THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Part I: Abraham Lincoln’s Childhood
Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809 in a log cabin in Kentucky.
The soil was rich there.
Abraham's father, Thomas Lincoln, knew the soil was good for growing farm crops, too.
He cleared the land and farmed it.
Thomas had difficulty keeping his land in Kentucky.
When Abraham was seven, the Lincoln family moved to Indiana.
Abraham's father could buy inexpensive land from the government.
The Lincolns, like many other pioneer families, lived a hard life.
Young Abraham went to school, but only in the late fall and winter.
That was when there were fewer chores around the house and farm to do.
He walked several miles to his one-room schoolhouse.
Abraham loved to read and learn about new things.
About two years after the Lincolns settled in Indiana, Abraham's mother became very sick and died.
Abraham's father then married Sally Johnston.
Sally's husband also had died, and left her with three children.
Sally and Abraham liked each other immediately.
She made certain that he went to school whenever possible.
Abraham became well known in his Indiana community as a scholar and a person eager to learn new things.
He also became known as a hard working and very strong young man.
In 1828, when he was 19, he and a friend traveled down the Mississippi River.
Theywere taking a load of farm crops to the city of New Orleans.
He saw a slave market, where African-Americans were bought and sold.
He couldn't understand how people could treat their fellow human beings so terribly.

Part II: Shopkeeper, Soldier, Politician & Laywer
1830, the Lincolns moved to New Salem, Illinois. Now
Abraham was 21, and ready to set out on his own.
He worked as a clerk in a small store, surveyed land, and became a postmaster.
Abraham also became known for his honesty.
Once, a customer left behind a small amount of tea she had bought.
It was worth only a few pennies.
He walked more than ten miles to the woman's house to make certain that she got it.
He became known far and wide as "Honest Abe."

Black Hawk Wars
In the early 1830s, a Native-American leader, Chief Black Hawk, fought Illinois settlers.
He was trying to take back Native-American homelands in northwestern Illinois.
The Sauk Indians, had been pushed off their lands.
They had been forced to resettle west of the Mississippi River.
Abe, along with some other men from New Salem, volunteered to help push the Indians back across the Mississippi River,
The men from New Salem elected Abe as their captain.
He proved to be an excellent military officer.

His reputation as an outstanding leader began to spread throughout central Illinois.
Several years later, he was elected him to the state legislature in Vandalia,
"Honest Abe" helped decide what laws should be made for his state.
Abraham Lincoln also helped make plans to build railroads in the state.
Abraham also made his first speeches against slavery.

Abraham continued to read and study, particularly law books.
He became a lawyer.
Abraham moved to Springfield, where Illinois' new state capitol was located.
He became a partner in a law firm there.
Abraham was a "circuit" or "traveling" lawyer.
He traveled throughout east-central Illinois.
His reputation for honesty and intelligence continued to grow.
In 1842, he married Mary Todd.
Two years later, they settled into a comfortable home in Springfield.
In the Illinois Supreme Court, he represented large, powerful companies and common, everyday folk.
He became famous for making complicated, hard-to-understand cases easy to understand.
This was a  time when new states were being added to our country.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates
In 1854, Stephen A. Douglas was a famous United States senator from Illinois.
He said that each new state should decide for itself whether it would allow slavery.
Abraham, thought that the new states shouldn't have a choice.
He said there should be no more slaves.
In 1856, Lincoln's political party gathered in Springfield and chose him to run against Senator Douglas.
Abraham’s nomination led to a series of famous debates, called the “Lincoln-Douglas debates.”
During the debates the two men discussed their views of slavery.
Abraham did so well in the debates he almost won the election.
But Senator Douglas was re-elected.
The debates made Abraham Lincoln famous throughout the country.

Presidental Election
Two years later, at a convention center in Chicago, he was named the Republican nominee for president.
People all over the country discussed who should be elected.
Some in the South said if Abraham were elected, they would encourage their states to break away from the United States.
They would form another country called the Confederate States of America.
Abraham did win.
By the time he was sworn in as president, six Southern states had already withdrawn from the union.

Part III: Civil War President
Southern soldiers attacked a U.S. fort at Ft. Sumter, South Carolina.
It was the first battle of the American Civil War.
President Lincoln immediately began building up the Union army.
He wanted to prevent the South from breaking away
He said it would be terrible not only for the people of the United States, but also for people everywhere else in the world.
Many foreign kings and queens didn't want freedom for their people.
They wanted all the power for themselves and their children.
President Lincoln felt that if the South won, it could mean the end of democracy in the world.|
The North had big cities that could supply thousands of soldiers.
The North had large factories that could make powerful weapons.
Most people felt that the war would be short and that the South would be defeated easily.
During the first major battle the South showed that the Confederate Army would not be easily defeated.
General Robert E. Lee, a very skillful military leader, led the Confederate army.
President Lincoln couldn't find a general whose skills matched those of General Lee.
First, he tried General George McLennan.
Then General John Pope.
Then General Ambrose Burnside.
Then, General John Hooker.
Finally, General Ulysses S. Grant proved to be the right man for the job.
Abraham Lincoln faced other difficulties as president.
He was criticized in the nation's newspapers.
They wrongly accused him of being a weak leader.
Abraham Lincoln proved his critics wrong.
In 1862, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, the first step in freeing all the slaves.
The war continued for almost three more years.
In April, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses Grant and the war ended.
Once again, the United States of America became a nation united.
African-Americans, now free, began their long march toward equal treatment under the law.