A. Lincoln

“I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever, I may return with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington.”

– A. Lincoln, Farewell address at Springfield, Illinois, February 11, 1861.

Last year I saw the movie “Lincoln”, which covered the closing months of the Civil War and the push by Lincoln to pass the 13th amendment. After I saw the movie I read a biography on Lincoln by Ronald C. White, “A. Lincoln”, and I plan on reading “Team of Rivals” by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Having lived in the great state of Illinois for almost 5 years, I passed car tag after tag with the phrase, “Land of Lincoln”, so I think learning more about our 16th president was in order. On Wikipedia, Lincoln’s profession is listed as a lawyer, he was so much more than just a lawyer in fact Lincoln had several careers, storekeeper, postmaster, surveyor, congressman, inventor, self-taught lawyer, and of course twice elected president. Born in Kentucky to a frontier family that later moved to Indiana, and then finally to Illinois, Lincoln was no stranger to living in different places.

In the late 1840s and 1850s, Lincoln road the Illinois circuit as a lawyer by horseback, as many towns in Illinois were too small to support full-time legal officials. Later horseback travel would be replaced by the railroad that allowed Lincoln and Stephen Douglas to transverse the state of Illinois debating each other which is now known as the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates. Without the railroad Lincoln and Douglas would not have been able to debate each other at far ends of the state. Lincoln ended up traveling over 3,400 miles by train, 600 miles by carriage, and 350 miles by boat, during the debates.


Lincoln beat the favorite for the 1860 republican nomination for president, William H. Seward, who was previously the governor of New York and was currently serving as a Senator from New York. The well-traveled and well educated Seward was also anti-slavery was so convinced he would win the nomination he left the United States for a eight-month tour of Europe. This was not unusual presidential candidates did not actively campaign at the time, instead the campaigning was done by surrogates and supporters across the United States. This would be unimaginable today; this would manifest itself in John McCain and Barack Obama staying home while the campaign was underway, there were no debates between the candidates either. It seems a big driving factor behind this was that is was not physically possible to visit all the states in the union in a timely manner.

During his presidency Lincoln utilized the newspaper to spread his speeches and policy, newspapers at the time associated themselves politically with one of the major political parties. It should be pointed out that Lincoln put so much effort in writing his speeches, he prepared for weeks often researching topics, examining facts and looking for inspiration from famous speeches and texts.

A few things that interest me about Lincoln was how he approached problems, whenever Lincoln faced a problem he would write his thoughts down on paper, and jotted down the upside and downside to the topic at hand. Lincoln valued logic and approached things very analytically. When choosing his cabinet, Lincoln did not shy away from people he disagreed with, in fact Lincoln appointed three members of his cabinet that had previous ran against him for the 1860 republican presidential nomination. He also appointed a southern democrat which at the time supported slavery. While Lincoln knew he was president, when he wrote out his choices for his first cabinet, he wrote his name within the list, not above the list. We will never know the true reason Lincoln did this, but we can speculate. However one thing we don’t have to speculate about is that Lincoln and his cabinet members were willing to do what was in the best interest of the country, put aside their differences and worked together to save the country.

Lincoln       Stanton
Seward       Chase
Bates          M.Blair
Dayton       Welles


Lincoln remains the only president to hold a US patent, creating a device that was intended to help boats navigate shallow water. (http://www.google.com/patents/US6469)


Lincoln never one to back away from a challenge and issued the emancipation proclamation which freed slaves in confederate states, Lincoln also signed the confiscation acts of 1861 and 1862 which allowed the seizure of confederate property for the war effort, and allowed African-Americans to participate in the war as soldiers.

The one the thing that frustrated Lincoln the most during the civil war was his generals they always either fought too cautiously or complained incessantly to the President until he found Ulysses S. Grant, who was neither. Lincoln realized that he had to try and get the 13th amendment through congress before the end of the war or justification for the amendment might go away. Unfortunately Lincoln would die shortly after the civil war was won, and before the 13th amendment would be ratified.

One of the reasons why Lincoln remains to me perhaps the best president in US president is the personal sacrifices he endured, two of four children would die while he was alive. His marriage to Mary Lincoln suffered because of his dedication to keep the Union together. During the Civil War, Lincoln had many sleepless nights and was never truly happy until the Civil War ended (April 9, 1865) and was killed shortly after (April 15, 1865), Lincoln being the last causality of the Civil War.


One thought on “A. Lincoln”

  1. Thanks Shawn, for sharing what you learned about Lincoln! I learned from this too. I didn’t know he was the only president to hold a U.S. patent. I also learned that he chose cabinet members based on his logical way of thinking, regardless of whether or not he agreed with their way of thinking, and he didn’t put himself above them. I like the way you ended your article with the ways in which he sacrificed for our nation, even to be the last casualty of the Civil War.

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