The Legend of Abraham Lincoln

I always thought of "Honest Abe" as a whatever-it-takes kind of guy. His childhood was just as difficult as his adulthood. (no kiddin')

Abe's mother died when he was 9 years old. He was largely self-educated and an avid reader. He was tall and strong... about 6 feet four inches... and we all know about him splitting rails for a living as a teenager.

Abraham set out on his own when he was 22 years old. When he was 23 years old, he ran for his first political campaign... Illinois General Assembly as a Whig.

He lost.

He fought in the Black Hawk War and ran a store for a few months.

Then got back into politics and won the election to the Illinois state legislator. Eventually, he served four successive terms

Abe taught himself law and passed the bar. He was gained a reputation as an able and successful lawyer.

Abe Lincoln married Mary Todd when he was 33 years old. She was a daughter of a prominent slave owning family from Kentucky. They had 4 sons... only 1 survived into adulthood.

In 1846, Abraham was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. His tenure was quiet except for his objection to the Mexican-American War. However, this war was pretty popular and there was a political fallout for Abe. He left politics for several years and became a full time lawyer.

He was involved in 5,100 cases in Illinois during his 23 year career.

Abraham Lincoln Centennial Art Print
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To top it off, many of the Cabinet members thought they could make a better President than Abraham Lincoln. One or two actually had Presidential aspirations.

President Lincoln had to make the tough choices to fund the Civil War, to suspend the Habeas Corpus and find someone to lead the Union troops.

And truth be told, quite frankly I seriously doubt anyone could have been tough enough to do this job. President Lincoln also had to endure personal tragedy when his young son died at the White House. And his wife going mad with grief.

Early Photograph of Abraham Lincoln Art Print
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So sure, there are lots of detractors... but history irrefutably points this out - President Abraham Lincoln did save the Union.

There were many firsts when I think about Abraham Lincoln. He was the 1st U.S. President to suspended the Habeas Corpus, which meant he had people put to jail without any legal remedies. And sadly, he was the first President to be assassinated.

Roughly, a half of a million men died during the Civil War. It was extremely brutal and bloody for many reasons. But to put this tragedy in perspective, the population of the United States was 10 times smaller than it is today. Could you imagine that every single family was affected by the Civil War?

Battle of Gettysburg Giclee Print
Graves, C.d.
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Five days after General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General Grant at the Appomattox Courthouse... President Lincoln was shot while attending a benefit at the Ford's Theater in Washington D.C..

John Wilkes Booth Enters Lincoln's Box Framed Photographic Print
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And the man who shot President Lincoln was an Southern sympathizer by the name of John Wilkes Booth, an actor.

Although, Abraham Lincoln's wound was mortal, he didn't pass away until the next morning at 7:22 a.m. April 15th, 1865...

John Wilkes Booth was cornered in a barn in a Virginia tobacco farm by the Union Calvary a couple of weeks later. He preferred death over capture and was killed. Of his fellow conspirators, 4 of them were hung.

President Abraham Lincoln laid in state in Washington D.C. and then was taken by a funeral train back to his adopted home of Springfield, Illinois. It took the train 14 days and 1,662 miles... retracing the original route that Abraham Lincoln took when he first went to Washington D.C..

Since Abraham Lincoln's wound was so severe and so sudden, he never had a chance to say some last words.

And if anything, history can never silence this great man. He has left a treasure trove of quips and quotes that will forever remain in our collective thoughts.

Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC Photographic Print
Doody, Tom
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I picked out several of my favorite quotes and words spoken by Abraham Lincoln:

• "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."


• "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."


• "If all do not join now to save the good old ship of the Union this voyage nobody will have a chance to pilot her on another voyage."

Source: The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 1953 edition published by the Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Carving of Abraham Lincoln at Mount Rushmore National Park, Black Hills, South Dakota Photographic Print
Cummins, Richard
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Good news! The cable channel C-SPAN asked 65 historians and professional observers of the presidency to rank each of our Presidents by 10 leadership attributes and for the 2nd year, President Abraham Lincoln was #1...

And the thing of it is... if you were a contemporary of President Lincoln, you would have wondered why he didn't just give up?

1. 1831 - Failed in business.


2. 1832 - Ran for Illinois state legislature - lost.


3. 1832 - Lost job - failed to get into law school.


4. 1833 - Borrowed money for a business that failed. Went bankrupt and took 17 years to pay off debt.


5. 1843 - Ran for congress - Lost.


6. 1848 - Ran for reelection for Congress - Loss.


7. 1854 - Ran for Senate - Lost.


8. 1856 - Sought the Vice-President nomination for his party - Lost.

And sure, he did have some successes along the way... including being elected as our President... but the key thing was President Abraham Lincoln didn't give up when he was dealt with a bad hand so to speak.

The picture of a Brazilian slave owner punishing a man was painted by a famous painter, Jean-Baptiste Debret over a hundred years ago.

Let me be straight with you here... In my opinion, the thought of one person owning another, or slavery, is reprehensible.

Unfortunately, slavery has been around forever in human civilization... from 1000s of years to even today. Women are sold into the sex industry. Children are forced to work for little or next to nothing in many emerging countries.

And so on...

While United States was trying to debate the slavery issue during the middle 19th century... the Southern states forced the issue by succeeding. But let's suppose that Abraham Lincoln lost the election and the Southern states stayed within the Union.

Is it possible that eventually, the Southern plantation owners would "see the light" and release all slaves?

Well, let's look at Brazil. Roughly 1/3 of all the blacks sold into slavery ended up working in the sugar, rubber plantations and mines.

Now, slavery was abolished in 1888 without large scale conflicts in Brazil, the last country to do so in the Americas. So the question begging is... would United States have avoided the deaths of a half of million men if cooler heads prevailed?

In my mind, probably not. The Southern states were willing to leave the Union to protect their selfish way of life. And they forced Lincoln's hand because if Abraham waffled, hemmed and hawed... and the longer the Southern states were allowed to develop their country and become recognized by other countries around the world (who really needed their cotton)... the harder it would have been to rally the Northern States to bring the South back into the Union.

I also wanted to make you aware of the fact that even though slavery has been banned in Brazil over 120 years ago...

There are persistent stories of slaves being freed from plantations. In 2008, the Brazilian government freed 4,634 slaves at 255 locations. The Brazilian government estimates that there are probably 50,000 undiscovered forced workers and slaves in modern day plantations.

Abraham Lincoln Reading to His Son, Tad
Framed Giclee Print
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