Abraham Lincoln Research Paper Thesis

Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth President of the United States. “He was born Feb 12, 1809, in Hardin Country, Kentucky. His parents were Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Thomas was a strong and determined pioneer who found a moderate level of prosperity and was well respected in the community. When young Abraham was 9 years old, his mother died of tremetol (milk sickness) at age 34. The event was devastating on him and young Abraham grew more alienated from his father and quietly resented the hard work placed on him at an early age. A few months after Nancy's death, Thomas married Sarah Bush Johnston, a Kentucky widow with three children of her own. She was a strong and affectionate woman with whom Abraham quickly bonded. Though

“In 1836, Abraham Lincoln found himself in a tenuous situation. He was engaged to a woman he barely knew and didn’t want to marry. Mrs. Elizabeth Abell had been pushing for a romance between Lincoln and her sister, Mary Owens, whom Lincoln had met briefly in 1833. When Elizabeth went home to visit her family in Kentucky three years later, she said she would bring Mary back to Illinois if Lincoln would agree to marry her. Lincoln jokingly agreed. He realized the consequences of his rash statement when Mary came to New Salem and considered herself engaged. Lincoln immediately regretted his promise, and his papers record his objections to the woman’s appearance, weight, and temperament. Too honorable to simply break the engagement, Lincoln wrote three letters to Mary during their engagement, painting a bleak image of their future and subtly suggesting that she could do better.

There the smart, outgoing young woman attracted a number of admirers, including Stephen Douglas and up-and-coming politician and lawyer named Abraham Lincoln. Her family did not approve of the match—Abraham was nine years older than Mary, had little formal education and came from a poor background.” “On November 4, 1842 Abraham and Mary married. The couple had four children, of which only one, Robert, survived to adulthood.”

Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation “on January 1, 1863, which stated that all individuals who were held as slaves in rebellious states "henceforward shall be free." The action was more symbolic than effective because the North didn’t control any states in rebellion and the proclamation didn’t apply to Border States.”

“Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, by well-known actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. Lincoln was taken from the theater to a Petersen House across the street and laid in a coma for nine hours before dying the next morning. His body lay in state at the Capitol before a funeral train took him back to his final resting place in Springfield, Illinois.” . “After her husband's assassination, Mary fell into a deep depression and her surviving son, Robert Todd Lincoln, had her temporarily committed. She died in