Okla-homey
2/12/2009, 07:40 AM
February 12, 1809: Abraham Lincoln is born
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/6849/abrahamlincolnportraitmi3.jpg
200 years ago on this day in 1809, Abraham Lincoln is born in Hodgenville, Kentucky.
Lincoln, one of America’s most admired presidents, grew up a member of a poor family in Kentucky and Indiana. He attended school for only one year, but thereafter read on his own in a continual effort to improve his mind. As an adult, he lived in Illinois and performed a variety of jobs including stints as a postmaster, surveyor and shopkeeper, before entering politics.
He served in the Illinois legislature from 1834 to 1836, and then became an attorney. In 1842, Lincoln married Mary Todd; together, the pair raised four sons while Lincoln traveled the Illinois judicial circuit trying over 1400 cases and winning most of them.
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/6638/abelincolnkp6.jpg
Lincoln returned to politics during the 1850s, a time when the nation’s long-standing division over slavery was flaring up, particularly in new territories being added to the Union. As leader of the new Republican Party, Lincoln was considered politically moderate, even on the issue of slavery.
He advocated the restriction of slavery to the states in which it already existed and described the practice in a letter as a “minor issue” as late as 1854. In an 1858 senatorial race, as secessionist sentiment brewed among the southern states, he warned, “a house divided against itself cannot stand”.
He did not win the Senate seat but earned national recognition as a strong political force. Lincoln’s inspiring oratory soothed a populace anxious about southern states’ secessionist threats and boosted his popularity.
"What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?" -- Lincoln's Cooper Institute Address, February 27, 1860
As a presidential candidate in the election of 1860, Lincoln tried to reassure slaveholding interests that although he favored abolition, he had no intention of ending the practice in states where it already existed and prioritized saving the Union over freeing slaves.
"I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except Negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty - to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy." -- The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Letter to Joshua F. Speed" (August 24, 1855), p. 323.
When he won the presidency by approximately 400,000 popular votes and carried the Electoral College, he was in effect handed a ticking time bomb. His concessions to slaveholders failed to prevent South Carolina from leading other states in an immediate exodus from the Union in order to safeguard their right to own slaves.
"Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came." -- Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865.
By February 1, 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas had also seceded. Soon after, the Civil War began. As the war progressed, Lincoln moved closer to committing himself and the nation to the abolitionist movement and, in 1863, finally signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The document freed slaves in the Confederate states, but did not address the legality of slavery in the loyal slave states of Missouri, Maryland, Kentucky and Delaware.
"You think slavery is right and should be extended; while we think slavery is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us." -- The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume IV, "Letter to Alexander H. Stephens" (December 22, 1860), p. 160. (Stephens was the future Confederate vice-president.)
Lincoln was the tallest president at 6’ 4.” As a young man, he impressed others with his sheer physical strength--he was a legendary wrestler in Illinois--and entertained friends and strangers alike with his dry, folksy wit, which was still in evidence years later.
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/6663/abrahamlincolnonthepennij6.jpg
Lincoln is the only person to appear on both sides of a US coin
Exasperated by one Civil War military defeat after another, Lincoln wrote to la ethargic general “if you are not using the army I should like to borrow it for awhile.” An animal lover, Lincoln once declared, "I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it."
Fittingly, a variety of pets took up residence at the Lincoln White House, including a pet turkey named Jack and a goat called Nanko. Lincoln’s son Tad frequently hitched Nanko to a small wagon and drove around the White House grounds.
Lincoln’s sense of humor may have helped him to hide recurring bouts of depression. He admitted to friends and colleagues that he suffered from “intense melancholia” and hypochondria most of his adult life. Perhaps in order to cope with it, Lincoln engaged in self-effacing humor, even chiding himself about his famously homely looks.
When an opponent in an 1858 Senate race debate called him “two-faced,” he replied, “If I had another face do you think I would wear this one?”
Lincoln is remembered as “The Great Emancipator.” Although he waffled on the subject of slavery in the early years of his presidency, his greatest legacy was saving the federal union and his signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
"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 we 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 achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." -- Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865.
To Confederate sympathizers, however, Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation reinforced his image as a hated despot and ultimately led John Wilkes Booth to assassinate him on April 14, 1865. His favorite horse, Old Bob, pulled his funeral hearse.
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/6950/abeussabrahamlincolnco7.jpg
CVN-72 USS Abraham Lincoln. 425 acres of sovereign US territory able to bring combat power against virtually any target on the planet. Site of GWB's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech.
http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/637/insane7zoao4.jpg
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/6849/abrahamlincolnportraitmi3.jpg
200 years ago on this day in 1809, Abraham Lincoln is born in Hodgenville, Kentucky.
Lincoln, one of America’s most admired presidents, grew up a member of a poor family in Kentucky and Indiana. He attended school for only one year, but thereafter read on his own in a continual effort to improve his mind. As an adult, he lived in Illinois and performed a variety of jobs including stints as a postmaster, surveyor and shopkeeper, before entering politics.
He served in the Illinois legislature from 1834 to 1836, and then became an attorney. In 1842, Lincoln married Mary Todd; together, the pair raised four sons while Lincoln traveled the Illinois judicial circuit trying over 1400 cases and winning most of them.
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/6638/abelincolnkp6.jpg
Lincoln returned to politics during the 1850s, a time when the nation’s long-standing division over slavery was flaring up, particularly in new territories being added to the Union. As leader of the new Republican Party, Lincoln was considered politically moderate, even on the issue of slavery.
He advocated the restriction of slavery to the states in which it already existed and described the practice in a letter as a “minor issue” as late as 1854. In an 1858 senatorial race, as secessionist sentiment brewed among the southern states, he warned, “a house divided against itself cannot stand”.
He did not win the Senate seat but earned national recognition as a strong political force. Lincoln’s inspiring oratory soothed a populace anxious about southern states’ secessionist threats and boosted his popularity.
"What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?" -- Lincoln's Cooper Institute Address, February 27, 1860
As a presidential candidate in the election of 1860, Lincoln tried to reassure slaveholding interests that although he favored abolition, he had no intention of ending the practice in states where it already existed and prioritized saving the Union over freeing slaves.
"I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except Negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty - to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy." -- The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Letter to Joshua F. Speed" (August 24, 1855), p. 323.
When he won the presidency by approximately 400,000 popular votes and carried the Electoral College, he was in effect handed a ticking time bomb. His concessions to slaveholders failed to prevent South Carolina from leading other states in an immediate exodus from the Union in order to safeguard their right to own slaves.
"Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came." -- Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865.
By February 1, 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas had also seceded. Soon after, the Civil War began. As the war progressed, Lincoln moved closer to committing himself and the nation to the abolitionist movement and, in 1863, finally signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The document freed slaves in the Confederate states, but did not address the legality of slavery in the loyal slave states of Missouri, Maryland, Kentucky and Delaware.
"You think slavery is right and should be extended; while we think slavery is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us." -- The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume IV, "Letter to Alexander H. Stephens" (December 22, 1860), p. 160. (Stephens was the future Confederate vice-president.)
Lincoln was the tallest president at 6’ 4.” As a young man, he impressed others with his sheer physical strength--he was a legendary wrestler in Illinois--and entertained friends and strangers alike with his dry, folksy wit, which was still in evidence years later.
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/6663/abrahamlincolnonthepennij6.jpg
Lincoln is the only person to appear on both sides of a US coin
Exasperated by one Civil War military defeat after another, Lincoln wrote to la ethargic general “if you are not using the army I should like to borrow it for awhile.” An animal lover, Lincoln once declared, "I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it."
Fittingly, a variety of pets took up residence at the Lincoln White House, including a pet turkey named Jack and a goat called Nanko. Lincoln’s son Tad frequently hitched Nanko to a small wagon and drove around the White House grounds.
Lincoln’s sense of humor may have helped him to hide recurring bouts of depression. He admitted to friends and colleagues that he suffered from “intense melancholia” and hypochondria most of his adult life. Perhaps in order to cope with it, Lincoln engaged in self-effacing humor, even chiding himself about his famously homely looks.
When an opponent in an 1858 Senate race debate called him “two-faced,” he replied, “If I had another face do you think I would wear this one?”
Lincoln is remembered as “The Great Emancipator.” Although he waffled on the subject of slavery in the early years of his presidency, his greatest legacy was saving the federal union and his signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
"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 we 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 achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." -- Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865.
To Confederate sympathizers, however, Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation reinforced his image as a hated despot and ultimately led John Wilkes Booth to assassinate him on April 14, 1865. His favorite horse, Old Bob, pulled his funeral hearse.
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/6950/abeussabrahamlincolnco7.jpg
CVN-72 USS Abraham Lincoln. 425 acres of sovereign US territory able to bring combat power against virtually any target on the planet. Site of GWB's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech.
http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/637/insane7zoao4.jpg