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- Education: Lincoln was a self-educated man. He had little formal education; however, he practiced law. On the other hand, Lincoln’s dad was only literate enough to write his name.
- He was the second child of his parents. They were farmers and their family lived in Kentucky until 1816. There’s hasn’t yet been a president who was an only child.
- Death of his mother: Lincoln’s mother died from drinking poisoned milk. His father soon married another woman by the name Sarah Bush Johnston, who was a widow.
- Lincoln did not have a middle name.
- Overview
- Life
- Childhood and youth
Abraham Lincoln was a member of the Whig Party and later a Republican. He believed that the government’s job was to do what a community of people could not do for themselves. One of his greatest preoccupations as a political thinker was the issue of self-governance and the promise and problems that could arise from it. The choice by some to allow the expansion of slavery was one such problem and was central to the American Civil War. Although opposed to slavery from the outset of his political career, Lincoln would not make its abolition a mainstay of his policy until several years into the war.
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How did Abraham Lincoln get into politics?
From 1834 to 1840, Abraham Lincoln occupied a seat in the Illinois state legislature. He also practiced law in Illinois during the 1830s and ’40s, and in that time he became one of the state’s most renowned lawyers. He first entered national politics in 1847 while serving a single term in Congress. In 1858 he made a bid for the Senate in a much-publicized race which he ultimately lost but which transformed him into a nationally recognized political figure. In 1860 he was nominated at the Republican National Convention to be the party’s presidential candidate, and he embarked on a presidential campaign that he would win.
Read more below: Life: Early political career
Lincoln was born in a backwoods cabin 3 miles (5 km) south of Hodgenville, Kentucky, and was taken to a farm in the neighbouring valley of Knob Creek when he was two years old. His earliest memories were of this home and, in particular, of a flash flood that once washed away the corn and pumpkin seeds he had helped his father plant. His father, Tho...
In December 1816, faced with a lawsuit challenging the title to his Kentucky farm, Thomas Lincoln moved with his family to southwestern Indiana. There, as a squatter on public land, he hastily put up a “half-faced camp”—a crude structure of logs and boughs with one side open to the weather—in which the family took shelter behind a blazing fire. Soon he built a permanent cabin, and later he bought the land on which it stood. Abraham helped to clear the fields and to take care of the crops but early acquired a dislike for hunting and fishing. In afteryears he recalled the “panther’s scream,” the bears that “preyed on the swine,” and the poverty of Indiana frontier life, which was “pretty pinching at times.” The unhappiest period of his boyhood followed the death of his mother in the autumn of 1818. As a ragged nine-year-old, he saw her buried in the forest, then faced a winter without the warmth of a mother’s love. Fortunately, before the onset of a second winter, Thomas Lincoln brought home from Kentucky a new wife for himself, a new mother for the children. Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln, a widow with two girls and a boy of her own, had energy and affection to spare. She ran the household with an even hand, treating both sets of children as if she had borne them all; but she became especially fond of Abraham, and he of her. He afterward referred to her as his “angel mother.”
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His stepmother doubtless encouraged Lincoln’s taste for reading, yet the original source of his desire to learn remains something of a mystery. Both his parents were almost completely illiterate, and he himself received little formal education. He once said that, as a boy, he had gone to school “by littles”—a little now and a little then—and his entire schooling amounted to no more than one year’s attendance. His neighbours later recalled how he used to trudge for miles to borrow a book. According to his own statement, however, his early surroundings provided “absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three; but that was all.” Apparently the young Lincoln did not read a large number of books but thoroughly absorbed the few that he did read. These included Parson Weems’s Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington (with its story of the little hatchet and the cherry tree), Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and Aesop’s Fables. From his earliest days he must have had some familiarity with the Bible, for it doubtless was the only book his family owned.
In March 1830 the Lincoln family undertook a second migration, this time to Illinois, with Lincoln himself driving the team of oxen. Having just reached the age of 21, he was about to begin life on his own. Six feet four inches tall, he was rawboned and lanky but muscular and physically powerful. He was especially noted for the skill and strength with which he could wield an ax. He spoke with a backwoods twang and walked in the long-striding, flat-footed, cautious manner of a plowman. Good-natured though somewhat moody, talented as a mimic and storyteller, he readily attracted friends. But he was yet to demonstrate whatever other abilities he possessed.
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Oct 29, 2009 · Abraham Lincoln, a self-taught lawyer, legislator and vocal opponent of slavery, was elected 16th president of the United States in November 1860, shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War.
Jul 14, 2023 · Abraham Lincoln was the 16 th president of the United States, serving from 1861 to 1865, and is regarded as one of America’s greatest heroes due to his roles in guiding the Union through...
Oct 19, 2012 · Abraham Lincoln was the President of the United States during the Civil War and one of the great figures in American history. Expand your knowledge and appreciation of Lincoln's legacy with these amazing facts. Fact #1: The young Abraham Lincoln described himself as “a piece of floating driftwood.”
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States of America, who successfully prosecuted the Civil War to preserve the nation. He played in key role in passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which officially ended slavery in America.
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Jan 12, 2024 · Key facts about Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States who guided the federal government through most of the Civil War. On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln became the 16th President of the United States.
