President Abraham Lincoln

“I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created equal and free.” – Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was a great man who led America through its most challenging chapter as a nation, from fracturing and dividing to being whole again, if not in spirit, at least in body. But he was also a good man for how he lived. People called him “Honest Abe.” It was a well-earned nickname. Integrity is easy when little is at stake, but Lincoln held to the principle even when it cost him.

The lesson to live this way came from his mother. Though their time together had been short, as she passed away when he was nine, she made a profound impact. Unwavering integrity, a passion for fairness, discipline, and a deep respect for the Divine were her lessons that formed the bedrock of his character. And living in the frontier with few education options, it was his mother who taught him to read and write. “All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother – blessings on her memory,” Lincoln would say.

These values became evident from the onset of his political life. In 1836, at just 27 and still young in his political career, Lincoln was offered a favor by a colonel. The colonel had come across information he claimed would damage Lincoln’s political aspirations. He offered to not share the information.

Lincoln didn’t take the offer. He wrote the man a letter. “Favour to me would be injustice to the public, and therefore I must beg your pardon for declining it.”

Yet, for all his moral conviction, Lincoln was not without flaws. His life and career were marked by many mistakes. He doubted himself. He misjudged people. Made decisions he later regretted. He picked fights, once even finding himself challenged to a duel. It was called off when the opposing man saw how much bigger and stronger Lincoln was, as they were supposed to fight with swords.

But Lincoln would admit his failings, speaking about them honestly. That disarmed critics and endeared him to the public. And, just as importantly, he learned. He grew.

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I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.” – Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln’s political life began in Illinois, where he moved at twenty-two. The next year, in 1832, he ran for the Illinois General Assembly and lost — finishing eighth in a field of thirteen. But in New Salem, the small village where he’d been living barely a year, he took 277 of the 300 votes cast. The lesson was clear: people who knew him, trusted him. He needed to be known more widely. Over the next two years, he worked as postmaster and as a county surveyor, and built a reputation. In 1834, he ran again. This time he won. He would hold the seat for four successive terms before turning his focus to the practice of law.

The years passed, and by the 1850s, the issue of slavery dominated the discourse of American politics. Arguments and legislation around enslaved fugitives and the expansion of slave states divided the nation. Then came the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which allowed settlers in the territories to decide whether to allow slavery, further intensifying the national debate. Lincoln responded to this Act by saying that it “declared indifference, but as I must think, a covert real zeal for the spread of slavery. I cannot but hate it. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world.”

At this point, Lincoln found himself drawn back into politics. His vocal opposition to the 1854 Act led to famous debates with Senator Stephen A. Douglas in 1858 as they vied for a Senate seat. While Lincoln lost the race, the debates gave him a national profile.

In 1860, the Republican Party nominated Lincoln as their candidate for the Presidency. Lincoln’s nomination was met with severe opposition from Southern states. He had an anti-slavery stance and had said in a debate with Douglas in 1858, “This government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. As a result, the Southern states banned his name from being on their ballots. Lincoln still won with just under 40% of the popular vote, becoming the 16th President of the United States.

When he left for D.C., Lincoln told the gathered crowd in his hometown of Springfield, Illinois,

“No one can realize the sadness I feel at this parting. Here have I lived more than a quarter of a century. Here my children were born, and here one of them lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see you again. I go to assume a task more difficult than that which has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington. He never would have succeeded but for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which at all times he relied. . . . I hope you, my dear friends, will all pray that I may receive that Divine assistance without which I cannot succeed, but with which success is certain.”

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“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” – Abraham Lincoln

Seven Southern states had already seceded from the Union when Lincoln took office in March 1861. He tried to calm tensions, pledging not to interfere with slavery where it existed while firmly declaring that secession was illegal. The pleas for unity went unanswered. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter. The Civil War had begun.