American Literature

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (the “Great Emancipator”) was the sixteenth president of the United States. Born in a log cabin on the Kentucky frontier, near Hodgenville, on February 12, 1809, Lincoln has been a prominent icon since his assassination in 1865. Thousands of books and articles have been published about Lincoln, exploring all aspects of his life from his religious beliefs to his legal career. Biographical sketches of his life often seem legendary. Modern American schoolchildren learn lessons about the wisdom, humanitarianism, and virtues of “Honest Abe,” and his silhouette decorates classrooms every February in honor of his birthday. Cast as a martyr, Lincoln is often depicted as a flawless hero in books and movies (Angle, pp. 96-105). His contemporaries, however, viewed him differently and sometimes quite critically and hostilely.

Lincoln's rustic, backwoods origins reinforced his cultural image as a moral and dutiful man. When describing his childhood in the Indiana wilderness, Lincoln emphasized that his parents were poor, ordinary, hardworking people. Lincoln helped on the family's farm and humbly remarked about his lack of education. Accounts glorifying him reiterate tales about Lincoln walking miles to borrow books and sometimes using coal to write on a shovel when he did not have a pen and paper.

Moving to New Salem, Illinois, he labored at a variety of jobs before he began his political career. Lincoln split rails for fences (hence, one of his popular nicknames, the Railsplitter) and worked as a flatboat operator, a store clerk, a surveyor, and a postmaster. He was not always successful at his work, and folklore emphasizes Lincoln's integrity by explaining that he always repaid his debts and would locate customers to give them change if he discovered they had been billed incorrectly. The source of most information about Lincoln's early years is based on reminiscences recorded decades after the narrators knew Lincoln and are biased by sentimentality and faulty memories, which exaggerated his actions, qualities, and personality traits (Burlingame, pp. 174-185).

After losing his first political contest, Lincoln was elected as a Whig and began serving in the Illinois state legislature in 1835. He was admitted to the bar in 1837 and represented clients at courts throughout the state. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1847, Lincoln debated opponent Stephen Douglas in a fierce Senate contest in 1858, and despite his loss the debates resulted in securing Lincoln the Republican nomination for president two years later. A dazzling orator, Lincoln's brief but intense speeches stunned and inspired listeners. His “Lost Speech” was so dubbed because when he criticized slavery after the May 1856 Lawrence, Kansas, riots, reporters focused so intently on his message that they forgot to take notes.

Lincoln's presidency was antagonistic. As commander-in-chief he experienced difficulties with his generals. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, and his suggestion about extending suffrage to some freemen upset conservative Republicans, who tried to block his renomination in 1864. Military successes and Lincoln's reverent words in the Gettysburg Address secured soldiers' votes, which assured his win ...