Stories and Lifestyle: Abraham Lincoln goes Hollywood!

None of his predecessors is more admired by US President Barack Obama than Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), whose 200^th birthday was on February 12. “In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat – in all this he reminded me … of my own struggles,” Obama said during a “Time” interview. The United States’ first African-American president wants to follow in the footsteps of the president who abolished slavery in many respects. To this date, Lincoln is an icon for freedom, human rights, and national unity. The same way Lincoln laid the foundations for the modern USA, Obama wants to lead his country to a new time of peace and prosperity. 47-year old Obama from Chicago never misses an opportunity to show his inner connection with his admired role model.

For Abraham Lincoln is a man who still enjoys unwaning popularity even 144 years after his death. In the US alone, more than 50 books are being published for the event of his 200^th birthday, which was the cause for countless celebrations in his honor during the month of February. Star director Steven Spielberg is planning to complete his great Lincoln movie before the end of the year – Liam Neeson is going to portrait the 16^th President of the USA. No other US president has been portrayed quite as often in Hollywood movies – Henry Fonda (1939) and Gregory Peck (1982), among others, already starred as this most popular and most honored president in the history of the United States.

His strong will made him a lawyer…

Abraham Lincoln was born in a log-cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky. His parents were the farmer Thomas Lincoln and his wife Nancy, both originally from Virginia. Thomas Lincoln’s ancestors originally came from Wales. Other family members were his older sister Sarah and a younger brother, Thomas jr., who died shortly after he was born. Until the age of 19 he helped his father on the farm and led the hard life of pioneers on the frontier. After that, Abraham left his parents’ home and moved to the little prairie town of New Salem, Illinois, where he worked as a merchant, surveyor and postmaster. The first time he saw urban America was in 1831, when he worked on a flatboat and made a trip down the Ohio and the Mississippi to New Orleans.

Lincoln later claimed he had never gone to school for an entire year in his youth. He did, however, learn to read, write and calculate well enough to get a job as a sales clerk when he was 18. He was so well self-educated that he received his law license in Illinois in 1836.

In 1832 Lincoln participated as a volunteer in the military campaign against the Sauk Indians under their chief Black Hawk, but never actually saw combat. His comrades voted him Captain of the unit. This, together with the fact that he had established himself as a great speaker in a New Salem debating club, encouraged him to run for a seat in the Illinois General Assembly that same year. A member of the liberal-conservative Whigs, he campaigned for an expansion of traffic routes and improvement of the school system. His first campaign failed, but he finally got the seat in 1834 and kept it for four election periods until 1842.

As “Honest Abe” – a name that was going to stick – he quickly gained the parliament’s trust and became spokesman of the financial committee and was elected party leader for the oppositional Whigs when he was only 27 years of age. His first official statement concerning slavery dates back to the year 1837. During a parliamentary debate he stated that “…the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy.”

…and president

In order to understand how Abraham Lincoln, who was hardly known outside of Illinois, could become a nationwide known politician and eventually the presidential candidate of the new Republican party, you have to take a closer look at the development of the issue of slavery and Lincoln’s attitude towards it. On May 30, 1845, Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, designed by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas, a later political opponent of Abraham Lincoln. This law allowed both territories – even though they were north of the Mason-Dixon line – to decide whether they wanted to allow slavery in their state’s constitutions. This led to the eruption of a “civil war before the Civil War” in bleeding Kansas. Supporters of slavery and the Free Soil party, who wanted “free men on free soil,” were fighting each other. Disputes concerning the new law destroyed the Whig party. Most former members, including Lincoln, and some moderate opponents of slavery of the Democratic part together with radical abolitionists who wanted to abolish slavery immediately, and some other smaller groups, formed the new Republican party in the same year 1854.

At this time, Lincoln was not unconditionally opposed to slavery. He found it morally abominable, but with regard to the South always pointed out the existing law. He believed that the Founding Fathers had generally regarded slavery as an evil, but, for pragmatic reasons, had allowed it in those states where it had already been legal by the time independence was declared (1776) and the US Constitution was established (1778). He believed, however, that a further expansion of slavery into other states and territories would go against the spirit of the Constitution and the principles of freedom of the American Revolution. In 1860, the Republican party nominated Abraham Lincoln as their presidential candidate. Acting president James Buchanan declared the secession unconstitutional, but didn’t have the power to prevent it. Discouraged, he dropped the delicate matter and handed it to Congress, who was supposed to find a compromise. Abraham Lincoln, still president-elect, was willing to talk and make some concessions, but would not change his mind concerning the issue of slavery, especially the expansion of slavery.

Shortly before his inauguration on March 4 1861, the South seceded from the North. Everything Lincoln did during his first weeks in office was aimed at not provoking the South with political speeches or military action, but even he could not prevent the eruption of the American Civil War that happened the same year he took office. In 1864, Abraham Lincoln was re-elected with a clear majority. After leading the North to victory over the Confederation in 1865 and abolishing slavery, he started his conciliatory Reconstruction policy. However, there were a number of people who believed that reconciliation and reintegration of the South was happening too quickly. Popular actor John Wilkes Booth (May 10, 1838 – April 26, 1865) who was one of the best Shakespearean actors of his time, was, without a doubt, a member of the radical movement that didn’t like Lincoln’s policies. When Lincoln attended a play at Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1865, five days after General Lee’s capitulation at Appomattox, Booth forced his way into the president’s box during the third act of the play and shot the president in the back of the head. Abraham Lincoln, though not instantly dead, in the end succumbed to his injuries and died the following morning at 7:22 am. Abraham Lincoln became an American legend – he is an  icon for the nation’s unity, for the traditions of democracy and the abolition of slavery.