Pulled by Its Roots

      Abraham Lincoln, who was named after his grandfather, lived from 1809-1865.  He was the first of the Lincolns to receive an education and learn reading and writing.  Abraham Lincoln was born into a family that did not have much money and therefore, he received little education.  Later, as a young man, he tried his hand at several trades.  Although he was unsuccessful in politics at first he eventually made progress at about the same time he was a lawyer.  After approximately thirty years, he was nominated, elected, and sworn into the presidency, where before long a war broke out.  A few days after the war ended, he was assassinated.        

Honest Reputation

      Well done!  Abraham Lincoln grew up in a poor family and therefore rarely saw the inside of a school.  In order to compensate for the loss of schooling, he studied at home. Therefore, Lincoln was able to learn trades as a young man.    

      Abraham Lincoln grew up in a poor family.  He was born in Hardin County on February 12, 1809, near Hodgenville, Kentucky.  Since his family was poor, Abraham Lincoln grew up in log cabins. When Abe was a three-year-old toddler, he and his family relocated just north of the old homestead.  In 1816, when Abraham was seven, they moved again to Indiana were Abe would remain for the rest of his pre-adult life.  When he was old enough, he began working in the fields with the axe, because no farmer could afford to be idle with his hands. Toiling vigorously every day, he became as strong as an ox and great with the axe.  He was also unmistakable in a crowd because of two things.  He was tall and lean.  Although Lincoln’s family was poor, he still received an education.           

      Absent from school more often than not because there was necessary work in the fields, Abraham Lincoln had to educate himself in order to fill in his knowledge.  Whenever there was a teacher nearby, Sarah Lincoln would make certain that her stepchildren went to school.  Abraham Lincoln, who wanted to learn as much as he possibly could, still learned rudimentary arithmetic, reading, writing, and spelling, despite the fact that he was only able to go to school, as he said, “by littles.”  Lincoln spent less than one year in school total.  Making up for the loss of formal schooling, he used self-education to learn what he did not get a chance to in school.  Ingeniously, since he had no or little paper, whatever he desired to memorize he wrote on the back of a wooden shovel.  Honest Abe did not mind hard work, at least, not if he had a book with him and had enough time to read a page from it intermittently.  Always, he anticipated getting home and reading by the light of the fire.  He loved learning and reading.  Thus, he never received much schooling, but was mostly self-educated and this prepared him for some of the trades he would work at.       

      Abraham Lincoln tried a multitude of trades when he was a young man.  Transporting goods to New Orleans, Abe twice became a flatboat man.  Then, when Denton Offutt launched a general store in New Salem, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln went to work as a clerk for him.  Near the same time that the store failed in 1832, the Black Hawk War broke out and Lincoln enlisted in the military.  Abe never saw any hostile Black Feet warriors during that war, later joking about surviving “a good many bloody battles – with mosquitoes.”  Eventually, he got back into the storekeeping business, after the exceedingly short war was over and set up his own general store with William Berry as his partner.  Their store failed.  As a result, Lincoln spent fifteen years paying off a $1,100 debt.  Andrew Jackson, who was the president at that time, appointed him postmaster in 1833 before Abraham accepted an offer for surveyor.  Lincoln tried many jobs because most of those jobs did not work out for him.     

      Abraham Lincoln was poor, but he used what little education he had in the trades he learned.  Significantly, Abraham Lincoln was honest.  He did not shrug off the $1,100 debt when his general store failed.  Instead, he made sure that the money went to the right people.  As a result, he earned the nickname “Honest Abe.”  As a child growing up and as a young man, his honesty built up his reputation, which later made him a much sought after politician and lawyer.         

Extremely Competent

      “To be or not to be, that is the question.”  Abraham Lincoln had the idea to go into politics, but at first that dream was crushed.  However, before long, he again tried to go into politics and succeeded.  During that time, he was also a lawyer.   

      Making an unsuccessful attempt at politics in 1832, Abraham Lincoln had tried his best.  After Offutt’s general store failed, Lincoln was pondering going into politics.  He was about to run for the Illinois state legislature when the Black Hawk War interrupted his plans.  After the war, the election was only two weeks away.  Lincoln hastily began his campaign.  He spoke at picnics and told amusing stories in the country stores.  He pitched horseshoes alongside the voters and conversed with farmers who were still in their fields.  Disappointingly, he lost the election because not enough people knew him outside of New Salem.  Although Abraham Lincoln lost in his first campaign, he was about to experience a turn of events.        

      Abraham Lincoln also had many successes in politics.  In 1834, after traveling Illinois as a surveyor, which made him well known and popular throughout the state, he again ran as a Whig for the Illinois legislature. He won the election.  After two years in the U.S. House of Representatives, the people again elected him to the Illinois state legislature where he soon formed the Republican Party in 1856.  Lincoln resigned from the legislature in 1858 because there was a chance to win a seat in the U.S. Senate.  Beginning the infamous Lincoln-Douglas Debates, he challenged his opponent, Stephen A. Douglas to a series of debates about slavery.  The major contrast between Lincoln and Douglas in both stature and integrity added to the unique nature of the debates.  Lincoln was a tall, gaunt man, whereas Douglas was short and rotund.  In addition, Lincoln had more integrity than Douglas did because Lincoln did not believe in slavery.  Although Abraham Lincoln lost the seat in the senate to Douglas, he became a national figure.  Many people fickly called Douglas “the little giant,” but after the debates, they changed their opinion and gave Lincoln the nickname, “the giant killer.”  Interestingly, at the same time Lincoln was a politician, he was also a lawyer.      

      Abraham Lincoln was an extremely competent lawyer.  Judiciously, Lincoln, when he first decided to become a lawyer, determined to study and learn it well unlike all the others who just read enough law to pass on their exams.  He determined to study on his own in order to save money rather than hiring a teacher and because he was used to self-education.  Abraham procured law books and memorized all the arguments, precedents, and everything else a lawyer would need to know to be successful.  At last, he was ready. On March 1, 1837, Lincoln took the bar exam and passed it effortlessly, becoming a member of the Illinois bar.  Promptly, he became the junior partner to John Todd Stuart, who had first suggested that he become a lawyer.  Later, Abraham opened his own law office and made William Herndon his partner.  From 1849-1854 he made the Illinois circuit, arguing case after case in the Illinois country.  He was an excellent lawyer.

      Although Lincoln failed in politics at first, he finally succeeded at the same time he picked up the law profession. Importantly, when Lincoln decided to do something he did it thoroughly.  This quality was proven in the way he learned law and in his determinedness to become a politician.  Being competent as both a lawyer and in politics, a higher vocation soon came Abraham Lincoln’s way.     

      The Great Evil Gone

      War!!!  Abraham Lincoln was nominated and elected to the presidency.  He would be forced to declare a war that would last for almost his entire presidency.  Before long, he would be ruthlessly killed.         

      In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was nominated and elected President.  Several Republican leaders, who believed that Abraham Lincoln had a fair chance at winning the presidency, began working for his nomination. Lincoln did not stop them, asserting, “The taste is in my mouth a little.”  Unanimously, on May 9, 1860, the delegates of the state of Illinois chose him their favorite-son candidate, and one week later, the Republican National Convention accepted and nominated him to be a candidate for the Presidency.  It was uncommon and not favorably accepted in those days to run your own campaign, so his supporters campaigned for Lincoln.  Making him a man of the people, they highlighted Lincoln’s humble, proletarian past.  Before the election, he received a letter from eleven-year-old Grace Bedell, submitting the idea that he should grow a beard, because his face was so lean. He accepted the proposition.  On November 6, 1860, it was Election Day, and Abraham Lincoln won the Presidency.  There was much tension between the North and the South when Lincoln was nominated and elected president, and it would soon turn into a civil war during his presidency.     

      After being sworn into office, Lincoln would be forced to declare war, a war that would last his entire presidency.  Inauguration Day finally came on March 4, 1861, and Abraham Lincoln was sworn into Office.  Because the Confederates fired upon Ft. Sumter on April 12, 1861, the newly elected president declared war.  In July of 1862, Lincoln drew up the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that all slaves would be freed belonging to masters in any state still in rebellion by January 1, 1863.  Taking advantage of the victory of Antietam on September 17, 1862, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation into law.  On November 8, 1864, Lincoln was reelected president and he proposed the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery in the entire Union.  He pressed for Congress to pass it, and before his second Inauguration on March 4, 1865, it was law.  Having trouble finding a proficient general, President Lincoln ultimately appointed Ulysses S. Grant as general, who hammered Lee and the South into submission.  Lee capitulated.  It was April 9, 1865, and the war was over at last.  Sadly, Abraham Lincoln who had been forced to declare the war was soon to lose his life. 

      On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.  During the play, Lincoln’s bodyguard, John Parker, irrationally left his post to watch the play.  Long after the third act began, the well-known actor, John Wilkes Booth, stole into the President’s Box.  Stealthily, he aimed and fired a derringer pistol at the back of President Lincoln’s head.  Leaping out of the Presidential Box, Booth’s spur caught on a flag draped across the side.  Falling onto the stage, he broke the shinbone of his left leg.  However, he struggled to his feet and shouted, “Sic Semper Tyranis,” because the Latin phrase when translated means “Thus Always to tyrants.”  Although Lincoln was carried to a house nearby, nothing could be done and he died the next morning.  Abraham Lincoln had been able to enjoy only forty-six days of peace during his entire two terms.  President Lincoln was dead.           

      Abraham Lincoln was nominated and elected for the presidency, and after being sworn in, he was forced to declare war.  Callously, just after the war ended, Lincoln was murdered. The greatest event during his presidency was the abolishment of slavery.  It was crucial because it marked a turning point for America.  The great evil those two and a half centuries left alone to corrode America was finally gone.    

      Abraham Lincoln may have been born into a poor family, but that did not stop him from getting an education, using self-education, and applying it in several of the many trades he tried.  During that time, he made an unsuccessful attempt at politics.  He began his law career at the same time he tried politics again and was successful in both.  After winning the nomination and election to the presidency and was sworn in, he was compelled to proclaim war.  Five days after the war was over, he was assassinated.  The most important act of his presidency was the Thirteenth Amendment.  It abolished the practice of slavery in the entire United States, not just in the rebellious part of the south.  Because Abraham Lincoln had pulled up slavery by the root, America truly became a land of liberty.             

      Works Cited

Foster, Genevieve, Joanna Foster.  Abraham Lincoln’s World.  San Luis Obispo: Beautiful Feet Books, 2001.  

Freedman, Russell.  Lincoln: A Photobiography.  New York: Clarion Books, 1987.  

Herbert, Janis.  The Civil War for Kids: A History with 21 Activities.  Chicago, Chicago Review Press Incorporated, 1999.  

Kelly, Martin, Melissa Kelly.  The Everything American Presidents Book.  The Everything Series.  Avon: Adams Media, 2007.  

Marshall, Henrietta E.  This Country of Ours.  Chapel Hill: Yesterday’s Classics, 2006.