The Gettysburg Address (1863)
Short speech of about 270 words beginning 'Four score and seven years ago'
US Presidents · 19th century
Abraham Lincoln
1809–1865 · American
Republican (National Union ticket in 1864)
In office: 1861–1865
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president and the first Republican to hold the office, led the Union through the American Civil War. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation, delivered the Gettysburg Address and pushed the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery through Congress. Days after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre.
How to spot them
- ▸'Honest Abe', 'the Rail-Splitter', 'the Great Emancipator'
- ▸Born in a log cabin in Kentucky on 12 February 1809, the same day as Charles Darwin
- ▸Lincoln–Douglas debates (1858); the 'House Divided' speech
- ▸Shot at Ford's Theatre during 'Our American Cousin' (14 April 1865)
- ▸Tallest president at 6 ft 4 in; face on the penny and the $5 bill
In office
The Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
Took effect on 1 January 1863, declaring enslaved people in rebel-held areas free
The 'House Divided' speech (1858)
Pre-presidential: 'A house divided against itself cannot stand'
The Second Inaugural Address, 'With malice toward none' (1865)
Called for binding up the nation's wounds as the war neared its end
The Homestead Act (1862)
Offered 160 acres of public land in the West to settlers who farmed it
The Morrill Land-Grant College Act (1862)
Gave federal land to states to fund colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts
Passage of the Thirteenth Amendment through Congress (1865)
Abolished slavery; ratified in December 1865, after his death
Key ideas
- Government 'of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth' (Gettysburg Address)
- Preserving the Union came first, but he came to see emancipation as essential to winning the war and to the nation's purpose
Quick-fire facts
- •Born near Hodgenville, Kentucky; grew up in Indiana and made his career in Springfield, Illinois
- •Lost the 1858 Illinois Senate race to Stephen A. Douglas but defeated him for the presidency in 1860
- •The only president to hold a patent, for a device to lift boats over shoals (1849)
- •Suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War
- •Proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day in 1863
- •His vice presidents were Hannibal Hamlin and Andrew Johnson, who succeeded him
- •Died on 15 April 1865; Walt Whitman mourned him in 'O Captain! My Captain!' and 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd'
- •The seated statue in the Lincoln Memorial (dedicated 1922) is by Daniel Chester French
- •Grew a beard after 11-year-old Grace Bedell wrote suggesting it in 1860
Drill it — 10 cards
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Sources
- Miller Center, University of Virginia — Abraham Lincoln
- Doris Kearns Goodwin — Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln