By Sarah Becker

Copyright (c)2026 Sarah Becker

“Nearly all men can stand adversity but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” – Abraham Lincoln

President Barack Obama took his oath of office in 2009 using former President Abraham Lincoln’s bible. Lincoln’s lore is legendary not only to residents of Obama’s Prairie State, but also to Hoosiers like me. As a child I lived an hour’s drive from Lincoln’s Boyhood Home.

Lincoln was synonymous with greatness and if he split one rail, he split them all. As Abraham Lincoln dreamed, he became: a self-educated lawyer, an Illinois Representative, the 16th President of the United States, a conservator and an emancipator.

“If Abraham Lincoln offers a lasting history lesson it is that freedom and equality are the pillars of the Republic,” Frank Milligan Director of President Lincoln’s [Washington, D.C.] Cottage said. “Emancipation is the building block that helped Lincoln to explain his view of society.” Lincoln spent approximately a quarter of his Presidency at the Cottage and he drafted his 1863 Emancipation Proclamation there.

“In Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, in a log cabin in Kentucky; that he spent his formative years in Indiana; that Lincoln’s beliefs and values were influenced by his frontier experience; that Indiana shaped his personality and his character, and that while in Indiana he determined that every man should have the freedom to rise to his potential,” National Park Ranger Michael Capps said.

“Indiana never sanctioned slavery, neither the 1787 Northwest Ordinance nor the State’s Constitution,” Capps continued. “But Kentucky was another matter.”

Honest Abe became a brand long before press handlers became the rule. Lincoln left Indiana for Illinois in 1830 and entered politics two years later. He lost his initial bid for a seat in the Illinois Legislature. Lincoln finished eighth in a field of thirteen candidates.

In 1834 Lincoln again ran for the State legislature and won. He also began to seriously study the law. Lincoln passed the BAR in 1836 and a year later, when Springfield became the State capital, he opened a law practice there. Lincoln practiced Illinois law for 24 years. Civil War martyr Elmer Ellsworth was among his 1860 law clerks.

When the Republicans met in 1860 to select their party’s presidential nominee, William Seward was the front runner. Abraham Lincoln, the compromise candidate, was elected on the third ballot. Hence, the popular reference to Lincoln’s team of rivals.

Lincoln took his Presidential oath of office on March 4, 1861, one month after Virginia called its secessionists convention. The Union was dissolving; six States had already seceded, in part because of Lincoln’s Presidential win. His law clerk Ellsworth helped with his campaign.

Alexandrians know Elmer Ellsworth well. He was a Lincoln lawyer turned Union military officer, the first known casualty of the Civil War. Virginia, a slaveholding State, formally seceded from the Union on May 23, 1861. The next morning a Federal Army including Colonel Ellsworth crossed the Potomac River to retake the town. Confederate sympathizer James W. Jackson killed Ellsworth in a hotel skirmish. Ellsworth’s body lay in state at the White House.

“Much of Lincoln’s war strategy was devised with the four border States in mind,” Milligan explained. “Kentucky, a Union slave holding State, was among them. Lincoln did not want to alienate these States. He even offered slaveholders the opportunity to sell their slaves to the Federal government.”

“Lincoln gradually came to the conclusion that it was the military that would save the Union,” Milligan continued. “Saving the Union was his first priority. Military emancipation, the abolition of slavery was the second.”

“The Emancipation Proclamation contains few emotional references to the tragedy of slavery,” Milligan concluded. “Instead, Lincoln borrowed from Clay and especially Webster – Liberty and Union were indivisible. He believed in the economic equality of opportunity.”

To Lincoln, the Founding Fathers were a study in contradiction. The country’s 1776 Declaration of Independence spoke of “certain inalienable rights,” yet the 1787 Constitution included the three-fifths of a person compromise. In 1863, in the afterglow of Antietam, Lincoln declared all slaves free. Lincoln paid for this decision with his life.

“The curtain rose slowly on the second act, and while all were enjoying the eccentricities of Asa Trenchard, a muffled pistol shot was heard,” read an April 15, 1865, eyewitness account.  “Within [Ford’s] theatre the wildest confusion for a time prevailed.” President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated less than one week after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.

On February 12 at least two Lincoln-related sites begin the year-long bicentennial celebration: Ford’s Theatre and President Lincoln’s Cottage at the Soldier’s Home. “We plan to help Americans understand Lincoln’s commitment to equal opportunity,” Milligan said.  “By 1864 Lincoln embraced all aspects of social, political and economic emancipation.”

For more bicentennial information visit: www.fords.org, www.lincolncottage.org or www.lincolnbicentennial.gov. Dr. Milligan also recommends: Lincoln’s Sword by Douglas L. Wilson, Lincoln’s Sanctuary by Matthew Pinsker, and Lincoln by David Herbert Donald.

Wrote Barack Obama in Audacity of Hope: “Lincoln, like no man before or since, understood both the deliberative function of our democracy and the limits of such deliberation.  We remember him for the firmness and depth of his convictions – his unyielding opposition to slavery and his determination that a house divided could not stand. In Lincoln’s rise from poverty, his self-study and ultimate mastery of language and of law, in his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat – we see a fundamental element of the American character.”

Abraham Lincoln inspires us all.

About the Author: Sarah Becker started writing for The Economist while a graduate student in England. Similar publications followed. She joined the Crier in 1996 while serving on the Alexandria Convention and Visitors Association Board. Her interest in antiquities began as a World Bank hire, with Indonesia’s need to generate hard currency. Balinese history, i.e. tourism provided the means. The New York Times describes Becker’s book, Off Your Duffs & Up the Assets, as “a blueprint for thousands of nonprofit managers.” A former museum director, SLAM’s saving grace Sarah received Alexandria’s Salute to Women Award in 2007.  Email abitofhistory53@gmail.com

Publishers Note: This column first appeared in the February 2009 issue. Sarah is recovering from a lengthy illness at this time. We wish her a speedy recovery.