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Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in a one-room log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky; his family moved to southern Indiana in 1816. Lincoln's formal schooling was limited to three brief periods in local schools, as he had to work constantly to support his family. 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. 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. 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. Lincoln taught himself law, passing the bar examination in 1836. The following year, he moved to the newly named state capital of Springfield. For the next few years, he worked there as a lawyer, earning a reputation as "Honest Abe" and serving clients ranging from individual residents of small towns to national railroad lines. 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.
A Wartime President
In the general election, Lincoln again faced Douglas, who represented the northern Democrats; southern Democrats had nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, while John Bell ran for the brand new Constitutional Union Party. With Breckenridge and Bell splitting the vote in the South, Lincoln won most of the North and carried the Electoral College. After years of sectional tensions, the election of an antislavery northerner as the 16th president of the United States drove many southerners over the brink, and by the time Lincoln was inaugurated in March 1861 seven southern states had seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. After Lincoln ordered a fleet of Union ships to supply South Carolina's Fort Sumter in April, the Confederates fired on both the fort and the Union fleet, beginning the Civil War. Hopes for a quick Union victory were dashed by defeat in the Battle of Bull Run (Manassas), and Lincoln called for 500,000 more troops as both sides settled in for a long conflict. While the Confederate leader Jefferson Davis was a West Point graduate, Mexican War hero and former secretary of war, Lincoln had only a brief and undistinguished period of service in the Black Hawk War (1832) to his credit. He
surprised many by proving to be a more than capable wartime leader, learning quickly about strategy and tactics in the early years of the Civil War, and about choosing the ablest commanders. General George McClellan, though beloved by his troops, continually frustrated Lincoln with his reluctance to advance, and when McClellan failed to pursue Robert E. Lee's retreating Confederate Army in the aftermath of the Union victory at Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln removed him from command. During the war, Lincoln drew criticism for suspending some civil liberties, including the right of habeas corpus, but he considered such measures necessary to win the war.