men. He saw no action.

He was appointed Postmaster by Andrew Jackson, a Democrat, even though he was a member of the Whig party. He studied on his own to become a lawyer, chopping wood and splitting rails to make up for his meager postal salary, $55 a year.

He won state office for four, two-year terms.  In campaigning, he had no policy statements and made few political speeches.  He simply met every family in the district and told jokes and talked to people about their lives.  He was one of five legislators out of 83 to oppose a resolution condemning abolitionists.

He won a seat to Congress by again committing to nothing. Once in office, he stood against President Polk and the Mexican American War, accusing Polk of misrepresenting what was happening at the Texas Mexico border (which Polk was). Lincoln had promised to only serve one term in Congress, so he returned to Springfield, IL to practice law, becoming one of the most successful lawyers of his day.  He traveled by horse many miles for his clients.

When the Whig party split, he became a very active Republican, eventually receiving the nomination of his party for Senator which pitted him against the Democratic incumbent, Stephen Douglas.

The press coverage of The Lincoln-Douglas debates put Lincoln on the national stage. He lost the election, but his increased national attention set him up to be nominated as the first Republican Presidential candidate. The Democratic party split: the North nominated Douglas, and Southern Democrats nominated Breckenridge. The Constitutional Union party nominated John Bell. With a divided Democratic party, Lincoln and the Republicans won the White House and kept control of Congress.

Lincoln believed Black men should be able to receive the fruits of their labor the same as anyone else, but did not believe they should have the right to vote, intermarry with Whites, hold political office, or sit on juries.

Between his election and inauguration, seven states seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. Their constitution differed from the U.S. Constitution in four areas: states had superiority over the national government, it codified the right to own slaves in states and territories, was against protective tariffs, and against national government sponsored improvements.

In an effort to stop secession, before his inauguration, Lincoln sent messages to Congress to inform them he was not against slavery in the southern states but against its expansion in the territories and the right of slave owners to hunt down their escaped slaves in the North.

There was quite a bit of dissent against Lincoln's policies. Things were so bad that he had to change Vice Presidential candidates and put Andrew Johnson of Tennessee on the ticket to appease border states.  A decision that would have ramifications to this day.

Major accomplishments:  No one expected the war to last as long as it did.  In the Civil War, there was no unified battle strategy in the North or South.  Different generals were in charge of their different military theaters. Every general could do as he pleased without consulting any other general or the President. It does not take much imagination to see how this made things difficult to say the least.   

Lincoln listened to his generals until he finally got so frustrated by their lack of success, he took charge and appointed Grant to unify the North's battle plan.  He studied war histories and books on battle. He went from absolutely no knowledge of how to fight a war to becoming an able military president, to winning the bloodiest battle in American history.

He appointed, mostly, the right cabinet members to marshal the U.S. economy into fighting the war. Lincoln’s Minister to England, Charles Francis Adams, son of John Quincy Adams and grandson of John Adams, was brilliant in keeping England from recognizing the Confederacy. His cabinet was one of the greatest in American history.

He issued the Emancipation Proclamation that freed all slaves held in states hostile to the U.S. government.  This did not free slaves in slave holding areas loyal to The Union. 

Lincoln then used all his skills to pass the 13^th amendment through Congress but did not live to see it ratified by the states.

Lincoln passed The Homestead Act which gave 160 acres of land to poor people if they farmed it for five years.  This greatly increased wealth for the poor. 

Lincoln also supported The Morill Land Grant that gave land to states for agricultural and manufacturing colleges.

Are you kidding me? Lincoln was a bartender and won over 300 wrestling matches.

He was self-educated, attending less than one year of formal school.

Lincoln's brutal murder, the subsequent capture of his assassin, and the train journey of his corpse dominated newspapers across the country for months, and as a result, another horrific tragedy has remained overshadowed to this day. The morning after John Wilkes Booth was caught, a steamboat called Sultana, carrying six times its limit of passengers, most of whom were Union soldiers recently released from two Confederate prison camps, blew up on the Mississippi River near Memphis. Two-thirds of the people aboard perished. My wife is a direct descendant of one of the survivors. Together, we are writing the screenplay Sultana: the worst maritime disaster in American history.

What I learned: 

Lincoln did what was right but personally believed most of the bigoted things a lot of White people believed at the time. In campaigning for William Henry Harrison against Martin Van Buren, he attacked Van Buren for wanting to give Black men the right to vote in New York.

He had an impressive drive to educate himself and to be the best lawyer in the territory. He traveled hundreds of miles by horse to ply his lawyer skills in small towns and local courts. He won a vast majority of the cases he took. 

Lincoln was not afraid to have friends that disagreed with him. His cabinet was full of them. He put people at ease with his never-ending stories and jokes. His relationship with Mary was strained as she had emotional issues for most of their marriage, due to the loss of several of their children. Though she would treat him horribly, including hitting him, he never raised his voice or hand to hurt her.  I believe he understood that she was not in her right mind. 

The night he died at Ford Theater, Lincoln had invited both his Secretary of State and General Ulysses S. Grant and their wives to the theater.  Both women hated Mary Todd Lincoln and said they did not want to spend any time with her so their husbands turned down the invitation. What might have happened if General Grant, a hardened fighter, was sitting next to Lincoln when Booth assassinated him?

PRECEDED BY: James Buchanan

SUCCEEDED BY: Andrew Johnson