On October 16, 1854, Lincoln went before a large crowd in Peoria to debate the merits of the Kansas-Nebraska Act with Douglas, denouncing slavery and its extension and calling the institution a violation of the most basic tenets of the Declaration of Independence. Promising not to seek reelection, he returned to Springfield in 1849.Įvents conspired to push him back into national politics, however: Douglas, a leading Democrat in Congress, had pushed through the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), which declared that the voters of each territory, rather than the federal government, had the right to decide whether the territory should be slave or free. As a congressman, Lincoln was unpopular with many Illinois voters for his strong stance against the Mexican-American War. House of Representatives in 1846 and began serving his term the following year. WATCH NOW Abraham Lincoln Enters Politics The Lincolns went on to have four children together, though only one would live into adulthood: Robert Todd Lincoln (1843–1926), Edward Baker Lincoln (1846–1850), William Wallace Lincoln (1850–1862) and Thomas “Tad” Lincoln (1853-1871). He met Mary Todd, a well-to-do Kentucky belle with many suitors (including Lincoln’s future political rival, Stephen Douglas), and they married in 1842. For the next few years, he worked there as a lawyer and served clients ranging from individual residents of small towns to national railroad lines. The following year, he moved to the newly named state capital of Springfield. Lincoln taught himself law, passing the bar examination in 1836. After his young son Willie died of typhoid fever in 1862, the emotionally fragile Mary Lincoln, widely unpopular for her frivolity and spendthrift ways, held seances in the White House in the hopes of communicating with him, earning her even more derision. Like his Whig heroes Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, Lincoln opposed the spread of slavery to the territories, and had a grand vision of the expanding United States, with a focus on commerce and cities rather than agriculture.ĭid you know? The war years were difficult for Abraham Lincoln and his family. After settling in the town of New Salem, Illinois, where he worked as a shopkeeper and a postmaster, Lincoln became involved in local politics as a supporter of the Whig Party, winning election to the Illinois state legislature in 1834. In 1830, his family moved to Macon County in southern Illinois, and Lincoln got a job working on a river flatboat hauling freight down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. Lincoln’s formal schooling was limited to three brief periods in local schools, as he had to work constantly to support his family. His family moved to southern Indiana in 1816. Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, to Nancy and Thomas Lincoln in a one-room log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky. Abraham Lincoln's Childhood and Early Life
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