Becoming Lincoln

As the Whig Party withered away in 1855, Abraham Lincoln found himself pulled toward the new Republican Party -- an organization that not only stood foursquare against slavery's expansion, but brought economic vision that reflected northern attitudes and stood against enslavement. Sources used:Blumenthal, Sidney: All The Powers of Earth. Simon and Schuster, 2019.Burlingame, Michael, Abraham Lincoln: A Life. (Vol. 1). The John Hopkins University Press, 1995.Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. 1953 Edition hosted by the University of Michigan.Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed. Herndon on Lincoln: Letters. Knox College Lincoln Studies Center, 2016.Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln: A Biography. Simon and Schuster, 1995. Foner, Eric, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War. Oxford University Press, 1995.Foner, Eric, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. W.W. Norton and Company, 2011.Holt, Michael, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War. Oxford University Press; 1999.Sumner, Charles, "Equality before the law, unconstitutionality of separate colored schools in Massachusetts : argument of Charles Sumner, Esq., before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in the case of Sarah C. Roberts vs. The City of Boston, December 4, 1849." hosted on the Library of Congress website.Wilentz, Sean, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. W.W. Norton and Company, 2005.

Being an enslaved person in America in the 1850s meant the ever-present threat of violence and separation from loved ones. And throughout the decade, the white South became increasingly determined to spread it as far as they could. Sources for this episode: Berlin, Ira and Rowland, Leslie, ed. Families and Freedom:  A Documetary History of African-American Kinship in the Civil War Era. The New Press; 1997.Berlin, Ira, Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves. Belknap Press; 2003Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938. Hosted by the Library of Congress.Berry, Dana Ramey, Swing the Sickle for the Harvest Is Ripe: Gender and Slavery in Antebellum Georgia. University of Illinois Press; 2007Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. 1953 Edition hosted by the University of Michigan.Genovese, Eugene, Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made. Vintage Books; 1972.Johnson, Walter. Soul By Soul: Life Inside The Antebellum Slave Market. Harvard University Press, 1999. Mellon, James, ed. Bullwhip Days: The Slaves Remember. Grove Press; 1988 McCurry, Stephanie, Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, ad the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country.  Oxford University Press; 1995. McDonald, Roderick, "Independent Economic Production By Slaves on Antebellum Louisiana Sugar Plantations" in Cultivation and Culture, Labor and the Shaping of Slave Life in the Americas, eds. Ira Berlin and Philip D. Morgan. University Press of Virginia; 1993. Rothman, Joshua D., The Ledger and The Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America.  Basic Books; 2021.Waller, John C., Health and Wellness in 19th Century America. Greenwood; 2014. 

The Kansas-Nebraska Act threw American politics into chaos in 1854. The two-party duopoly that existed for the previous 20 years was swept away in the space of a few months. As Abraham Lincoln fought for the anti-Nebraska coalition in Illinois, he found himself with an unexpected political opportunity -- followed by the most difficult decision of his career to that point. 

Nursing his own ambitions and trying to hold onto his power in the U.S. Senate, Stephen Douglas agreed to introduce legislation repealing the Missouri Compromise and opening the upper Midwest to slavery. The brazen assault by pro-slavery forces upended the nation's party system and brought Abraham Lincoln to the forefront of the forces opposing Douglas and defending the Declaration of Independence. 

Abraham Lincoln would never had become president had he not locked horns with Stephen Douglas, whose rapid rise through Illinois politics quickly made him a national icon. Douglas' life had some parallels to Lincoln's, and in many ways, his attraction to money and flexible policy better embodied the America of the early 1850s than the old parties did. 

Abraham Lincoln's racial attitudes were complicated. He was willing to defend fugitive slaves and appears to have lived in what was (for its time) an integrated neighborhood. But he also defended a slaveholder in court, and advocated for schemes to persuade African-Americans to leave the land of their birth. 

Abraham Lincoln's law practice was dominated by debt cases and the messy but commonplace disputes that make up a legal practice then and now. He plied his trade throughout central Illinois and was a popular companion for other attorneys in his field. But was he a good lawyer?

Mary Lincoln's domestic life often involved working as a single parent and managing tight finances while her husband was out making a living. Both parents were devoted to their children, and faced devastation when their son Eddie became sick in late 1849. Less than a year later, Abraham Lincoln made a fateful choice when he received word that his father Thomas was ill. 

As he returned for the final congressional session of his term, Abraham Lincoln tried to lay the groundwork for the future of his party -- by proposing the abolition of slavery within the District of Columbia, and in using the patronage powers of the newly elected Whig president. But opposing forces, and Lincoln's underestimation of them, led to disappointment. 

The Whigs were desperate for victory in 1848, and Abraham Lincoln joined a group promoting the candidacy of General Zachary Taylor. Lincoln showed that he could be an effective speaker -- but he could not have foreseen that his efforts would help destroy the party that he had devoted his life to. 

The U.S. invasion of Mexico in 1846 sparked a humanitarian catastrophe that had profound consequences for both countries. Abraham Lincoln joined a Whig fight against the war. 

As Abraham Lincoln moved to secure the Whig nomination for Congress in 1846, he had to confront the ambitions of an old friend for the seat, and the growing power of the abolitionists within his district. 

By 1842, Abraham Lincoln had completed a long and painful journey into the middle class. He was an established attorney and had married into a prominent family. But politics would force him to reckon with the costs of his decisions -- and later, confront a grief he had never left behind.

As Abraham Lincoln recovered from his nervous breakdown, he further focused on ways to allow his head to control his heart. Yet as 1842 unfolded, he found himself in a potentially deadly fight with a political rival, and growing closer to Mary Todd.

His personal and professional bonds all snapped at once at the end of 1840. It proved a prelude to the worst emotional crisis of Lincoln's life, one that he would need a full year to pull himself out of. 

With the Whig Party appearing poised for a major breakthrough in 1840, Abraham Lincoln campaigned hard, showing a desperation that led him to attack individuals and fall back on the shameful race-baiting that defined his youth. Toward the end of the year, he became involved with a young woman in Springfield, named Mary Todd. 

As an economic depression hardened party lines, Abraham Lincoln became an enthusiastic Whig partisan, fighting hard to get his law partner into Congress. During the contest, the lynching of a black man and the later murder of a newspaper editor led him to deliver his first notable public address.

Abraham Lincoln arrived in Springfield a deeply insecure and troubled man. He would quickly make a lifelong friend, and just as quickly lose a potential bride. 

As Abraham Lincoln rose in the ranks of the Illinois Whig Party, he displayed strong political skills that played a key role in getting the capital of Illinois moved to Springfield. He also showed political opportunism, and frequently, appalling racism in trying to bring voters to his party's column

In 1835, Abraham Lincoln was starting his political career; beginning his law studies; working two jobs and struggling with debt. The death of a young woman would help push him to his first nervous breakdown.