While Abraham Lincoln may best be known as the President who served during the Civil War and was the author and presenter of the Emancipation Proclamation, he led a very private life that often times, due to his wife’s behavior, became public.
Lincoln helped form the Republican Party to help take a stance on the issue of slavery; mainly in opposition of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. . As a boy and young adult, Lincoln himself, was farmed out to work for other people while his father kept all of the money. This kind of indentured servitude lasted until Lincoln took his first job and, as soon as he made some money, left home to work in a store and lived in the store’s backroom.
While the reputation “honest Abe” is still used to describe Lincoln today, he was honest in all ways, both good and bad. Legend has it when Lincoln visited a “call girl” he did not have enough money to pay her and walked out without the use of her services, even though she offered to extend credit to him. He also was engaged several times before marrying Mary Todd. In one of his engagements, he broke off the relationship because some time had passed and when he was reunited with his love interest, noted that she had changed so much he was no longer attracted to her. His first love, though, would introduce him to tragedy. She died while they were engaged. Lincoln would have a very tragic life encompassed with death. His son, Willie, died while he was in the White House, and later Lincoln himself, died while he was serving as President.
In love and in life, Lincoln had one main rival: Steven Douglas. Douglas, a Democrat, had not only constantly battled Lincoln in politics, but he had also dated Mary Todd before she and Lincoln were married. Mary Todd Lincoln came from a wealthy family and was the total opposite of Abraham. She refused to clean the Lincoln ‘s residence, and her arrogance was exhibited when her husband got elected as President. Mary Todd Lincoln was easily swayed by material goods. She received a diamond broach as a gift with the condition that the presenter be given a position in the Lincoln administration. Abraham was insistent that it be returned, but Mary eventually got her way. This would continue throughout her tenure as First Lady. Spending for the re-decoration of the White House got so out of hand, that Lincoln, himself, had to supplement the budget or else explain his wife’s actions to Congress. Later, Mrs. Lincoln was suspected of bribery. While in the White House she was accused of inflating charges of services or billing for goods and services that she did not receive. After her husband died, Lincoln ‘s son sent his mother to an institution due to her declining mental health.
While many people know that the assassination plot in 1865 succeeded and ultimately took Lincoln ‘s life, this was the second plot to assonate him. Ironically, the other one was at the beginning of the Civil War when Lincoln was the President-Elect. This plot was foiled when Lincoln received word of the planned act’s date and time in Baltimore, and to the would-be killers’ dismay, entered the city under the cover of darkness at night a day before he was due to arrive. Unfortunately, the events in Ford’s Theater were not properly planned. Lincoln ‘s bodyguard was away and made Lincoln promise that he would not go anywhere. Also, Lincoln had invited Ulysses Grant, the Union General who one day would be President, but at the last minute Grant cancelled. Had Grant attended, there would have been additional military troops in the boxed seating area, thus strongly thwarting any chance of a successful assignation and escape by the killer, John Wilkes Booth.
By the end of the Civil War, shortly before his death, Lincoln had aged tremendously. He had delivered the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, yet the Civil War lasted until 1865. It would take many years after this time for The Reconstruction to carry out Lincoln ‘s wishes of reuniting the country. While slaves were free, many lived in extreme poverty or chose to stay on their plantations and keep working for their former owners, as they feared being homelessness, hunger, and abuse. Had Lincoln still been in office, The Reconstruction may have played out differently, however, he was fortunate to see changes in his country that were heading in a direction for a more unified nation. A most successful feat for an impoverished child who felt like an indentured servant, Lincoln showed that with hard work, honesty, and perseverance, anything is possible.
