Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky, a slave state, in 1809. His family moved to Indiana and then to Illinois. His mother, Nancy Hanks, died when he was a boy. His father traveled back to Kentucky to propose to a woman named Sarah, who accepted. She taught Abraham to read from the bible, the only book in the cabin.
Lincoln never wrote much about his early years–other than to say his story could be found in “the annals of the poor.” He came from very humble beginnings. After the family moved, his father set to work building a small log cabin.
In the meantime, where did the family sleep? In a three-sided brush structure–brush was piled up on three sides. One side was left open and that’s where they made a fire. The shelter was barely any protection against rain or snow. They lived like this for nine months until the little cabin was finished.
One of the things people like about Lincoln is his humble beginnings. He came from the poor and was no stranger to hard physical labor. Although there is a saying that anyone can grow up to be president, we also know that wealth and social status often play a big role.
For America to have a president who had no such advantages of money, reaffirms our belief that America is indeed the land of opportunity. His story reaffirms our belief that through hard work and dedication, anybody—even a person from the humblest beginnings–can still make a valuable contribution to society.
Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution are documents expressing a new philosophy, that a society can be based on the majority will of the people and on the talent and efforts of individual Americans.
Lincoln came from the working class and never forsook them; he understood that America’s success as a nation, as a national experiment in democracy, rested on the shoulders of those who did physical labor, as he himself had done.
When commenting on the role of “capital” (money) and “labor” and which of the two was more important, he said labor was—because labor existed prior to and independently of capital.
He explained that the role of capital is not possible without the existence and prior productivity of labor itself. A working man understands these matters with his hands and his heart as well as his mind.
But as fascinating are the many tales from his growing up years, they form only part of the story of Abraham Lincoln. It is what he did with his life that ultimately matters more than where he was born or how he lived as a child. It is the philosophy that he developed that endeared him to millions of his countrymen; it was his principled stand against slavery and his courageous leadership as president that truly elevates the story of Lincoln to legend.
Yet the simple man with the humble start in life never entirely disappears; his humility stays with him. There are no charges made, even by his political enemies, that he ever became arrogant or vain; he remained connected to the land and to the people. He never let the lure of money or the arrogance of power tempt him away from his firm belief that America was on a journey toward a broader and more inclusive democracy.
Lincoln hated slavery because it was wrong to treat any human beings in such a manner and because he believed Black people were laborers who should be entitled to enjoy the fruits of their own labor. He pinned his personal philosophy on Jefferson’s statement that “All men are created equal”.
Early on he resolved to make a stand based upon this simple principle, and he never abandoned that viewpoint for the rest of his life. As a worker, as a store clerk, as a lawyer, as a congressman and as president, he let these words guide him in all that he said and did. He had common sense as well as a great intellect; he used his own life’s experiences, his knowledge of people and human nature, to help him chart his course.
His life and that of the nation became closely interwoven with one another–the fight against slavery and the growth of Lincoln have become inseparable. When all is said and done, we understand that Lincoln guided the ship of state through its most perilous hour; that he kept the country united while the armies of the North delivered a smashing death blow to slavery; and to accomplish these twin goals, he was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice: his own life.
From the Gettysburg Address delivered on Nov. 19, 1863
(the dedication of the Gettysburg Battlefield as a national military cemetery)
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure . . . that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain–that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
The Civil War ended on April 9, 1865. Five days later, Lincoln was shot. He lingered through the night, never regaining consciousness, and expired the next morning. Around him his friends waited with heavy hearts.
When Lincoln died, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton stated simply: “Now he belongs to the ages.”
The story of Abraham Lincoln has been passed on ever since, from one generation to the next, from me to you. There is no telling how far his influence will extend into the future!
And this, too, is part of our nation’s history: the story of how a barefoot pioneer boy from the backwoods of frontier America–with an axe in his hand for chopping down trees to make fences and an irrepressible and exuberant love for life–kept his promise to be true to America’s greatest principle:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
In Memory
Abraham Lincoln
1809-1865
“NOW HE BELONGS TO THE AGES.”
