 | |
| Abraham Lincoln | |
| Aliases: | Abe Lincoln President Abraham Lincoln |
| Type: | Lawyer; Politician |
| Occupation: | President of the United States |
| Gender: | Male |
| Location: | Indiana Illinois Washington, D.C. |
| Status: | Deceased |
| Born: | February 12th, 1809 |
| Died: | April 15th, 1865 |
Abraham Lincoln was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th president of the United States (1861–1865). Lincoln led the nation through its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis in the American Civil War. He preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the U.S. economy.
Biography[]
Lincoln was born in poverty in a log cabin and was raised on the frontier primarily in Indiana. He was self-educated and became a lawyer, Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator, and U.S. Congressman from Illinois. In 1849 he returned to his law practice but became vexed by the opening of additional lands to slavery as a result of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. He reentered politics in 1854, becoming a leader in the new Republican Party, and he reached a national audience in the 1858 debates against Stephen Douglas. Lincoln ran for President in 1860, sweeping the North in victory. Pro-slavery elements in the South equated his success with the North's rejection of their right to practice slavery, and southern states began seceding from the union. To secure its independence, the new Confederate States fired on Fort Sumter, a U.S. fort in the South, and Lincoln called up forces to suppress the rebellion and restore the Union.
As the leader of moderate Republicans, Lincoln had to navigate a contentious array of factions with friends and opponents on both sides. War Democrats rallied a large faction of former opponents into his moderate camp, but they were countered by Radical Republicans, who demanded harsh treatment of the Southern traitors. Anti-war Democrats (called "Copperheads") despised him, and irreconcilable pro-Confederate elements plotted his assassination. Lincoln managed the factions by exploiting their mutual enmity, by carefully distributing political patronage, and by appealing to the U.S. people. His Gettysburg Address became a historic clarion call for nationalism, republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. Lincoln scrutinized the strategy and tactics in the war effort, including the selection of generals and the naval blockade of the South's trade. He suspended habeas corpus, and he averted British intervention by defusing the Trent Affair. He engineered the end to slavery with his Emancipation Proclamation and his order that the Army protect escaped slaves. He also encouraged border states to outlaw slavery, and promoted the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlawed slavery across the country.
Lincoln managed his own successful re-election campaign. He sought to reconcile the war-torn nation by exonerating the secessionists. On April 14th, 1865, just days after the war's end at Appomattox, Lincoln was attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre with his wife Mary when he was assassinated by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. His marriage had produced four sons, two of whom preceded him in death, with severe emotional impact upon him and Mary. Lincoln is remembered as the United States' martyr hero, and he is consistently ranked as the greatest U.S. president in history.
Notes & Trivia[]
- Abraham Lincoln's face is on the U.S. five-dollar bill.
- In Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, the boat that brings Professor Arronax, Ned Land and Conseil from Manhattan to the Nautilus is called the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln.
- Abraham Lincoln was one of several historical figures brought backward in time by Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted "Theodore" Logan. [1]
- In a re-structured timeline, or possibly an alternate reality, chimpanzee leader General Thade replaced Abraham Lincoln as President. A monument to Thade was erected in Washington, D.C., in what is known in the regular timeline as the Lincoln Memorial. Perhaps his name in that reality was actually Aperaham Lincoln? [2]
- In another fictionalized account of Lincoln's life, he was secretly a vampire hunter in the years leading up to him becoming President. [3]
- In yet another, yet similar account to the one referenced above, Abraham Lincoln formed a secret society of vampire hunters during his years as president. [4]
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt once fantasized that the image of Abraham Lincoln from a painting was encouraging him to continue sexual congress with his wife. Lincoln said, "Emancipate dat ass!" [5]
- In the reality known as Earth-Three, it was Abraham Lincoln who assassinated President John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre. Yeah, everything is backwards in that place.
- The island setting from the 1951 film serial Mysterious Island was named Lincoln Island after Abraham Lincoln.
- The mole on Lincoln's right cheek is truly terrifying.
See also[]
External Links[]
Appearances[]
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- Justice League of America 29 (Earth-3 version)