Lib-Lin: Libby through Lines

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Sources include: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.


LIBBY, Peter, Buxton, Maine, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1851-1864.


LIDDON, Abraham, abolitionist leader, Committee of Twenty-Four/Committee of Guardians, the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

(Nash, Gary B., & Soderlund, Jean R. Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and Its Aftermath. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 129)


LIGHT, George C., Kentucky, clergyman.  Agent for the American Colonization Society in Kentucky.  Worked with Robert S. Finley. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 145)


LILLIE, William, New York, New York, abolitionist, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1844-1851.


LINCOLN, Abraham, 1809-1865, 16th President of the United States (1861-1865), opponent of slavery.  Issued Emancipation Proclamation January 1, 1863, freeing slaves in southern states.  By the end of the Civil War, more than four million slaves were liberated from bondage. 

(Basler, Ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, New Jersey, Rutgers University, 1953, 9 Vols; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 224-225, 356; Miers, E. S., Lincoln Day by Day – A Chronology, Vols. 1-3; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 65, 66, 140, 241-243, 275, 368-370, 385, 690-691; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, pp. 715-727; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 1, pp. 242-259; National Archives and Records Administration [NARA], College Park, Maryland; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 13, p. 662) 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 1, pp. 242-259:

LINCOLN, ABRAHAM (February 12, 1809-April 15, 1865), sixteenth president of the United States, was, to use his own words, born "in the most humble walks of life" (Works, I, 8). His birthplace was a log-cabin about three miles south of Hodgen's mill on what was known as the "Sinking Spring Farm" in Hardin (now Larue) County, Kentucky. Lincoln himself could trace his line no farther back than to certain ancestors in Berks County, Pennsylvania, whom he vaguely described as Quakers; but research has disclosed a lineage reaching back to Samuel Lincoln who came from Hingham, England, and settled in Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1637. On the Lincoln side the descent was as follows: Samuel Lincoln (died 1690); Mordecai Lincoln of Hingham and Scituate, Massachusetts (died 1727); Mordecai Lincoln of Berks County, Pennsylvania (died 1736); John Lincoln of Berks County, Pennsylvania, and Rockingham County, Virginia (died 1788); Abraham Lincoln of Rockingham County, Virginia, and later of Kentucky; Thomas Lincoln, father of the President. The merging of the Lincolns with the migratory streams of pioneer America is illustrated by the progeny of John Lincoln mentioned above "Virginia John" as he was called. Of his five sons, whose names were reminiscent of ancient Israel, Jacob alone remained in Virginia, while Abraham, Isaac, John, and Thomas removed to Kentucky, eastern Tennessee, or Ohio. Abraham Lincoln, grandfather of the President, emigrated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Green River, Lincoln County, Kentucky, about 1782; but was killed about 1786 by Indians while opening a farm in the forest (Beveridge, post, I, II, note 2).

Thomas Lincoln (1718-1851) was large, powerful, and compactly built. According to his distinguished son, he was "a wandering laboring-boy," and "grew up literally without education" (Works, VI, 25), and in mature life was barely able to write his name. Born in Rockingham County, Virginia, he went with his father to Lincoln County, Kentucky, roved about for some. years, married and settled in Elizabethtown, Hardin County, after which he pursued the occupations of carpenter and farmer, changing his residence frequently, making nothing of his poorly chosen farms, avoiding contacts with "society" in town, and bequeathing little besides life itself to his son. Thomas' first wife, Nancy Hanks, was the mother of Abraham. According to the best available authority, she was the natural child of Lucy Hanks; and her paternity is unknown, the date of her birth being a matter of conjecture. Some years after the birth of Nancy, Lucy Hanks married Henry Sparrow in Mercer County, Kentucky; and Nancy was reared by her aunt, Betsy Hanks (Mrs. Thomas Sparrow). Though many tender eulogies of Lincoln's mother have been written, there is little reliable evidence concerning her. She seems to have been superior to the general Hanks level in intellectual vigor, and was described as spiritually inclined, affectionate, amiable, cool, and heroic (Herndon and Weik, post, I, 10). Whatever her natural endowments, she was "absolutely illiterate" (Beveridge, I, 16) and was throughout life identified with lowly people. Her marriage to Thomas Lincoln occurred on June 12, 1806, the backwoods ceremony being performed in the cabin of a friend in Washington County, Kentucky, by Jesse Head, a Methodist parson. On the Hanks side the ancestry of Lincoln is beclouded in a maze of misinformation; and much of the data presented by earlier biographers on this subject must be rejected, including unreliable accounts of a mythical Nancy Shipley Hanks, sometimes erroneously mentioned as Lincoln's maternal grandmother, and of various alleged Hankses whose real name was Hawks. According to W. E. Barton (Lineage of Lincoln, pp. 186, 210), the parents of Lincoln's grandmother, Lucy, were Joseph and Ann (Lee) Hanks of Hampshire County, Virginia, and Nelson County, Kentucky; and one finds Hankses in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries living on the Rappahannock as close neighbors of various Lees with whom at times they intermarried. It is only by conjecture as to several links, however, that Barton argues a connection between Lincoln's line and that of Robert E. Lee (Ibid., pp. 208-n).

Without following all the migrations of "Thomas the unstable," it may be noted that during the years of Abraham's early boyhood the family lived in a picturesque spot on Knob Creek about eight miles from his birthplace-a spot of natural beauty, of peace and grandeur, in a region of rocky cliffs, noble trees, and clear streams. Throughout life Lincoln carried fresh recollections of his Kentucky home-of the backwoods school where he was taught to read, write, and "cipher to the rule of three," of fishing and hunting adventures, of boyish escapades, of the old stone house on Nolin Creek where the young people gathered for dances, and of the mill to which as a child he carried the family grit. When the boy was seven the family was again on the move, this time for the Indiana woods. With their sorry stock of household goods they "packed through" to the Ohio River, ferried across, and followed a newly blazed trail to the home in the brush which Thomas had selected. This home, in which the Lincolns were at first but squatters, was located in the Pigeon Creek neighborhood in what is now Spencer County, Indiana. The first winter they had not even a cabin -merely a rude shelter of poles, brush, and leaves enclosed on three sides and called a "half-faced camp." Their cabin, when Thomas got round to building it, had at first neither floor, door, nor window; and the family fare was a matter of game animals, honey, birds, nuts, and wild fruit. The family of Thomas and Nancy Lincoln, with their two children, Sarah and Abraham, was soon joined by Nancy's foster parents, Betsy and Thomas Sparrow, with the colorful Dennis Hanks, who was as essential a part of this backwoods picture as "that Darne Little half-face camp," as Dennis called it, which the Sparrows used after the Lincolns had discarded it. Tragedy soon descended upon Pigeon Creek. Thomas Sparrow and Betsy his wife were stricken with what the settlers called the "milk sick," and were laid away in coffins fashioned by Thomas Lincoln. To these and other sufferers Nancy Lincoln had generously ministered. She soon fell ill, lingered without medical help for a week, and died (October 1818) with words of pious. admonition for her children. In life and death her brief story was that of the American pioneer woman.

Thomas Lincoln soon found another wife in Sarah (Bush) Johnston of Elizabethtown, Kentucky; widow of Daniel Johnston, who came with her three children to the Indiana cabin; and with the addition in 1823 of John Hanks there were nine persons in this narrow abode. The household equipment was now improved; and the stepmother became an important factor in the boy's rearing. From the Weik manuscripts-memories of Lincoln's early associates recorded after many years-we may reconstruct, through Beveridge's pages, a fairly definite picture of Lincoln as an easy-going backwoods youth who did his stint of hard labor on the homestead, performed odd jobs for neighbors, shunned the vociferous camp-meetings of the time, avoided membership in the church, and used his leisure for self-improvement by the reading of a few good books. The Bible, Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, Aesop's Fables, William Grimshaw's History of the United States, the Kentucky Preceptor, Weems's Life of Washington, and various other biographies and books of verse were. the principal works known to have been used by Lincoln at this period. As to formal schooling, there was, very little. While living in the Knob Creek home in Kentucky, Abraham and his sister Sarah had attended country schools for some weeks; now in Indiana he sat for brief periods under several schoolmasters (Andrew Crawford, Azel W. Dorsey, and William Sweeney by name) to whose log schools he had to walk long distances; but, in all, his attendance at school did not exceed one year. Out of school his vigor for reading and study was probably less a matter of ambition than of healthy intellectual interest. It was his stepmother who told the familiar story of his ciphering on boards which he shaved off with a drawing-knife to prepare for fresh efforts. His readiness to walk many miles for books is well attested, as is also his fondness for speech-making and for mimicking the preachers and orators who penetrated to the rough creekside. He somehow grew up without the frontier vices, avoiding liquor and being wholly free from dissoluteness and profanity. Though avoiding girls, he was uncommonly sociable; and the nearby country store at Gentryville held for him an unfailing fascination. The river attracted him powerfully and entered largely into hi~ early life. He earned a few dollars by rowing passengers from the shore to passing steamers; and in. the year 1828 he made the trip from Gentry's landing on the Ohio to New Orleans. Though stirred with the ambition to become "a steamboat man," he returned to the monotony of Pigeon Creek, where his father had a claim upon his labor. As the boy emerged from his teens he was tall, powerful, muscular, ungainly, tender toward animals, a recounter of robust stories, mighty with the axe, and not without a certain latent poetry in his nature. His relations with his father seem not to have been happy, and he welcomed the day when he could shift for himself.

In the year of Abraham's coming of age (1830) the Lincolns were again on the move. Having sold his Indiana holdings, Thomas set out with his family to Macon County, Illinois, whither John Hanks had preceded them. With ox-drawn wagons they trekked through forest and prairie, crossed the Wabash, and settled on the Sangamon River not far from Decatur. At first Abraham remained with the family, helping to build the new cabin, splitting fence rails, planting corn, and assisting in the rough tasks of the following winter. In the service of one Denton Offutt he assisted in building and navigating a flatboat from a point on the Sangamon River near Springfield to New Orleans; but the story that "the iron entered his soul" on seeing the New Orleans slave auction, and that he vowed if he ever had a chance to "hit that thing" he would "hit it hard," is untrustworthy (Beveridge, 1, to 7). Returning from the southern mart on a steamer, Lincoln, then only a drifter, selected as his home the village of New Salem, about twenty miles northwest of Springfield a remote hamlet set high on a bluff overlooking the Sangamon.

Here he spent six picturesque and formative years (1831-37), working in the store of Denton Offutt till it "petered out"; managing a mill; conducting a store with W. F. Berry, who died leaving a heavy debt ($1,100) all of which Lincoln finally paid; splitting rails and doing odd jobs to earn a scant living; acting as village postmaster; traversing the county as deputy surveyor; and all the while reading law, studying grammar, widening his acquaintance; following the trends of national politics, and laying the foundations for a wide personal influence. It was during this period that he served in the Black Hawk War, being unanimously elected captain by the men of his company. Another gauge to measure his stature is the devotion of the "Clary Grove Boys"-stalwart rowdies to whom hero worship was as natural as swearing, drinking, and fighting. This tribute to Lincoln's manhood, which came in spite of his freedom from the vices of the gang, seems to have been in part a recognition of his prowess in competitive sport, especially wrestling, and in part a pure matter of personal attachment.

In 1834 Lincoln was chosen to the state legislature; and he served during four successive terms (1834-41), first at Vandalia, the old capital, and later at Springfield. It was a frontier legislature, but its party maneuvers were spirited, and it offered Lincoln his first political training. Being a Clay Whig in a Democratic body, he belonged to the minority; but he became Whig floor leader and directed the fortunes of his party in the lower house, receiving in several sessions the full party vote for the speakership. On national issues, which were necessarily of concern to him as a prominent party worker, he acted as a regular Whig, supporting the Bank of the United States, opposing the leading measures of Jackson and Van Buren, and attacking the independent treasury. He studiously avoided association with abolitionists, but he did not want this attitude construed as positive support of slavery. Consequently, when the legislature in 1837 passed resolutions severely condemning abolition societies, Lincoln and his colleague Dan Stone from Sangamon County entered a protest, asserting that slavery was "founded on both injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils" (Works, I, 52).

In 1837 Lincoln left New Salem, which was soon thereafter abandoned, later to be rebuilt as a memorial to him, and made his home in Springfield. So poor was he at this time that his surveying instruments had been attached to pay a debt; he rode into town on a borrowed horse carrying his possessions in two saddle-bags, and was glad to make arrangements with friends for free lodging and board. He was now a practising lawyer, having been licensed as an attorney September 9, 1836; and he formed a partnership with J. T. Stuart, a man of influential family, able in the law, and prominent in Whig circles. While in New Salem, Lincoln had paid court to Ann Rutledge whose father kept the rude inn where he boarded. Though the girl's attractions and tragic death have inspired an extravagant amount of sentimental fiction, actual evidence on the matter is scant. She was engaged to a man named John McNamar, but his long absence suggested desertion. Her engagement to Lincoln seems to have been conditional upon honorable release from her absent lover. That Ann preferred Lincoln in case her lover should return and renew his suit seems doubtful; and on both sides there were reasons for deferring marriage. With matters in this unsettled state, Ann died of "brain fever," August 25, 1835. Lincoln's proposal to Mary Owens, whom he met through the kindness of her sister at New Salem, need not be treated here; nor is there room to analyze the confused testimony that surrounds his troubled courtship of Mary Todd.

Herndon's sensational story of Lincoln's failure to appear at his wedding, said to have been set for January 1, 1841, has produced a mass of contradictory discussion. In the best treatment of the subject (Sandburg and Angle, Mary Lincoln, Wife and Widow, 1932, pp. 40-60, 174-185, 330), the conclusion is reached that there was no defaulting bridegroom at a wedding, but that some violent emotional disturbance did occur; indeed, no one can read Lincoln's correspondence of the period without being impressed with his excessive morbidity. After a series of breaks and reconciliations, complicated by Mary's rumored flirtations with other men, the disturbed lovers were finally brought together; and they were married in some haste on November 4, 1842. As to the degree of happiness that attended their married life it is equally difficult to reach a fully rounded conclusion (see Lincoln, Mary Todd). On Lincoln's side there was indifference to domestic niceties and a certain untidiness and lack of dignity that grated upon the sensibilities of a proudly reared woman; on the other hand, the domestic atmosphere was not improved by Mary's bursts of temper. Their first son, Robert Todd [q.v.], was born August 1, 1843; he alone grew to manhood. The other children were: Edward Baker (March, 1846-February 1, 1850), William Wallace (December 21, 1850-February 20, 1862), and Thomas or "Tad" (April 4, 1853-July 15, 1871).

In the years 1847-49 Lincoln served one term in Congress, where he had the distinction of being the only Whig from Illinois. His election with more than 1,500 majority over the doughty backwoods preacher, Peter Cartwright, was a significant personal triumph, for Cartwright was himself a man of great popularity. In his undistinguished career as congressman the matters most worthy of comment are those which pertain to the Mexican War and to slavery. Lincoln had not opposed the war while campaigning as a candidate; but when his party sought political advantage by denouncing the conflict as a Democratic war unjustly begun by Polk, Lincoln joined aggressively in this party attack. He voted (January 3, 1848) that the war was "unnecessarily begun": and on December 22, 1847, he introduced his "spot resolutions" (Congressional Globe, 30 Congress, 1 Session, p. 64), which were so worded as to imply that the "spot" on which had occurred the shedding of American blood, which Polk had interpreted as Mexican aggression, was in fact an unoffending settlement of Mexican people, outside American jurisdiction, against which an American force had been unnecessarily sent contrary to General Taylor's advice. On January 12, 1848, he made a striking speech on his resolutions-a Whig speech in which he subjected the President's evidence to cold analysis, accused him of befogging the issue, and questioned the purposes of the administration as to the duration of the war and the terms of peace (Ibid., pp. 154-56). In this speech Lincoln made a declaration which hardly comported with his later declarations against Southern secession; for he asserted the right of "any people," or of "a majority of any portion of such people," to "shake off the existing government, and form a new one" (Works, I, 338- 39). Though Lincoln had voted to grant supplies to sustain the war, and though his antiwar speech made but slight impression generally, he had deeply offended the people of his state. His attitude was denounced in Illinois as unpatriotic; he was described as a "second Benedict Arnold," and was accused of having plead the cause of the enemy (Beveridge, I, 432). On various occasions Lincoln voted for the Wilmot proviso; and on January 10, 1849, he read a proposal to abolish slavery in the national capital (Congressional Globe, 30 Congress, 2 Session, p. 212). It is characteristic of his conservatism that he proposed such abolition only in case three conditions should be met: emancipation was to be gradual; compensation was to be made to slaveholders; and the proposed act was not to go into force unless approved by the citizens of the District at a special election. Lincoln did not move among the great in Washington, nor did he rise above the obscurity of the average congress man. He amused a small circle by his camaraderie and droll stories, but the more brilliant social life of the capital was closed to him. Vigorous anti-slavery men were not his associates, but he formed a real friendship with Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia. Party affairs took much of his energy. He spent weary hours addressing documents to voters; wrote numerous letters; served as the Illinois member of the Whig national committee; delivered a rollicking speech against Cass which was essentially a campaign document (July 27, 1848, Works, II, 59-88); and participated in the Whig convention at Philadelphia in 1848, laboring hard for the inexperienced Zachary Taylor and against his former hero, Henry Clay. In the campaign of 1848 his services on the stump were not eagerly sought, least of all in Illinois; but he visited Massachusetts, speaking at Worcester, Chelsea, Dedham, Cambridge, Lowell, and Boston. One misses in these speeches the resonant tone of Lincoln's later declarations. Antislavery as he was at heart, he counseled against voting for the Free-Soil candidate, Van Buren, since such action would help to elect Cass. Though the Whigs were nationally successful in this election, Lincoln had the humiliation of seeing his party lo se his own district, where the defeat of S. T. Logan for Congress might be interpreted as a repudiation of Lincoln's record by his neighbors. With a sense of futility he bade goodbye to Washington; and, while the thunders of the mid-century slavery crisis were shaking the country, he renounced politics, returned to the obscurity of Springfield, and sadly resumed his law practice.

As a lawyer Lincoln rose to front rank in his own state. He was associated with capable partners-at first John Todd Stuart, then Stephen T. Logan, and finally William H. Herndon. His practice was important and extensive in the state supreme court and also in the federal courts. After Illinois was divided into two federal judicial districts, Lincoln attended the sessions of the United States courts in Chicago with increasing frequency. In his circuit practice,' where cases ha d to be quickly whipped into shape, he was not more than ordinarily successful; but in the higher courts, where careful study served to bring into play the sureness of his matured judgments, his record was outstanding (Paul M. Angle, in Lincoln Centennial Association Papers, 1928, esp. pp. 38-41). It is true that Lincoln is chiefly remembered as a luminous figure among the circuit-riding lawyers who traveled the judicial circuit presided over by Judge David Davis. He thoroughly enjoyed this picturesque life, jogging over the prairies in his rickety buggy, meeting the country folk on their own level, and joining the happy migratory life of judge and attorneys as they lodged two in a bed and eight in a room, swapped stories, and made the taverns resound with hilarity. During court week the lawyers were in demand for political speeches, and Lincoln's popularity was enhanced by his aptness on these occasions. It was here that his humor and story telling showed at their best; and to the stories themselves must be added the wizardry of Lincoln's quaint manner and the charm of his smile. Some of the specific cases of this circuit-riding phase have received undue emphasis, such as the Wright case in which Lincoln represented the widow of a Revolutionary soldier and recovered an exorbitant fee  which a grasping pension agent had charged, and that of "Duff" Armstrong whom Lincoln successfully defended on a murder charge, making use of an almanac to refute testimony as to moonlight on the night of the murder. The human interest of these smaller cases has served to obscure the really important litigation with which Lincoln was connected. His services were enlisted in determining such important matters as the right of a county to tax the Illinois Central Railroad (17 Illinois, 291-99), the right to bridge a navigable stream (the Effie Afton case, Beveridge, I, 598-605), and the protection of the McCormick Reaper Company against infringement of its patents (Ibid., I, 575-83). In this McCormick case, which was tried before a federal court at Cincinnati, Lincoln suppressed his feelings when snubbed by eastern attorneys; and later as president he appointed one of the se lawyers, Stanton, to his cabinet. A study of his whole legal career shows that he was more than a country lawyer; and to those factors which gave him fair success in the rural county seats his common sense, his shrewdness, his effectiveness before a jury, his strong invective, and his reputation for honesty-one must add further qualities that mark the outstanding attorney: a searching thoroughness of investigation (Beveridge, I, 573-74), a familiarity with pertinent judicial doctrines, and a knack of so stating a legal question as to brush away its technicalities and get at the core of the controversy. There are instances of his declining to receive excessive fees, refusing questionable cases, and even withdrawing from a case on discovering during the trial that his client's cause was unjust. In fragmentary notes for a law lecture he stated his conception of professional standards (Works, II, 140-43). A successful lawyer, he said, must stress diligence, attend promptly to the preparation of documents, and cultivate extemporaneous speaking as the "lawyer's avenue to the public." He should discourage litigation and choose honesty above professional success  "Work, work, work," he said, "is the main thing" (Ibid., VI, 59).

The Lincoln of the prairies was a man of marked individuality. Standing six feet four, with uncommon length of arms and legs, his figure loomed in any crowd, while the rugged face bespoke a pioneer origin and an early life of toil and poverty. In a head not over large each feature was rough and prominent. In contrast to the round, full-cheeked Douglas, Lincoln's face showed deep hollows and heavy shadows. The craggy brow, tousled hair, drooping eyelids, melancholy gray eyes, large nose and chin, heavy lips, and sunken, wrinkled cheeks produced an effect not easily forgotten. A wide variety of qualities is revealed in his portraits, which give the impression of a character whose depth is not readily sounded-a personality in which conflicting hereditary strains were peculiarly blended. Those who have described him from life dwell upon the contrast between the seeming listlessness of the face in repose and the warmth of the countenance when animated with conversation or public speech. The trappings of the man intensified the effect of crudeness. In a day of grandiloquent male adornment Lincoln's habiliments departed as far from the Godey fashion plate as did his mid-western speech from the sophisticated accent of the East. The battered stovepipe hat stuffed with papers, the rusty ill-fitting coat, the ready-made trousers too short for the legs, the unpolished boots, the soiled stock at the neck, the circular cloak in winter or linen duster in summer, the bulging umbrella and hard-used carpet-bag, gave an entirely unpremeditated effect of oddity, the man's appearance being apparently of no more concern to him than the food which he seemed to eat without tasting.

Few men could match Lincoln as a stump-speaker. Beginning with apparent diffidence he gained composure and assurance as he proceeded, speaking with freedom, naturalness, and convincing power. In impassioned periods the gaunt figure, despite the sunken chest, became "splendid and imposing" (Herndon and Weik, II, 77); and in the directness of his intense passages the tall form seemed to gain in height. His mind had that tenacity and steadfastness of logic that goes with slowness in forming conclusions. There is a clarity and compactness in his writings which is in pleasing contrast to the verbosity so common in his day. Never descending to triteness or banality, his papers show careful composition and abound in epigrams and pithy phrases. This power of written and spoken utterance must be reckoned high among his qualities as a statesman. His political philosophy revealed a democratic liberalism closely resembling the creed of Thomas Jefferson. Anglo-Saxon principles of civil liberty were fund a mental in his thinking (A. C. Cole, in Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, October 1926-January 1927, pp. 102-14); he advocated the broadening of political rights, even favoring woman suffrage far ahead of his time; and the leveling doctrines of the Declaration of Independence became a kind of religion with him. Laborers and the less favored classes generally found in him an earnest champion. Though never identifying himself with any ecclesiastical denomination, he was not lacking in the religious sense; and in his public papers he expressed with sincerity the spiritual aspirations of his people.

In the agitation that swept the country with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise Lincoln emerged from political inactivity and launched upon the larger career which occupied the coming years. From 1854 on there appeared a new tone in his speeches, a notable earnestness combined with adroitness in narrowing the contest to one phase of the slavery question, thus making it a suitable party issue. In a speech at Springfield, October 4, 1854, repeated at Peoria on October 16 (Works, II, 190-262), Lincoln answered Douglas, who had spoken in the same hall the previous day. His reasoned appeals to the Declaration of Independence, his sarcasm, his searching questions, and his shrewdness in avoiding pitfalls, indicated that he had now struck his stride as a leader. Still calling himself a Whig, though events were drawing him toward the new Republican party, he worked hard for the senatorship from Illinois in 1855; but, after successive ballots in the legislature indicated his dwindling strength, he aided the cause of the Anti-Nebraska fusionists against the Democrats by throwing his support to Trumbull.

The next year Lincoln became definitely identified with the new party; and at the Republican state convention at Bloomington he delivered, on May 29, 1856, what some have called his greatest speech (Works, II, 308 note). In a time of high excitement over the Kansas struggle, when radicals were trying to capture the Republican party, Lincoln's task was to make a fighting speech which would have enough boldness to inspire the crusading abolitionists and yet so define the issue as to keep the support of moderates. Herndon exhausted his adjectives in describing the speech and declared that on that occasion his partner was seven feet tall. Lincoln soon became active in the new party, attending every meeting he could reach, speaking frequently, managing the details of party machinery, and carrying on an extensive correspondence with voters. He was now the leading Republican as he had been the leading Whig of Illinois. At the time of Fremont's nomination for the presidency at Philadelphia in 1856 he received 110 votes for the vice-presidential nomination; and in this way his name was widely advertised in the North. He campaigned for Fremont in this election, though McLean had been his choice; but he had only partial success in winning Whig support for the Republican cause.

Successfully seeking the Republican senatorial nomination in 1858, Lincoln delivered a carefully prepared speech on June 16 before the state Republican convention at Springfield. "A house divided against itself cannot stand," said he. "I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved-I do not expect the house to fall-but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other" (Works, III, 2). In this speech, as elsewhere, Lincoln denounced the Dred Scott decision of 1857 as part of a pro-slavery conspiracy which, unless thwarted, would one day legalize slavery even in the free states. In the campaign with Douglas for the senatorship, Lincoln at first trailed his opponent, speaking at Chicago on July 10 just after his antagonist had spoken at the same place, and repeating the performance at Bloomington and elsewhere. On July 24, 1858, he challenged Douglas [q.v.] to a series of debates; and the acceptance of the challenge gave Lincoln the advantage of being matched against the outstanding leader of the Democratic party. Beginning at Ottawa, August 21, reaching an early climax at Freeport, August 27, and closing at Alton on October 15, the seven "joint debates" were but the most striking incident of a long duel between Lincoln and Douglas. It was indeed a memorable contest. The emotion of cheering crowds, the clack and rattle of western campaigning, the sporting spectacle of contestants facing each other in successive forensic rounds, the physical disparity between the candidates, the contrast between Douglas' private railroad car and the crowded coach or freight caboose in which Lincoln, not without an eye to political effect, lumbered into town to be fetched to his lodging in a hay-wagon-these features lent a picturesque interest to a contest in which the importance of the stakes far exceeded the realization of participants or spectators. Each candidate showed respect for the other, and the discussions were conducted on a high plane, albeit with a deadly earnestness. In the speeches there were few elements that were new. Lincoln shrewdly capitalized the growing split in the Democratic ranks; he denounced Douglas' indifference as to the right or wrong of slavery; and he used with telling effect the inconsistency between "popular sovereignty" and the doctrine of the Dred Scott decision, both of which Douglas favored. At Freeport, by a question as to whether the people of a territory could exclude slavery, he forced Douglas to compromise himself as presidential candidate in 1860 by taking a position which offended the South, though gaining votes for the senatorial contest in Illinois.

Once and again in the debates Lincoln disavowed abolitionist doctrines and stressed the conservative note. He did not advocate the unconditional repeal of fugitive-slave laws nor oppose the admission of states in which slavery might be established by constitutions honestly adopted. Negro citizenship did not receive his indorsement, nor did he urge political or social equality for the races. His advocacy of abolition in the District of Columbia was again qualified by those safeguarding conditions which he had previously proposed as congressman. With the politician's eye for vote-getting and for uniting the incongruous elements of his nascent party, he avoided the language of the anti-slavery crusader and narrowed the issue to the clear-cut doctrine of freedom in the territories. The effectiveness of his campaign was shown in the election returns. His party carried districts containing a larger population than those carried by the Democrats, but inequitable apportionment gave Douglas a majority in the legislature, insuring his election. The contest lifted Lincoln into national prominence; and in 1859 he made many speeches in Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Kansas, impressing his ideas upon the people of important doubtful states.

His name was now being mentioned for the presidency, and it was as a presidential possibility that he delivered on February 27, 1860, his Cooper Institute speech in New York (Works, V, 293-328). This was a notable formulation of the issues on which the new party could do battle. Exclusion of slavery from the territories as the doctrine of the fathers was the key note of the address, which was delivered in Lincoln's best style and with a dignity in keeping with the occasion. Decrying the efforts to discredit the Republican party by identifying it with the radicalism of John Brown or the abusiveness of Helper's Impending Crisis, he spoke for an attitude of understanding and friendliness toward the Southern people. He urged his party to "yield to them if ... we possibly can," doing "nothing through passion and ill temper"; and he denounced efforts to destroy the Union.

Lincoln was named in state convention as the choice of Illinois Republicans for the presidency; and a combination of factors led to his success in the national convention at Chicago. Seward was considered too radical and was injured by the powerful opposition of Greeley. Other candidates had weak points; Bates could not carry the Germans; Chase could not muster his own state.  The moderate element was growing in the new party, and in certain "battle-ground states", Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, which had supported Buchanan in 1856-it was vitally important to nominate a conservative candidate. Lincoln had steadily counseled moderation; he had avoided connection with the Know-Nothings, had pleased the Germans by his opposition to measures directed against foreigners, and had made himself highly acceptable as a second choice in case Seward could not be named. In short, Lincoln was so free from radicalism, so careful to avoid offense, and yet withal so skilful in inspiring enthusiasts that he proved to be precisely the type of candidate to which a convention turns after the luminous stars of the pre-convention canvass have proved unavailable. The atmosphere of the wigwam at Chicago was favorable to the "rail splitter," opposition within the state having been skilfully sidetracked. O. H. Browning, for instance, who favored Bates because of his strength with the old Whigs, was a member of the Illinois delegation pledged to Lincoln; and he labored loyally for him at the convention. David Davis, in charge of the Lincoln forces at Chicago, worked tirelessly and did his part well, though his bargaining in cabinet positions was contrary to Lincoln's instructions. With 465 delegates present and 233 necessary to a choice, the first ballot stood: Seward 173 1/2, Lincoln 102, Cameron 50 1/2, Chase 49, Bates 48, the rest scattered. On the second ballot Cameron's name was withdrawn to Lincoln's advantage, Seward receiving 184 1/2 votes, Lincoln 181, Chase 42 1/2, Bates 35. On the third ballot the change of four Ohio votes during the count precipitated a stampede to Lincoln, who became the convention's choice amid scenes of wild excitement.

In the fury of the ensuing campaign, with the Democratic party split between North and South and disunion threatened in case of Republican success, Lincoln remained quietly at Springfield. He conferred with leaders, received delegations, wrote letters, and prepared a short autobiography for campaign purposes; but he avoided political speeches. While the people of the South were expecting the worst from him, he did but little to reassure them. In the election of November 6, 1860, he was chosen president by pluralities in enough states to give him a considerable electoral majority; but as regards the whole popular vote he was a minority president. There were ten Southern states in which not a single popular vote had been cast for him; and, strangely enough, his own county in Illinois voted against him. Lincoln carried every Northern free state except New Jersey. His vote in New England was nearly three times that of Douglas; elsewhere in the East his vote stood to that of Douglas as 7 to 4; in the Western states the contest was closer, the ratio being 8 to 7. Lincoln's total in the popular vote was 1,866,452 as compared to 1,376,957 for Douglas, 849,781 for Breckinridge, and 588,- 879 for Bell (Edward Stanwood, A History of the Presidency, 1924, I, 297). The electoral vote stood: Lincoln 180, Breckinridge 72, Bell 39, Douglas 12. In the critical interval between his election and his inauguration Lincoln continued his policy of silence, making no speeches and avoiding public statements as to his policy. While events were moving rapidly in the lower South and disunion was consummated by the formation of a Southern Confederacy without hindrance from Washington, the President-Elect, though never doubting that the government possessed the authority to maintain itself, remained passive and quiet at Springfield. Matters of patronage, cabinet making, the preparation of his inaugural address, conferences, and correspondence occupied his attention. He found time for a trip to Coles County where he visited his aged stepmother, directing that the grave of his father be suitably marked, and for one to Chicago to meet Hannibal Hamlin, November 21-26, 1860. To the measures of compromise proposed in Congress he gave scant encouragement. The Crittenden proposal to avert disunion was shattered by Lincoln's inflexible refusal to countenance the territorial extension of slavery. He requested General Scott to be ready to "hold or retake" the forts in the South as the case might require; and he did little to allay Southern fears as to his policy. He assured John A. Gilmer of North Carolina (December 15, 1860, Works, VI, 81) that he would not discriminate against the South in appointments and that the only substantial difference between the Southern people and himself was in the matter of slavery extension. To another Southerner, Samuel Haycraft, he wrote that the "good people of the South" would find in him "no cause to complain" (November 13, 1860, Ibid., VI, 69-70). These and other similar letters, however, were confidential, and the pacific nature of his intentions was not appreciated. The pliable Seward, during these clays, was more prominent as Republican spokesman than the President-Elect. A survey of the Southern press in this crisis shows a division of sentiment between those who recognized Lincoln's election as legal and would await an "overt act" before embarking upon disunion and those who asserted that abolition had swept the North and that the "cause of the South" had no future except by separation. (See D. L. Dumond, Southern Editorials on Secession, 1931, esp. pp. 221-223, 304-06; see also A. C. Cole in American Historical Review, July 1931, pp. 740- 67.) It was not long before the men who held the latter view seized the reins in the lower South; and fast-moving events made theirs the controlling policy for the South in general. (Much light is thrown on Lincoln as president-elect by the colorful letters of Henry Villard to the New York Herald, November 1860 to February 1861). In the matter of cabinet making the inclusion of Seward, Chase, and Bates was a recognition of rivals, while Wells was chosen as a New Englander and a former Democrat who had turned Republican. Lincoln had wished to include some representative of the South (as distinguished from the border states) and had approached John A. Gilmer of North Carolina on this subject, but his efforts to this end proved unsuccessful. Bargains in the nominating convention were kept by the appointment of Caleb B. Smith of Indiana and Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania.

On February 11, 1861, with words of restrained emotion, Lincoln left Springfield for Washington. His speeches en route did little to reassure the skeptical East, but they made it clear that the government would resist secession. The effect of these speeches in the South was distinctly unfavorable (D. L. Dumond, The Secession Movement, 1931, pp. 258-60). Newspapers carried full accounts of the journey, and unfortunate publicity was given to trivial incidents, as when Lincoln, whose chin was now marred by a new-grown beard, publicly kissed a little girl for whom he inquired as his train stopped at her town, and explained that the facial adornment had been assumed at her request. His secret night ride to Washington, occasioned by detective reports of assassination plots, was a humiliation to his friends and a subject of ridicule by his opponents. In a conciliatory inaugural address Lincoln again disclaimed any intention to interfere with slavery in the states, counseled observance of all federal laws (not accepting the Fugitive-slave Law), and plead earnestly for the preservation of the Union, which he declared to be perpetual (Works, VI, 169-85). Denouncing secession as anarchy he announced that the national power would be used to ''hold, occupy, and possess" (he did not say "repossess") federal "property and places." Declaring that "physically speaking, we cannot separate," he a sked his countrymen "one and all" to "think calmly," pledging that the government would not assail them, and closed with a poetic reminder of those "mystic chords of memory" which he hoped would yet "swell the chorus of the Union.''

Inexperienced as he was in the management of great affairs, untrained in executive function s requiring vigorous action, the new President found himself borne down by a cruel pressure of miscellaneous duties, overwhelmed by a horde of office seekers, and embarrassed by unfamiliar social exactions, while through it all the Sumter crisis, involving the momentous issue of civil war, was pressing for a solution. With the eyes of the nation on the fort at Charleston as a test of the new administration, with Major Anderson reporting that in a few weeks the garrison must surrender unless provisioned, and with informal negotiations in progress between Union leaders and Southern commissioners concerning the relation of the Washington government to the Confederacy, events were pushing the new executive to a decision. Meanwhile his very position as leader was at stake. Seward had begun by supposing that he would be premier, and had fatuously proposed a startling program of foreign aggression as a means of reuniting the country. Lincoln's answer to his secretary left no doubt as to who was president, but his words left no sting. If a certain thing must be done, said he simply, "I must do it" (Works, VI, 237). As to Sumter, Lincoln took advice but made his own decision, not, however, without a certain laxness in his control of the situation which unfortunately gave Southern leaders the impression of bad faith; for Seward, without Lincoln's authority, had made virtual promises which the administration could not keep. Lincoln asked his cabinet to submit written advice as to provisioning Sumter. Only two members, Chase hesitatingly and Blair emphatically, favored it. Seward, Cameron, Welles, Smith, and Bates counseled evacuation, though some of the secretaries later changed their positions. Having already committed himself to the general policy of holding federal property, and feeling that evacuation would be tantamount to surrender, Lincoln ultimately decided to provision the fort. Yet Seward assured the Confederate commissioners that the fort would be evacuated; and Lincoln himself was willing to evacuate it if by this means the secession of Virginia could be averted. "A State for a fort," he is reported to have said, "is no bad business (Annual Report of th e American Historical Association for the Year 1915, 1917, p. 2rr). Late in March he sent Ward H. Lamon [q.v.] to Charleston, primarily to investigate and report; but Lamon unfortunately gave Anderson, Beauregard, and Governor Pickens the impression that the garrison would be withdrawn (War of the Rebellion: Official Records, series I, volume I, 1880, pp. 222, 230, 237, 294). In all this there was considerable muddling, though without bad faith on Lincoln's part; and the confusion was increased by a bungling of orders due to Seward's interference with arrangements made by Lincoln and Well es, as a result of which the Sumter expedition was crippled by the detachment of the powerful Powhatan. The pacific attitude of the President was manifest in the purpose of the expedition (to convey food to the garrison and to land reënforcements only in case of attack), and also in the care which he took to notify the governor of South Carolina of his action, thus removing the element of hostile surprise. Diverse interpretations have been placed upon Lincoln's action, and the whole subject has occasioned a flood of controversy. There are many threads to the story; and to the perplexities of conflicting evidence must be added the difficulties of reading thoughts and assessing motives in a field where violent misunderstandings were inevitable. Under the onslaught of opposing forces, with the border states and upper South on the brink of secession and the war clouds gathering, Lincoln himself seems to have vacillated, to have pondered evacuation, meanwhile testing its possible consequences and even giving hints that such a course was under consideration without committing himself to it (a process to which statesmen must often resort), and in the end to have concluded that, in view of the uncertainty of compensating benefits accruing to the cause of union, the fort should not be surrendered. As the exhaustion of supplies made some change inevitable, the closest approximation to the preservation of the status quo was what Lincoln decided to do-to feed the garrison without aggressively strengthening it.

When the war came, Lincoln met the issue with a series of purely executive measures, for Congress was not convened until July 1861. He treated the conflict as a huge "insurrection"; and before Congress, on July 13, 1861, recognized a state of war, he had summoned the militia, proclaimed a blockade, expanded the regular army beyond the legal limit, suspended the habeas corpus privilege, directed governmental expenditures in advance of congressional appropriation, and in cooperation with his cabinet and the state governments had launched a multifold series of military measures. In a masterly message to Congress on July 4, 1861, he explained his Sumter policy, recounted the steps that led to war, stated the issue as between separation and union, commented on the world significance of the struggle, and appealed for ratification of previous acts as well as for future cooperation (Works, VI, 297-325). This legislative ratification of the president's irregular acts was soon given (United States Statutes at Large, XII, 326); and the Supreme Court added its sanction by deciding in the Prize Cases (67 U. S., 635-99), though not without vigorous dissent, that executive proclamations were adequate for the inauguration of maritime war.

As the war progressed, Lincoln extended his executive powers until, man of peace that he was, he was called a dictator. In dealing with disloyal activities-a serious problem because of pro-Southern activity in the North-he urged no special laws against treason, he but slightly used such laws as existed, and he had no system of nation-wide prosecutions; but, under his suspension of the habeas corpus privilege, thousands of persons were arrested on suspicion, after which, usually without trial, they were kept in prison for a time and then released. In this his purpose was precautionary and preventive, not punitive or vindictive. When confronted with anti-war or anti-administration agitation in speech or press, Lincoln usually showed toleration; and throughout the war "Copperhead" meetings were common and opposition newspapers persisted in their attacks upon the President and his party. The case of C. L. Vallandigham [q. v.], arrested for an anti-war speech of May 1, 1863, by order of General Burnside, was a familiar theme of denunciation by Lincoln's opponents; but the facts show leniency and tact in him rather than severity. He and all the cabinet regretted the arrest; and when a military commission condemned the agitator to imprisonment during the war, Lincoln commuted the sentence to banishment within the Confederate lines. Later, when Vallandigham escaped from the South and conducted a violent agitation in Ohio, Lincoln left him unmolested. There were, it is true, instances of newspaper suppression, as in the case of the Chicago Times in June 1863 (in which case Burnside's suspension order was promptly revoked); but in general Lincoln advised military restraint and counseled the suppression of assemblies or newspapers only when they were working "palpable injury" to the military (Works, IX, 148).

Looking broadly at his administration, one is impressed with the many difficulties that beset Lincoln's path. He had a rival for the presidency (Chase) in his cabinet. Within his own party the "Jacobins," a group which seemed at times a cabal of congressional leaders but which became the dominant element, tried his patience with their radicalism, their defiant opposition, and their interference in the conduct of the war. Abolition demands required his utmost tact; for the outcries of such men as Wendell Phillips reached at times an almost hysterical pitch. Always he had the activities of anti-war leaders to deal with. Though bringing Democrats within his cabinet and appointing many of them to civil and military positions, he was unable to carry through his "all parties program"; and he found it necessary to function as leader of one party, the Republican or "Union" party. Scheming men imposed on his generosity and a constant stream of people clamored at his doors. He had the defeatists to deal with-men who demanded peace first and union afterward; while he had the equally hard problem of keeping the Union cause clear of abuse, so that victory, when achieved, would not itself become a curse. The maladjustment of governmental activities, state and federal, military and civil, made his tasks needlessly hard; while the profiteering, plunder, and graft that came in the wake of war wounded his honest soul. A group of senators, partisans of Chase [q.v.], descended upon him in December 1862, demanding the removal of Seward and threatening to take important matters of policy out of his hands. Though inwardly suffering bitter distress (Diary of O. H. Browning, I, 601), Lincoln received the intriguing senators with calm, rode the storm by shrewd steering, kept both Seward and Chase in his cabinet, silenced his critics, and reassured the public. Often he faced a hostile and meddling Congress, and at times he seemed almost deserted. Favoring a war policy with as little of vengeance as possible, always remembering that the people of the South were to be respected, he encountered the opposition of the vindictive element which ultimately seized the Republican party and overthrew his policy in reconstruction days. It is in his reaction to these difficult circumstances that we find the measure of Lincoln's qualities as president: his unaffected kindness, his poise, his humor, his largeness of soul, his fairness toward opponents, his refusal to get angry, his steadiness, his ability to maintain that well-tempered morale which is so indispensable in a desperate war. There was also the notable trait of selflessness; for if Lincoln suffered when his pride was pierced, such was the temper of his self-control (which must not be misunderstood as mere humility) that no outward reaction of irascibility, peevishness, or ungenerous conduct resulted.

In his cabinet Lincoln found an ill-assorted group. Welles inwardly denounced Seward; Bates distrusted Stanton, Seward, and Chase; Stanton and Seward were uncongenial; and Chase, though never actually disloyal to Lincoln, was a constant source of discord. Yet Lincoln, lax as he was in administrative methods, maintained an attitude of cooperation in his official family. Such changes as occurred in his cabinet were of a sort to strengthen the President's position, the vigorous Stanton displacing the incompetent Cameron, Chase being shrewdly kept in the cabinet until after the renomination of Lincoln when he gave way to the more pliable Fessenden, Speed and Dennison serving as acceptable substitutes for Bates and Blair.

In the military phases of his task Lincoln was sorely beset. Governmental organization for war purposes was ill suited to the emergency and seemed at times formless. Some of the state governors embarrassed him by over-activity that trenched upon the duties of the secretary of war; others caused trouble by sheer recalcitrancy. Military efficiency was subordinated to personal ambition; there was a superfluity of political generals; and there was confusion and experimentation in the central control of the army. Troops when brought into the field were often unreliable; "some of the brigadier-generals," wrote Halleck (Works of Lincoln, VII, 77), were "entirely ignorant of their duties and unfit for any command." The war machine suffered from an ill-advised system of conscription, from undue state control of military matters, from widespread desertion and "bounty jumping," and from harmful newspaper activity, which betrayed military secrets, discredited the government, defamed generals, fomented antagonism among officers, and weakened the morale of soldier and citizen. Congressional interference was evident in the Committee on the Conduct of the War (W. W. Pierson, in American Historical Review, April 1918, pp. 550-76), which investigated Union disasters, held protracted conferences with the President, and considered themselves "a sort of Aulic Council clothed with authority to supervise the plans of commanders in the field, to make military suggestions, and to dictate military appointments" (Ibid., p. 566, citing W. H. Hurlbert, General McClellan and the Conduct of the War, 1864, p. 160). That Lincoln listened patiently to the committee and yet never permitted them to take the wheel from his hand, is evidence at once of his tact and his shrewdness.

With his burning sense of the issues at stake and his pathetic eagerness for one battle to end it all, Lincoln was subjected to repeated humiliation in the defeat of Union arms. His reaction to defeat is illustrated in his memorandum of July 23, 1861, following the first Bull Run, in which he outlined a comprehensive plan for pushing the blockade, drilling the forces, discharging "three-months men" who would not reenlist, bringing forward new volunteer units, protecting Washington against attack, and formulating a joint forward movement in the West (Works, VI, 331-32). The pressure of military duties upon Lincoln was more than any president of a republic should bear. He pored over books on strategy; scanned the military map; prepared orders for the army; gave counsel concerning such details as the acquisition of horses and the price of guns; outlined plans of campaign, not forgetting, however, the hazard of binding a distant commander to specific lines and operations; directed the allocation of supplies; attended war councils; and devoted constant attention to military appointments. He assumed a special degree of military responsibility at the time of McClellan's illness in January 1862; and he had to make those repeated calls for troops which intensified the depression of the country. In his experimentation with men he expressed a whimsical wish for a "school of events"-mimic situations in which men might be tried (F. B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House, p. 225); and he even contemplated taking the field himself (Diary of O. H. Browning, I, 52,3).

Kindness and forbearance, mingled at times with fatherly admonition, characterized his attitude toward his generals. When Fremont issued impossible orders in the West without consulting the President, Lincoln sent him a word of "caution, and not of censure," directed that certain orders be "modified," sent Blair from his cabinet for a friendly conference, and finally removed the General only when his insubordinate conduct left no alternative. Lincoln's search for a winning general is a painful story. McClellan snubbed him, differed with him as to plans, wrote complaining letters, and fell short in the business of fighting. Lincoln ignored the snubs with the remark that it were better "not to be making points of ... personal dignity" (Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, I, 53); and on the retirement of Scott in--November 1861 he made McClellan general-in-chief of all the armies. The President's plans, beset as he was by boards, senators, councils, military "experts," and clamoring editors, proved hopelessly at variance with McClellan's performance. In January 1862 the perplexed President issued a peremptory "war order" directing a "general movement of all the land and naval forces of the United States against the insurgent forces" for February 22 (Works, VII, 89). This order was ignored, and Lincoln acquiesced in McClellan's oblique movement against Richmond via the peninsula. At the outset of the peninsular campaign, however, Lincoln relieved McClellan of supreme command; and he modified the latter's plan for the concentration of Union forces against Richmond by retaining McDowell's corps near Washington, while he also decreased McClellan's importance by reorganizing the army under corps commanders. McClellan's ineffectiveness caused Lincoln to put Pope in command of a separate Army of Virginia; but on Pope's failure at the second battle of Bull Run the President dropped him and ordered a reconsolidation of forces under McClellan, who was thus given a new opportunity. Then came McClellan's failure to pursue Lee after Antietam, upon which Lincoln finally removed him from command. The failure of McClellan's successors-of Burnside at Fredericksburg and Hooker at Chancellorsville- added to Lincoln's perplexity and tended to discredit his ability in military matters; while Meade's success at Gettysburg was marred by another failure to pursue and crush Lee's army, and even under Grant, whom Lincoln brought to the East in 1864, there were months of sanguinary fighting with hope deferred. Lincoln's blunders in military matters, which are not to be denied, were largely attributable to political pressure or to unsatisfactory human material, and were partly offset by constructive factors such as his guarding of Washington, his attention to the western phases of the war, and his final support of Grant in the face of bitter criticism.

Cautious in his dealings with Congress, Lincoln seldom seized the initiative in the framing of legislation. He went his own way by a remarkable assumption of executive authority; and on the few occasions when he sought to direct important legislation he was usually unsuccessful. The congressional election of 1862 was unfavorable to him; and elements out of sympathy with Lincoln were often dominant in Congress, which sought to curb the president's power of arrest, passed measures which he disapproved, and came to an impasse with him as to reconstruction. Though the reconstruction issue is a notable exception, Lincoln usually yielded when Congress enacted measures distasteful to him, as in the case of the West Virginia bill and the second confiscation act. Moderates were disappointed in this pliancy, which they described as "going over to the radicals"; yet the radicals themselves were far from capturing Lincoln, and at the time of his death in office an open break such as that which occurred --Under Johnson seemed probable.

Though the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation is the most memorable of Lincoln's acts, the stereotyped picture of the emancipator suddenly striking the shackles from millions of slaves by a stroke of the pen is unhistorical. Lincoln's policy touching slavery was a matter of slow development. Throughout the struggle he held that Congress did not have the power to abolish slavery in the South; and in keeping with his "border-state policy" he resisted for many months the clamors of abolitionists. When Union generals, notably Fremont in Missouri and Hunter in the lower South, attempted emancipation by military edict, Lincoln overruled them; and he said to a religious group: "I do not want to issue a document that . . . must . . . be inoperative, like the Pope's bull against the comet" (Works, VIII, 30). Answering Greeley's antislavery appeal on August 22, 1862, he wrote, though with the proclamation already in his drawer, that his "paramount object" was to "save the Union," and was not "either to save or to destroy slavery" (Ibid., VIII, 16). It was found, however, that war over a vastly extended front with a slave-holding power forced the government either to take steps toward emancipation or to become both its own enemy and a promoter of slavery. By July 1862, therefore, Congress had, at least on paper, provided as much as the Emancipation Proclamation involved, by freeing slaves coming within Union military lines, emancipating slave-soldiers, and decreeing liberation generally as to all "rebel owned" slaves in the sweeping though ineffectual confiscation act of July 17, 1862. In addition, Congress had by this time prohibited slavery in the territories and in the District of Columbia.

Meanwhile, from Lincoln's pondering of the slavery problem there had emerged a plan of constructive statesmanship. Recognizing state authority in the premises, mindful of Southern property rights, and moved by the conviction that the North ought equitably to share the financial burden of emancipation, since it must share the guilt of slavery, Lincoln had urged Congress to launch a scheme of gradual emancipation by voluntary action of the states, with federal compensation to slave-holders. This plan, however, as well as the scheme of deportation and colonization in Africa, had broken down; and in July 1862 Lincoln reached the decision to issue his edict of liberation. By this time the increasing radicalism of the war mind, the indifference of the border states to his compensation scheme, and the realization that foreign sympathy could not be obtained for a government which "sought to put down the rebellion with the left hand, while supporting slavery with the right hand" (Chase Manuscripts, Library of Congress, volume LXII, no. 1989) had done their work. On July 22, 1862, Lincoln summoned his cabinet and read aloud the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation.

His decision was now made; he was not asking advice "about the main matter." Rather he was announcing his course and taking counsel about incidental questions pertaining to its execution. Accepting Seward's suggestion that the measure would gain force if issued on the morrow of victory, he waited until Lee had been fought off at Antietam and gave out his preliminary proclamation on September 22, 1862 (Works, VIII, 36-41). In this edict he gave warning that on January 1, 1863, all slaves in rebellious districts would be made free; but the proclamation was far from an abolition document, for the President emphasized the restoration of the Union as the object of the war, and pledged further efforts to provide compensation to slaveholders. By common usage, the term "Emancipation Proclamation" applies to the edict of January 1, 1863, that of September 22, 1862, being but a warning. The Proclamation of January 1, 1863, contained no general declaration against slavery as an evil (Ibid., VIII, 161-64). The Union slave states were naturally not affected; and important districts of the South (the whole state of Tennessee as well as portions of Virginia and Louisiana) were excluded from the terms of. the proclamation. The most curious fact about the whole matter was that the proclamation applied only to regions under Confederate control; and Lincoln was denounced for freeing slaves only on paper in districts where his power could not extend. It is hard to put in a word the actual effect of the Proclamation. Preservation of slavery in non-rebellious districts was clearly implied; and if the Southern states had done all Lincoln asked in September 1862, thus obviating the necessity of the final proclamation, there was nothing in the preliminary document to prevent the war from ending with slavery still maintained. Yet the President's stroke at slavery did somehow change the character of the war; and its moral effect was great, albeit somewhat offset by the displeasure of those who opposed a "war to free the negroes." Military emancipation extended as the armies advanced in the South; but as to the legal potency of the Proclamation Lincoln himself had grave doubts. Effective liberation, in fact, came through state action in the border states and more notably through the anti-slavery amendment to the Constitution. Perhaps the chief importance of the Proclamation was in paving the way for these final measures. Lincoln's part in the whole matter was necessarily central. It was he who determined the time, circumstances, and manner of the proclamation; and it was his conviction that, had it been issued six months earlier, public sentiment would not have sustained it (F. B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House, p. 77).

In spite of serious complications with France and Great Britain, Lincoln gave little direct attention to foreign affairs. He brushed aside Seward's bellicose foreign program of April 1, 1861; and he materially, assisted in the preservation of peace by softening Seward's instructions of May 21, 1861, to Charles Francis Adams on the general question of Great Britain's attitude toward the war and by directing that Adam treat the whole dispatch as confidential. In the Trent affair the influence of Sumner, Seward, and Bright contributed powerfully toward peace with Great Britain, the threads being in Seward's hands; but Lincoln's moderation, though at first he seems to have supposed that Mason and Slidell ought not to be released (Frederic Bancroft, The Life of W. H. Seward, 1900, II, 234), was an important factor. His restraint in international dealings is shown by a "paper" which he prepared, advocating that the Trent case be arbitrated (Diary of O. H. Browning';1, 517). On such questions as the French proposal for mediation, French intervention in Mexico, and the protests against British aid in the building and equipment of Confederate warships, the course of the administration was successfully directed by Seward, to whom Lincoln wisely delegated foreign affairs with the minimum of presidential interference.

While preserving the dignity of his high position, Lincoln's manners as president were unconventional and his habits irregular. Often his meals, when carried upstairs, would be left untouched for hours. He took no regular exercise, his chief relaxation being found in the summer evenings at the Soldiers' Home. During the first week of the battle of the Wilderness, says Carpenter (Six Months at the White House, p. 30), he "scarcely slept at all"; and the black rings under his eyes bespoke the strain under which he labored. In his last year his friends all noted his mental weariness; as he expressed it, the remedy "seemed never to reach the tired spot" (Ibid., p. 217). Despite this strain there was always a readiness to shake hands with a casual visitor and to receive the humblest citizen or soldier. In reviewing the death penalty for desertion or sleeping on sentinel duty, he eagerly sought excuses for clemency; yet his mercy was not mere weakness, and at times he did confirm the death sentence. He read the newspapers but little, for news reached him through more direct channels. Day and night his familiar form was seen in the telegraph office of the War Department across from the White House. In humorous stories and the repetition of favorite literary passages he found mental relaxation. The poem "Oh Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud" had a peculiar fascination for him, and his familiarity with Shakespeare was often a matter of surprise. Laughter was an absolute need of his harassed mind and he habitually thought in terms of parable, his anecdotes usually having a backwoods flavor and a tang of the pioneer West. His enjoyment of rough jest is shown in his fondness for such humorists as Nasby and Artemus Ward; his matter-of-fact secretaries had to endure a chapter from Ward as a preface to his reading of the Emancipation Proclamation in cabinet meeting. The melancholy of the earlier Lincoln deepened under the pressure of war. Not alone did the nation's woes bear heavily upon him, but the death of his son Willie in February 1862, following nightly vigils at the bedside, added a personal bereavement which would have come nigh to prostration but for the pressure of public duties. Though a ready speech-maker, Lincoln as president made very few public addresses, the chief examples being his inaugurals, his Gettysburg address, and his last speech, April 11, 1865, which dealt with reconstruction (Works, XI, 84-92). In lieu of the "White House publicity" of later presidents, he made use of the art of correspondence. When answering criticism or appealing to the people, he would prepare a careful letter which, while addressed to an individual or delegation, would be intended for the nation's ear. When a meeting of citizens protested against the arrest of an agitator, Lincoln wrote an elaborate letter (to E. Corning and others, June 12, 1863) explaining his policy of arbitrary arrests and pointing out the inability of the courts to deal with rebellion. Referring to the death penalty for desertion he asked, "Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert?" (Works, VIII, 308). Writing to Cuthbert Bullitt, July 28, 1862, he raised the question whether Southern unionists should be "merely passengers ... to be carried snug and dry throughout the storm, and safely landed right side up" (Ibid., VII, 296). On finding it impossible to attend a meeting of "unconditional Union men," at Springfield, Illinois, he wrote an important letter to J. C. Conkling (Works, IX, 95- 102) in which he defended the Emancipation Proclamation as a measure for saving the Union. In this letter he paid tribute to the men of Antietam, Murfreesboro, and Gettysburg, not forgetting "Uncle Sam's web-feet," for whose noble work "at all the watery margins" he expressed deep thanks. Of like importance were his letter to Greeley on the slavery question (August 22, 1862), to Raymond of the Times regarding compensated emancipation, to Governor Seymour concerning the opposition of New York to the conscription law, and to Mrs. Bixby, whom he beautifully consoled for the loss of her sons in battle. On November 19, 1863, in dedicating a soldiers' cemetery at Gettysburg; Lincoln lifted the nation's thoughts from the hatreds and imminent horrors of war in a brief address which is recognized as his most famous speech (Works, IX, 209-10). In his few simple words of dedication the factor of enmity toward the South was notably lacking; and the prevailing note was Lincoln's central idea of the broad significance of the Civil War as a vindication of popular rule.

The story of the campaign and election of 1864 has never been fully told. In an atmosphere of national depression and war-weariness, with prominent men denouncing the "imbecility" of the administration at Washington, with victory deferred after three years of terrible losses, with financial credit at low ebb, and with defeatists demanding peace on the ground that the war was a failure, the President faced the hazard of a popular election. Though the presidential boom of Salmon P. Chase [q.v.], to which Lincoln closed his ears, soon collapsed, Fremont accepted nomination from an anti-Lincoln group; and the Democrats ominously gathered their forces while at the same time postponing their nomination until August. Such Republicans as Greeley, H. W. Davis, Beecher, Bryant, Whitelaw Reid, and many others, were minded to drop Lincoln; but Republican managers set an early date for the party convention (June 7), Lincoln meanwhile keeping Chase in the cabinet, and there was little difficulty in obtaining the President's renomination when the convention met at Baltimore. The renomination was in fact unanimous; but in the months that followed, the military outlook became still gloomier; and when McClellan was nominated by the Democrats in August on a peace platform his strength seemed truly formidable. At this juncture a surprising movement developed-nothing less than an effort to supplant Lincoln with a "more vigorous leader" and force his withdrawal (New York Sun, June 30,   1889, p. 3). A plan was laid for a convention to meet at Cincinnati, Ohio, on September 28 "to concentrate the union strength on some one candidate, who commands the confidence of the country, even by a new nomination if necessary" (Ibid.). At this time Greeley wrote that Lincoln was "already beaten," and that only "and other ticket" could save the party from "utter overthrow." As late as August 25, H. W. Davis I, wrote: "My letters from Maryland say Lincoln can do nothing there, even where the Union  party is most vigorous, and everybody is looking for a new candidate from somewhere." These extracts will serve to suggest the active opposition to Lincoln within his own party, which was due to such factors as the lack of Union success in battle, the conservatism of Lincoln, his leniency toward the South which ran counter to the radical plan of reconstruction, his call of July 18, 1864, for 500,000 volunteers, and the feeling that the President under Seward's ins fluence was an opportunist and compromiser s rather than a vigorous executive. The real strength of the anti-Lincoln movement is difficult to gauge because a favorable turn in the administration's fortunes occurred in September with the fall of Atlanta and Republican electoral successes in Vermont and Maine, after which, for the sake of party harmony, various anti-Lincon men such as Wade and Greeley gave him their support. With this turn of the tide the demand for Lincoln's withdrawal lost its point and the Cincinnati convention was never held. Efforts were put forth to include certain states of the Confederacy in the election, and the President carried Louisiana and Tennessee where reorganized "loyal" governments had been set up; but the votes of these states, being unnecessary, were not recognized by Congress in the electoral count. Thus only the Union states were counted; and all of them except Kentucky, Delaware, and New Jersey gave Lincoln their electoral vote. This electoral sweep, together with Lincoln's popular majority of more than 400,000 over McClellan, gave the election somewhat the appearance of a Lincoln landslide; there were, however, powerful McClellan minorities in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania (H. M. Dudley, "The Election of 1864," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, March 1932.) In the event of McClellan's election Lincoln had resolved "to so cooperate with the President-elect as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration." As his secretaries record, it was the President's intention to "talk matters over" with McClellan and say to him: "Now let us together, you with your influence and I with all the executive power of the Government, try to save the country." At the time when this patriotic resolve to cooperate with a victorious opponent was made (August 23, 1864), the President considered his own defeat "exceedingly probable" (Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, IX, 251- 52).

At his second inauguration, March 4, 1865, Lincoln made no effort to review the events of his administration, but delivered a brief address which, for loftiness of tone, ranks among his greatest state papers (Works, XI, 44-47). Breathing a spirit of friendliness toward the enemy, he refused to blame the South for the war, and counseled his countrymen to "judge not, that we be not judged." "With malice toward none; with charity for all," he concluded, "let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; ... to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace .... " There were few Northern leaders who manifested as fair an understanding of the Southern people as Lincoln (A. C. Cole, in Lincoln Centennial Association Papers, 1928, pp. 47-78); and he devoted careful thought and labor to the restoration of the Southern states to the Union. In his proclamation of December 8, 1863, he pardoned (with certain exceptions) those Confederates who would swear allegiance to the Union; and he vigorously promoted the organisation of "loyal" governments in the Southern states, requiring that they abolish slavery, and standing ready to welcome them into the Union though the loyal nucleus be no more than ten per cent. of the voters of 1860. When Congress, on July 2, 1864, passed the Wade-Davis Bill providing a severe plan that would hinder reconstruction, Lincoln applied the "pocket" veto, and announced his reasons in a "proclamation" of July 8 (Works, X, 152-54), upon which the authors of the bill, with an eye to the President's embarrassment in the campaign for reelection, severely attacked him in an address to the people known as the Wade-Davis manifesto. The details of Lincoln's further efforts toward reconstruction are too elaborate to be recounted here. His scheme was carried through to his own satisfaction in Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Virginia; but Congress never recognized any of these "Lincoln governments" of the South.

As to peace negotiations with the Confederacy, Lincoln insisted upon reunion and the abolition of slavery, but manifested a generous disposition on collateral issues. This was his attitude in connection with the peace efforts of Horace Greeley [q.v.] in 1864; and the same moderate attitude was manifested in connection with Blair's mission to Richmond (see Blair, Francis Preston, 1791-1876) and in the Hampton Roads Conference of February 1865. In this conference Lincoln, in company with Seward; conferred on board a warship with three Confederate commissioners (J. A. Campbell, A. H. Stephens, and R. M. T. Hunter); and accounts agree that, while the President again insisted upon reunion and emancipation, he showed willingness to use the pardoning power freely in the South, to allow self-government to the returning states, and even to recommend liberal compensation to slave-holders. On the fall of Richmond Lincoln visited the Confederate capital, where he walked the streets unmolested, and advised with Southern leaders, notably J. A. Campbell. He expressed a desire to permit the "rebel" legislature of Virginia to return and reorganize the state; but this purpose, as well as his other plans for the South, was defeated.

He gave the closest attention to the final military phase of the war, visiting the army and remaining with Grant at City Point from March 24 until April 9, except for his two-day visit to Richmond on the 4th and 5th. His return to Washington coincided with Lee's surrender, an event which gave added significance to the President's last speech, which was a statesmanlike paper read to a cheering crowd at the White House on the night of April 11. Returning to the subject of reconstruction, he appealed to a divided North to let the South come back to the Union. Casting theories aside, he said: "We all agree that the seceded States ... are out of their proper practical relation with the Union, and that the ... object of the government ... is to again get them into that proper practical relation" (Works, XI, 88). "Concede," he said, "that the new government of Louisiana is ... as the egg is to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it" (Ibid., XI, 91). On the last day of Lincoln's life the subject of reconstruction was discussed at length in cabinet meeting; and a project was considered which resembled the plan later announced by President Johnson on May 29, 1865 (40 Congress, 1 Session, Report of Committees of the House of Representatives, no. 7, pp. 78-79). Again Lincoln expressed the wish that all vindictiveness be laid aside and that the Southern people be leniently treated (F. W. Seward, Reminiscences, 1916, p. 254). With opposition growing within his own party and threatening the ruin of his generous plans had he lived, he was removed by assassination, which silenced criticism and conferred the martyr's crown. At Ford's Theatre on the night of April 14, 1865, he was shot by John Wilkes Booth [q.v.]. After lying unconscious through the night he died the following morning. The state rites over, the funeral train moved west with frequent stops; and amid fulminations of vindictive oratory, with people and soldiers mourning their beloved Chief, the body was laid to rest at Springfield.

The early crystallization of the enduring Lincoln tradition was illustrated by Stanton's comment, "Now he belongs to the ages." That he was among the "consummate masters of statecraft" may be disputed, but such was the impression he left that this distinction has been accorded him. In the shortest list of American liberal leaders he takes eminent place: liberalism with him was no garment; it was of the fiber of his mind. His hold upon the affections of his own people has not been due merely to the fact that he, a backwoods lad, rose to the highest office in the land. It is doubtful whether any other leader of the North could have matched him in dramatizing the war to the popular mind, in shaping language to his purpose, in smoothing personal difficulties by a magnanimous touch or a tactful gesture, in avoiding domestic and international complications, in courageously persisting in the face of almost unendurable discouragements, in maintaining war morale while refusing to harbor personal malice against the South. Not inappropriately, he has become a symbol both of American democracy and the Union.

[For bibliographies, see Daniel Fish, Lincoln Bibliography (1906), also in Complete Works, XI, 135-380;

Jos. B. Oakleaf, Lincoln Bibliography (1925);

W. E. Barton, "The Lincoln of the Biographers, "Trans. Illinois State Historical Society for the Year 1929 (1929), pp. 58-116.

The most important edition of the writings and speeches is John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln (Gettysburg ed., 12 volumes, 1905), and it is to this edition that the foregoing references are made.

Additional writings are to be found in G. A. Tracy, Uncollected Letters of Abraham Lincoln (1917); Lincoln Letters, Hitherto Unpublished, in the Library of Brown University  and other Providence Libraries (1929);

P. M. Angle, New Letters and Papers of Lincoln, (1930).

The best edition of the Lincoln-Douglas debates is that of E. E. Sparks in Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library, volume III (1908):

Of manuscript collections the most important are the Weik MSS. (preserved by J. W. Weik, collaborator with Herndon), and the voluminous Lincoln papers deposited in the Library of Congress, but withheld from investigators for many years. Certain alleged Lincoln documents have proved to be forgeries, such as the letters to Senator Crittenden, December 22, 1859, and to A. H. Stephens, January 19, 1860 (see W. C. Ford in Massachusetts Historical Society Proc., May 1928). the letter to an Italian named Melloni, alleged to have been written in 1853 (New York Times, November 20,   23, 24, 1931, May 8, 1932), and the fantastic collection of Lincoln and Ann Rutledge letters published in the Atlantic Monthly, December 1928-February 1929 (see P. M. Angle, "The Minor Collection: A Criticism," Ibid., April 1929).

Autobiographical portions of Lincoln's utterances have been collected in An Autobiography of Abraham Lincoln (1926), by N. W. Stephenson.

Campaign biographies were issued by J. L. Scripps, J. H. Barrett, and J. Q. Howard in 1860, and by H. J. Raymond. W. M. Thayer, and J. H. Barrett again in 1864.

After Lincoln' s death there appeared a number of biographies by men who had known him more or less closely. Ward H. Lamon [q .v.] brought out The Life of Abraham Lincoln from his Birth to his Inauguration as President (1872). This work; which gives a realistic and partly unfavorable picture of Lincoln, was written not by Lamon but by Chancey F. Black. Isaac N. Arnold of Chicago, from year of association with Lincoln, published studies in 1-86. and 18-9, and The Life of Abraham Lincoln (1885).

J. G. Holland, Life of Abraham Lincoln (1866), though produced too soon to permit of historical perspective, was a work of merit, compiled with discrimination and attractively written.

In 1889 appeared Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, by W. H. Herndon and J. W. Weik,   which should be used in the edition of P. M. Angle (1930). With all its limitations, this biography is a classic. It presents Lincoln without the halo, giving a view of the every-day life of the man with a wealth of anecdote and a power of portrayal which has caused it to be extensively used by later biographers. Herndon substituted "for Lincoln's aureole the battered tall hat. with valuable papers stuck in its lining, which he had long contemplated with reverent irritation" (Charnwood, Abraham Lincoln p. 102). It is, however, the Lincoln of the prairies whom Herndon and Weik present their account of the presidency is wholly inadequate. Many years later Weik returned over the same trail and published The Real Lincoln (1922), reaffirming certain disputed statements in the Herndon work and adding minor details.

The monumental work by Lincoln's secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History (10 volumes;1890), inaugurated a new era of Lincoln historiography. It is a voluminous history as well as a biography, for the authors attempted to include everything. Approved by Robert Lincoln, it possesses both the advantages and the defects of an authorized biography. From their daily contact with the President, Nicolay and Hay had an inside acquaintance with his administration; and they made use of a vast range of material, including papers which have been used by no other writers. Their uniform tendency, however, to treat everything from the point of view of Lincoln, their unsympathetic attitude toward his opponents, and their partiality for the Republican party, made it impossible for them to produce the definitive biography.

Since Nicolay and Hay, the Lincoln bibliography has reached tremendous dimensions, and a full list would comprise thousands of items. The activity of collectors and dealers in Lincolniana has magnified the importance of every trivial item; and the yearly output of Lincoln addresses and articles, tinctured with the political or social predilections of the authors, is of staggering proportions. Only a few outstanding titles can be mentioned here.

At the forefront of recent biographies is Albert J. Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1858 (2 volumes, 1928). This great work is not as readable as certain other biographies, for the author has presented his material as he found it with the minimum of literary coloring; its high value derives from its soundness and thoroughness of historical. investigation.

Ida M. Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln (2 volumes, 1900), is based on material collected by the author in the service of McClure's Magazine, and was first published serially in that periodical in 1895-96. It has merit as a popular "life," but some of its statements, e.g., those concerning the parentage of Nancy Hanks, have been disproved.

 Abraham Lincoln (1917), by Lord Charnwood, is an excellent one-volume biography. Though he conducted but little original research and used easily available published sources, Charnwood has produced a well-proportioned narrative which gains much by being addressed to an English audience.

Another short biography of high merit is Lincoln: An Account of His Personal Life, etc. (1924), by N. W. Stephenson. With rare literary artistry Stephenson treats the "emergence" of Lincoln's character from its earlier hesitancies into the "final Lincoln," whom he places among the "consummate masters of statecraft."

W. E. Barton has been tireless in his research and has produced a great many books on Lincoln, among which are: Life of Abraham Lincoln (2 volumes, 1925); The Paternity of Abraham Lincoln (1920); The Soul of Abraham Lincoln (1920); The Women Lincoln Loved (1927); The Lineage of Lincoln (1929); Lincoln at Gettysburg (1930).

Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln:  The Prairie Years (2 volumes, 1926), though attempting no elaborate documentation or critical evaluation of sources, is extraordinarily vivid and has a remarkable Pictorial quality in its portrayal of the rough American pioneer life out of which Lincoln came.

Emil Ludwig, Lincoln (1930), translated from the German by Eden and Cedar Paul, though of slight importance as a historical contribution, is dramatic and readable, conforming: to the new biographical vogue.

Edgar Lee Masters, Lincoln the Man (1931) is almost alone in its devastating treatment.

The following biographies should also be mentioned:

Carl Schurz, Abraham Lincoln (1891);

E. P. Oberholtzer, Abraham Lincoln (1904);

J. T. Morse, Abraham Lincoln (2 volumes, 1893);

J. G. Nicolay, A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln (1902).

Certain works of reminiscence give special emphasis to Lincoln, such as:

H. C. Whitney, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln (1892);

U. F. Linder, Reminiscences of the Early Bench and Bar of Illinois (1879);

A. K. McClure, Abraham Lincoln and Men of War-Times (1892);

H. B. Rankin, Intimate Character Sketches of Abraham Lincoln (1924);

A. T. Rice, ed., Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by Distinguished Men of His Time (1886);

Joshua F. Speed, Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln (1884);

James Speed, James Speed; A Personality (1914); and

W. O. Stoddard, Inside the White House in War Times (1890).

The following diaries are of special note:

Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary (3 volumes, p.p., 1908, with omissions and with personal. names reduced to initials);

Diary of Gideon Welles, ed. by J. T. Morse, Jr. (3 volumes, 1911), a voluminous and valuable record for the presidency containing many devastating statements concerning members of Lincoln's cabinet (critically analyzed, especially as to Welles's numerous emendations, by H. K. Beale in American Historical Review, April 1925, pp. 547- 52);

"Diary and Correspondence of Salmon P. Chase" (Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, volume II, 1903);

"The Diary of Edward Bates," ed. by H. K. Beale, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1930, volume IV (1932);

The Diary of Orville Hielzman Browning, ed. by T. C. Pease and J. G  Randall (3 volumes 1927-33, in the Illinois Historical Collections).

Various problems of Lincoln's presidency are treated by J. G. Randall in Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln (1926).

The following are special studies of particular phases of Lincoln's career: Charles F. Adams, "President Lincoln's Offer to Garibaldi," Massachusetts Historical Society Proc., 3rd series, volume I (1908), pp. 319-25;

P. M. Angle, "Abraham Lincoln: Circuit Lawyer," Lincoln Centennial Association Papers ... 1928 (1928);

D. H. Bates, Lincoln in the Telegraph Office (1907);

F. B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln: The Story of a Picture (1866);

A. C. Cole, Lincoln's "House Divided" Speech (1923),

"Lincoln and the American Tradition of Civil Liberty," in Journal Illinois State Historical Society, October 1926-January 1927, pp. 102-14,

"Abraham Lincoln and the South," in Lincoln Cent. Association Papers ... 1928 (1928),

"President Lincoln and the Illinois Radical Republicans," in Mississippi Valley Historical Review, March 1918,   pp. 417- 16, and

"Lincoln's Election an Immediate Menace to Slavery in the States?", American Historical Review, July 1931, pp. 740-67;

W. E. Dodd, Lincoln or Lee (1928);

D. K. Dodge, Abraham Lincoln, Master of Words (1924);

J. T. Dorris, "President Lincoln's Clemency," Journal Illinois State Historical Society, January 1928, pp. 547-68;

John Eaton, Grant,   Lincoln and the Freemen, (1907);

C. R. Fish, "Lincoln and the Patronage," American Historical Review, October 1902, pp. 53-69, and

"Lincoln and Catholicism," Ibid., July 1924, pp. 723-24 (a rebuke to those who by spurious quotations have falsified Lincoln's attitude toward the Catholics);

F. I. Herriott, "Memories of the Chicago Convention of 1860," Annals of Iowa, October 1920, and

"The Conference in the Deutsches Haus, Chicago, May 14-15, 1860," Trans. Illinois State Historical Society 1928 (1928);

Frederick T. Hill, Lincoln the Lawyer (1906);

Caroline Hanks Hitchcock, Nancy Hanks: The Story of Abraham Lincoln's Mother (1899), an unreliable work, unfortunately followed by certain biographers;

E. C. Kirkland, The Peacemakers of 1864 (1927);

J. H. Lea and J. R. Hutchinson, The Ancestry of Abraham Lincoln (1909), useful as to the English Lincolns but unreliable as to the American line;

M. D. Learned, Abraham Lincoln, An American Migration (1909), useful in proving that the origin of the Lincoln family was English, not German, and in tracing the movements of the Lincolns as a ''typical American migration";

Waldo Lincoln, History of the Lincoln Family (1923), a valuable genealogical contribution;

C. H. McCarthy, Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction (1901);

J. B. McMaster, A History of the People of the U.S. during Lincoln's Administration (1927);

Charles Moore, compiler, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural (1927);

Mary L. Miles, "The Fatal First of January, 1841," Journal Illinois State Historical Society, April 1927, pp. 13-48;

Rexford Newcomb, In the Lincoln Country (1928);

C. O. Paullin, "President Lincoln and the Navy," American Historical Review, January 1909, pp.284-303, and

"Abraham Lincoln in Congress, 1847- 1849," Journal Illinois State Historical Society, April-July 1921, pp. 85-89;

J. G. Randall, "Lincoln in the Role of Dictator," So. Atl. Quar., July 1929, and

"Lincoln's Task and Wilson's," Ibid., October 1930;

P. O. Ray, The Convention that Nominated Lincoln (1916);

J. F. Rhodes, "Lincoln in Some Phases of the Civil War," Harvard Graduates' Magazine, September 1915, pp. 1-19;

J. T. Richards, Abraham Lincoln, the Lawyer-Statesman (1916);

Don C. Seitz, Lincoln the Politician (1931);

Albert Shaw, Abraham Lincoln (2 volumes, 1929), a "cartoon history" with hundreds of contemporary drawings;

J. W. Starr, Jr., Lincoln & the Railroads (1927);

N. W. Stephenson, "Lincoln and the Progress of Nationality in the North," Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1919, Volume I (1923), pp. 353-63;

Ida M. Tarbell, In the Footsteps of the Lincolns (1924), a somewhat inaccurate book;

W. H. Townsend, Lincoln the Litigant (1925), and Lincoln and His Wife's Home Town (1929);

L.A. Warren, Lincoln's Parentage and Childhood (1926), a most valuable and scholarly work.

For references on the assassination, see Booth, John Wilkes.]

J.G.R.


Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, pp. 715-727:

LINCOLN, Abraham, sixteenth president of the United States, born in Hardin county, Kentucky, 12 February, 1809; died in Washington, D. C., 15 April, 1865. His earliest ancestor in America seems to have been Samuel Lincoln, of Norwich, England, who settled in Hingham, Massachusetts, where he died, leaving a son, Mordecai, whose son of the same name removed to Monmouth, New Jersey, and thence to Berks county, Pennsylvania, dying there in 1735. He was a man of some property, which at his death was divided among his sons and daughters, one of whom, John Lincoln, having disposed of his land in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, established himself in Rockingham county, Virginia. The records of that county show that he was possessed of a valuable estate, which was divided among five sons, one of whom, named Abraham, emigrated to Kentucky about 1780. At this time Daniel Boone was engaged in those labors and exploits in the new country of Kentucky that have rendered his name illustrious; and there is no doubt that Abraham Lincoln was induced by his friendship for Boone to give up what seems to have been an assured social position in Virginia and take his family to share with him the risks and hardships of life in the new territory. The families of Boone and Lincoln had been closely allied for many years. Several marriages had taken place between them, and their names occur in each other's wills as friends and executors. The pioneer Lincoln, who took with him what for the time and place was a sufficient provision in money, the result of the sale of his property in Virginia, acquired by means of cash and land-warrants a large estate in Kentucky, as is shown by the records of Jefferson and Campbell counties. About 1784 he was killed by Indians while working with his three sons—Mordecai, Josiah, and Thomas—in clearing the forest. His widow removed after his death to Washington county, and there brought up her family. The two elder sons became reputable citizens, and the two daughters married in a decent condition of life. Thomas, the youngest son, seems to have been below the average of the family in enterprise and other qualities that command success. He learned the trade of a carpenter, and married, 12 June, 1806, Nancy Hanks, a niece of the man with whom he learned his trade. She is represented, by those who knew her at the time of her marriage, as a handsome young woman of twenty-three, of appearance and intellect superior to her lowly fortunes. The young couple began housekeeping with little means. Three children were born to them; the first, a girl, who grew to maturity, married, and died, leaving no children; the third a boy, who died in infancy; the second was Abraham Lincoln. Thomas Lincoln remained in Kentucky until 1816, when he resolved to remove to the still newer country of Indiana, and settled in a rich and fertile forest country near Little Pigeon creek, not far distant from the Ohio river. The family suffered from diseases incident to pioneer life, and Mrs. Lincoln died in 1818 at the age of thirty-five. Thomas Lincoln, while on a visit to Kentucky, married a worthy, industrious, and intelligent widow named Sarah Bush Johnston. She was a woman of admirable order and system in her habits, and brought to the home of the pioneer in the Indiana timber many of the comforts of civilized life. The neighborhood was one of the roughest. The president once said of it: “It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods, and there were some schools, so called; but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond readin’, writin’, and cipherin’ to the rule of three. If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education.” But in spite of this the boy Abraham made the best use of the limited opportunities afforded him, and learned all that the half-educated backwoods teachers could impart; and besides this he read over and over all the books he could find. He practised constantly the rules of arithmetic, which he had acquired at school, and began, even in his early childhood, to put in writing his recollections of what he had read and his impressions of what he saw about him. By the time he was nineteen years of age he had acquired a remarkably clear and serviceable handwriting, and showed sufficient business capacity to be intrusted with a cargo of farm products, which he took to New Orleans and sold. In 1830 his father emigrated once more, to Macon county, Illinois. Lincoln had by this time attained his extraordinary stature of six feet four inches, and with it enormous muscular strength, which was at once put at the disposal of his father in building his cabin, clearing the field, and splitting from the walnut forests, which were plentiful in that county, the rails with which the farm was fenced. Thomas Lincoln, however, soon deserted this new home, his last migration being to Goose Nest Prairie, in Coles county, where he died in 1851, seventy-three years of age. In his last days he was tenderly cared for by his son. 
Abraham Lincoln left his father's house as soon as the farm was fenced and cleared, hired himself to a man named Denton Offutt, in Sangamon county, assisted him to build a fiat-boat, accompanied him to New Orleans on a trading voyage, and returned with him to New Salem, in Menard county, where Offutt opened a store for the sale of general merchandise. Little was accomplished in this way, and Lincoln employed his too abundant leisure in constant reading and study. He learned during this time the elements of English grammar, and made a beginning in the study of surveying and the principles of law. But the next year an Indian war began, occasioned by the return of Black Hawk with his bands of Sacs and Foxes from Iowa to Illinois. Lincoln volunteered in a company raised in Sangamon county, and was immediately elected captain. His company was organized at Richland on 21 April, 1832; but his service in command of it was brief, for it was mustered out on 27 May. Lincoln immediately re-enlisted as a private, and served for several weeks in that capacity, being finally mustered out on 16 June, 1832, by Lieut. Robert Anderson, who afterward commanded Fort Sumter at the beginning of the civil war. He returned home and began a hasty canvass for election to the legislature. His name had been announced in the spring before his enlistment; but now only ten days were left before the election, which took place in August. In spite of these disadvantages, he made a good race and was far from the foot of the poll. Although he was defeated, he gained the almost unanimous vote of his own neighborhood, New Salem giving him 277 votes against 3. He now began to look about him for employment, and for a time thought seriously of learning the trade of a blacksmith; but an opportunity presented itself to buy the only store in the settlement, which he did, giving his notes for the whole amount involved. He was associated with an idle and dissolute partner, and the business soon went to wreck, leaving Lincoln burdened with a debt which it required several years of frugality and industry for him to meet; but it was finally paid in full. After this failure he devoted himself with the greatest earnestness and industry to the study of law. He was appointed postmaster of New Salem in 1833, an office which he held for three years. The emoluments of the place were very slight, but it gave him opportunities for reading. At the same time he was appointed deputy to John Calhoun, the county surveyor, and, his modest wants being supplied by these two functions, he gave his remaining leisure unreservedly to the study of law and politics. He was a candidate for the legislature in August, 1834, and was elected this time at the head of the list. He was re-elected in 1836, 1838, and 1840, after which he declined further election. After entering the legislature he did not return to New Salem, but, having by this time attained some proficiency in the law, he removed to Springfield, where he went into partnership with John T. Stuart, whose acquaintance he had begun in the Black Hawk war and continued at Vandalia. He took rank from the first among the leading members of the legislature. He was instrumental in having the state capital removed from Vandalia to Springfield, and during his eight years of service his ability, industry, and weight of character gained him such standing among his associates that in his last two terms he was the candidate of his party for the speakership of the house of representatives. In 1846 he was elected to congress, his opponent being the Reverend Peter Cartwright. The most important congressional measure with which his name was associated during his single term of service was a scheme for the emancipation of the slaves in the District of Columbia, which in the prevailing temper of the time was refused consideration by congress. He was not a candidate for re-election, but for the first and only time in his life he applied for an executive appointment, the commissionership of the general land-office. The place was given to another man, but President Taylor's administration offered Mr. Lincoln the governorship of the territory of Oregon, which he declined.  Mr. Lincoln had by this time become the most influential exponent of the principles of the Whig party in Illinois, and his services were in request in every campaign. After his return from congress he devoted himself with great assiduity and success to the practice of law, and speedily gained a commanding position at the bar. As he says himself, he was losing his interest in politics when the repeal of the Missouri compromise aroused him again. The profound agitation of the question of slavery, which in 1854 followed the repeal of the Missouri compromise, awakened all the energies of Lincoln's nature. He regarded this act, in which Senator Douglas was the most prominent agent of the reactionary party, as a gross breach of faith, and began at once a series of earnest political discussions which immediately placed him at the head of the party that, not only in Illinois but throughout the west, was speedily formed to protest against and oppose the throwing open of the territories to the encroachments of slavery. The legislature elected in Illinois in the heat of this discussion contained a majority of members opposed to the policy of Douglas. The duty of selecting a senator in place of General Shields, whose term was closing, devolved upon this legislature, and Mr. Lincoln was the unanimous choice of the Whig members. But they did not command a clear majority of the legislature. There were four members of Democratic antecedents who, while they were ardently opposed to the extension of slavery, were not willing to cast their votes for a Whig candidate, and adhered tenaciously through several ballots to Lyman Trumbull, a Democrat of their own way of thinking. Lincoln, fearing that this dissension among the anti-slavery men might result in the election of a supporter of Douglas, urged his friends to go over in a body to the support of Trumbull, and his influence was sufficient to accomplish this result. Trumbull was elected, and for many years served the Republican cause in the senate with ability and zeal. 

As soon as the Republican party became fully organized in the nation, embracing in its ranks the anti-slavery members of the old Whig and Democratic parties, Mr. Lincoln, by general consent, took his place at the head of the party in Illinois; and when, in 1858, Senator Douglas sought a re-election to the senate, the Republicans with one voice selected Mr. Lincoln as his antagonist. He had already made several speeches of remarkable eloquence and power against the pro-slavery reaction of which the Nebraska bill was the significant beginning, and when Mr. Douglas returned to Illinois to begin his canvass for the senate, he was challenged by Mr. Lincoln to a series of joint discussions. The challenge was accepted, and the most remarkable oratorical combat the state has ever witnessed took place between them during the summer. Mr. Douglas defended his thesis of non-intervention with slavery in the territories (the doctrine known as “popular sovereignty,” and derided as “squatter sovereignty”) with remarkable adroitness and energy. The ground that Mr. Lincoln took was higher and bolder than had yet been assumed by any American statesman of his time. In the brief and sententious speech in which he accepted the championship of his party, before the Republican convention of 16 June, 1858, he uttered the following pregnant and prophetic words: “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect that it will cease to be divided. It will become all the one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, north as well as south.” This bold utterance excited the fears of his timid friends, and laid him open to the hackneyed and conventional attacks of the supporters of slavery; but throughout the contest, while he did not for an instant lower this lofty tone of opposition to slavery and hope of its extinction, he refused to be crowded by the fears of his friends or the denunciations of his enemies away from the strictly constitutional ground upon which his opposition was made. The debates between him and Senator Douglas aroused extraordinary interest throughout the state and the country. The men were perhaps equally matched in oratorical ability and adroitness in debate, but Lincoln's superiority in moral insight, and especially in farseeing political sagacity, soon became apparent. The most important and significant of the debates was that which took place at Freeport. Mr. Douglas had previously asked Mr. Lincoln a series of questions intended to embarrass him, which Lincoln without the slightest reserve answered by a categorical yes or no. At Freeport, Lincoln, taking his turn, inquired of Douglas whether the people of a territory could in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a state constitution. By his reply, intimating that slavery might be excluded by unfriendly territorial legislation, Douglas gained a momentary advantage in the anti-slavery region in which he spoke, but dealt a fatal blow to his popularity in the south; the result of which was seen two years afterward at the Charleston convention. The ground assumed by Senator Douglas was, in fact, utterly untenable, and Lincoln showed this in one of his terse sentences. “Judge Douglas holds,” he said, “that a thing may lawfully be driven away from a place where it has a lawful right to go.” 

This debate established the reputation of Mr. Lincoln as one of the leading orators of the Republican party of the Union, and a speech that he delivered at Cooper Institute, in New York, on 27 February, 1860, in which he showed that the unbroken record of the founders of the republic was in favor of the restriction of slavery and against its extension, widened and confirmed his reputation; so that when the Republican convention came together in Chicago in May, 1860, he was nominated for the presidency on the third ballot, over William H. Seward, who was his principal competitor. The Democratic convention, which met in Charleston, South Carolina, broke up after numerous fruitless ballotings, and divided into two sections. The southern half, unable to trust Mr. Douglas with the interests of slavery after his Freeport speech, first adjourned to Richmond, but again joined the other half at Baltimore, where a second disruption took place, after which the southern half nominated John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, and the northern portion nominated Mr. Douglas. John Bell, of Tennessee, was nominated by the so-called Constitutional Union party. Lincoln, therefore, supported by the entire anti-slavery sentiment of the north, gained an easy victory over the three other parties. The election took place on 6 November, and when the electoral college cast their votes Lincoln was found to have 180, Breckinridge 72, Bell 39, and Douglas 12. The popular vote stood: for Lincoln 1,866,462; for Douglas, 1,375,157; for Breckinridge, 847,953; for Bell, 590,631. 

The extreme partisans of slavery had not even waited for the election of Lincoln, to begin their preparations for an insurrection, and as soon as the result was declared a movement for separation was begun in South Carolina, and it carried along with her the states of Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. A provisional government, styled the “Confederate States of America,” of which Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was made president, was promptly organized, and seized, with few exceptions, all the posts, arsenals, and public property of the United States within their limits. Confronted by this extraordinary crisis, Mr. Lincoln kept his own counsel, and made no public expression of his intentions or his policy until he was inaugurated on 4 March, 1861. 

He called about him a cabinet of the most prominent members of the anti-slavery parties of the nation, giving no preference to any special faction. His secretary of state was William H. Seward, of New York, who had been his principal rival for the nomination, and whose eminence and abilities designated him as the leading member of the administration; the secretary of the treasury was Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, whose pre-eminence in the west was as unquestioned as Seward's in the east; of war, Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, the most influential politician of that state; of the navy, Gideon Welles, of Connecticut; of the interior, Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana; the border slave-states were represented in the government by Edward Bates, of Missouri, attorney-general, and Montgomery Blair, of Maryland, postmaster-general—both of them men of great distinction of character and high standing as lawyers. Seward, Smith, and Bates were of Whig antecedents; all the rest of Democratic. The cabinet underwent, in the course of Mr. Lincoln's term, the following modifications: Sec. Chase, after a brilliant administration of the finances, resigned in 1864 from personal reasons, and was succeeded by William P. Fessenden, of Maine; Sec. Cameron left the war department at the close of the year 1861, and was appointed minister to Russia, and his place was taken by Edwin M. Stanton, a war Democrat of singular energy and vigor, and equal ability and devotion; Sec. Smith, accepting a judgeship, gave way to John P. Usher, of Indiana; Attorney-General Bates resigned in the last year of the administration, and was succeeded by James Speed, of Kentucky; and Postmaster-General Blair about the same time gave way to William Dennison, of Ohio. 

In his inaugural address President Lincoln treated the acts of secession as a nullity. He declared the Union perpetual and inviolate, and announced with perfect firmness, though with the greatest moderation of speech and feeling, the intention of the government to maintain its authority and to hold the places under its jurisdiction. He made an elaborate and unanswerable argument against the legality as well as the justice of secession, and further showed, with convincing clearness, that peaceful secession was impossible. “Can aliens make treaties,” he said, “easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war; you cannot fight always, and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you.” He pleaded for peace in a strain of equal tenderness and dignity, and in closing he said: “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 can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have a most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it.” This speech profoundly affected the public opinion of the north; but in the excited state of sentiment that then controlled the south it naturally met only contempt and defiance in that section. A few weeks later the inevitable war began, in an attack upon Fort Sumter by the secessionists of South Carolina under General G. T. Beauregard, and after a long bombardment the fort surrendered on 13 April, 1861. The president instantly called for a force of 75,000 three-months' militiamen, and three weeks later ordered the enlistment of 64,000 soldiers and 18,000 seamen for three years. He set on foot a blockade of the southern ports, and called congress together in special session, choosing for their day of meeting the 4th of July. The remaining states of the south rapidly arrayed themselves on one side or the other; all except Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri were drawn into the secession movement, and the western part of Virginia, adhering to the Union, under the name of West Virginia, separated itself from that ancient commonwealth. 

The first important battle of the war took place at Bull Run. near Manassas station, Virginia, 21 July, 1861, and resulted in the defeat of the National troops under General Irwin McDowell by a somewhat larger force of the Confederates under Gens. Joseph E. Johnston and Beauregard. Though the loss in killed and wounded was not great, and was about the same on both sides, the victory was still one of the utmost importance for the Confederates, and gave them a great increase of prestige on both sides of the Atlantic. They were not, however, able to pursue their advantage. The summer was passed in enlisting, drilling, and equipping a formidable National army on the banks of the Potomac, which was given in charge of General George B. McClellan, a young officer who had distinguished himself by a successful campaign in western Virginia. In spite of the urgency of the government, which was increased by the earnestness of the people and their representatives in congress, General McClellan made no advance until the spring of 1862, when General Johnston, in command of the Confederate army, evacuated the position which, with about 45,000 men, he had held during the autumn and winter against the Army of the Potomac, amounting to about 177,000 effectives. General McClellan then transferred his army to the peninsula between the James and York rivers. Although there was but a force of 16,000 opposed to him when he landed, he spent a month before the works at Yorktown, and when he was prepared to open fire upon them they were evacuated, and General Johnston retreated to the neighborhood of Richmond. The battle of Seven Pines, in which the Confederates, successful in their first attack, were afterward repelled, was fought on 31 May, 1862. Johnston was wounded, and the command devolved upon General Robert E, Lee, who in the latter part of June moved out from his position before Richmond and attacked McClellan's right flank, under General Fitz-John Porter, at Gaines's Mills, north of the Chickahominy. Porter, with one corps, resisted the Confederate army all day with great gallantry, unassisted by the main army under McClellan, but withdrew in the evening, and McClellan at once began his retreat to the James river. Several battles were fought on the way, in which the Confederates were checked; but the retreat continued until the National army reached the James. Taking position at Malvern Hill, they inflicted a severe defeat upon General Lee, but were immediately after withdrawn by General McClellan to Harrison's Landing. Here, as at other times during his career, McClellan labored under a strange hallucination as to the numbers of his enemy. He generally estimated them at not less than twice their actual force, and continually reproached the president for not giving him impossible re-enforcements to equal the imaginary numbers he thought opposed to him. In point of fact, his army was always in excess of that of Johnston or Lee. The continual disasters in the east were somewhat compensated by a series of brilliant successes in the west. In February, 1862, General Ulysses S. Grant had captured the Confederate forts Henry and Donelson, thus laying open the great strategic lines of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, and, moving southward, had fought (6 and 7 April) the battle of Shiloh, with unfavorable results on the first day, which were turned to a victory on the second with the aid of General D. C. Buell and his army, a battle in which General Albert Sidney Johnston was killed and the Confederate invasion of Kentucky baffled. Farragut, on 24 April, had won a brilliant naval victory over the twin forts above the mouths of the Mississippi, which resulted in the capture of New Orleans and the control of the lower Mississippi. After General McClellan's retreat to the James, the president visited the army at Harrison's Landing (8 July), and, after careful consultations with the corps commanders, became convinced that in the actual disposition of the officers and the troops there was no reasonable expectation of a successful movement upon Richmond by McClellan. An order was therefore issued for the withdrawal of the army from the James, and, General Halleck having been appointed general-in-chief, General Pope was sent forward from Washington with a small force to delay the Confederate army under General Lee unti1 the Army of the Potomac could arrive and be concentrated to support him. McClellan's movements, however, were so deliberate, and there was such a want of confidence and co-operation on the part of his officers toward General Pope, that the National army met with a decisive defeat on the same battle-field of Bull Run that saw their first disaster. General Pope, disheartened by the lack of sympathy and support that he discerned among the most eminent officers of the Army of the Potomac, retreated upon Washington, and General McClellan, who seemed to be the only officer under whom the army was at the moment willing to serve, was placed in command of it. General Lee, elated with his success, crossed the Potomac, but was met by the army under McClellan at South Mountain and Antietam, and after two days of great slaughter Lee retreated into Virginia. 

President Lincoln availed himself of this occasion to give effect to a resolve that had long been maturing in his mind in an act the most momentous in its significance and results that the century has witnessed. For a year and a half he had been subjected to urgent solicitations from the two great political parties of the country, the one side appealing to him to take decided measures against slavery, and the other imploring him to pursue a conservative course in regard to that institution. His deep-rooted detestation of the system of domestic servitude was no secret to any one; but his reverence for the law, his regard for vested interests, and his anxiety to do nothing that should alienate any considerable body of the supporters of the government, had thus far induced him to pursue a middle course between the two extremes. Meanwhile the power of events had compelled a steady progress in the direction of emancipation. So early as August, 1861, congress had passed an act to confiscate the rights of slave-owners in slaves employed in a manner hostile to the Union, and General Frémont had seized the occasion of the passage of this act to issue an order to confiscate and emancipate the slaves of rebels in the state of Missouri. President Lincoln, unwilling, in a matter of such transcendent importance, to leave the initiative to any subordinate, revoked this order, and directed General Frémont to modify it so that it should conform to the confiscation act of congress. This excited violent opposition to the president among the radical anti-slavery men in Missouri and elsewhere, while it drew upon him the scarcely less embarrassing importunities of the conservatives, who wished him to take still more decided ground against the radicals. On 6 March, 1862, he sent a special message to congress inclosing a resolution, the passage of which he recommended, to offer pecuniary aid from the general government to states that should adopt the gradual abolishment of slavery. This resolution was promptly passed by congress; but in none of the slave-states was public sentiment sufficiently advanced to permit them to avail themselves of it. The next month, however, congress passed a law emancipating slaves in the District of Columbia, with compensation to owners, and President Lincoln had the happiness of affixing his signature to a measure that he had many years before, while a representative from Illinois, fruitlessly urged upon the notice of congress. As the war went on, wherever the National armies penetrated there was a constant stream of fugitive slaves from the adjoining regions, and the commanders of each department treated the complicated questions arising from this body of “contrabands”, as they came to be called, in their camps, according to their own judgment of the necessities or the expediencies of each case, a discretion which the president thought best to tolerate. But on 9 May, 1862, General David Hunter, an intimate and esteemed friend of Mr. Lincoln's, saw proper, without consultation with him, to issue a military order declaring all persons theretofore held as slaves in Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina forever free. The president, as soon as he received this order, issued a proclamation declaring it void, and reserving to himself the decision of the question whether it was competent for him, as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, to declare the slaves of any state or states free, and whether at any time or in any case it should have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the government to exercise such supposed power, and prohibiting to commanders in the field the decision of such questions. But he added in his proclamation a significant warning and appeal to the slave-holding states, urging once more upon them the policy of emancipation by state action. “I do not argue,” he said; “I beseech you to make the argument for yourselves. You cannot, if you would, be blind to the signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and partisan politics. This proposal makes common cause for a common object, casting no reproaches upon any. . . . Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been done, by one effort, in all past time, as in the providence of God it is now your high privilege to do. May the vast future not have cause to lament that you have neglected it.” He had several times endeavored to bring this proposition before the members of congress from the loyal slave-holding states, and on 12 July he invited them to meet him at the executive mansion, and submitted to them a powerful and urgent appeal to induce their states to adopt the policy of compensated emancipation. Be told them, without reproach or complaint, that he believed that if they had all voted for the resolution in the gradual emancipation message of the preceding March, the war would now have been substantially ended, and that the plan therein proposed was still one of the most potent and swift means of ending it. “Let the states,” he said, “which are in rebellion see definitely and certainly that in no event will the states you represent ever join their proposed confederacy, and they cannot much longer maintain the contest.” While urging this policy upon the conservatives, and while resolved in his own mind upon emancipation by decree as a last resource, he was the subject of vehement attacks from the more radical anti-slavery supporters of the government, to which he replied with unfailing moderation and good temper. Although in July he had resolved upon his course, and had read to his cabinet a draft of a proclamation of emancipation which he had then laid aside for a more fitting occasion (on the suggestion from Mr. Seward that its issue in the disastrous condition of our military affairs would be interpreted as a sign of desperation), he met the reproaches of the radical Republicans, the entreaties of visiting delegations, and the persuasions of his eager friends with arguments showing both sides of the question of which they persisted in seeing only one. To Horace Greeley, on 22 August, Mr. Lincoln said: “My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.” And even so late as 13 September he said to a delegation of a religious society, who were urging immediate action: I do not want to issue a document that the whole world will see must necessarily be inoperative, like the pope's bull against the comet . . . . I view this matter as a practical war measure, to be decided on according to the advantages or disadvantages it may offer to the suppression of the rebellion.” Still, he assured them that he had not decided against a proclamation of liberty to the slaves, but that the matter occupied his deepest thoughts. The retreat of Lee from Maryland after his defeat at Antietam seemed to the president to afford a proper occasion for the execution of his long-matured resolve, and on 22 September he issued his preliminary proclamation, giving notice to the states in rebellion that, on 1 January, 1863, all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state, the people whereof should then be in rebellion against the United States, should be then, thenceforward, and forever free. When congress came together on 1 December he urged them to supplement what had already been done by constitutional action, concluding his message with this impassioned appeal: “Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We—even we here-hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just—a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.” It was hardly to be expected, however, that any action would be taken by congress before the lapse of the hundred days that the president had left between his warning and its execution. On 1 January, 1863, the final proclamation of emancipation was issued. It recited the preliminary document, and then designated the states in rebellion against the United States. They were Arkansas, Texas, a part of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, excepting certain counties. The proclamation then continued: “I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated states and parts of states are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.” The criticisms and forebodings of the opponents of emancipation had well-nigh been exhausted during the previous three months, and the definitive proclamation was received with general enthusiasm throughout the loyal states. The dissatisfaction with which this important measure was regarded in the border states gradually died away, as did also the opposition in conservative quarters to the enlistment of negro soldiers. Their good conduct, their quick submission to discipline, and their excellent behavior in several battles, rapidly made an end of the prejudice against them; and when, in the winter session of congress of 1863-'4, Mr. Lincoln again urged upon the attention of that body the passage of a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery, his proposition met with the concurrence of a majority of congress, though it failed of the necessary two-third vote in the house of representatives. During the following year, however, public opinion made rapid progress, and the influence of the president with congress was largely increased after his triumphant re-election. In his annual message of 6 December, 1864, he once more pleaded, this time with irresistible force, in favor of constitutional emancipation in all the states. As there had been much controversy during the year in regard to the president's anti-slavery convictions, and the suggestion had been made in many quarters that, for the sake of peace, he might be induced to withdraw the proclamation, he repeated the declaration made the year before: “While I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the emancipation proclamation; nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation or by any of the acts of congress. If the people should, by whatever mode or means, make it an executive duty to re-enslave such persons, another, and not I, must be their instrument to perform it.” This time congress acted with alacrity, and on 31 January, 1865, proposed to the states the 13th amendment to the constitution, providing that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. The states rapidly adopted the amendment by the action of their legislatures, and the president was especially pleased that his own state of Illinois led the van, having passed the necessary resolution within twenty-four hours. Before the year ended twenty-seven of the thirty-six states (being the necessary three fourths) had ratified the amendment, and President Johnson, on 18 December, 1865, officially proclaimed its adoption. 

While the energies of the government and of the people were most strenuously occupied with the war and the questions immediately concerning it, the four years of Mr. Lincoln's administration had their full share of complicated and difficult questions of domestic and foreign concern. The interior and post-office departments made great progress in developing the means of communication throughout the country. Mr. Chase, as secretary of the treasury, performed, with prodigious ability and remarkable success, the enormous duties devolving upon him of providing funds to supply the army at an expense amounting at certain periods to $3,000,000 a day; and Mr. Seward, in charge of the state department, held at bay the suppressed hostility of European nations. Of all his cabinet, the president sustained with Mr. Seward relations of the closest intimacy, and for that reason, perhaps, shared more directly in the labors of his department. He revised the first draft of most of Seward's important despatches, and changed and amended their language with remarkable wisdom and skill. He was careful to avoid all sources of controversy or ill-feeling with foreign nations, and when they occurred he did his best to settle them in the interests of peace, without a sacrifice of national dignity. At the end of the year 1861 the friendly relations between England and the United States were seriously threatened by the capture of the Confederate envoys, Mason and Slidell, on board a British merchant-ship. (See WILKES, CHARLES.) Public sentiment approved the capture, and, as far as could be judged by every manifestation in the press and in congress, was in favor of retaining the prisoners and defiantly refusing the demand of England for their return. But when the president, after mature deliberation, decided that the capture was against American precedents, and directed their return to British custody, the second thought of the country was with him. His prudence and moderation were also conspicuously displayed in his treatment of the question of the invasion of Mexico by France, and the establishment by military power of the emperor Maximilian in that country. Accepting as genuine the protestations of the emperor of the French, that he intended no interference with the will of the people of Mexico, he took no measures unfriendly to France or the empire, except those involved in the maintenance of unbroken friendship with the republican government under President Juarez, a proceeding that, although severely criticised by the more ardent spirits in congress, ended, after the president's death, in the triumph of the National party in Mexico and the downfall of the invaders. He left no doubt, however, at any time, in regard to his own conviction that “the safety of the people of the United States and the cheerful destiny to which they aspire are intimately dependent upon the maintenance of free republican institutions throughout Mexico.” He dealt in a sterner spirit with the proposition for foreign mediation that the emperor of the French, after seeking in vain the concurrence of other European powers, at last presented singly at the beginning of 1863. This proposition, under the orders of the president, was declined by Mr. Seward on 6 February, in a despatch of remarkable ability and dignity, which put an end to all discussion of overtures of intervention from European powers. The diplomatic relations with England were exceedingly strained at several periods during the war. The building and fitting out of Confederate cruisers in English ports, and their escape, after their construction and its purpose had been made known by the American minister, more than once brought the two nations to the verge of war; but the moderation with which the claims of the United States were made by Mr. Lincoln, the energy and ability displayed by Sec. Seward and by Mr. Charles Francis Adams in presenting these claims, and, it must now be recognized, the candor and honesty with which the matter was treated by Earl Russell, the British minister for foreign affairs, saved the two countries from that irreparable disaster; and the British government at last took such measures as were necessary to put an end to this indirect war from the shores of England upon American commerce. In the course of two years the war attained such proportions that volunteering was no longer a sufficient resource to keep the army, consisting at that time of nearly a million men, at its full fighting strength. Congress therefore authorized, and the departments executed, a scheme of enrolment and draft of the arms-bearing population of the loyal states. Violent opposition arose to this measure in many parts of the country, which was stimulated by the speeches of orators of the opposition, and led, in many instances, to serious breaches of the public peace. A frightful riot, beginning among the foreign population of New York, kept that city in disorder and terror for three days in July, 1863. But the riots were suppressed, the disturbances quieted at last, and the draft was executed throughout the country. Clement L. Vallandigham, of Ohio, one of the most eloquent and influential orators of the Democratic party, was arrested in Ohio by General Burnside for his violent public utterances in opposition to the war, tried by a military court, and sentenced to imprisonment during the continuance of the war. The president changed his sentence to that of transportation within the lines of the rebellion. These proceedings caused a great ferment among his party in Ohio, who, by way of challenge to the government, nominated him for governor of that state. A committee of its prominent politicians demanded from the president his restoration to his political rights, and a correspondence took place between them and the president, in which the rights and powers of the government in case of rebellion were set forth by him with great lucidity and force. His letters exercised an important influence in the political discussions of the year, and Mr. Vallandigham was defeated in his candidacy by John Brough by a majority of 100,000 votes.

The war still continued at a rate that appears rapid enough in retrospect, but seemed slow to the eager spirits watching its course. The disasters of the Army of the Potomac did not end with the removal of General McClellan, which took place in November, 1862, as a consequence of his persistent delay in pursuing Lee's retreating army after the battle of Antietam. General Burnside, who succeeded him, suffered a humiliating defeat in his attack upon the intrenched position of the Confederates at Fredericksburg. General Hooker, who next took command, after opening his campaign by crossing the Rapidan in a march of extraordinary brilliancy, was defeated at Chancellorsville, in a battle where both sides lost severely, and then retired again north of the river. General Lee, leaving the National army on his right flank, crossed the Potomac, and Hooker having, at his own request, been relieved and succeeded by General Meade, the two armies met in a three days' battle at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where General Lee sustained a decisive defeat, and was driven back into Virginia. His flight from Gettysburg began on the evening of the 4th of July, a day that in this year doubled its lustre as a historic anniversary. For on this day Vicksburg, the most important Confederate stronghold in the west, surrendered to General Grant. He had spent the early months of 1863 in successive attempts to take that fortress, all of which had failed; but on the last day of April he crossed the river at Grand Gulf, and within a few clays fought the successful battles of Port Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hills, and the Big Black river, and shut np the army of Pemberton in close siege in the city of Vicksburg, which he finally captured with about 30,000 men on the 4th of July. 

The speech that Mr. Lincoln delivered at the dedication of the National cemetery on the battlefield of Gettysburg, 19 November, 1863, was at once recognized as the philosophy in brief of the whole great struggle, and has already become classic. There are slightly differing versions; the one that is here given is a literal transcript of the speech as he afterward wrote it out for a fair in Baltimore: 

“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” 
General Grant was transferred to Chattanooga, where, in November, with the troops of Thomas, Hooker, and Sherman, he won the important victory of Missionary Ridge; and then, being appointed lieutenant-general and general-in-chief of the armies of the United States, he went to Washington and entered upon the memorable campaign of 1864. This campaign began with revived hopes on the part of the government, the people, and the army. The president, glad that the army had now at its head a general in whose ability and enterprise he could thoroughly confide, ceased from that moment to exercise any active influence on its movements. He wrote, on 30 April, to General Grant: “The particulars of your plans I neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant, and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you. . . . If there is anything wanting which is in my power to give, do not fail to let me know it. And now, with a brave army and a just cause, may God sustain you.” Grant crossed the Rapidan on 4 May, intending to move by the right flank of General Lee; but the two armies came together in a gloomy forest called the Wilderness, where, from the 5th to the 7th of May, one of the most sanguinary battles known to modern warfare was fought. Neither side having gained any decisive advantage in this deadly struggle, Grant moved to the left, and Lee met him again at Spottsylvania Court-House, where for ten days a series of destructive contests took place, in which both sides were alternately successful. Still moving to the left, Grant again encountered the enemy at the crossing of North Anna river, and still later at Cold Harbor, a few miles northeast of Richmond, where, assaulting General Lee's army in a fortified position, he met with a bloody repulse. He then crossed the James river, intending by a rapid movement to seize Petersburg and the Confederate lines of communication south of Richmond, but was baffled in this purpose, and forced to enter upon a regular siege of Petersburg, which occupied the summer and autumn. While these operations were in progress, General Philip H. Sheridan had made one of the most brilliant cavalry raids in the war, threatening Richmond and defeating the Confederate cavalry under General J. E. B. Stuart, and killing that famous leader. While Grant lay before Richmond, General Lee, hoping to induce him to attack his works, despatched a force under General Early to threaten Washington; but Grant sent two corps of his army northward, and Early—after a sharp skirmish under the fortifications of Washington, where Mr. Lincoln was personally present—was driven back through the Shenandoah valley, and on two occasions, in September and October, was signally defeated by General Sheridan. 

General William T. Sherman, who had been left in command of the western district formerly commanded by Grant, moved southward at the same time that Grant crossed the Rapidan. General Joseph E. Johnston, one of the ablest of the Confederate generals, retired gradually before him, defending himself at every halt with the greatest skill and address; but his movements not proving satisfactory to the Richmond government, he was removed, and General John B. Hood appointed in his place. After a summer of hard fighting, Sherman, on 1 September, captured Atlanta, one of the chief manufacturing and railroad centres of the south, and later in the autumn organized and executed a magnificent march to the seaboard, which proved that the military power of the Confederacy had been concentrated at a few points on the frontier, and that the interior was little more than an empty shell. He reached the sea-coast early in December, investing Savannah on the 10th, and capturing the city on the 21st. He then marched northward with the intention of assisting General Grant in the closing scenes of the war. The army under General George H. Thomas, who had been left in Tennessee to hold Hood in check while this movement was going on, after severely handling the Confederates in the preliminary battle of Franklin, 30 November, inflicted upon Hood a crushing and final defeat in the battle of Nashville, 16 December, routing and driving him from the state. 

During the summer, while Grant was engaged in the desperate and indecisive series of battles that marked his southward progress in Virginia, and Sherman had not yet set out upon his march to the sea, one of the most ardent political canvasses the country had ever seen was in progress at the north. Mr. Lincoln, on 8 June, had been unanimously renominated for the presidency by the Republican convention at Baltimore. The Democratic leaders had postponed their convention to a date unusually late, in the hope that some advantage might be reaped from the events of the summer. The convention came together on 29 August in Chicago. Mr. Vallandigham, who had returned from his banishment, and whom the government had sagaciously declined to rearrest, led the extreme peace party in the convention. Prominent politicians of New York were present in the interest of General McClellan. Both sections of the convention gained their point. General McClellan was nominated for the presidency, and Mr. Vallandigham succeeded in imposing upon his party a platform declaring that the war had been a failure, and demanding a cessation of hostilities. The capture of Atlanta on the day the convention adjourned seemed to the Unionists a providential answer to the opposition. Republicans, who had been somewhat disheartened by the slow progress of military events and by the open and energetic agitation that the peace party had continued through the summer at the north, now took heart again, and the canvass proceeded with the greatest spirit to the close. Sheridan's victory over Early in the Shenandoah valley gave an added impulse to the general enthusiasm, and in the October elections it was shown that the name of Mr. Lincoln was more popular, and his influence more powerful, than any one had anticipated. In the election that took place on 8 November, 1864, he received 2,216,000 votes, and General McClellan 1,800,000. The difference in the electoral vote was still greater, Mr. Lincoln being supported by 212 of the presidential electors, while only 21 voted for McClellan.  

President Lincoln's second inaugural address, delivered on 4 March, 1865, will forever remain not only one of the most remarkable of all his public utterances, but will also hold a high rank among the greatest state papers that history has preserved. As he neared the end of his career, and saw plainly outlined before him the dimensions of the vast moral and material success that the nation was about to achieve, his thoughts, always predisposed to an earnest and serious view of life, assumed a fervor and exaltation like that of the ancient seers and prophets. The speech that he delivered to the vast concourse at the eastern front of the capitol is the briefest of all the presidential addresses in our annals; but it has not its equal in lofty eloquence and austere morality. The usual historical view of the situation, the ordinary presentment of the intentions of the government, seemed matters too trivial to engage the concern of a mind standing, as Lincoln's apparently did at this moment, face to face with the most tremendous problems of fate and moral responsibility. In the briefest words he announced what had been the cause of the war, and how the government had hoped to bring it to an earlier close. With passionless candor he admitted that neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration it had attained. “Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding”; and, passing into a strain of rhapsody, which no lesser mind and character could ever dare to imitate, he said: “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces. But let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh.’ If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offences, which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both north and south this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three years ago, so still it must be said, ‘The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’ With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan—to do all which may and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.” 

The triumphant election of Mr. Lincoln, no less than the steady progress of the National armies, convinced some of the more intelligent of the southern leaders that their cause was hopeless, and that it would be prudent to ascertain what terms of peace could be made before the utter destruction of their military power. There had been already several futile attempts at opening negotiations; but they had all failed of necessity, because neither side was willing even to consider the only terms that the other side would offer. There had never been a moment when Mr. Lincoln would have been willing to receive propositions of peace on any other basis than the recognition of the national integrity, and Mr. Davis steadfastly refused to the end to admit the possibility of the restoration of the national authority, In July, certain unauthorized persons in Canada, having persuaded Horace Greeley that negotiations might be opened through them with the Confederate authorities, Mr. Lincoln despatched him to Niagara Falls, and sent an open letter addressed, “To whom it may concern” (see illustration). It is in the possession of Mr. William H. Appleton, of New York, and now appears in fac-simile for the first time. This document put an end to the negotiation. The Confederate emissaries in Canada, and their principals in Richmond, made no use of this incident except to employ the president's letter as a text for denunciation of the National government, But later in the year, the hopelessness of the struggle having become apparent to some of the Confederate leaders, Mr. Davis was at last induced to send an embassy to Fortress Monroe, to inquire what terms of adjustment were possible. They were met by President Lincoln and the secretary of state in person. The plan proposed was one that had been suggested, on his own responsibility, by Mr. Francis Preston Blair, of Washington, in an interview he had been permitted to hold with Mr. Davis in Richmond, that the two armies should unite in a campaign against the French in Mexico for the enforcement of the Monroe doctrine, and that the issues of the war should be postponed for future settlement. The president declined peremptorily to entertain this scheme, and repeated again the only conditions to which he could listen: The restoration of the national authority throughout all the states, the maintenance and execution of all the acts of the general government in regard to slavery, the cessation of hostilities, and the disbanding of the insurgent forces as a necessary prerequisite to the ending of the war. The Confederate agents reported at Richmond the failure of their embassy, and Mr. Davis denounced the conduct of President Lincoln in a public address full of desperate defiance. Nevertheless, it was evident even to the most prejudiced observers that the war could not continue much longer. Sherman's march had demonstrated the essential weakness of the Confederate cause; the soldiers of the Confederacy—who for four years, with the most stubborn gallantry, had maintained a losing fight—began to show signs of dangerous discouragement and insubordination; recruiting had ceased some time before, and desertion was going on rapidly. The army of General Lee, which was the last bulwark of the Confederacy, still held its lines stoutly against the gradually enveloping lines of Grant; but their valiant commander knew it was only a question of how many days he could hold his works, and repeatedly counselled the government at Richmond to evacuate that city, and allow the army to take up a more tenable position in the mountains. General Grant's only anxiety each morning was lest he should find the army of General Lee moving away from him, and late in March he determined to strike the final blow at the rebellion. Moving for the last time by the left flank, his forces under Sheridan fought and gained a brilliant victory over the Confederate left at Five Forks, and at the same time Gens. Humphreys, Wright, and Parke moved against the Confederate works, breaking their lines and capturing many prisoners and guns. Petersburg was evacuated on 2 April. The Confederate government fled from Richmond the same afternoon and evening, and Grant, pursuing the broken and shattered remnant of Lee's army, received their surrender at Appomattox Court-House on 9 April. About 28,000 Confederates signed the parole, and an equal number had been killed, captured, and dispersed in the operations immediately preceding the surrender. General Sherman, a few days afterward, received the surrender of Johnston, and the last Confederate army, under General Kirby Smith, west of the Mississippi, laid down its arms. 

President Lincoln had himself accompanied the army in its last triumphant campaign, and had entered Richmond immediately after its surrender, receiving the cheers and benedictions, not only of the negroes whom he had set free, but of a great number of white people, who were weary of the war, and welcomed the advent of peace. Returning to Washington with his mind filled with plans for the restoration of peace and orderly government throughout the south, he seized the occasion of a serenade, on 11 April, to deliver to the people who gathered in front of the executive mansion his last speech on public affairs, in which he discussed with unusual dignity and force the problems of reconstruction, then crowding upon public consideration. As his second inaugural was the greatest of all his rhetorical compositions, so this brief political address, which closed his public career, is unsurpassed among his speeches for clearness and wisdom, and for a certain tone of gentle but unmistakable authority, which shows to what a mastery of statecraft he had attained. He congratulated the country upon the decisive victories of the last week; he expressly asserted that, although he had been present in the final operations, “no part of the honor, for plan or execution, was his”; and then, with equal boldness and discretion, announced the principles in accordance with which he should deal with the restoration of the states. He refused to be provoked into controversy, which he held would be purely academic, over the question whether the insurrectionary states were in or out of the Union. “As appears to me,” he said, “that question has not been, nor yet is, a practically material one, and any discussion of it, while it thus remains practically immaterial, could have no effect other than the mischievous one of dividing our friends. As yet, whatever it may hereafter become, that question is bad, as the basis of a controversy, and good for nothing at all—a merely pernicious abstraction. We all agree that the seceded states, so-called, are out of their proper practical relation with the Union, and that the sole object of the government, civil and military, in regard to those states, is to again get them into that proper practical relation. I believe it is not only possible, but in fact easier, to do this without deciding, or even considering, whether these states have ever been out of the Union than with it. Finding themselves safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had ever been abroad. Let us all join in doing the acts necessary to restoring the proper practical relations between these states and the Union, and each forever after innocently indulge his own opinion whether in doing the acts he brought the states from without into the Union, or only gave them proper assistance, they never having been out of it.” In this temper he discussed the recent action of the Unionists of Louisiana, where 12,000 voters had sworn allegiance, giving his full approval to their course, but not committing himself to any similar method in other cases; “any exclusive and inflexible plan would surely become a new entanglement . . . . If we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and disperse them. We, in effect, say to the white men, ‘You are worthless or worse, we will neither help you, nor be helped by you.’ To the blacks we say, ‘This cup of liberty which these, your old masters, hold to your lips, we will dash from you and leave you to the chances of gathering the spilled and scattered contents in some vague and undefined when, where, and how’. . . . If, on the contrary, we sustain the new government of Louisiana, the converse is made true. Concede that it is only to what it should be as the egg is to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.” These words were the last he uttered in public; on 14 April, at a cabinet meeting, he developed these views in detail, and found no difference of opinion among his advisers. The same evening he attended a performance of “Our American Cousin” at Ford's theatre, in Tenth street. He was accompanied by Mrs. Lincoln and two friends—Miss Harris, a daughter of Senator Ira Harris, of New York, and Major Henry R. Rathbone. In the midst of the play a shot was heard, and a man was seen to leap from the president's box to the stage. Brandishing a dripping knife, with which, after shooting the president, he had stabbed Major Rathbone, and shouting, “Sic semper tyrannis!—the south is avenged!” he rushed to the rear of the building, leaped upon a horse, which was held there in readiness for him, and made his escape. The president was carried to a small house on the opposite side of the street, where, surrounded by his family and the principal officers of the government, he breathed his last at 7 o'clock on the morning of 15 April. The assassin was found by a squadron of troops twelve days afterward, and shot in a barn in which he had taken refuge. The illustration on page 722 represents the house where Mr. Lincoln passed away.  The body of the president lay in state at the Capitol on 20 April and was viewed by a great concourse of people; the next day the funeral train set out for Springfield, Illinois. The cortege halted at all the principal cities on the way, and the remains of the president lay in state in Baltimore, Harrisburgh, Philadelphia, New York, Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Chicago, being received everywhere with extraordinary demonstrations of respect and sorrow. The joy over the return of peace was for a fortnight eclipsed by the universal grief for the dead leader. He was buried, amid the mourning of the whole nation, at Oak Ridge, near Springfield, on 4 May, and there on 15 October, 1874, an imposing monument—the work of the sculptor Larkin G. Mead—was dedicated to his memory. The monument is of white marble, with a portrait-statue of Lincoln in bronze, and four bronze groups at the corners, representing the infantry, cavalry, and artillery arms of the service and the navy. (See accompanying illustration.) 

The death of President Lincoln, in the moment of the great national victory that he had done more than any other to gain, caused a movement of sympathy throughout the world. The expressions of grief and condolence that were sent to the government at Washington, from national, provincial, and municipal bodies all over the globe, were afterward published by the state department in a quarto volume of nearly a thousand pages, called “The Tribute of the Nations to Abraham Lincoln.” After the lapse of twenty years, the high estimate of him that the world appears instinctively to have formed at the moment of his death seems to have been increased rather than diminished, as his participation in the great events of his time has been more thoroughly studied and understood. His goodness of heart, his abounding charity, his quick wit and overflowing humor, which made him the hero of many true stories and a thousand legends, are not less valued in themselves; but they are cast in the shade by the evidences that continually appear of his extraordinary qualities of mind and of character. His powerful grasp of details, his analytic capacity, his unerring logic, his perception of human nature, would have made him unusual in any age of the world, while the quality that, in the opinion of many, made him the specially fitted agent of Providence in the salvation of the country, his absolute freedom from prejudice or passion in weighing the motives of his contemporaries and the deepest problems of state gives him pre-eminence even among the illustrious men that have preceded and followed him in his great office. Simple and modest as he was in his demeanor, he was one of the most self-respecting of rulers. Although his kindness of heart was proverbial, although he was always glad to please and unwilling to offend, few presidents have been more sensible of the dignity of their office, and more prompt to maintain it against encroachments. He was at all times unquestionably the head of the government, and, though not inclined to interfere with the routine business of the departments, he tolerated no insubordination in important matters. At one time, being conscious that there was an effort inside of his government to force the resignation of one of its members, he read in open cabinet a severe reprimand of what was going on, mentioning no names, and ordering peremptorily that no questions should be asked, and no allusions be made to the incident then or thereafter. He did not except his most trusted friends or his most powerful generals from this strict subordination. When Mr. Seward went before him to meet the Confederate envoys at Hampton Roads, Mr. Lincoln gave him this written injunction: “You will not assume to definitely consummate anything”; and, on 3 March, 1865, when General Grant was about to set out on his campaign of final victory, the secretary of war gave him, by the president's order, this imperative instruction: “The president directs me to say to you that he wishes you to have no conference with General Lee, unless it be for the capitulation of General Lee's army, or on some other minor and purely military matter. He instructs me to say that you are not to decide, discuss, or to confer upon any political question. Such questions the president holds in his own hands, and will submit them to no military conferences or conventions. Meanwhile, you are to press to the utmost your military advantages.” When he refused to comply with the desire of the more radical Republicans in congress to take Draconian measures of retaliation against the Confederates for their treatment of black soldiers, he was accused by them of weakness and languor. They never seemed to perceive that to withstand an angry congress in Washington required more vigor of character than to launch a threatening decree against the Confederate government in Richmond. Mr. Lincoln was as unusual in personal appearance as in character. His stature was almost gigantic, six feet and four inches; he was muscular but spare of frame, weighing about 180 pounds. His hair was strong and luxuriant in growth, and stood out straight from his head; it began to be touched with gray in his last years. His eyes, a grayish brown, were deeply set, and were filled, in repose, with an expression of profound melancholy, which easily changed to one of uproarious mirth at the provocation of a humorous anecdote, told by himself or another. His nose was long and slightly curved, his mouth large and singularly mobile. Up to the time of his election he was clean-shaven, but during his presidency the fine outline of his face was marred by a thin and straggling beard. His demeanor was, in general, extremely simple and careless, but he was not without a native dignity that always protected him from anything like presumption or impertinence. 

Mr. Lincoln married, on 4 November, 1842, Miss Mary Todd, daughter of Robert S. Todd, of Kentucky. There were born of this marriage four sons. One, Edward Baker, died in infancy; another, William Wallace, died at the age of twelve, during the presidency of Mr. Lincoln; and still another, Thomas, at the age of eighteen, several years after his father's death. The only one that grew to maturity was his eldest son, Robert. The house in which Mr. Lincoln lived when he was elected president, in Springfield, Illinois, was conveyed to the state of Illinois in 1887 by his son, and a collection of memorials of him is to be preserved there perpetually. (See illustration on page 717.) 

There were few portraits of Mr. Lincoln painted in his lifetime; the vast number of engravings that have made his face one of the most familiar of all time have been mostly copied from photographs. The one on page 715 is from a photograph taken in 1858. There are portraits from life by Frank B. Carpenter, by Matthew Wilson, by Thomas Hicks, and an excellent crayon drawing by Barry. Since his death G. P. A. Healy, William Page, and others have painted portraits of him. There are two authentic life-masks: one made in 1858 by Leonard W. Volk (see illustration on page 723), who also executed a bust of Mr. Lincoln before his election in 1860, and another by Clark Mills shortly before the assassination. There are already a number of statues: one by Henry Kirke Brown in Union square, New York (see page 720); another by the same artist in Brooklyn; one in the group called “Emancipation,'” by Thomas Ball, in Lincoln Park, Washington, D. C., a work which has especial interest as having been paid for by the contributions of the freed people; one by Mrs. Vinnie Ream Hoxie in the Capitol; one by Augustus St. Gaudens in Chicago, set up in Chicago, 22 October, 1887; and one by Randolph Rogers in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia (see illustration on page 721). There is a bust by Thomas D. Jones, modelled from life in 1860. 

The Lincoln bibliography is enormous, comprising thousands of volumes. See John Russell Bartlett's “Catalogue of Books and Pamphlets relating to the Civil War in the United States” (Boston, 1866). The most noteworthy of the lives of Lincoln already published are those of Joseph H. Barrett (Cincinnati, 1865); Henry J. Raymond (New York, 1865); Josiah G. Holland (Springfield, Massachusetts, 1866); Ward H. Lamon (only the first volume, Boston, 1872); William O. Stoddard (New York, 1884); and Isaac N. Arnold (Chicago, 1885). Briefer lives have also been written by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, William D. Howells, Carl Schurz, Charles G. Leland, John Carroll Power, and others. The most complete and exhaustive work upon his life and times appeared in the “Century” magazine, written by his private secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay (reissued in 10 vols., New York, 1890). The same authors prepared a complete edition of all his writings, speeches, and letters (2 vols., 1894).—His wife, Mary Todd, born in Lexington, Kentucky, 12 December, 1818; died in Springfield, Illinois. 16 July, 1882, was the daughter of Robert S. Todd, whose family were among the most influential of the pioneers of Kentucky and Illinois. Her great-uncle, John Todd, was one of the associates of General George Rogers Clark, in his campaign of 1778, and took part in the capture of Kaskaskia and Vincennes. Being appointed county lieutenant by Patrick Henry, at that time governor of Virginia, he organized the civil government of what became afterward the state of Illinois. He was killed in the battle of Blue Licks, 18 August, 1782, of which his brother Levi, Mrs. Lincoln's grandfather, who also accompanied Clark's expedition as a lieutenant, was one of the few survivors. Mary Todd was carefully educated in Lexington. When twenty-one years of age she went to Springfield to visit her sister, who had married Ninian W. Edwards, a son of Ninian Edwards, governor of the state. While there she became engaged to Mr. Lincoln, whom she married, 4 November, 1842. Her family was divided by the civil war; several of them were killed in battle; and, devoted as Mrs. Lincoln was to her husband and the National cause, this division among her nearest kindred caused her much suffering. The death of her son, William Wallace, in 1862, was an enduring sorrow to her. One of her principal occupations was visiting the hospitals and camps of the soldiers about Washington. She never recovered from the shock of seeing her husband shot down before her eyes; her youngest son, Thomas, died a few years later, and her reason suffered from these repeated blows. She lived in strict retirement during her later years, spending part of her time with her son in Chicago, a part in Europe, and the rest with her sister, Mrs. Edwards, in Springfield, where she died of paralysis. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, pp. 715-727.


LINCOLN, Sumner, Gardiner, Vermont, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1844-1848, Vice-President, 1848-1849.  Vice President, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1845.


LINDENSCHIVATZ, Max, New York, New York, American Abolition Society, Executive Committee, 1856-57.


LINDSEY, Harvey, American Colonization Society, Executive Committee, 1840-1841. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)


LINDSLEY, Philip, 1786-1855, Basking Ridge, New Jersey, clergyman, educator, abolitionist. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, p. 731; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 1, p. 279)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, p. 731:

LINDSLEY, Philip, educator, born in Morristown, New Jersey, 21 December, 1786; died in Nashville, Tennessee, 25 May, 1855. He was graduated at Princeton in 1804, and after teaching he was appointed in 1807 tutor in Latin and Greek at Princeton. Meanwhile he studied theology, and was licensed to preach in April, 1810. In 1812 he returned to Princeton, after preaching in various places, as senior tutor. He was made professor of languages in 1813, and at the same time became secretary of the board of trustees. In 1817 he was elected vice-president of Princeton, and, after the resignation of Ashbel Green in 1822, he was for one year acting president, but in the succeeding year was chosen president of Cumberland college (now University of Nashville), and also of Princeton, both of which he declined; but later he was again offered the presidency of Cumberland. He was finally induced to visit Nashville, and the result of his trip was his acceptance of the office in 1824. He continued his relations with that college until 1850, when he accepted the professorship of archæology and church polity in the Presbyterian theological seminary in New Albany, Ind., which he held until 1853. Meanwhile he declined the presidency of numerous colleges. He was chosen moderator in 1834 of the general assembly of the Presbyterian church, held in Philadelphia, and in 1855 commissioner of the presbytery to the general assembly in Nashville. In 1825 he received the degree of D. D. from Dickinson college. His publications, consisting chiefly of baccalaureate addresses and occasional sermons, were collected by Leroy J. Halsey, and published as “Dr. Lindsley's Complete Works and a Biography” (3 vols., Philadelphia, 1868). See also “A Sketch of the Life and Educational Labors of Philip Lindsley,” by Leroy J. Halsey (Hartford, 1859). Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.


LINES, Charles B., New Haven, Connecticut, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1836-1837.



Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.