The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Lincoln, Abraham
LINCOLN, Abraham, 16th President of
the United States: b. in a rude farm cabin near
Hodgensville, Ky., 12 Feb. 1809; d. Washington,
D. C, 15 April 1865. The birthplace is marked
by a memorial structure dedicated on his
hundredth anniversary. He was the first son
and second child of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy
Hanks, both born in Rockingham County, Va.,
of parents who were among the earliest
emigrants to the new country beyond the
mountains. They were married in Washington
County, 12 June 1806, at the home of Richard
Berry, guardian of the bride and husband of
Lucy Shipley, her aunt. Thomas was not yet
six when his father, Abraham, was killed by
lurking Indians while he was at work on his
farm. The estate, mostly of wild land,
descended by the existing law to his eldest son.
No account remains of the widow's subsequent
life. Probably she did not long survive the
tragedy. Thomas grew up utterly without
education and apparently without a definite home.
Principally occupied as a farm and forest
laborer he acquired some knowledge of the tools
and trade of a carpenter. For reasons not
uncommon in the lives of families separated by
distant migrations the President had little
knowledge of his forbears beyond the paternal
grandfather. Long after his death it
transpired that the first American progenitor was
Samuel Lincoln who came from England as a
weaver's apprentice in 1637. Two elder brothers
had previously settled at Hingham, Mass.;
named after the English shire town of County
Norwich, their ancestral home. Samuel joined
them there after completing his apprenticeship
at Salem. Neither of the brothers left issue,
the name being perpetuated through Mordecai,
son of the young weaver; Mordecai 2d, his
grandson; John, a great-grandson who lived
for a time in Berks County, Pa., removing to
Virginia; Abraham, the Kentucky pioneer; and

Thomas, fifth in the order of American birth.
The pedigree has been further traced through
four generations in England. In both the old
home and the new the main and converging
lines of heredity gave promise of family
distinction should time and occasion propitiously
meet. It was mistakenly believed for a time
that Thomas and his wife were first cousins.
She was the daughter of Joseph Hanks and
Nancy Shipley (“Nanny” as named in the
husband's will), who was a sister of Lucy Shipley,
wife of Richard Berry before mentioned.
Another sister, Mary by name, had married
Abraham Lincoln the elder, and it was assumed
that she was the mother of all his children. In
fact, however, Mary Shipley died prior to the
Kentucky migration and was succeeded by
Bathsheba Herring, daughter of Leonard
Herring, a Virginian of English parentage.
Thomas was the son and only child of this
second marriage and therefore unrelated by
blood to Nancy his wife. It is worthy of
passing mention that still another of the Shipley
sisters was married to Thomas Sparrow
and went with him to the Kentucky wilderness.
Through the marriage of their daughter with
one Charles Friend she became the grandmother
of Dennis Friend who somehow came
to be known as Dennis “Hanks”; and was no
credit to either name. The irresponsible
chatter of this waif did much to mislead the
biographers both as to the story of Lincoln's
youth and the Hanks genealogy. (Consult
Lea and Hutchinson, ‘The Ancestry of Abraham
Lincoln,’ Boston 1909). The first home
of Thomas and his wife was at Elizabethtown,
Ky., where he pursued his trade as carpenter.
Two adventures in farming ensued, the first
on the Nolin Creek place where their famous
son was born. A second son, also born there,
lived but a few weeks. Upon neither farm
apparently were payments made sufficient to
create a salable interest. In 1817, several
related families accompanying them, they moved
to Indiana, settling on a wooded tract near
Gentryville in Spencer County; so named after
the keeper of a cross-roads store. A railroad
junction point called Lincoln City occupies a
part of the chosen homestead. In October of
the following year a mysterious epidemic swept
the district, Mrs. Lincoln being one of many
victims. During the next 14 months, the
daughter, but two years older than Abraham,
kept house for the sorrowing family. On 2
Dec. 1819, Thomas took another wife from
Kentucky, Sarah Johnston (née Bush), a
widow with three children residing at
Elizabethtown. Her advent greatly improved the
family circumstances, for besides household
conveniences such as the children had never
known she brought a kind and cheerful
nature. Among other benefits conferred she
encouraged the boy in studies, which his father
regarded as a form of idleness. Less than a
year of school attendance is all that fell to his
lot, but with this meagre help he learned to
read and write and to “cipher to the rule of
three.” Luckily there were a few good books
within reach, all of which he eagerly read. He
remembered well, thought much and diligently
exercised the knowledge gained. In other
respects he was a boy among boys, loving fun and
not enamored of manual toil. He was made to
work at home or on the neighboring farms,

clerked at odd times in Gentry's store and at
the age of 19 accompanied the son of that
worthy on a flat-boat trip to New Orleans,
trading along the way and returning by river
packet. On that memorable venture he first
came into conscious contact with slavery,
witnessing, it is said, an auction sale of negroes
and vowing that if ever the opportunity came
to “hit” that system he would “hit it hard.”
In the spring of 1830 at the beginning of his
majority the family moved to Illinois to settle
(temporarily as it proved) near Decatur. After
helping to fence and break up part of a prairie
farm and to erect a cabin thereon for the
family shelter the young man turned to face the
world on his own account. Besides the clothing
he wore, he had nothing but his well-muscled
frame of six and one-third feet in height,
a mind matching his great stature in native
strength and manners, rude and quaint, to be
sure, but springing from a brave and generous
soul. After a few weeks of labor with axe and
hoe he engaged with John Hanks, one of his
mother's tribe, to conduct another flat-boat
down the great river. Their employer, Dennis
Offut, had failed to provide the boat as promised
whereupon the two men proceeded to build
one. The delay caused Hanks to abandon the
voyage but Lincoln with other help completed
it. Offut, a merchant, loosely planted at New
Salem, on the Sangamon, near Springfield,
formed a liking for the stalwart youth, with
the result that Lincoln became a resident of
the mushroom village and a helper in the varied
and often disastrous enterprises of his
new-made friend. Offut soon drifted away but
Lincoln remained, serving the small community as
a mill-hand, clerk in the village stores,
post-master, deputy surveyor and the like, rapidly
growing in public esteem. Indian disturbances
(the Black Hawk War) called for the creation
of a military force. Lincoln volunteered as a
private and was elected captain. No fighting
occurred in his vicinity and the “war” soon
ended. Returning to New Salem he became a
candidate for the legislature, failing of election
but receiving nearly the entire vote of his
precinct. Settled in nothing save the desire for
self-improvement, he ventured, with another as
poor as himself and wholly on credit, to
purchase a failing store. It continued to fail till
only the debt remained. This burden, which he
whimsically called “the national debt,” fell
upon himself alone and was not fully discharged
until his pay as Congressman at last provided
the means. To business disaster was added
the discipline of love and a lover's bereavement.
He wooed and won Ann Rutledge, who shortly
after the engagement died of a sudden illness.
She was one of the Southern family of
Rutledges, her father having been caught with the
rest in the New Salem eddy along the inflowing
stream of settlers. He was so nearly
unmanned by this blow that his friends were
alarmed, but it passed. By the election of 1834
he was sent to the legislature and was thrice
re-elected. Largely through his efforts the
State capital was removed from Vandalia to
Springfield in his own county. Measuring
himself against his fellows, many of them lawyers,
he dared to enter the bar. With no help
except from borrowed books, he had so far
advanced by the autumn of 1836 as to gain
admission. On 15 April of the following year

he moved to Springfield and engaged in the
practice. That day 28 years later, at the
summit of national power and fame, an assassin's
shot was to lay him low.

In politics the young statesman was of the
minority faction. The Democratic party was
dominant in both his State and the nation, such
opposition as there was holding loosely
together under the nondescript name of Whigs;
but it gradually strengthened until in 1840 its
presidential candidate (Harrison) was elected.
In 1838 and again in 1840 Lincoln received the
Whig vote for speaker of the assembly. He
was also on the Whig electoral ticket in the
campaigns of 1840, 1844 and 1852. His one
election to Congress occurred in 1846, the term
ending at the inauguration of the second Whig
President (Taylor) 4 March 1849. He did not
seek re-election, his district being governed by
a kind of a “gentleman's agreement” that the
honor should be passed around. Meanwhile (4
Nov. 1842) he was married to Mary Todd,
daughter of Robert S. Todd of Louisville, Ky.
She with two of their four sons lived to mourn
his untimely death. One of the sons died in
early infancy, another in the White House at
the age of 12. Mrs. Lincoln was of high social
rank, brilliant, cultured and ambitious. She
proved a devoted wife and mother, but by
reason of a cerebral ailment not generally known
her married life was not altogether happy. Her
last days (1882) were clouded by a mild insanity,
hastened no doubt by the awful tragedy
enacted in her presence and by the loss of her
young son Thomas (“Tad”), who died 15 July
1871. The political activities referred to of
course retarded Mr. Lincoln's progress in the
law. Besides the legislative attendances at
home and in Washington, there were repeated
canvasses of his district and State to be cared
for and no end of letters and conferences. As
a “case” lawyer, however, his reputation steadily
widened. The death of President Harrison
almost at the beginning of his term and the
early apostacy of Tyler, his successor, left
nothing of Federal preferment to the Whig
politicians. The advent of Taylor opened the door
to a hungry crowd. Lincoln had supported
him by speeches in Congress and elsewhere
and the new Congressman from the Springfield
district was of the opposite party. By
current practice, therefore, Lincoln was
entitled to a voice touching Federal appointments.
The office of land commissioner was accorded
to Illinois. After recommending others without
success he sought the place for himself.
Instead he was offered the governorship of Oregon
Territory, a post which seemed to promise
early promotion to the Senate. His wife
rejected it and thus he was saved for greater
things. During the next five years he practised
law more assiduously than every before,
advancing to high rank among the leaders of the
Illinois bar. He appreciated the handicap of a
defective education and strove mightily to overcome
it. As he had studied grammar and
surveying at New Salem he now grappled geometry,
in order as he said to master the art of
“demonstration.” But political events were
soon to reclaim his attention. The controversy
over slavery, measurably quieted by the
Missouri Compromise of 1820, broke out afresh
30 years later and was again partially
suppressed through a series of Congressional acts

known as the compromise measures of 1850.
Within a short four years the slave-holding
South demanded and obtained the overthrow
of all legislation which tended to confine or
discredit her favorite institution. Stephen A.
Douglas, the leading senator from Illinois, was
chairman of the Committee on Territories. He
had championed the settlement of 1850, and in
doing so had proclaimed undying allegiance to
the Missouri Compromise whereby “Mason and
Dixon's Line” was made the northernmost
limit of slavery. Now he had fathered the
“Kansas-Nebraska bill,” the act which both in
terms and by necessary implication rejected the
compromises and denied their legality. His
agency in the matter made the storm of
protest especially violent in Illinois and Lincoln
was thoroughly aroused. Douglas had great
ability and towering ambition. He desired and
expected to be President, having already
contested the nomination of 1852. His advocacy
of the repeal was likely, he believed, to ensure
undivided support in the South which, with but
a fraction of the Northern party strength,
would give him the prize. His term in the
Senate had yet four years to run but his
colleague and friend from Illinois, James Shields,
would be re-elected or replaced by the legislature
shortly to be chosen. Lincoln entered the
contest with vigor, speaking throughout the
State and (against his own preference) standing
for election to the lower house from
Sangamon, his home county. “Anti-Nebraska”
won by a slender margin and by general
acclaim Lincoln became its candidate. To avoid
a legal quibble touching eligibility he resigned
his membership, only to see the vacancy filled
by a Democrat chosen at a special election.
Five of the majority, formerly Democrats,
refused to support him, preferring Lyman Trumbull,
one of their kind. After many ballots, the
choice of a pro-slavery senator being imminent,
he persuaded his friends to vote with the
stubborn few; a fortunate outcome as it
proved, though for the moment sorely
disappointing.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Sixteenth President of the United States

The events of 1854-55 thus lightly sketched
were accompanied and followed by a bitter
struggle for the control of Kansas, first of
the new States to seek admittance. Settlers
from the North, some of them aided by
anti-slavery societies, were met by “border-ruffians”
so-called, entering from Missouri. Armed
conflicts ensued and “Bleeding Kansas” became an
effective war-cry from the free State hustings.
The Democratic National Convention (1856)
again rejected Douglas, naming James Buchanan,
a Pennsylvanian, who was less prominent
in the slavery party and therefore less
obnoxious to its enemies. The various opposing
elements drawing together under the name of
Republicans met in mass convention, at
Philadelphia and selected John C. Frémont as their
standard bearer. Lincoln, though not in
attendance and not in the least advised of any
such purpose, was accorded 110 votes for the
Vice-Presidency, making him the second choice
in a field of 13. A third ticket, styled
“American,” was headed by Millard Fillmore, who
had become President upon the death of Taylor
(1850), and greatly desired re-election.
Buchanan was elected, carrying every slave State
except Maryland. Pennsylvania supported him
by a bare majority of the popular vote, and

three other free States, including Illinois, went
to him, but only because the majority was
divided between Frémont and Fillmore. Slavery
was continued in official power, but the
triumph was big with disaster.

The new administration was wholly
subservient. Unscrupulous efforts to force slavery
upon unwilling Kansas were favored and
seemed likely to succeed. Douglas, whose
senatorial term was drawing to a close, could
not lose his hold upon Illinois without
abandoning all hopes of the Presidency. Making
a virtue of necessity, therefore, he resisted
the Kansas intrigues, and the State came in
with a free constitution. This strategy worked
marvelous improvement in his prospects at
home. In 1854 when he returned red-handed
from the slaughter of compromise he had
encountered public obloquy and sullen resentment,
resulting as already noted in the choice
of a colleague inimical to his party. Now he
came as the hero of a knightly rescue; the
savior of free Kansas in some eyes, to others
a stern defender of justice unshaken by
personal risk. Republicans in and out of the State
began to advise that his re-election be not
opposed, deeming it “good politics” thus to
promote schism in the enemy's household. Lincoln
moved promptly to steady the Republican
phalanx and the danger soon passed. Partly
to head off the threatened defection, in part
to bind the new legislature by a definite
mandate from the people, a convention called for
the nomination of State officers named Lincoln
for the Senate. He responded (16 June 1858)
in a speech which exhibited at their best both
his intellectual power and his rare facility of
terse and accurate expression. In this, the
much-quoted “House-divided” speech, the truth
was first made plain that choice must be made,
soon or late, between a nation all slave and a
nation all free. In declaring his fixed opinion
that “either the opponents of slavery will
arrest the further spread of it, and place it
where the public mind shall rest in the belief
that it is in the course of ultimate extinction;
or its advocates will push it forward till it
shall become alike lawful in all the States,”
he was by no means unminded of the personal
and party hazards immediately involved; but
with habitual thoroughness his mind had gone
deep. To his thinking the rock upon which
his party must build was the basic antagonism
between freedom and bondage, between liberty
and tyranny, between right and wrong.
Rejecting the warnings of timid advisers to whom
the address was submitted in advance he stood
by the truth as he saw it. The ensuing
campaign, outwardly but a mere struggle for office,
drew the lines and marshaled the forces of the
impending Civil War. It took the form indeed
of mimic battle. A series of joint debates, one
in each of the seven Congressional districts,
was arranged at Lincoln's instance. Vast
audiences came to hear and the speeches
stenographically reported were carried far on the
wings of the press. The two champions were
not unequally matched for the contest. Douglas,
of course, had signal advantages in long
parliamentary training and national fame. He
was fluent, aggressive and courageous even to
recklessness, with a quick eye to exposed points
of attack. But as compared with Lincoln he
was in truth the “little giant,” with emphasis on

the first branch of his familiar sobriquet.
Lincoln, the taller by eight inches or more, was
of corresponding intellectual reach. Less voluble,
less gifted in voice and exterior attractiveness,
he was more thoughtful, better tempered,
surer in his knowledge of the history involved
and far above Douglas in the saving quality of
humor. His own estimate of the comparative
merits of their speeches was expressed late in
the following year when he caused both to
be reprinted side by side, for campaign
purposes, without change and “without any
comment whatever.”

The State was carried on the popular vote,
but the existing apportionment gave the advantage
to Douglas who was returned to the
Senate by a majority of five. Commenting
upon the outcome Lincoln wrote 19 November,
“I am glad I made the late race. It gave me a
hearing on the great and enduring question of
the age, which I could have had in no other
way; and though I now sink out of view, and
shall be forgotten, I believe I have made some
marks which will tell for the cause of liberty
long after I am gone.” But he was not to be
lost from sight or memory. The great debate
continued on a wider field. He was called to
speak in other States and finally (27 Feb. 1860)
by a masterly address at Cooper Institute, in
New York City, the growing impression of his
leadership was greatly extended. But there
were few to think of him then as a possible
chief magistrate. The national convention was
to meet within the next 80 days (16 May 1860)
and it was the general belief that Senator
William H. Seward of New York would be
the Republican nominee. Fully two-thirds of
the delegates expected to vote for him. There
were, however, elements of weakness in his
candidacy. He had echoed the sentiment of
Lincoln's house-divided speech, terming the
slavery dispute an “irrepressible conflict
between opposing and enduring forces,” one of
which must eventually triumph, but he had
previously declared in a Senate debate that
there is a higher law than the Constitution
governing the nation's stewardship of the
public domain. This had associated him in the
public mind with the extreme abolitionists by
whom the constitution was openly flouted. Some
of the Northern States which Frémont had
failed to carry were necessary to Republican
success. Three of them, Pennsylvania, Indiana
and Illinois, were to elect State officers in
October. Republican leaders, in the last two
especially, were convinced that Seward's
nomination would alienate many voters otherwise
friendly. Their firm opposition coupled with
the purely personal hostility of Horace Greeley,
whose newspaper, the New York Tribune, was
widely read by Republicans, led to caution and
delay. There was the usual array of “favorite
sons” to receive perfunctory support on the
opening ballot, but it was soon apparent that
if Seward were set aside Lincoln would be
the choice. The nomination was dictated by
considerations of availability. Lincoln could
carry Illinois — had done so but two years
before. Indiana probably would favor him
also. Pennsylvania, pledged to Simon Cameron,
was indifferent toward Seward. In the midst
of excitement prudence worked powerfully.
Seward received but 173½ votes at first, 40½
fewer than the required majority. Lincoln had

102. The leader gained 11 votes on the second
ballot as against a gain of 79 for his rival.
The third resulted in a majority for Lincoln,
and after a painful delay the nomination on
motion of New York was made unanimous.

The Democratic convention had met at
Charleston, S. C., in the preceding month (23
April 1860) hopelessly divided. Douglas held
a decided preponderance over all opponents
but not a two-thirds majority as required by
the party usage. He had offended the South
beyond forgiveness by his course in the debates
with Lincoln hardly less than by his contumacy
on the Kansas issue. The North refused to
yield and the convention split into two angry
factions without nomination by either. Eventually
two Democratic candidates were presented,
Douglas being named by the Northern wing
and John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky by the
Southern minority. A fourth ticket, headed
by John Bell of Tennessee, appealed to the
neutral element and proved stronger than was
expected; it prevailed in three of the
slave-holding States whose electoral votes
aggregated 39. While division in the dominant party
lent encouragement and vigor to the Republican
campaign it can hardly be doubted that the
pro-slavery element would have failed in any
event. Lincoln received 180 electoral votes, all
from the North, and Breckenridge 72, all from
the South. Douglas carried Missouri only, but
through a fusion agreement obtained three
electoral votes from New Jersey, a total of 15.
The popular vote, however, varied remarkably,
that of Breckenridge being but a trifle
more than that accorded to Bell. Douglas
outstripped the former by more than half a
million and fell behind Lincoln by a slightly lower
number. The combined opposition polled nearly
a million more votes than were cast for the
candidate whose majority in the electoral
college was 57 over all. Lincoln never forgot
that he was a minority President, nor that his
nomination had come from a convention “which
was two-thirds for the other fellow.” To his
analytical mind these circumstances evinced a
confused state of public feeling and opinion
calling for caution no less than firmness in the
execution of his official trust.

The interval between the election and
inauguration day (4 March 1861) was utilized by
the southernmost States in perfecting measures
of secession. Though it was well known that
the incoming administration intended no
interference with slavery where it already existed,
its protagonists were stung to the quick by
the decision of the country to confine the
system to a limited area, and that upon the avowed
ground that it was both politically and morally
a wrong. Such a decision they regarded as
insulting, but more than that, they perceived
that it placed their cherished institution, as
Lincoln had phrased it, “in the course of
ultimate extinction.” Their resentment and their
fears led to speedy action. Pretexts for
dissolving the Union were not wanting; the
thought was not new. Buchanan, confused and
terrified by the situation, interposed no obstacles.
In his message to the new Congress (3
Dec. 1860) he easily demonstrated the utter
illegality of all attempts to secede, but with
astonishing want of logic maintained that the
Federal government possessed no lawful right
to resist secession. In a word, that a nation

ordained to be perpetual could not defend its
perpetuity without breaking the law of its
being. The result was that when the President-elect
arose to repeat the inaugural oath, with
its specific obligations to protect and defend
the national Constitution and to take care that
the laws be faithfully executed, the forms of
secession were already accomplished and a new
nation, “all slave,” was asserting its separate
existence.

The inaugural address, as tactfully as the
case would admit, but without the slightest hint
of uncertainty, declared that in view of the
Constitution and the laws the Union was
unbroken; that all resolves and ordinances of
attempted secession were legally void; and that
so far as the means were provided the
President would execute the laws in all the States
alike. The rest was a calm review of the
grounds of dissension and a moving appeal to
the minds and hearts of all lovers of the Union
for a peaceable settlement and a resumption of
healing friendships. The address made no
impression in the South except as its moderation
was construed as a sign of weakness. The
North indeed failed to grasp its real significance.
As a declaration of policy it never
stood in need of revision or enlargement.
Doctrine, duty, purpose and method are all clearly
defined; only the wisdom, perseverance,
resourcefulness and will of the speaker were as
yet unknown. With sagacity which seemed to
border on rashness he summoned to his Cabinet
the four principal leaders who had contested
his nomination, Seward, Chase, Bates and
Cameron. At least two of these deemed
themselves vastly superior to their chief in all the
qualities of statesmanship. Their great
abilities served the country well, but the President's
mastery was not long in doubt. Carefully
avoiding acts of aggression, and with equal care
declining to recognize by word or deed the
claims of the so-called Confederate government,
he waited for the crystallization of Union sentiment.
It came with the assault upon Fort
Sumter and its enforced surrender, 14 April
1861. The following day he proclaimed a state
of insurrection, called forth the militia to the
number of 75,000 and summoned Congress to
assemble on the ensuing 4th of July. Four
days later a blockade of some of the Southern
ports was announced. Other measures of
defense were taken, including calls for volunteers
to re-enforce the regular army and navy,
suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in
disaffected quarters, extension of the blockade,
and the like, all in harmony with the declared
purpose to protect the Union and execute its
laws.

Pending the meeting of Congress loyal
sentiment gradually strengthened. In a
message of great power the case for the government
was explained and enforced. All
suggested legislation was promptly enacted. The
South, more firmly united and not less determined,
plunged into a military struggle and
four years of bloody warfare ensued. The
story of battles and campaigns must here be
omitted; neither can the civil history of that
troubled period be narrated except in barest
outline. There were many in the loyal States
whose resentment of Southern domination led
them to favor separation as a fortunate
riddance. Others accepted the extreme view of

State rights, including the right of secession.
Many shrank from civil war and would
consent to disunion rather than fight. The
abolitionists would make the war a means of
destroying slavery forthwith, while the President
and a vast majority of his party were
committed to the doctrine that abolition could not
lawfully be enforced. These must unite, if at
all, upon the single purpose of saving the
Union. The avowal of any other aim within
the first year inevitably would have wrecked
the national cause. Lincoln almost alone
perceived that the one unifying appeal must be
kept in the foreground, and with undying
patience, disregarding ridicule, distrust and
obloquy, he restrained rashness, encouraged the
timid, reassured the doubtful, persuaded the
hostile. At bottom his title to enduring fame
rests upon his unerring comprehension of the
great task before him and his matchless skill
in putting into timely and convincing words
the fundamental truths to which the minds of
honest men at last must yield. Slavery which
had invoked the sword perished by the sword.
Emancipation came (1 Jan. 1863) not of set
purpose but as a by-product of national
self-preservation. Neither side expected it. “Each,”
as stated in the second inaugural, “looked for
. . . a result less fundamental and
astounding.” But Lincoln's credit for the event
is no less because he waited for an occasion
to strike lawfully and with assured effect. It
must have given him intense satisfaction. “I
am naturally anti-slavery,” he wrote to A. C.
Hodges, 4 April 1864. “If slavery is not wrong
nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when
I did not so think and feel. Yet I have never
understood that the presidency conferred upon
me an unrestricted right to act officially upon
this judgment and feeling.” Emancipation,
when it came, was purely a military expedient,
a blow at the economic resources of a public
enemy. “I felt,” he stated in the same letter,
“that measures otherwise unconstitutional might
become lawful by becoming indispensable to
the preservation of the Constitution through
the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong
I assumed that ground and now avow it. I
could not feel that, to the best of my ability,
I had even tried to preserve the Constitution
if, to save slavery or any minor matter, I should
permit the wreck of the government, country
and Constitution all together.” He had
prepared well for the finishing stroke by proposing
and urging a settlement on the basis of
compensated emancipation. Logically, enemy
property, especially that which the owner refused to
sell, might be seized for military purposes.
But only such as could be captured fell within
that rule, hence a doubt as to the legal effect
of a mere announcement of freedom to slaves
not within military reach. This doubt was
practically solved by the President's emphatic
declaration that he would never retract or
modify the edict of emancipation nor return
to slavery any person freed by its terms. This
was repeated in his last annual message (6
Dec. 1864), this final assurance being added:
“If the people should, by whatever mode or
means, make it an executive duty to re-enslave
such persons another and not I must be their
instrument to perform it.” Negro regiments
helped to extend the military lines which
ultimately carried the reality no less than the

promise of freedom to every slave. The 13th
amendment to the Constitution was but the
formal recognition of a fact already accomplished.

A marked example of both the sagacity and
the magnanimity of the President is found in
his selection of Edwin M. Stanton as Secretary
of War upon the early retirement of Cameron.
This imperious but intensely loyal man had
treated Lincoln with marked discourtesy both
before and after the latter came to the
Presidency. But Lincoln comprehended both the
strength and the weakness of his waspish
critic. Disregarding the personal affronts he
placed Stanton in a position of almost despotic
power, and reaped for himself and the country
a harvest of incomparable service. In the same
spirit he made Salmon P. Chase chief justice
of the United States Supreme Court, after that
great minister of finance had retired from his
Cabinet a disappointed aspirant for the
presidential succession. General McClellan, while
in command of the Potomac army, displayed
toward his great superior a very unfortunate
attitude. Remonstrances against submission to
such treatment called forth no response but
this: “I would hold McClellan's horse if that
would bring us victories.” Chief among his
many disappointments was the failure, one after
another, of his chief military appointees. The
field of choice was limited, of course, to those
educated for the army and not openly disloyal.
Only experience could determine who of these
were fit to command. He would not condemn
any in haste. Some were retained perhaps too
long because better were as yet unknown.
Repeated disasters at last sent incompetents to the
rear and possibilities of victory began to
emerge. High hopes inspired by the fall of
Vicksburg (4 July 1863) and the concurrent
defeat of Lee at Gettysburg suffered painful
relapses. The following spring (9 March 1864)
General Grant, whose successful career in the
West had won the country's confidence, was
placed in supreme control. Thence onward
unity of plan and movement took the place of
divided efforts. Meanwhile, very largely under
the President's personal direction, the dangers
of foreign intervention were met and averted.
But as the season for nominations and
elections approached conditions were extremely
depressing. Immense losses attended the grapple
with Lee's army in the Wilderness of Virginia.
In Georgia the forces under Johnston were
eluding the efforts of General Sherman to bring
them to bay. Financial difficulties accumulated;
discontent spread among powerful leaders in
Congress and elsewhere. Lincoln naturally
desired re-election, both on his own account and
for the national cause, but the clamor of the
few and the slow progress of events in the
field led him at times to forbode defeat both
in convention and at the polls. The convention
met at Baltimore, 7 June 1864. His renomination,
never in doubt, was made unanimous upon
the first ballot. For reasons of expediency, a
Vice-President was named from the South,
Andrew Johnson of Tennessee succeeding Hannibal
Hamlin of Maine. Opposition on the part
of radicals did not cease immediately. They
had previously (31 May 1864) held a mass
convention which assumed to name Frémont
as a Republican candidate, but no manifestation
of popular support was evoked and its ticket
was later withdrawn. The Democratic
convention
(29 Aug. 1864) nominated Gen. George
B. McClellan, who despite his repeated failures
as a general had retained a singular hold upon
popular favor. His failures indeed had
enhanced his popularity, owing to strenuous
claims that the administration had thwarted his
military plans in order to disgrace him. No
more dangerous candidate could have been
chosen as matters then stood, but the convention
platform was a marvel of political unwisdom.
It recited as an historical fact that the
war so long waged for the Union had been a
“failure,” and demanded the immediate
cessation of hostilities that peace might be obtained
through a convention of the States. Opportune
victories, however, put an end to the charges
of failure. The capture of Atlanta (2 Sept.
1864) and Sheridan's whirlwind progress
through the Shenandoah Valley were campaign
arguments of compelling force. McClellan
carried but three States, New Jersey, Delaware
and Kentucky, casting 21 electoral votes.
Lincoln received all the rest, 212 in number, and
a popular majority of nearly 500,000.

Opposition in the North practically ceased
with this overwhelming vote of confidence.
There were murmurs of discontent over the
President's evident inclination to deal leniently
with the misguided South, but these came from
would-be leaders rather than the masses. The
Confederacy speedily fell apart. By his
patience and sagacity, by his steadfast resolve
and his faith in the integrity and capacity of
the people, by his ready sympathy with the
common sufferings and his eagerness to receive
and to grant petitions for help and for mercy
he had acquired and at last enjoyed an influence
far greater than the mere authority of his
office. Constantly assailed by ignorance and
malice he had so administered his great trust
as to make reunion comparatively easy. Hardly
a word of denunciation fell from his lips or pen
throughout those trying years. “I shall do
nothing in malice,” he wrote. “What I deal
with is too vast for malicious dealing.” His
almost unbounded charity was based upon a
profound study of the feelings and motives of
men. He ruled by a right more Divine than
any right of kings.

The principal army of the Confederacy
surrendered to General Grant 9 April 1865. It
was confidently expected that further resistance
would shortly cease. In the elation of the
moment it was resolved to celebrate the fourth
anniversary of the fall of Fort Sumter by a
harmless bit of ceremony, signalizing upon the
same spot the restoration of the national
authority throughout the land. Accordingly at
noon of that day the identical flag which Major
Anderson had been forced to haul down as the
first definite concession to armed insurgency
was by the same hand again unfurled above the
crumbling fortress. That evening, the mission
of the great President being in substance
performed, his martyrdom was also accomplished.
He had sought relaxation by witnessing a play
at Ford's Theatre in Washington. There he
was shot by a crazed secession zealot, J. Wilkes
Booth by name, stealthily approaching from the
rear. He fell unconscious in the arms of his
wife and died at about seven of the following
morning. The tragedy proved but a part of an
infamous plot to slay several leading officials
of the government. Secretary Seward, at about

the same hour, was dangerously stabbed by one
of the conspirators while lying sick at his
home. Other intended victims escaped through
miscarriages in the concerted scheme. Booth,
leaping from the President's box to the stage
below, sustained a fracture of the leg, but with
the aid of confederates escaped across the
Potomac. He was soon discovered in hiding
and was fatally shot while resisting arrest.
Four of the remaining conspirators, including
a widow named Mary Surratt, were convicted
by a military court and hanged (7 July 1865).
Four others were sentenced to prison. Naturally
the Confederate government was suspected
of direct complicity in the crime. The suspicion
was unfounded, but the mingled grief and rage
of the people brought upon the South distressing
consequences. Harsh measures of
reconstruction were adopted, such as Lincoln surely
would have disapproved and by his great
influence might have averted. Friend and foe
suffered in a common calamity.

Bibliography. — ‘Writings and Speeches;
Lincoln's Complete Works,’ edited by his secretaries,
J. G. Nicolay and John Hay (2 vols.,
New York 1894; same extended to 12 vols.,
id. 1905); ‘The Writings of Lincoln,’ Federal
Edition, ed. by A. B. Lapsley (8 vols., New
York 1906); ‘Life and Works,’ ed. by M. M.
Mills (8 vols., New York 1907; same in 4
and 6 vols., respectively, ed. by Mills and J. H.
Clifford, id. 1907-08); ‘Uncollected Letters,’
ed. by G. A. Tracy (1 vol., Boston 1917);
‘Political Debates’ (Columbus, Ohio, 1860);
same, Cleveland 1894; same, ed. by A. T. Jones,
Battle Creek, Mich., 1895; reprinted, Chicago
1900; same, ed. by E. E. Sparks, Springfield,
Ill., 1908; same, with introduction by G. H.
Putnam (New York and London 1912).

Biographies: Scripps, J. L. (New York and
Chicago 1860; reprinted, Detroit 1900); Howard,
J. K. (Columbus 1860); Howells, W. D.,
‘Life and Speeches’ (id. 1860); Barrett, J. H.
(Cincinnati 1860; enlarged, id. 1864 and 1865);
‘Lincoln and His Presidency’ (2 vols., id.
1904); Raymond, H. J., ‘Life’ (New York
1864); ‘History and Administration’ (id.
1864); ‘Life and Services’ (id. 1865);
Holland, J. G, ‘Life’ (Springfield, Mass., 1867);
Lamon, W. H., ‘Life to Inauguration’ (Boston
1872); Arnold, I. N., ‘Life’ (Chicago 1885;
5th ed., 1891); Nicolay and Hay, ‘Abraham
Lincoln, a History’ (10 vols., New York 1890);
Nicolay, J. G., ‘A Short Life’ (id. 1902);
Nicolay, Helen, ‘The Boy's Life of Lincoln’
(New York 1906); ‘Personal Traits’ (id.
1906); Browne, F. F., ‘The Every-day Life’
(New York and Saint Louis 1887; curtailed ed.
in 2 vols., Chicago 1913); Stoddard, W. O.,
‘The True Story of a Great Life’ (New York
1884; revised ed., id. 1896); Herndon, W. H.,
and Weik, J. W., ‘Herndon's Lincoln’ (3 vols.,
Chicago 1890; 2 vols., New York 1892); Morse,
J. T. (2 vols., Boston 1893; revised ed., id. 1899
and 1909); Hapgood, Norman, ‘Abraham
Lincoln the Man of the People’ (New York 1899);
Tarbell, Ida M., ‘Life’ (2 vols., New York
1900); Curtis, W. E., ‘The True Abraham
Lincoln’ (Philadelphia 1903); Binns, H. B.
(London and New York 1907); Morgan, James,
‘The Boy and the Man’ (New York 1908);
Lord Charnwood, ‘Abraham Lincoln’ (New
York 1916). More than 150 extended
biographies
exist, representing nearly every printed language.

Personal Reminiscences: Carpenter, F. B.,
‘Six Months at the White House with Abraham
Lincoln: The Story of a Picture’ (Boston 1866;
republished as ‘The Inner Life,’ etc.);
Oldroyd, O. H., ‘The Lincoln Memorial,’ etc.
(New York 1882); Rice, A. T, ‘Reminiscences
of Abraham Lincoln by Distinguished Men of
His Time’ (New York 1886; rev. ed., id. 1909);
Ward, W. H., ‘Abraham Lincoln, Tributes
from His Associates,’ etc. (New York 1895);
Chittenden, L. E., ‘Recollections of President
Lincoln and His Administration’ (New York
1891); Whitney, H. C., ‘Life on the Circuit
with Lincoln’ (Boston 1892); Dana, C. A.,
‘Recollections of the Civil War with the Leaders
at Washington and in the Field in the
Sixties’ (New York 1898); Gilmore, James A.,
‘Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln
and the Civil War’ (Boston 1898); Schurz,
Carl, ‘The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz’
(3 vols., New York 1908); Phillips, I. N.,
‘Abraham Lincoln. By some Men who Knew
Him’ (Bloomington, Ill., 1910); Welles, Gideon,
‘Diary’ (3 vols., Boston 1911); Thayer, W. R.,
‘The Life and Letters of John Hay’ (2 vols.,
Boston 1911); Chapman, Ervin, ‘Latest Light
on Abraham Lincoln and War-time Memories’
(New York 1917).

Sermons and Eulogies: Simpson, Matthew,
“Funeral Address delivered at the Burial of
President Lincoln at Springfield, 4 May 1865”
(New York 1865); Beecher, H. W., “Oration
on Raising the Old Flag at Sumter and Sermon
on the Death of Abraham Lincoln”
(Manchester, England, 1865); Brooks, Phillips, “The
Life and Death of Abraham Lincoln. A sermon
preached 26 April 1865” (Philadelphia
1865); Dudley, John L., “Discourse preached
16 April 1865 at Middletown, Conn.” (Middletown
1865); “Sermons preached in Boston on
the Death of Abraham Lincoln. Together with
funeral services in the executive mansion at
Washington” (Boston 1865); “Our Martyr
President. Voices from the Pulpit of New
York and Brooklyn” (New York 1865); Sumner,
Charles, “The Promises of the Declaration.
Eulogy on Abraham Lincoln delivered before
the Municipal Authorities of Boston, 1 June
1865” (Boston 1865); Bancroft, George,
“Memorial Address . . . delivered before the
Congress, 12 Feb. 1866” (Washington 1866);
Stoddard, R. H., “Abraham Lincoln. An Horatian
Ode” (New York 1865); Douglas, Fred,
“Oration on the Unveiling of the Freedmen's
Monument in Memory of Lincoln” (Washington
(1876); Arnold, I. N., “Abraham Lincoln: A
paper read before the Royal Historical
Society, London, 16 June 1881” (Chicago 1883);
Watterson, Henry, “Abraham Lincoln. An
Oration, 12 Feb. 1895”; (Chicago 1900); Choate,
J. H., “Abraham Lincoln. Address delivered
before Edinburgh Philosophical Society, 13 Nov.
1900” (London 1900; New York 1901); Ingersoll,
Robert, “Abraham Lincoln. A Lecture”
(New York 1895; 1907); Reid, Whitelaw,
“Address at University of Birmingham” (London
1910); addresses before Republican Club, city
of New York, “Abraham Lincoln, 1887-1909”
(New York 1909); “Abraham Lincoln. The
Tribute of a Century; principal Addresses of
the Centennial Year,” ed. by W. McChesney
(Chicago 1910).

Topical Studies: Schurz, Carl, ‘An Essay’
(Boston 1891; republished 1909); Welles,
Gideon, ‘Lincoln and Seward’ (New York
1874); Kelly, W. D., ‘Lincoln and Stanton’
(New York 1885); Coggeshall, W. T., ‘The
Journeys of Abraham Lincoln: From Springfield
to Washington . . . and from Washington
to Springfield’ (Columbus, Ohio, 1865);
Collis, H. T., and Ingersoll, Robert, ‘The
Religion of Abraham Lincoln’ (New York 1900);
Maynard, Mrs. W. C, ‘Was Abraham Lincoln
a Spiritualist?’ (Philadelphia 1891);
Remsburg, J. E., ‘Abraham Lincoln; Was he a
Christian?’ (Philadelphia 1893); Jackson, S. T.,
‘Lincoln's Use of the Bible’ (Philadelphia
1909); Johnson, W. J., ‘Abraham Lincoln the
Christian’ (Philadelphia 1913); Peters, M. C.,
‘Abraham Lincoln's Religion’ (New York
1909); Wettstein, C. T., ‘Was Abraham
Lincoln an Infidel?’ (New York 1910); Lowell,
J. R., ‘The President's Policy’ (Boston 1864,
1871 and 1888); Hart, A. B., ‘Slavery and
Abolition’ (New York 1906); Creelman, James,
‘Why We Love Lincoln’ (New York 1903);
Hill, F. T., ‘Lincoln the Lawyer’ (New York
1906); Richards, J. T., ‘Abraham Lincoln the
Lawyer-Statesman’ (Boston 1916); Rothschild,
A., ‘Lincoln Master of Men’ (Boston 1906);
‘Honest Abe’ (id. 1917); Norton, E.,
‘Abraham Lincoln, a Son of Mankind’ (New York
1911); Pillsbury, A. E., ‘Lincoln and Slavery’
(Boston 1913); McCarthy, C. H., ‘Lincoln's
Plan of Reconstruction’ (New York 1901);
Learned, M. D., ‘Abraham Lincoln: an American
Migration’ (Philadelphia 1909); Lincoln,
S., ‘Notes on the Lincoln Families of
Massachusetts, etc.’ (Boston 1865); Lea and Hutchinson,
‘The Ancestry of Abraham Lincoln’
(Boston 1900); Jenkins, H. M., ‘The Mother
of Lincoln’ (Philadelphia 1900); Hitchcock,
Caroline H., ‘Nancy Hanks’ (New York
1899); De Witt, D. M., ‘The Assassination of
Abraham Lincoln and Its Expiation’ (New
York 1909); Oldroyd, O. H., ‘The Assassination
of Abraham Lincoln’ (Washington 1906);
Pitman, Benn, ‘The Assassination of President
Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators’
(Cincinnati 1865); Surratt, John H., ‘Trial of
in the Criminal Court of the District of Columbia’
(Washington 1867); Dodge, D. K, ‘Abraham
Lincoln, the Evolution of His Literary
Style’ (Urbana, Ill., 1900); Gilder, R. W.,
‘Lincoln the Leader and Lincoln's Genius for
Expression’ (Boston 1909); Garret and Hadley,
‘The Civil War from a Southern Standpoint’
(Philadelphia 1905); Hosmer, J. K., ‘The
Appeal to Arms and Outcome of the Civil War’
(New York 1907); Rhodes, James F., ‘History
of the United States’ (7 vols., New York
1912).