Lincoln Autobiography

2 Pages 534 Words

Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky in 1809. His parents were frontier farmers, so Lincoln was born in a log cabin and barely knew how to read and write.
The family moved to Indiana, where his mother died when Abe was nine, and then moved to Illinois. Lincoln suffered from poverty and bad luck. Lincoln had little education, but had a thirst for knowledge, so he read several books. Abe loved to read, tell stories, talk, laugh, almost anything but work.
Lincoln held many jobs from a log-splitter to running a store to surveying. He earned his nickname "Honest Abe" because he had walked six miles to return a few cents to a woman he had overcharged. Lincoln finally found his career in law in the town of Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln was more concerned with gaining justice for his clients than making money. And he loved to talk to people.
During the time before the Civil War, Lincoln was drawn into politics because of what was happening in the United States. He served four terms in the Illinois state legislature and one term as Illinois delegate to the House of Representatives. Lincoln gained national attention when he challenged Stephen Douglas for the senate seat from Illinois. The two men were engaged in a series of debates, which would later be called the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
Lincoln was a Republican who opposed the spread of slavery into the new territories, and he was a powerful speaker. Although Douglas was more experienced, Lincoln was able to appeal to anti-slavery voters with his message.
Lincoln lost the senate campaign, but became a well- known Republican candidate.
In the election of 1860, the Republicans choose Lincoln as their candidate for President. He wins the election with 40 percent of the popular vote and a majority of the electoral vote becoming the sixteenth President of the United States.
Lincoln had said in 1858 that, "A house divided against itself cannot stand," and within weeks, the first states...