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Feature Essay Abraham Lincoln before the Presidency
James Davis From April of 1861 to April of 1865, President Abraham Lincoln led the United States through its terrible Civil War. During the war, Lincoln's leadership helped preserve the Union and emancipate over three million slaves. His ideas defined important goals of the war and inspired the war-weary public. People admired and respected President Lincoln, but many had strong negative feelings about him. Not unexpectedly, people in the South feared and even hated him, but people in the North also feared and even detested him. Even members of his own political party, the Republican Party, heaped scorn and ridicule on him. As the Civil War ended, he became the first American president to be assassinated. Perhaps no president in the country's history ever received as much spiteful vilification as President Lincoln. Nevertheless, he is now the nation's most beloved president, and historians and the general public regard him as the finest president in the country's history. People across the world revere him, the ideals he expressed, and the moving ways in which he expressed them.
He was born in modest circumstances in the northern fringes of the South. The first half of his life was spent in frontier societies in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, which heavily influenced his development. Born in a log cabin near Hodgenville, Kentucky, on February 12, 1809, he was the second child of Thomas and Nancy Lincoln. His mother was illiterate and of very low birth, and his father was respected as a hard-working person who seemed to have more than his share of misfortune. His sister, Sarah, was born in February of 1807. A third child, Thomas, was born to the couple, but he died in infancy. Slavery functioned in Lincoln's neighborhood, and as a young boy he certainly saw slaves. His neighbors did not condone slavery, though, and his father and the Baptist Church with which his parents were affiliated condemned it. Later in life he made two trips to New Orleans, coming face-to-face with the ugly facets of the slave system. His dislike of slavery sprang from these experiences. While Lincoln was still a boy in Kentucky, his father lost property because of flaws in land titles. This encouraged his father to move the family to Indiana, where titles to land were much more secure and where slavery was barely known. The family left Kentucky in December of 1816 and settled in forested
wilderness near Pigeon Creek in southern Indiana. In October 1818, when Abraham Lincoln was just nine years old, his mother died. In late 1819 his father returned to Kentucky and married Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow with three children. Sarah Johnston accepted Lincoln and his sister as her own children, and she encouraged him to read and improve himself in other ways, a fact he acknowledged several times in later years. During these years, young Abraham Lincoln went to school for just a few weeks now and then, and during his entire life he received about a year of schooling. Unsettled and primitive frontier conditions, including poor transportation and disputed titles to land, helped lead Lincoln to avidly support the Whig Party when it sprang up in the early 1830s. He stayed with this party until it disintegrated after 1856, and then he joined many Whigs and trekked into the newly-created Republican Party. Law suits against his father in Kentucky and other legal problems in frontier society probably caused young Lincoln to become highly interested in the workings of the law. As was true with many people of his era, Lincoln was familiar all his life with death. His grandfather died at the hands of Indians in 1786, a fact to which Lincoln referred. Lincoln's younger brother, Thomas, died in infancy. His mother died in late 1818, and his sister died ten years later. Although his exact relationship with Ann Rutledge is still debated, he felt loss when she died at the age of nineteen in 1835. The deaths of two of his own children, three-year-old Edward in early 1850 and eleven-year-old William ("Willie") in 1862, added immeasurably to his grief. Although death of loved ones at early ages from sicknesses and other causes was common in the nineteenth century, Lincoln probably suffered more loss than most people, and this suffering probably added to his melancholia and to his often sad countenance. It is possible that he suffered on occasion from depression, the loss of loved ones adding to this problem. Although many young men traveled in the early 1800s, young Abraham Lincoln probably traveled more than most and to a greater variety of places. He was seven years old when he and his family moved to Indiana, and he was just twenty-one when they moved to Illinois. While living in Indiana he worked as a ferry man on the Ohio River, a job that brought him into contact with people and goods from distant parts of the country and world. While he was just nineteen years old, he crewed a flatboat to New Orleans, which widened his horizons and allowed him to see slavery in the deep South. He made another trip to New Orleans when he was twenty-one. On these trips he learned the importance of the Mississippi in the nation's commerce, and early in the Civil War this river became a key objective of the Union armies. When he served in the Black Hawk War in 1832 and then in the Illinois House of Representatives in the last half of the 1830s, he traveled over much of the state. His duties as an attorney after 1836 took him to many towns throughout much of the state, including Chicago by the 1850s. He served one term in the United States House of Representatives, which took him to the nation's capital and other places on the east coast. While he was being considered as a possible candidate for president, he spoke in New York and elsewhere. For his time, he was truly a widely-traveled person. Although he received about a year of formal education, he did learn how to read, write, and do some math, his stepmother doing much to encourage him to learn. Having the wisdom to recognize his weakness in learning, he developed a lifelong thirst for knowledge; he never stopped learning, which was one of his greatest strengths. He was highly motivated, learned quickly, and retained what he learned. Among the books he read as a young man were Aesop's Fables, Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, William Grimshaw's History of the United States, and Mason Weems's Life of Washington. He borrowed many books and read works by John Stuart Mill, Robert Burns, William Shakespeare, and other giants in literature. He was thoroughly familiar with the Bible, and to the very end of his life his speeches and writings were graced with allusions
Lincoln confronted the death of loved ones many times. This announcement of his
to biblical parables, injunctions, and morality. It is ironic that Abraham Lincoln, who was among the least educated of all of our presidents, was one of the country's finest writers and speakers. His simple, clear, well-organized, and moving words inspired his generation, and they have inspired millions of people since his time. His words helped people to do their very best for good causes and to be their very best in life. Lincoln had an unquenchable vision of justice for his country, for what it could become, and for where it should go, and his command of the English language inspired others to understand and accept that vision. From his friends and from his reading, perhaps especially from reading the Bible, he developed deep understandings of the nature of humankind. He knew people's strengths and weaknesses and their hopes and fears, and he knew what motivated people. Despite all of the abuse he received as president, his understanding of people was such that he brought out the better angles of even his enemies, and he forgave his enemies for their cruelty to him. He was quick to pardon soldiers who faced firing squads for falling asleep while on guard duty. Although he never formally joined a church, he attended church and regarded himself modestly as an "instrument of Providence." Clearly, his understanding of himself, other people, the world, and right and wrong came from beyond the books he read. As was true for many people in the early 1800s, Abraham Lincoln worked at a number of jobs. Physically strong—strong enough to subdue the village roughneck at New Salem, his adopted home in Illinois—he was a dependable and hard worker. His word was good. He learned his tasks quickly and stayed at them until they were done properly. He split fence rails for neighbors, helped run a ferry, manned flatboats, worked as a clerk, learned surveying and served as a deputy surveyor, served as village postmaster, and did many odd jobs to earn a living. One job gave him lifelong satisfaction. When the Black Hawk War broke out in 1832, he volunteered for service. In keeping with the democratic nature of the early Republic, officers in volunteer units were elected by enlisted men. The men in Lincoln's company elected him to serve as Captain of the company, despite the fact that he was a relative newcomer to the community and had no military experience. To the end of his life, he cherished this election victory. At the time he was elected to command the company in the war, he also ran for political office, for the Illinois House of Representatives. Defeated in his first try, he ran again and was elected in 1834, winning reelections through 1840. He was a member of the Whig Party, a nationalistic party headed by such men as Henry Clay and Daniel Webster who favored the expansion of industry, the growth of banks and commerce, the creation of railroads, canals, roads, and other forms of improved transportation, and the use of high tariffs to protect American industry from competition from Great Britain. During his service in the Illinois House of Representatives, he was chosen by his fellow Whigs for leadership positions. While serving in the House, he trained himself to be a lawyer, receiving his license in the summer of 1836. He served one term in the United States House of Representatives from 1847 to 1849, rose in the Whig Party during the 1840s, ran for the United States Senate, and finally was elected president on November 6, 1860, taking office the following March. Throughout his life he often lacked formal training for much of what he did, but he was motivated to
learn, learned quickly, was flexible and ambitious, and mastered the skills necessary to become a truly great president and lead the country through harrowing and dangerous times. His service in the Black Hawk War, as a captain and then as a private, taught him much that was of value. He learned how to give orders, command, define objectives, and make plans for achieving goals. He learned to be creative in solving problems. Although he was never in battle in the war, he saw scalped soldiers lying on the battlefield, which taught him the horrors of war and the costs of rash actions. He also learned that inaction and timidity were costly. These lessons helped him during the Civil War in evaluating the course of the war, devising strategy, and dealing with generals. One of his greatest traits was that he was flexible in everyday matters and in trying to solve very complex problems. He was eager and able to learn from experience and grow as a person. He sized up new situations well, made needed adjustments, and took decisive action. A story is told about how as captain of his company during the Black Hawk War he marched his men toward a gap in a fence, forgot the command necessary for the men to march in column through the gap, had the men fall out for two minutes and reassemble on the other side of the fence, and then resumed the march. Throughout his life he typified Whig fascination with technology. He loved to tinker with gadgets, telegraphs, weapons, and other forms of technology. As a Whig legislator in Illinois, he promoted steamboats, canals, roads, railroads, and other means of overcoming distance and lowering the costs of transportation. Accordingly, he is the only president to hold a patent for an invention, a device to help boats navigate around obstacles in rivers. A thoroughly modern person in many ways, he popularized the desire for inventions by speaking about them before audiences. His capacity for growth is evident in his work as a lawyer in Illinois. When he became a lawyer in 1836, life in Illinois was fairly simple. He could have continued as an ordinary lawyer, but he chose to grow with the times, becoming a corporation lawyer and taking cases for railroads and banks. He rose to the top of the bar in Illinois, frequently appearing in cases before the Illinois Supreme Court. By the 1850s he had earned the respect of his fellow lawyers and was known as an expert to whom other lawyers turned for advice. His flexibility extended to his opposition to slavery, showing both idealism and pragmatism. He maintained that slavery was morally wrong and should not be allowed to expand, but he also spoke carefully about not trying to disrupt slavery where it already existed. As a Whig lawmaker in the Illinois House of Representatives, a Whig Congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, and a candidate for the presidency, Lincoln took part in the era's major controversies. From the 1830s, when he first entered politics, through the Civil War, heated debate accompanied the rising crises. The stormy times were marked by the rise of democratic forces within the country, including very large turnouts of voters at elections and long speeches during campaigns and on such occasions as Fourth of July celebrations. Increasingly inflamed language marred many of the era's speeches and debates, but Lincoln's rhetoric was nearly always measured, calm, and reasonable. He did not favor jolting changes and disturbing times. Rather, he favored quiet, orderly, steady progress. Although he was popular with voters and appealed to their interests, he also took the risk of trying to lead the public in matters affecting public expenditures and slavery. Throughout his political career, Lincoln was caught up in the great issues and problems of the era. The great issues of the day—westward expansion, slavery and the roles of African-Americans in society, massive immigration during the 1850s, urbanization, industrialization and modernization, and great political and constitutional questions—were complex, somewhat inter-related, and capable of disrupting the country. As a lawyer, legislator, and president, Lincoln swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States. However, the political document that he loved and to which he often referred was the Declaration of Independence. He valued its expressions and assumptions about people, equality and inalienable rights, the origins and purposes of government, the nature of political power, and the threats of despotism. He showed respect for the Constitution and for the Supreme Court's interpretations of laws, but his real love was for the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. He knew the document was idealistic, but he also hoped the nation would try to live up to the ideas expressed in it. He was able to offer constructive criticism of his country when he thought it was wrong, but he also believed it was the "last best hope of mankind." His love for his country never led him to belittle other countries or make belligerent statements about them, even when other countries did things that displeased him. He believed that the principles found in the Declaration of Independence were universal, capable of being applied to other countries still laboring under oppression. Perhaps it was the spirit of this document and Lincoln's profound sense of justice that led him as the Civil War drew to a close to favor mercy, healing, and reunion for the South. The great and complex issues and battles of his day never diminished his sense of fairness for all, and this is one of his enduring legacies. His ability to guide the country through terrible times without losing his sense of justice and humanity helped make him America's most beloved president.
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