We have a four-day weekend this week in observation of Lincoln’s birthday and President’s Day. But what’s all the Lincoln hype about? What is so significant about his presidency that we celebrate him apart from any other President?

Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, in Kentucky and soon afterward moved with his family to Indiana, which in the early nineteenth century was a frontier area with limited settlement and few conveniences. Both of Lincoln’s parents were illiterate, and Lincoln himself received less than one year of formal schooling. As a boy, however, Lincoln learned to read and dedicated himself to his own education. Despite his intellectual pursuits, Lincoln spent much of his youth working on the family farm. In 1830 Lincoln moved with his family to Illinois, where he continued to farm and also worked as a ferryman and store clerk.

        At the age of twenty-two, Lincoln left Indiana and ventured down the Mississippi River on a flatboat expedition. This trip broadened his perspective on American life. In particular, it introduced Lincoln to the institution of slavery then present in the Southern states. After this experience, Lincoln would identify himself as an antislavery advocate and would struggle for the rest of his life with the issue of ending slavery in the United States.

        In January 1865, Lincoln guided the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery throughout the United States. His Second Inaugural Address encouraged the healing of a wounded country. The Civil War ended shortly thereafter, with Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House in April. Less than one week later, Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln while he attended a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. Lincoln’s presidency is now seen as one of the most significant in the country’s history.

*All of this information was taken from the Gale Cengage Database available to all PHS Students @ https://go.gale.com/ps/dispBasicSearch.do?userGroupName=port58760&prodId=SUIC