Wednesday, 03 de December de 2008
Abraham Lincoln 3

Assassination

Main article: Abraham Lincoln assassination
Further information: Abraham Lincoln's burial and exhumation
The assassination of Abraham Lincoln. From left to right: Henry Rathbone, Clara Harris, Mary Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth

Originally, John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and a Confederate spy from Maryland, had formulated a plan to kidnap Lincoln in exchange for the release of Confederate prisoners. After attending an April 11 speech in which Lincoln promoted voting rights for blacks, an incensed Booth changed his plans and determined to assassinate the president.[64] Learning that the President and First Lady would be attending Ford's Theatre, he laid his plans, assigning his co-conspirators to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward.

Without his main bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon, to whom he related his famous dream regarding his own assassination, Lincoln left to attend the play Our American Cousin on April 14, 1865. As a lone bodyguard wandered, and Lincoln sat in his state box (Box 7) in the balcony, Booth crept up behind the President and waited for what he thought would be the funniest line of the play ("You sock-dologizing old man-trap"), hoping the laughter would muffle the noise of the gunshot. When the laughter began, Booth jumped into the box and aimed a single-shot, round-slug 0.44 caliber Henry Deringer at his head, firing at point-blank range. Major Henry Rathbone momentarily grappled with Booth but was cut by Booth's knife. Booth then leapt to the stage and shouted "Sic semper tyrannis!" (Latin: Thus always to tyrants) and escaped, despite a broken leg suffered in the leap.[65] A twelve-day manhunt ensued, in which Booth was chased by Federal agents (under the direction of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton). He was eventually cornered in a Virginia barn house and shot, dying of his wounds soon after.

Lincoln's funeral train carried his remains, as well as 300 mourners and the casket of his son, William, 1,654 miles (2,661 km) to Illinois

An army surgeon, Doctor Charles Leale, initially assessed Lincoln's wound as mortal. The President was taken across the street from the theater to the Petersen House, where he lay in a coma for nine hours before dying. Several physicians attended Lincoln, including U.S. Army Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes of the Army Medical Museum. Using a probe, Barnes located some fragments of Lincoln's skull and the ball lodged 6 inches (15 cm) inside his brain. Lincoln never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead at 7:22:10 a.m. April 15, 1865. There is some disagreement among historians as to Stanton's words after Lincoln died. All agree that he began "Now he belongs to the..." with some stating he said "ages" while others believe he said "angels."[65] After Lincoln's body was returned to the White House, a brain-only autopsy was performed, and his body was prepared for his lying in repose in the East Room. He was the first president to be assassinated or to lie in state.

The Army Medical Museum, now named the National Museum of Health and Medicine, has retained in its collection several artifacts relating to the assassination. Currently on display are the bullet that was fired from the Philadelphia Deringer pistol, the probe used by Barnes, pieces of Lincoln's skull and hair, and the surgeon's cuff stained with Lincoln's blood. The chair in which Lincoln was shot is on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, Michigan.

Lincoln's body was carried by train in a grand funeral procession through several states on its way back to Illinois.[65] While much of the nation mourned him as the savior of the United States, Copperheads celebrated the death of a man they considered a tyrant. The Lincoln Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, is 177 feet (54 m) tall and, by 1874, was surmounted with several bronze statues of Lincoln. To prevent repeated attempts to steal Lincoln's body and hold it for ransom, Robert Todd Lincoln had Lincoln exhumed and reinterred in concrete several feet thick in 1901.

 

Presidential appointments

 

Administration and cabinet

Lincoln was known for appointing political rivals to high positions in his cabinet to keep in line all factions of his party — and to let them battle each other and not combine against him. Historians agree that, except for Simon Cameron, it was a highly effective group.

Portrait of Lincoln by George P.A. Healy
The Lincoln Cabinet
OfficeNameTerm
President Abraham Lincoln 1861–1865
Vice President Hannibal Hamlin 1861–1865
Andrew Johnson 1865
Secretary of State William H. Seward 1861–1865
Secretary of Treasury Salmon P. Chase 1861–1864
William P. Fessenden 1864–1865
Hugh McCulloch 1865
Secretary of War Simon Cameron 1861–1862
Edwin M. Stanton 1862–1865
Attorney General Edward Bates 1861–1864
James Speed 1864–1865
Postmaster General Montgomery Blair 1861–1864
William Dennison 1864–1865
Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles 1861–1865
Secretary of the Interior Caleb B. Smith 1861–1862
John P. Usher 1863–1865


Supreme Court

Lincoln appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:

Major presidential acts

While Lincoln is usually portrayed bearded, he first grew a beard in late 1860, at the suggestion of 11-year-old Grace Bedell and others

 

Signed as President

 

States admitted to the Union

 

Religious and philosophical beliefs

Further information: Abraham Lincoln and religion

In March 1860 in a speech in New Haven, Connecticut, Lincoln said, with respect to slavery, “Whenever this question shall be settled, it must be settled on some philosophical basis. No policy that does not rest upon some philosophical public opinion can be permanently maintained." The philosophical basis for Lincoln’s beliefs regarding slavery and other issues of the day require that Lincoln be examined "seriously as a man of ideas." Lincoln was a strong supporter of the American Whig version of liberal capitalism who, more than most politicians of the time, was able to express his ideas within the context of Nineteenth Century religious beliefs.[66]

There were few people who strongly or directly influenced Lincoln’s moral and intellectual development and perspectives. There was no teacher, mentor, church leader, community leader, or peer that Lincoln would credit in later years as a strong influence on his intellectual development. Lacking a formal education, Lincoln’s personal philosophy was shaped by "an amazingly retentive memory and a passion for reading and learning." It was Lincoln’s reading, rather than his relationships, that were most influential in shaping his personal beliefs.[67][68]

Lincoln did, even as a boy, largely reject organized religion, but the Calvinistic "doctrine of necessity" would remain a factor throughout his life. In 1846 Lincoln described the effect of this doctrine as "that the human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest by some power, over which the mind itself has no control."[69] In April 1864, in justifying his actions in regard to Emancipation, Lincoln wrote, "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it."[70]

As Lincoln matured, and especially during his term as president, the idea of a divine will somehow interacting with human affairs more and more influenced his public expressions. On a personal level, the death of his son Willie in February 1862 may have caused Lincoln to look towards religion for answers and solace.[71] After Willie’s death, in the summer or early fall of 1862, Lincoln attempted to put on paper his private musings on why, from a divine standpoint, the severity of the war was necessary:

The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party—and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect his purpose. I am almost ready to say this is probably true—that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere quiet power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.[72]

Lincoln’s religious skepticism was fueled by his exposure to the ideas of the Lockean Enlightenment and classical liberalism, especially economic liberalism.[67] Consistent with the common practice of the Whig party, Lincoln would often use the Declaration of Independence as the philosophical and moral expression of these two philosophies.[73] In a February 22, 1861 speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia Lincoln said,

I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. … It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland; but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. This is a sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence.[74]

He found in the Declaration justification for Whig economic policy and opposition to territorial expansion and the nativist platform of the Know Nothings. In claiming that all men were created free, Lincoln and the Whigs argued that this freedom required economic advancement, expanded education, territory to grow, and the ability of the nation to absorb the growing immigrant population.[75]

It was the Declaration of Independence, rather than the Bible, that Lincoln most relied on in order to oppose any further territorial expansion of slavery. He saw the Declaration as more than a political document. To him, as well as to many abolitionists and other antislavery leaders, it was, foremost, a moral document that had forever determined valuable criteria in shaping the future of the nation.[76]

 

Legacy and memorials

Further information: Cultural depictions of Abraham Lincoln
The Apotheosis of Abraham Lincoln, greeted by George Washington in heaven (an 1860s work)

Lincoln's death made the President a martyr to many. Repeated polls of historians have ranked Lincoln as among the greatest presidents in U.S. history, often appearing in the first position. Among contemporary admirers, Lincoln is usually seen as personifying classical values of honesty and integrity, as well as respect for individual and minority rights, and human freedom in general.

Many American organizations of all purposes and agendas continue to cite his name and image, with interests ranging from the gay rights-supporting Log Cabin Republicans to the insurance corporation Lincoln National Corporation. The Lincoln automobile is also named after him. The ballistic missile submarine Abraham Lincoln (SSBN-602) and the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) were named in his honor. Also, the Liberty ship SS Nancy Hanks was named for his mother. During the Spanish Civil War, the American faction of the International Brigades named themselves the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

Lincoln has been memorialized in many city names, notably the capital of Nebraska. Lincoln, Illinois, is the only city to be named for Abraham Lincoln before he became President. Lincoln's name and image appear in numerous places. These include the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Lincoln $5 bill and the Lincoln cent, Lincoln's sculpture on the Mount Rushmore, and the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, Illinois. In addition, New Salem, Illinois (a reconstruction of Lincoln's early adult hometown), Ford's Theatre, and Petersen House (where he died) are all preserved as museums. The Lincoln Shrine in Redlands, California, is located behind the A.K. Smiley Public Library. The state nickname for Illinois is Land of Lincoln; the slogan has appeared continuously on nearly all Illinois license plates issued since 1954.

Counties in 18 U.S. states (Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, West Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming) are named after Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln's birthday, February 12, was formerly a national holiday, now commemorated as Presidents' Day. However, it is still observed in Illinois and many other states as a separate legal holiday, Lincoln's Birthday. A dozen states have legal holidays celebrating the third Monday in February as 'Presidents' Day' as a combination Washington-Lincoln Day.

To commemorate his upcoming 200th birthday in February 2009, Congress established the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission (ALBC) in 2000. Dedicated to renewing American appreciation of Lincoln’s legacy, the 15-member commission is made up of lawmakers and scholars and also features an advisory board of over 130 various Lincoln historians and enthusiasts. Located at Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., the ALBC is the organizing force behind numerous tributes, programs and cultural events highlighting a two-year celebration scheduled to begin in February 2008 at Lincoln’s birthplace: Hodgenville, Kentucky.

Lincoln's birthplace and family home are national historic memorials: the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site in Hodgenville, and the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, Illinois. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum opened in Springfield in 2005; it is a major tourist attraction, with state-of-the-art exhibits. The Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery is located in Elwood, Illinois.

Portrait of Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln's portrait on the American five dollar bill

The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Daniel Chester French's sculpture inside the Lincoln Memorial

Lincoln's likeness on Mount Rushmore

Proof-quality Lincoln penny with cameo effect, obverse

Lincoln stamp, issued November 19, 1965

The Lincoln Tomb in Springfield

Lincoln's likeness and name on Illinois license plate

Lincoln on the Illinois design of the 50 State Quarters, issued in 2003

 

Electoral history

Illinois' 7th congressional district, 1846[77]

1856 Republican National Convention (Vice Presidential tally):[78]

Illinois United States Senate election, 1858:[79]

1860 Republican National Convention (Final Results on 3rd Ballot):[80]

United States presidential election, 1860

United States presidential election, 1864

 

See also

Military of the United States portal

 

Homepage Previus page

Tags: Lincoln, War, slavery, state, Party, nation, made

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