ABRAHAM LINCOLNtorchlight parades, barbecues, and
picnics. In November, Lincoln carried
all the Northern states except New
Jersey in the popular vote and was
elected president.
The effect of the election was dramatic.
Lincoln’s rejection of the expansion of
slavery was unacceptable to radical
Southern politicians, and in December
South Carolina seceded from the Union.
Lincoln denied the right of secession: to
destroy the Union without a just cause
was “simply a wicked exercise of
physical power.” He carefully prepared
his inaugural address with the hope of
keeping the upper South from joining
the secessionists.
Attempt to conciliate
Lincoln’s speech, delivered on March 4,
1861, was clear but conciliatory: “In
your hands, my dissatisfied fellow
countrymen, and not in mine, is the
momentous issue of civil war. The
government will not assail you ... You
have no oath registered in Heaven to
destroy the government, while I shall
have the most solemn one to preserve,
protect and defend it.”
His words were to no avail. The next
day, he read a dispatch from Major
Robert Anderson warning of a crisis at
Fort Sumter in Charleston. The threat of
hostilities was escalating and would lead
to war just over six weeks later.
Balancing act
From the start of his administration,
Lincoln had to balance military and
political demands. Abolitionists wanted
immediate emancipation, but he knew
he had to hold the loyalty of the border
states of Maryland, Kentucky, and
Missouri. Only in the fall of 1862, after
victory at Antietam, did he feel ready
to shift the purpose of the war from
restoring the Union to ending slavery.
On January 1, 1863, he issued the
Emancipation Proclamation, freeing
all slaves in areas that were in rebellion
against the United States.
In 1864, Lincoln chose General Ulysses
S. Grant as overall army commander. In
Grant, Lincoln found a man who would
lead the Union to victory, although the
horrific casualties from the campaign
against the Confederacy’s General Robert
E. Lee threatened his reelection. General
William T. Sherman’s capture of Atlanta
in September helped save theTIMELINEAt the front
On October 3, 1862, Lincoln visits the headquarters of
General George B. McClellan at Antietam, Maryland, after
McClellan’s victory there the previous month.
president, who won the election
decisively. Lincoln, however, never lived
to see the nation reunited. On Good
Friday, April 14, 1865, he was fatally
shot at Ford’s Theatre in Washington
by a Confederate sympathizer.
It fell to Lincoln’s successors to
lead America through the years of
Reconstruction. His second inaugural
address stated Lincoln’s vision for
reconciliation—“with malice toward
none; with charity for all; with firmness
in the right, as God gives us
to see the right ... to bind
up the nation’s
wounds ...”“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.”
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, SPEECH AT COOPER UNION, NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 27, 1860In memory of Lincoln’s home
A log cabin commemorates the home on Knob Creek
Farm, Kentucky, where Lincoln lived with his family from
1811 to 1816. The Lincolns’ cabin was demolished; this
one was the home of their friends, the Gollahers.
MARY TODD LINCOLN■ February 12, 1809 Born in a one-room log
cabin in Kentucky, second child of Thomas and
Nancy Lincoln.
■ 1830 Lincoln’s family moves to Illinois.
■ 1834 Elected to the Illinois General Assembly
as a Whig. Begins his study of law.
■ 1842 Marries
Mary Todd in
Springfield, Illinois.
■ 1846 Elected to
the U.S. House of
Representatives as
a Whig.
■ 1856 Organizes
the Republican
Party in Illinois.
■ 1858 Nominated
as the Republican
U.S. Senate
candidate from
Illinois, opposing Democrat Stephen A. Douglas.
Takes on Douglas in seven debates across the
state, drawing large crowds. In a close vote he
loses to Douglas for Senate.
■ May 18, 1860 Nominated as the Republican
candidate for president.
■ November 6, 1860 Elected as 16th president
of the United States, receiving almost 40 percent
of the popular vote and 180 of 303 possible
electoral college votes.
■ December 20, 1860 South Carolina secedes
from the Union, followed within two months by
Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana,
and Texas.
■ March 4, 1861 Lincoln delivers his first
inaugural address in Washington, D.C.
■ April 12, 1861 Confederate artillery fires on
Fort Sumter in Charleston. Civil War begins.
■ April 15, 1861 Lincoln calls for 75,000
volunteers to restore the Union.
■ April 17, 1861 Virginia secedes, followed by
North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas.
■ February 20, 1862
Lincoln’s third son, Willie,
dies at age 11. His
wife is emotionally
devastated and
never fully
recovers.
■ January 1, 1863
Issues the
Emancipation
Proclamation.
■ November 19, 1863
Delivers a carefully drafted speech at the
dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery—
the Gettysburg Address.
■ November 8, 1864 Re-elected as president,
receiving 55 percent of the popular vote and
212 out of 233 electoral votes.
■ April 9, 1865 General Robert E. Lee surrenders
his army at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.
■ April 14, 1865 John Wilkes Booth shoots the
president at Ford’s Theatre. Lincoln is buried in
Oak Ridge Cemetery near Springfield, Illinois.CAMPAIGN BUTTON