Happy 200th Birthday Abraham Lincoln

Two-hundred years ago on February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born.  Happy Birthday, Honest Abe! From Wikipedia:

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, two uneducated farmers, in a one-room log cabin on the 348-acre (1.4 km2) Sinking Spring Farm, in southeast Hardin County, Kentucky (now part of LaRue County), making him the first president born outside the original thirteen colonies. Lincoln’s ancestor Samuel Lincoln had arrived in Hingham, Massachusetts from England in the 17th century, but his descendants had gradually moved west, from Pennsylvania to Virginia and then westward to the frontier.

For some time, Thomas Lincoln, Abraham’s father, had been a respected citizen of the Kentucky backcountry. He had purchased the Sinking Spring Farm in December 1808 for $200 cash ($2,689.00 today) and assumption of a debt. The family belonged to a Hardshell Baptist church, although Abraham himself never joined their church, or any other church for that matter.

In 1816 the Lincoln family became impoverished, losing their land through court action, and was forced to make a new start in Perry County, Indiana. Lincoln later noted that this move was “partly on account of slavery,” and partly because of difficulties with land deeds in Kentucky.

When Lincoln was nine, his mother, then 34 years old, died of milk sickness. Soon afterwards, his father remarried to Sarah Bush Johnston. Lincoln and his stepmother were close; he called her “Mother” for the rest of his life, but he was increasingly distant from his father.

In 1830, after more economic and land-title difficulties in Indiana, the family settled on public land in Macon County, Illinois. The following winter was desolate and especially brutal, and the family considered moving back to Indiana. The following year, when his father relocated the family to a new homestead in Coles County, Illinois, 22-year-old Lincoln struck out on his own, canoeing down the Sangamon River to the village of New Salem in Sangamon County. Later that year, hired by New Salem businessman Denton Offutt and accompanied by friends, he took goods from New Salem to New Orleans via flatboat on the Sangamon, Illinois and Mississippi rivers.

Lincoln’s formal education consisted of about 18 months of schooling, but he was largely self-educated and an avid reader. He was also a talented local wrestler and skilled with an axe. Lincoln avoided hunting and fishing because he did not like killing animals, even for food. At 6 foot 4 inches (1.93 m), he was unusually tall, as well as strong….

Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858

The 1858 campaign featured the Lincoln-Douglas debates, a famous contest on slavery. Lincoln warned that “The Slave Power” was threatening the values of republicanism, while Douglas emphasized the supremacy of democracy, as set forth in his Freeport Doctrine, which said that local settlers should be free to choose whether to allow slavery or not. Though the Republican legislative candidates won more popular votes, the Democrats won more seats, and the legislature reelected Douglas to the Senate. Nevertheless, Lincoln’s speeches on the issue transformed him into a national political star. New York party leaders invited him to give a speech at Cooper Union in February 1860 to an elite audience that was startled by the poorly dressed, ugly man from the West. He stunned the audience with the most brilliant political speech they had ever heard. Lincoln was emerging as the intellectual leader of the Republican party, and its best speaker.

Abraham Lincoln. (2009, February 13). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 06:52, February 13, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Abraham_Lincoln&oldid=270387285