Abraham Lincoln Accomplishments

Clayton Biggerstaff

Renita Peeler

ENG-231-352

14 November 2017

Abraham Lincoln Since being assassinated while serving as the president of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln is arguably considered one of the most influential presidents in the history of this country. In this paper, I will talk about Abraham Lincoln’s life, accomplishments and obstacles along the way. Abraham Lincoln was born February 12th, 1809 to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks. Abraham was named after his grandfather Captain Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln had two siblings. An older sister named Sarah, and a younger brother named Thomas. Sadly, young Thomas Lincoln passed away in infancy. In 1817, Thomas Lincoln Sr. moved his family to Indiana after a fight over

Nancy Lincoln’s death greatly affected both of her children, but in different ways. Nancy had taught Sarah how to do many chores around the house and following her death, Sarah had to take over her mother’s role in taking care of the home. This was only worsened as she had to help prepare her mother’s body to be buried. It affected Abraham in a different way than Sarah because he was very close to his mother. Following her death Abraham grew further and further from his father. Being a young man, Abraham was not fond of doing the hard work around the farm that his father needed him to do. Only a year after his mother’s death, Abraham’s father was remarried to a widow from Kentucky. Abraham’s new step-mother was named Sarah Bush Johnston, she had three children of her own. Step-mother Sarah was very loving and showed Abraham a lot of attention. They bonded very well. Step-mother Sarah encouraged Abraham to strengthen his reading skills. This was not easy to do though because where the family lived, reading materials were not very easy to come about. In 1830 the family moved again. This time to Macon County, Illinois. It wasn’t until his father moved the family

At that time he was elected to the Illinois state legislature. He was elected as a member of the Whig party. While on the state legislature, Lincoln began to form his own early views of slavery. His views were not what we remember Abraham Lincoln for today. Lincoln viewed slavery as an economic development (biography.com). It was during this time that Lincoln began to study law, which he had an interest in from an early age. Lincoln found that working as a lawyer, he could make a living for himself, at least for the first while. Soon he would start to serve in various seats in the county government for extra income. In the year 1847, Abraham Lincoln began to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. This was a short-lived career, as it would end in 1849, after just a single term. He was the only member of the Whig party to serve in the House of Representatives who was from Illinois. He didn’t make very many friends during this time but stood strong to the Whig party. He showed his dissatisfaction with the Mexican-American war. This did not make him very popular back home, which is the main reason he decided not to run for a second term. He went back home to Springfield, Illinois to continue to study law. As the railroad began to move further west and as many companies moved to Illinois, Lincoln began to work with the railroad company, as their lawyer. Working as the lawyer for the Illinois Central Railroad, Abraham began to