The Campaign of 1860 was a campaign that would decide the United States fate. There were two main candidates, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas; Buchanan had retired from public service. The South had said if Abraham Lincoln won the Campaign of 1860 and became the next President they would withdraw from the Union. Abraham Lincoln won the Presidency in 1860, having won two-thirds of the electoral votes, but he only had forty percent of the popular vote.
President Abraham Lincoln had quite a bit to deal with: within the first four months of him becoming President seven states had already seceded from the Union, letting him know that he was not wanted as President. But Lincoln had a job to do: his main interest at this point was keeping the Union together, and he did not have any real concerns about abolishing slavery.
When the southern states of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas seceded they formed the Confederate States. The Confederate states had set out to attack Fort Sumter in 1861. Lincoln tried to halt this attempt by ordering the navy to blockade southern ports, this preventing the trade of the South’s moneymaker, cotton. This also prevented the South from obtaining manufactured goods it needed from the North, goods that were essential such as guns and clothing the South could not produce for itself. The beginning of the war forced four more states to reluctantly join the Confederacy.
Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas felt they had no other choice, due to the fact they also were slave states.
The main problem the South had was that they did not have a Unified Army. They had regional pride: each state or region would have their own small army, and there was not a lot of unification. But they soon got their act together; when the first real battle of the Civil War took place at a creek called, Bull Run, the Confederates surprised the Union. Under the leadership of General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, the Confederate army soon sent the Union running back to Washington. With this defeat the Northerners realized that this was not just a rebellion that would be easily defeated, this was WAR.
After loosing the battle of Bull Run, Lincoln changed generals; his new appointed General was George B. McClellan. During the summer of 1862, General Robert Lee and General George McClellan met, again at Bull Run; this meeting would mean a second victory for the Confederate Army at Bull Run. Then Lee moved onward North, into the Union State of Maryland. In Maryland is where the Battle of Antietam occurred. This is considered one of the bloodiest days of the Civil War.
Both the Union and Confederate armies suffered great losses. This was barely a victory for the Union army, but it was a victory. With this loss Lee retreated back towards the South, the Union gave chase but was not quick enough to catch them.
1809 Abraham Lincoln was born on a Sunday morning on February 12.
1815 Abraham spent a short time in a log schoolhouse. He began to learn from a teacher named Zachariah Riney.
1816 Young Lincoln was saved from drowning by playmate Austin Gollaber.
1819 Abraham was kicked and almost killed by a horse.
1827 Abraham earned his first dollar ferrying passengers to a steamer on the Ohio River.
1830 The Lincolns move from Indiana to Illinois.
1831 Young Lincoln decided to leave his family and go off on his own.
1834 Lincoln ran for the Illinois State Legislature and was elected.
1836 Lincoln was re-elected to the Illinois House of Representatives. On September 9th, he was licensed to practice law.
1838 Lincoln was elected for the third time to the Illinois House of Representatives.
1840 For the fourth and last time, Lincoln was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives. He got engaged to Mary Todd.
1842 Lincoln married Mary Todd on November 4.
1843 The first son of the Lincolns, Robert Todd was born on August 1 at the Globe Tavern.
1846 The Lincolns second son; Edward Baker, was born on March 10. On August 3, Lincoln was elected to the United States House of Representatives.
1847 He spoke against the Mexican War.
1850
Lincoln’s son "Eddie" died on February 1. His third son, William Wallace, was born on December 21.
1853 Lincoln’s last son Thomas was born on April 4.
1856 He gave his famous "Lost Speech" on May 29.
1856 Lincoln was nominated by the Republicans to run for the U.S. Senate. He gave his "House Divided" speech.
1860 On November 6, Lincoln was elected President.
1863 On November 19, Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address.
1865 On March 4th, Lincoln was elected as President for the second time.
On April 14th Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth at about 10 : 15 PM. and died the next morning at 7 : 22.
With the victory at Antietam, Lincoln choose this time to deliver The Emancipation Proclamation: this executive order freed the slaves in the areas that rebellion was established, but it did not free the slaves in the Union slave states or in areas that the Union recaptured. At this point, the point of the war completely changed from preservation of the Union to the abolition of slavery.
Lincoln also decided to change generals again: he was not satisfied with the performance of McClellan, nor was he satisfied with the next two generals, General Ambrose Burnside and General Joseph Hooker: neither of these really wanted the job. Finally, Lincoln appointed General George Meade, very soon after his appointment there came the
bloodiest, most gruesome battle of the Civil War, Gettysburg. This battle was fought on July 1, 1863: it was a hard battle, and it became a Union victory, with more than forty-five thousand men killed and wounded. It was a devastating site for both Meade and Lee, General Lee had lost almost two-third of his entire army, and Meade had lost one-forth of his. Their thoughts were focused on that there were so many dead for the cause.
Lincoln chose this time to travel to Gettysburg to deliver what is now known as the Gettysburg Address. The address was 272 words long, and did not mention slavery, the battle or the Union Army. It was widely accepted by all people.
After Gettysburg, Lincoln had decided to change Generals again. This time his choice was Ulysses S. Grant, his best change for the Union yet. Grant was a fighter, he captured important Confederate forts in Tennessee and led the Union army in a battle at Vicksburg and won. Then Grant’s only thought was getting Lee and Richmond. This was the beginning of the end, with William Tecumseh Sherman
destroying the Confederate’s way of getting materials to fight the war by destroying railroads, factories and its plantations. He was breaking the spirit of the Confederacy: when Sherman burned Atlanta it was all but over. Grant surrounded Richmond and it fell to the Union army on April 3,1865. Lee surrendered and it was a mournful day for the Confederacy: the Union had stripped it of its most valued treasure, their PRIDE, and the Confederacy was on its knees, they thought, never to rise again.
Just twelve days after the surrender of Lee, President Lincoln was attending a show at the Ford Theater, where he was fatally wounded. He died on April 15, 1865.
• Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.
• Military Glory – that attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood, that serpent’s eye that charms to destroy.
• As I would not a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses the idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.
• Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.
• I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.
• Common looking people are the best in the world : that is the reason the lord makes so many of them.
• Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
• I can not make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization.
• Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.
• I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is atleast more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot.
• Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
• … that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
• Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
• Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today.
• I have stepped out upon this platform that I may see you and that you may see me, and in the arrangement I have the best of the bargain.
• We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.
• What is conservatism ? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried ?
• In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.
• I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father’s child has.
• I am not a know – nothing. That is certain. How could I be ? … As a nation, we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal’. We now practically read it, "all men are created equal, except Negroes."
"… But I with mournful tread,
walk the deck my captain lies,
fallen cold and dead."
So wrote Walt Whitman, one of the most illustrious American poets on the death of Abraham Lincoln. The man who is till date considered the greatest President of all, attended school less than 12 months in his entire life ! He failed as a businessman – as a storekeeper. He failed as a farmer. He despised this work. He failed in his first attempt to obtain political office and when elected to the legislature, he failed when he sought the office of Speaker. He failed in his first attempt to go to Congress, when he ran for the United States Senate and when his friends sought for him the nomination for the vice-presidency in 1866.
In spite of these failures, Abraham Lincoln also called "Honest Abe"; "The Rail Splitter" and "The Great Emancipator" became the 16th President of the United States. He preserved the union during the civil war and brought about the emancipation of the slaves.
Among American heroes, Lincoln continues to have a unique appeal for his fellow countrymen and also for people of other lands. This charm derives from his remarkable life story – the rise from humble origins, the dramatic death – and from his distinctively humane personality as well as from his historical role as Savior of the Union and emancipator of the slaves. His relevance endures and grows especially because of his eloquence as a spokesman for democracy. In his view, the union was worth saving not only for its own sake but because it embodied an ideal, the ideal of Self-Government. This probably accounts for the universality of his appeal.
Lincoln learned by his disappointments. He fulfilled in his own career the old Latin proverb that it is lawful to learn from the enemy. He was educated by his defeats. After he suffered humiliation at the hands of Stanton in the Reaper Case, he returned from Cincinnati to Illinois "to study law". He had learned something from a cruel disappointment, and he did not fail to make use of what he had learned. He returned from his one term in Congress and mastered Euclid. He disciplined himself through his disappointments and grew through his successes. His mind was growing retentive, and a truly great one.
