Abraham Lincoln

On Wednesday, February 1st, 1865. The New York Tribune’s front page celebrated our country’s newfound freedom.

This is a copy of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery in the United States, signed by members of the House and Senate. The amendment had passed the Senate in April of 1864, and the House by the necessary two thirds vote, on January 31, 1865. Though he was not…

An engraving published on the cover of the February 18, 1865, edition of Harper's Weekly depicts the scene on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on January 31, 1865, after the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery.

WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Joe Courtney today sent the following letter to director Steve Spielberg and DreamWorks, asking Spielberg to correct an historical inaccuracy in the Academy Award-nominated film, Lincoln, which places Connecticut on the wrong side of the slavery debate and ratification…

This article excerpt discusses the historical accuracy of the film Lincoln by Steven Spielberg.

In this Boston Globe article, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin discusses her reaction to the Hollywood film Lincoln. She discusses the historical accuracy of the movie and what young people might learn from it.

“Freedman’s Bureau.” Shows black man adjusting tie, in front of a “Bureau” with an open drawer. This freeman has a picture of Lincoln on his wall. This carte de visite is a Civil War Pun.

In his first inaugural address, newly elected President Abraham Lincoln addressed the secession of Southern U.S. states and sought to reassure citizens in these states that he would not interfere with slavery in these states and wanted to pursue reconciliation. He also emphasized his support for…

This announcement to the U.S. Army, ordered on April 16, 1865, notified them of President Lincoln's death. The announcement acknowledges the grief and horror surrounding the assassination, as well as the appropriate response for mourning the president.

Inspired by newspaper accounts of Lincoln’s Cooper Union Address, New England Republicans asked Lincoln to speak in their states. He made a whirlwind tour, appearing in eleven cities in twelve days. Lincoln’s frustration at having to prepare at least nine different speeches during his tightly…

In this book review, Manning commends Holzer for his book exploring how and why Abraham Lincoln's Cooper Union speech was important to his ascension to the presidency. She writes about how Lincoln prepared for his speech and his days leading up to delivering the address.

In Mr. Lincoln’s famous address, which many credit with earning him the presidency, Mr. Lincoln argued against the spread of slavery to the Western states. The speech is the subject of a new book by Harold Holzer, Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President, published by…

This brief excerpt from a New York Daily Tribune article written on February 28, 1860, illustrates the media reaction to Lincoln's Cooper Union speech. The author underlines Lincoln's skills as an orator and commends his ability to captivate an audience.

Photographer Mathew Brady took this portrait of Abraham Lincoln at his studio in New York City on the same day that Lincoln gave his now-famous Cooper Union address. Brady retouched the photograph, smoothing facial lines and straightening his subject’s “roving” left eye.

This is the speech that launched Lincoln on the path to the presidency. In October 1859, Lincoln accepted an invitation to lecture at Henry Ward Beecher’s church in Brooklyn, New York. His law partner, William Herndon, wrote, “No former effort in the line of speech-making had cost Lincoln so much…

This undated broadside, highly critical of Abraham Lincoln, was probably published sometime late in 1861. The footnote refers to his secret passage through Baltimore late in February 1861 on his way to Washington to be inaugurated as president on March 4, 1861, but the second stanza also mentions…

This document, a reprint of the original broadside containing the Republican Platform of 1860, was adopted by the National Republican Convention held in Chicago, IL on May 17, 1860. The Republican Party platform during the election of 1860 called for supporting the principles of the Constitution,…

This cruel political cartoon relies on racial stereotypes commonplace in the northern United States as well as the south at this date. Horace Greeley and Abraham Lincoln flank an undersized Black man who wears short pants and supports himself on a staff.

Figure 1 (John Bell): Speech Bubble Text: It appears to me very singular that we three should strike “foul” and be “put out” while old Abe made such a “good lick.” Belt Text: Union Club | Bat Text: Fusion 

 

Summary

President Lincoln addressed the nation in 1862 declaring all enslaved people in rebellious or as we know it, confederate- states free men; it didn't take effect until January 1, 1863. Although this didn’t officially end slavery in the Deep South for many, it became a stepping stone to the…

The Emancipation Proclamation was a document issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, that declared enslaved people in the rebellious states of the Confederacy to be free. It was a significant moment in the American Civil War and is considered one of the most important documents in…

<p><span class="deck"> Did the mysterious Portuguese sea captain help plot Lincoln’s assassination, or was he an informer?</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck">Discreet helpers have worked on the speeches and papers of many Presidents, but a nation in a time of trial will respond best “to the Great Man himself, standing alone”</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"> “The President came forward and the sun burst through the clouds.”</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Without doubt they were Washington, who walked carefully within the Constitution, and Lincoln, who stretched it as far as he dared</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Senator Douglas’ act is verified, at last, by first-hand testimony</span></p>

<p><span class="deck"><span class="typestyle">The draft riots of 1863 turned a great city into a living hell.</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> His shrewd handling of the Radical Republican bid for power at the end of 1862 established him as the unquestioned leader of the Union</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck">Two humble memories—a brakeman‘s and a carpenter’s—bring back the human moments of a nation’s tragedy</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck">Had there been a Warren Commission exactly a century ago, when Abraham Lincoln was shot, its report might have read like the somber, moving, and impressively researched book from which the following narrative is taken.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">So Abraham Lincoln summed up his boyhood in Indiana. Posterity has made of it a romantic legend, spent in a dark, smoky, crowded, deep in the wilderness</span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Faced with war, famine, and bloody revolution, a political wheel horse turned into a first-class ambassador.</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> For some men the only solution to the dilemma of blacks and whites together was for the blacks to go back where they came from</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> The Navy and contractor Smith accused each other of fraud. The Navy won—until the President took a hand</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"> Branded a traitor by the government he once served, John C. Breckinridge ran a perilous race for freedom rather than risk capture by the North</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"> WAR WAS DAYS AWAY, A UNION STRONGHOLD WAS THREATENED, AND THROUGH A FOG OF RUMOR, DOUBT, CONTRADICTORY ORDERS, AND OUTRIGHT LIES THE ARMY AND NAVY SET OUT TO HELP</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"> Carl Fisher thought Americans should be able to drive across their country, but it took a decade and a world war to finish his road</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> The Union desperately needed an extraordinary warship to counter the ironclad the Confederates were building</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> “It is astonishing that the murderous practice of duelling should continue so long in vogue,” said Benjamin Franklin. Yet continue it did, often with peculiarly American variations</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Would the great fighter come over for the Union? Italian freedom and lead troops Lincoln hoped so</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Miriam Follin had a penchant for diamonds, the demimonde, and the dramatic. She also possessed the business acumen to become one of America’s leading publishers in the nineteenth century</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> Vinnie Ream sculptured Lincoln while she was still a teen-ager</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"> Why, that’s George Billings.</span> </p>