An Intimate Portrait of our 16th President

It seems every Lincoln biography is intrinsically linked to the Civil War.  Not so, with Jon Meacham's intimate portrait of our 16th  president. Yes, Meacham's biography discuses the Civil War, but only as its relates to Lincoln's character as president.  The heart and soul of Meacham's biography is Lincoln's growth as a lawyer, politician, and president.  The key to Lincoln's life is the effect scripture would have on his development as a thinker and writer.  For example, Lincoln was a life-long Bible reader who, as our nation's 16th president, regularly attended church services in Washington D.C., and, in the White House, got down on his hands and knees to pray to God for a Union victory at Gettysburg.

Meacham's overriding message is of a moral man who, against great odds, rose from childhood poverty, and throughout his life dealt with self-doubt and bouts of depression, who would become our embattled 16th president, and not rest until southern slavery was ended.

The highlight of Meacham's book is his analyses of Lincoln's three major speeches: at Cooper Union in New York City, the Gettysburg Address, and the Second Inaugural. Meacham also analyzes Lincoln's war-changing Emancipation Proclamation (escaped slaves coupled with newl-arrived emigrants helped fill the depleted ranks of the Union Army, and thus helped the North win the war).  He breaks down the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, and shows how Lincoln prevailed over Stephen Douglas, a better-educated political opponent.

Lincoln's early life was not promising.  He was born in a log cabin in the hill country of rural Kentucky.  His father was an uneducated dirt farmer, who did not think much of his son's interest in books and learning. While a hard man to please, Lincoln's father was an abolitionist, who had his family regularly attend an anti-slavery Baptist Church. Lincoln's mother died suddenly when he was nine. This was after the Lincoln family had moved to the more fertile fields of southern Indiana.  Soon thereafter, his father met and married Sarah Bush, who immediately recognized that young Abe was unusually bright, and encouraged him to pursue learning. Meacham writes a great deal about Lincoln's love of books and his life-long pursuit of learning.  Critically, from a very young age, Lincoln opposed slavery; the very sight of manacled African Americans would make him ill.

When Lincoln was a teen his family moved to New Salem, Illinois, where Lincoln would grow into manhood.  All the while, Lincoln was wracked with doubt, and occasionally suffered from depression.

As a young man, politics consumed Lincoln's interest, and he ran for and won a seat in the Illinois State Legislature.  While living in the state capital, he became an admirer of the leader of the Whig Party, Senator Henry Clay, the reknown abolitionist.  After leaving office, Lincoln moved to Springfield, and took up the study of law.  Having passed the bar exam, he began riding the state's southern circuit, as a successful country lawyer.

At age 31, Lincoln married a woman from a prominent Kentucky family. This was Mary Todd, an attractive, and witty young lady, with a volcanic temper. Despite their stormy relationship, the two were wed, and had four sons (only one of whom lived to manhood).  At the same time, the nation was becoming increasingly embroiled over the issue of slavery, particularly after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, a law that was written by a northeast Congressman, who now resided in Springfield -- a pro-slavery advocate named Stephen A. Douglas.  After hearing Douglas speak in public several times, Lincoln proposed the two begin a public debate.  Douglas accepted, and the two traveled throughout Illinois, debating the volatile issue of slavery. These were, of course, the famed Lincoln-Douglas debates that would make Lincoln a national political figure.

To help promote himself, Lincoln accepted a speaking engagement at Cooper Union, in New York City.  The sophisticated New Yorkers came away deeply impressed with what this midwesterner had to say, especially about the slavery issue that was dividing the nation.  After that Lincoln continued his speaking tour throughout the northeast.

The following summer, on the third ballot, the Republican party nominated Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for president.  At this point, the nation was very much aware of Lincoln's stand on the slavery issue, particularly below the Mason-Dixon Line.  After he was elected, several southern states announced they were seceding from the Union. When Lincoln arrived in Washington, the capital was awash in a state of agitation.  Few believed Lincoln would survive his journey, or having arrived safely, live long enough to give his inaugural address.  And that's how it was throughout all four years of the bloody civil war, with Lincoln living under a constant threat on his life.

For two years the war went badly for the Union, until Lincoln found a general who would fight.  This was a fellow midwesterner, named Ulysses S. Grant.  Despite Grant's success in leading the Army of the Potomac into northern Virginia, intrigues continued to agitate the capital, with endless proposals of compromise settlements (settlements to end the war, that included the continuation of slavery).  All the while, Lincoln would not be deterred from his goal of ending slavery, kept his head during the 1864 presidential election, which he expected to lose, but to his astonishment, actually won.

That spring, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's surrendered at Appomattox, thus ending the American Civil War.  Washington D.C. was in a celebratory mood, as Lincoln and his wife made their way to Ford's Theater. The following morning, word spread that Lincoln had been killed by an assassin, resulting in dark mood descending upon the Capital, and throughout all the towns and cities above the Mason-Dixon Line.

"Now he belongs to the ages," lamented Edwin Stanton, Lincoln's Secretary of War.

Lincoln's name would join a long list of martyrs who had been killed, while striving to make the world a better place.  Indeed, Lincoln ended chattel slavery in the United States, and freed the lives of some four million African Americans.

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