He led the United States through the American Civil War, defending the nation as a constitutional union, defeating the Confederacy, playing a major role in the abolition of slavery, expanding the power of the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy.

[33] Family, neighbors, and schoolmates recalled that his readings included the King James Bible, Aesop's Fables, John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.

[39] In March 1830, fearing another milk sickness outbreak, several members of the extended Lincoln family, including Abraham, moved west to Illinois, a free state, and settled in Macon County.

[63] When Lincoln returned home from the Black Hawk War, he planned to become a blacksmith, but instead formed a partnership with 21-year-old William Berry, with whom he purchased a New Salem general store on credit.

[citation needed] In his first campaign speech after returning from his military service, Lincoln observed a supporter in the crowd under attack, grabbed the assailant by his "neck and the seat of his trousers", and tossed him.

[78] On January 27, 1838, Abraham Lincoln, then 28 years old, delivered his first major speech at the Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois, after the murder of newspaper editor Elijah Parish Lovejoy in Alton.

After an opposing witness testified to seeing the crime in the moonlight, Lincoln produced a Farmers' Almanac showing the Moon was at a low angle, drastically reducing visibility.

Lincoln warned that the Slave Power was threatening the values of republicanism, and he accused Douglas of distorting the Founding Fathers' premise that all men are created equal.

[144] In the aftermath of the 1858 election, newspapers frequently mentioned Lincoln as a potential Republican presidential candidate, rivaled by William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Simon Cameron.

[145] In January 1860, Lincoln told a group of political allies that he would accept the presidential nomination if offered and, in the following months, several local papers endorsed his candidacy.

Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, at that time wrote up an unflattering account of Lincoln's compromising position on slavery and his reluctance to challenge the court's Dred Scott ruling, which was promptly used against him by his political rivals.

[156] In 1860, Lincoln described himself: "I am in height, six feet, four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing, on an average, one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair, and gray eyes.

[166] The Republican Party's production of campaign literature dwarfed the combined opposition; a Chicago Tribune writer produced a pamphlet that detailed Lincoln's life and sold 100,000–200,000 copies.

[176] The upper South and border states (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas) initially rejected the secessionist appeal.

[198] John Merryman, one Maryland official hindering the U.S. troop movements, petitioned Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney to issue a writ of habeas corpus.

In June, in Ex parte Merryman, Taney, not ruling on behalf of the Supreme Court,[199] issued the writ, believing that Article I, section 9 of the Constitution authorized only Congress and not the president to suspend it.

Biographer James G. Randall dissected Lincoln's successful techniques:[209] his restraint, his avoidance of any outward expression of truculence, his early softening of State Department's attitude toward Britain, his deference toward Seward and Sumner, his withholding of his paper prepared for the occasion, his readiness to arbitrate, his golden silence in addressing Congress, his shrewdness in recognizing that war must be averted, and his clear perception that a point could be clinched for America's true position at the same time that full satisfaction was given to a friendly country.Lincoln painstakingly monitored the telegraph reports coming into the War Department.

[227] In the 1862 midterm elections, the Republicans suffered severe losses due to rising inflation, high taxes, rumors of corruption, suspension of habeas corpus, military draft law, and fears that freed slaves would come North and undermine the labor market.

[228] In the spring of 1863, Lincoln was sufficiently optimistic about upcoming military campaigns to think the end of the war could be near; the plans included attacks by Hooker on Lee north of Richmond, Rosecrans on Chattanooga, Grant on Vicksburg, and a naval assault on Charleston.

In July, the Confiscation Act of 1862 was enacted, providing court procedures to free the slaves of those convicted of aiding the rebellion; Lincoln approved the bill despite his belief that it was unconstitutional.

He spent the next 100 days, between September 22 and January 1, preparing the army and the nation for emancipation, while Democrats rallied their voters by warning of the threat that freed slaves posed to northern whites.

In Louisiana, Lincoln ordered General Nathaniel P. Banks to promote a plan that would reestablish statehood when 10 percent of the voters agreed, and only if the reconstructed states abolished slavery.

To fill Chief Justice Taney's seat on the Supreme Court, he named the Radicals' choice, Salmon P. Chase, whom Lincoln believed would uphold his emancipation and paper money policies.

Biographers James G. Randall and Richard Current, according to David Lincove, argue that:[287] It is likely that had he lived, Lincoln would have followed a policy similar to Johnson's, that he would have clashed with congressional Radicals, that he would have produced a better result for the freedmen than occurred, and that his political skills would have helped him avoid Johnson's mistakes.Eric Foner argues that:[288] Unlike Sumner and other Radicals, Lincoln did not see Reconstruction as an opportunity for a sweeping political and social revolution beyond emancipation.

[363] Lincoln's frequent use of religious imagery and language toward the end of his life may have reflected his own personal beliefs or might have been a device to reach his audiences, who were mostly evangelical Protestants.

[370] Lincoln's redefinition of republican values has been stressed by historians such as John Patrick Diggins, Harry V. Jaffa, Vernon Burton, Eric Foner, and Herman J.

[376] As a Whig activist Lincoln was a spokesman for business interests, favoring high tariffs, banks, infrastructure improvements, and railroads, in opposition to Jacksonian democrats.

Randall concludes that "he was conservative in his complete avoidance of that type of so-called 'radicalism' which involved abuse of the South, hatred for the slaveholder, thirst for vengeance, partisan plotting, and ungenerous demands that Southern institutions be transformed overnight by outsiders.

[390][391] Sociologist Barry Schwartz argues that Lincoln's American reputation grew slowly from the late 19th century until the Progressive Era (1900–1920s), when he emerged as one of America's most venerated heroes, even among white Southerners.

[402] Brian Dirck stated that few Civil War scholars take Bennett (or Thomas DiLorenzo)[403] seriously, pointing to their "narrow political agendas and faulty research".