Born to Levi Lincoln Sr., a prominent Worcester lawyer, he studied law and entered the state legislature in 1812 as a Democratic-Republican.

Lincoln and Daniel Webster were leading forces in the foundation of the National Republican (later Whig) Party in Massachusetts, which dominated state politics until the 1850s.

Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1835, serving in the House of Representatives until 1841, when President William Henry Harrison appointed him collector of the Port of Boston.

[3] By this time his father had served as United States Attorney General, and was a dominant figure in Worcester politics and statewide Democratic-Republican Party affairs.

[5] In 1814 he was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where he opposed the Hartford Convention, a meeting of Federalist delegates from New England states to air grievances on the conduct of the war.

[7] Over this time Lincoln's political views progressively moderated, and he came to be seen as relatively nonpartisan with respect to the Republican-Federalist divide.

In 1824 Eustis nominated him to fill a vacancy on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court[6] created by the resignation of Maine justice George Thatcher.

He was a regular supporter of development initiatives and worked to change state laws to limit the liability of corporate investors.

Following the death of Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Isaac Parker, Lincoln offered the post to Lemuel Shaw, a lawyer with a solid reputation who had been at Harvard with him and had served with him in the legislature.

[29] Lincoln was one of several politicians whose leadership led to the solid establishment of the National Republicans and their successors the Whigs.

He was instead prevailed upon in early 1834 to run for the recently vacated Congressional seat of fellow Worcester Whig John Davis, who had been elected governor.

He did not particularly distinguish himself in Congress, generally supporting the Whig agenda and taking a firm stance on the outstanding border dispute between Maine and the British (now Canadian) province of New Brunswick.

[32] In 1841 President William Henry Harrison appointed Lincoln collector of the Port of Boston, a post he held until September 1843.

In what biographer Kinley Brauer terms the "only involuntary retirement in his career", Lincoln was replaced by Democrat Robert Rantoul Jr. on the order of President John Tyler.

[32] Lincoln inherited sizable properties in central Worcester from his father, and his development activities of these and other lands he acquired had a major impact on the city's character in the 19th century.

The town experienced rapid industrial growth and a growing diversification of its population, especially by Irish Americans who had helped build the canal.

The arrival of Irish immigrants in the 1840s led to an increase in street gang activity and violence as the social systems of the town strained to deal with the influx.

[35] In the first mayoral election held that year, Lincoln ran against Rodney Miller, a local temperance advocate around whom opposition to the town's elites coalesced.

[36] He held the post for one year, during which he played host to Abraham Lincoln, a distant relation from Illinois who was electioneering for Zachary Taylor on the Whig ticket in the 1848 presidential election.

[44] A house Lincoln had built in 1834 while awaiting completion of his 1836 mansion is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Gov.