The Western President

In Lincoln's inauguration address on March 4, 1861, he told the South, "you have an oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend it'".  But southerners were not listening and when Lincoln sought to send supplies to federal troops at Fort Sumter in Charleston, guns boomed and the Civil War began.

Despite pressure from radical Republicans in Congress, Lincoln feared that an attack on slavery would cause the strategically important border states like Kentucky and Missouri to leave the Union.  Lincoln concluded that emancipation was necessary to win Negro support.  The final Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 freed slaves only in areas still in rebellion, but it was a promise that changed the war into a war of freedom.

At Gettysburg on November 19, 1863, Lincoln delivered his famous speech to rally his countrymen to finish the work for men who had died there.  The bloody stalemate in Virginia brought war weariness to Lincoln.  Ulysses Grant's strategy of sending Sherman south to Atlanta and Sheridan across the Shenandoah Valley gave Lincoln his victory over not only the South in the Civil War, but also over the Democratic candidate General George McClellan in 1864.

At his final inauguration on March 4, 1865, Lincoln looked ahead to healing peace, asking people to act "with malice for none, with charity for all."  Sadly Lincoln didn't live to work such a peace.  He was assassinated just five day after Lee's surrender.  Lincoln's Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton who once called Lincoln the 'original gorilla', said at his funeral, "now he belongs to the ages".  Lincoln is one of the most loved Presidents in United States history.

Next time...Civil War in the Midwest
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On October 23, 1855, the Kansas Free State forces set up a governor and legislature under their Topeka Constitution, a document that outlaws slavery in the territory In opposition to the fraudulently elected pro-slavery legislature of Kansas.  

Back in Politics Again

When Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act opening slavery in previously free territories, Lincoln was back in politics.  Speaking for westerners he said, "We want the territories for home of free white people.  This they can not be to any considerable extent if slavery shall be planted within them."  In 1856, Lincoln left the Whig Party and joined the new Republican Party, campaigning for its candidate, John C. Fremont.

In 1858 Lincoln received the Illinois Republican nomination to oppose Stephen Douglas, the author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, for a seat in the U.S. Senate.  It was in his acceptance speech that he said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand.  I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free."

Douglas accepted Lincoln's challenge to debate seven times in Illinois.  Douglas was five feet tall to Lincoln's six feet four inches.  Although Douglas won the Senate seat, Lincoln gained a national following.  He became a much-sought-after speaker and won the Republican presidential nomination in 1860.

Lincoln got less that 40% of the popular vote in 1860, but he won 17 states and his total electoral vote of 180 was more than all the other candidates:  Douglas and John Breckinridge for the Democrats, and John Bell for the Constitutional Union Party.  Secessionists had warned that the election of a "Black Republican" would destroy the Union, and before Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, 1861, seven states had seceded to the form the Confederacy.

His was not to be an easy job to do...

Next time:  President Abraham Lincoln
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On October 19, 1869,  On this day in 1869, the famous Prussian-born mining engineer, Adolph Sutro, begins work on one of the most ambitious western engineering projects of the day: a four-mile-long tunnel through the solid rock of the Comstock Lode mining district, one of the richest silver deposits in the world.

Abraham Lincoln - Western President Part 1

Late in 1858 when Abraham Lincoln's friends urged him to run for President, Lincoln had a short answer, "Only events can make a President."  A chain of events propelled Lincoln to the Presidency and as he took the oath of office he became the President of a divided nation.

Born on February 22, 1809, young Lincoln grew up on many poor farms after the death of his mother at the age of 9.   The next year his father, Tom Lincoln, married Sarah Rush Johnston, a strong, good woman who encouraged Abe to read and write and demanded that his father not interfere with his studies.  Along with encouraging his studies, she gave him love and understanding.

The family moved again in 1830 to Illinois where 22 year old Lincoln went off alone and settled in New Salem (population 100).  He had a succession of occupations from store manager, mill manager, and captain of the volunteers in the Black Hawk War.  In 1832 Lincoln ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the Illinois state legislature, then served as a postmaster and deputy surveyor. 

After reading law books in every spare minute, Lincoln won the first of four terms in the Illinois legislature in 1834.  He was admitted to the bar in 1837, and moved to Springfield as the law partner of John T. Stuart. 

In November of 1842, he married Mary Todd, from a wealthy Kentucky family.  Only one of their four sons lived to adulthood, Robert Lincoln.  In 1847 and 1849 Lincoln served one term as a representative in Congress where he followed the Whig line, denouncing the Mexican War as unnecessary and unconstitutional.  Lincoln became unpopular back in Illinois because of his views and did not seek re-election but returned to his law practice in Springfield, thinking his political career was over.

Lincoln spent much of his time riding the circuit in his buggy to 14 county seats.  He liked the company of judges, swapping stories and matching wits in the courtroom.  One such companion recorded that Lincoln was "harmless as a dove, and wise as a serpent."

Next time...The West calls Lincoln back into politics...
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On October 16, 1854, an obscure lawyer and Congressional hopeful from the state of Illinois named Abraham Lincoln delivers a speech regarding the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which Congress had passed five months earlier. In his speech, the future president denounced the act and outlined his views on slavery, which he called “immoral.”