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William H. Seward
William Henry Seward (May 16, 1801 – October 10, 1872) was United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.
Family
His parents were Samuel Sweezy Seward and Mary (Jennings) Seward. He was married to Frances Adeline Miller. They had two daughters and three sons. The daughters were Cornelia Seward (1835-1836) and Frances Adeline (Fanny) Seward (1844-1866). The three sons were William Henry Seward, Jr. (1839-1920), Frederick William Seward (1835-1915) and Augustus Henry Seward (1826-1876).
Education
Seward was born in Florida, New York, a community (which since has incorporated as a village) in Orange County, New York . He attended Union College, studying law, and graduated in 1820, with high honors. He became anti-slavery, which meant he opposed the expansion of slavery and was pro-free soil, after observing the conditions of slavery while working in Georgia. He then read law in Florida, New York and Goshen, New York and joined his practice with his father-in-law, Judge Elijah Miller, in Auburn, New York. He stopped his law practice to become a politician when he was elected to the New York senate.
New York politics
Seward served as a state senator of New York from 1831 to 1834, and as Governor of New York from 1839 to 1843. He promoted progressive political policies including prison reform and increased spending on education, including the idea of schools for immigrants taught in their own language and by members of their own religion.
1843
Services to the United States
He was elected United States Senator from New York from 1849 through 1861. In 1849 he won as a Whig and emerged as the leader of its anti-slavery wing. An opponent of the Fugitive Slave Act, he defended runaway slaves in court. In 1850 Seward voted against the Compromise of 1850 and claimed in a speech that if slavery were not abolished, America would become embroiled in a civil war. He continued to argue this point of view over the next ten years.
With the decline in the fortunes of the Whig Party, Seward joined the Republican Party in 1855 and was reelected senator from New York. By this time Seward had moderated his views and became less associated with the group known as the Radical Republicans. Seward lost the presidential nomination to John C. Frémont in 1856. He was expected to get the nomination in 1860 but many of the delegates feared that his radical past would prevent him from winning the election. However, radicals such as Horace Greeley also opposed him because they were angry at his shift to the right. When Abraham Lincoln won the nomination Seward loyally supported him and made a long speaking tour of the West in the autumn of 1860.
Abraham Lincoln appointed him Secretary of State in 1861 and he served until 1869. During the War, Seward established a secret police force, which arrested thousands of citizens for disloyalty, i.e. disagreeing with Lincoln's war policies. Arrested citizens were not told the reason for their arrest, no investigation of their alleged wrongdoing was carried out, and no trials were held. Seward boasted to the British Ambassador, Lord Lyons, that he could have any man arrested in any state at a whim. Seward survived an assassination attempt on April 14, 1865 (the same night Abraham Lincoln was shot) from Lewis Powell (alias: Lewis Payne), an associate of John Wilkes Booth, who broke into Seward's bedroom and stabbed him repeatedly.
As Secretary of State, he fought for the U.S. purchase of Alaska which he finally negotiated to acquire from Russia for $7,200,000 on March 30, 1867. He had claimed that the United States must move westward. This translated into approximately 2 cents per acre ($4.94 per km²) for 586,412 square miles (1,518,800 km²) of territory, more than twice the size of Texas. The purchase of this frontier land ("Seward's Icebox") was mocked as "Seward's Folly" and Andrew Johnson's "polar bear garden". Currently, Alaska celebrates the purchase on Seward's Day, the last Monday of March.
Later life
He spent his last years traveling and writing. He visited Alaska and went around the world.
Seward died in his home in Auburn, New York after a brief illness.
His portrait appeared on the 1891 series fifty dollar treasury note, examples of this note are very rare and would likely sell for about $50,000.00 at auction.
The town of Seward, Alaska and the Seward Peninsula, also in Alaska, are named for him, as is Seward Park in Seattle, Washington, and the Town of Seward, NY. A statue of him facing towards Alaska is prominent in Volunteer Park .
Works
- Commerce in the Pacific ocean. Speech of William H. Seward, in the Senate of the United States, July 29, 1852 (1852; [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/mtfgc.1000 Digitized page images & text])
- The continental rights and relations of our country. Speech of William Henry Seward, in Senate of the United States, January 26, 1853 (1853; [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/mtfgc.1001 Digitized page images & text])
- The destiny of America. Speech of William H. Seward, at the dedication of Capital University, at Columbus, Ohio, September 14, 1853 (1853; [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/mtfgc.1002 Digitized page images & text])
- Certificate of Exchange (1867; [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.ndlpcoop/mtfxtx.u11846 Digitized page images & text])
- Alaska. Speech of William H. Seward at Sitka, August 12, 1869 (1869; [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/mtfgc.1003 Digitized page images & text])
External links
- [http://www.sewardhouse.org Seward House, Auburn, NY]
- [http://www.tulane.edu/~latner/Seward.html Brief Seward biography]
- [http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h168.html Brief Seward biography]
- [http://www.mrlincolnandfriends.org/inside.asp?pageID=85&subjectID=7 Mr. Lincoln and Friends: William H. Seward]
- [http://www.mrlincolnandnewyork.org/inside.asp?ID=64&subjectID=3 Mr. Lincoln and New York: William H. Seward]
- [http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/inside.asp?ID=93&subjectID=2 Mr. Lincoln's White House: William H. Seward]
Seward, William H.
Seward, William H.
Seward, William H.
Seward, William H.
Seward, William H.
Seward, William H.
1801
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1801 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar).
Events
- January 1 - Legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland completed under the Act of Union 1800, bringing about the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
- January 1 - Giuseppe Piazzi discovers the first (and largest) asteroid Ceres.
- January 20 - John Marshall is appointed Chief Justice of the United States.
- February 3 - William Pitt the Younger resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
- February 9 - The Treaty of Lunéville ends the war (Second Coalition) between France and Austria.
- February 17 - An electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President by the United States House of Representatives.
- February 27 - Washington, DC is placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress.
- March 4 - Thomas Jefferson succeeds John Adams as the President of the United States of America.
- March 21 - Second Battle of Abukir: a British army under Ralph Abercromby defeats the French troops.
- March 23 - The Russian Tsar Paul I is murdered. He is succeeded by his son Alexander I of Russia.
- April 2 - First Battle of Copenhagen - The British fleet under Admiral Hyde Parker, along with Admiral Horatio Nelson, attack Copenhagen. Armed Neutrality of the North dissolved.
- May - The pascha of Tripoli declares war on United States by having the flagpole on the consulate chopped down.
- June 27 - Cairo falls to British troops.
- July 6 - Battle of Algeciras: The French fleet beats the British fleet.
- July 18 - Napoleon signs the Concordat of 1801 with the pope.
- November 16 - First edition of New York Evening Post
- Aachen is officially annexed by France.
- A census in London revealed it to have 860,035 residents
- First census in France
- Joseph-Marie Jacquard developed a loom where the pattern being woven was controlled by punch cards.
- The ultraviolet radiation is discovered by Johann Wilhelm Ritter
Ongoing events
- French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802)-Second Coalition/Egyptian Campaign
- Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815)-Second Coalition/Egyptian Campaign
Births
- January 3 - Gijsbert Haan, Dutch-American religious leader (d. 1874)
- February 1 - Thomas Cole, American artist (d. 1848)
- February 21 - John Henry Newman, English Roman Catholic Cardinal (d. 1890)
- May 11 - Henri Labrouste, French architect (d. 1875)
- June 1 - Brigham Young, American religious leader and colonizer (d. 1877)
- June 4 - James Pennethorne, English architect (d. 1871)
- June 14 - Heber C. Kimball, American religious leader (d. 1868)
- June 30 - Frederic Bastiat, French philosopher (d. 1850)
- July 5 - David Farragut, American naval commander (d.1870)
- July 29 - George Bradshaw, English publisher (d. 1853)
- October 12 - Friedrich Frey-Herosé, member of the Swiss Federal Council (d. 1873)
- November 3 - Karl Baedeker, German author and publisher (d. 1859)
- November 3 - Vincenzo Bellini, Italian composer (d. 1835)
- November 10 - Vladimir Dal, Russian lexicographer (d. 1872)
- December 11 - Christian Dietrich Grabbe, German writer (d. 1836)
Deaths
- February 7 - Daniel Chodowiecki, Polish painter (b. 1726)
- March 21 - Andrea Luchesi, Italian composer (b. 1741)
- March 23 - Tsar Paul of Russia (b. 1754)
- March 25 - Novalis, German poet (b. 1772)
- March 28 - Ralph Abercromby, British general (b. 1734)
- April 2 - Thomas Dadford Junior, British engineer
- April 7 - Noël François de Wailly, French lexicographer (b. 1724)
- May 17 - William Heberden, English physician (b. 1710)
- June 4 - Frederick Muhlenberg, first Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (b. 1750)
- September 19 - Johann Gottfried Koehler, German astronomer (b. 1745)
- October 3 - Philippe Henri, marquis de Ségur, Marshal of France (b. 1724)
- November 4 - William Shippen, American physician and Continental Congressman (b. 1712)
- November 24 - Franz Moritz Graf von Lacy, Austrian field marshal (b. 1725)
Category:1801
ko:1801년
ms:1801
simple:1801
October 10October 10 is the 283rd day of the year (284th in Leap years). There are 82 days remaining.
Events
- 680 - Battle of Karbala: Shia Imam Husayn bin Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, was decapitated by forces under Caliph Yazid I. This is commemorated by Shi'a Muslims as Aashurah.
- 732 - Battle of Tours: Near Poitiers, France, leader of the Franks Charles Martel and his men, defeat a large army of Moors, stopping the Muslims from spreading into Western Europe. The governor of Cordoba, Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, is killed during the battle.
- 1471 - Battle of Brunkeberg in Stockholm: Sten Sture the Elder, the Regent of Sweden, with help of farmers and miners, repels an attack by Christian I, King of Denmark.
- 1575 - Battle of Dormans: Catholic forces under Duke Henry of Guise defeated the Protestants, capturing Philippe de Mornay among others.
- 1582 - Due to the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
- 1631 - A Saxon army takes over Prague.
- 1780 - The Great Hurricane of 1780 kills 20,000-30,000 in the Caribbean.
- 1845 - In Annapolis, Maryland, the Naval School (later renamed the United States Naval Academy) opens with 50 midshipmen students and seven professors.
- 1868 - Carlos Céspedes issued the Grito de Yara from his plantation, La Demajagua, proclaiming Cuba's independence.
- 1877 - Lieutenant-Colonel George Armstrong Custer is given a funeral with full military honors.
- 1908 - citing of bigfoot in japanBaseball Writers Association forms.
- 1910 - Tau Epsilon Phi Fraternity is established at Columbia University.
- 1911 - Wuchang Uprising which led to the demise of Qing Dynasty, the last emperial court in China, and the founding of the Republic of China.
- 1913 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson triggered the explosion of the Gamboa Dike thus ending construction on the Panama Canal.
- 1920 - The Carinthian Plebiscite determined that the larger part of Carinthia became part of Austria.
- 1933 - A United Airlines Boeing 247 is destroyed by sabotage while en route from Cleveland, Ohio to Chicago, Illinois, the first such proven case in the history of commercial aviation.
- 1935 - A tornado destroyed the 160 metre tall wooden radio tower in Langenberg. As a result of this catastrophe, nearly no more wooden radio towers are built any more.
- 1938 - The Blue Water Bridge opens, connecting Port Huron, Michigan and Sarnia, Ontario
- 1938 - World War II: The Munich Agreement cedes the Sudetenland to Germany.
- 1944 - Holocaust: 800 Gypsy children are systematically murdered at Auschwitz death camp.
- 1954 - The Communist Party of Honduras is founded.
- 1957 - U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologizes to the finance minister of Ghana, Komla Agbeli Gbdemah, after he was refused service in a Dover, Delaware restaurant.
- 1964 - The 1964 Summer Olympics open in Tokyo, Japan
- 1966 - Simon and Garfunkel release the album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.
- 1970 - Fiji becomes independent.
- 1970 - In Montreal, Quebec, a national crisis hits Canada when Quebec Vice-Premier and Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte becomes the second statesman kidnapped by members of the FLQ terrorist group.
- 1971 - Sold, dismantled and moved to the United States, the London Bridge reopens in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
- 1973 - Vice President of the United States Spiro Agnew resigns after being charged with federal income tax evasion.
- 1978 - US President Jimmy Carter signs a bill into law that authorizes the minting of the Susan B. Anthony dollar.
- 1979 - The Pac-Man arcade game is released to the Japanese market by Namco.
- 1985 - United States Navy F-14 fighter jets intercept an Egyptian plane carrying the Achille Lauro cruise ship hijackers and force it to land at a NATO base in Sigonella, Sicily where they are arrested.
- 1986 - An earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter Scale strikes San Salvador, El Salvador, killing an estimated 1,500 people.
- 1987 - Fiji becomes a republic.
- 1997 - An Austral Airlines DC-9-32 crashes and explodes near Nuevo Berlin, Uruguay, killing 74.
- 2001 - US President George W. Bush presents a list of 22 most wanted terrorists.
- 2005 - Channel 4's new 'adult' entertainment channel More4 starts broadcasting on ntl, Sky Digital and Freeview in the UK.
- 2005 - Angela Merkel is announced to be the new chancellor of Germany.
- 2005 - Most Aardman Animations props are melted in a warehouse fire. Props from Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit were destroyed.
Births
- 1678 - John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, Scottish soldier (d. 1743)
- 1684 - Antoine Watteau, French painter (d. 1721)
- 1700 - Lambert-Sigisbert Adam, French sculptor (d. 1759)
- 1731 - Henry Cavendish, British scientist (d. 1810)
- 1780 - John Abercrombie, Scottish physician and philosopher (b. 1844)
- 1813 - Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer (d. 1901)
- 1825 - Paul Kruger, President of the Transvaal Republic (d. 1904)
- 1830 - Queen Isabella II of Spain (d. 1904)
- 1834 - Aleksis Kivi, Finnish author (d. 1872)
- 1837 - Robert Gould Shaw, U.S. Army officer (d. 1863)
- 1861 - Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian explorer, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1930)
- 1870 - Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin, Russian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1953)
- 1885 - Walter Anderson, German folklorist (d. 1962)
- 1898 - Lilly Daché, French-born milliner (d. 1989)
- 1900 - Helen Hayes, American actress (d. 1993)
- 1901 - Alberto Giacometti, Swiss sculptor (d. 1966)
- 1906 - Paul Creston, American composer (d. 1985)
- 1906 - R.K. Narayan, Indian novelist (d. 2001)
- 1913 - Claude Simon, French writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2005)
- 1914 - Tommy Fine, baseball player (d. 2005)
- 1917 - Thelonious Monk, American jazz pianist (d. 1982)
- 1924 - James Clavell, Australian author (d. 1994)
- 1924 - Ed Wood, American filmmaker (d. 1978)
- 1926 - Richard Jaeckel, American actor (d. 1997)
- 1930 - Yves Chauvin, French chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1930 - Harold Pinter, English playwright, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1933 - Jay Sebring, American hair stylist
- 1938 - Moriyama Daido, Japanese photographer
- 1942 - Peter Coyote, American actor
- 1946 - Charles Dance, English actor
- 1946 - Naoto Kan, Japanese politician
- 1946 - John Prine, American singer
- 1946 - Chris Tarrant, British television host
- 1946 - Ben Vereen, American actor and dancer
- 1948 - Séverine, French singer
- 1951 - Ratu Epeli Ganilau, Fiji soldier and statesman
- 1953 - Midge Ure, Scottish musician
- 1953 - Gus Williams, American basketball player
- 1954 - David Lee Roth, American singer
- 1957 - Rumiko Takahashi, Japanese artist
- 1958 - Tanya Tucker, American singer
- 1959 - Kirsty MacColl, British singer and songwriter (d. 2000)
- 1960 - Eric Martin, American singer
- 1961 - Jodi Benson, American voice actress and singer
- 1963 - Anita Mui, Hong Kong singer (d. 2003)
- 1963 - Daniel Pearl, American journalist (d. 2002)
- 1963 - Rebecca Pidgeon, American actress, singer, and songwriter
- 1963 - Jolanda de Rover, Dutch swimmer
- 1966 - Tony Adams, English footballer
- 1966 - Rick "Finky" Finkelstein, The inventor of the "Rick Rub"
- 1968 - Bart Brentjens, Dutch mountain biker
- 1969 - Brett Favre, American football player
- 1970 - Dean Kiely, Irish footballer
- 1970 - Corinna May, German singer
- 1970 - Sir Matthew Pinsent, English rower
- 1970 - Maja Tatic, Serbian singer
- 1973 - Mario López, American actor
- 1974 - Dale Earnhardt Jr., American race car driver
- 1976 - Bob Burnquist, Brazilian-born skateboarder
- 1976 - Pat Burrell, baseball player
- 1978 - Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, American actress
- 1979 - Mya, American singer
- 1979 - Nicolás Massú, Chilean tennis player
- 1980 - Tim Maurer, American singer (Suburban Legends
- 1980 - Charles Gauthier, Peribonka citizen
- 1984 - Stephanie Cheng, Hong Kong singer
- 1984 - Chiaki Kuriyama, Japanese actress
Deaths
- 19 - Germanicus, Roman general (b. 15 BC)
- 732 - Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, Moorish Governor of Andalusia
- 833 - al-Ma'mun, Abbasid caliph of Baghdad (b. 786)
- 1359 - King Hugh IV of Cyprus
- 1459 - Gianfrancesco Poggio Bracciolini, Italian humanist and classicist (b. 1380)
- 1531 - Huldrych Zwingli, Swiss reformer (killed in battle) (b. 1484)
- 1659 - Abel Tasman, Dutch explorer (b. 1603)
- 1674 - Thomas Traherne, English poet
- 1691 - Isaac de Benserade, French poet (b. 1613)
- 1708 - David Gregory, Scottish astronomer (b. 1659)
- 1714 - Pierre Le Pesant, sieur de Boisguilbert, French economist (b. 1646)
- 1720 - Antoine Coysevox, French sculptor (b. 1640)
- 1723 - William Cowper, 1st Earl Cowper, Lord Chancellor of England
- 1725 - Philippe de Rigaud Vaudreuil, Governor-General of New France
- 1747 - John Potter, Archbishop of Canterbury
- 1759 - Granville Elliott, British military officer (b. 1713)
- 1765 - Lionel Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (b. 1688)
- 1795 - Francesco Antonio Zaccaria, Italian theologian and historian (b. 1714)
- 1827 - Ugo Foscolo, Italian writer (b. 1778)
- 1837 - Charles Fourier, French philosopher (b. 1772)
- 1872 - William H. Seward, United States Secretary of State (b. 1801)
- 1875 - Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, Russian novelist, poet and dramatist (b. 1817)
- 1893 - Lip Pike, baseball player (b. 1845)
- 1901 - Lorenzo Snow, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1814)
- 1913 - Katsura Taro, Prime minister of Japan (b. 1848)
- 1914 - Charles I of Romania (b. 1839)
- 1927 - Gustave Whitehead, German-born inventor (b. 1874)
- 1930 - Adolf Engler, German botanist (b. 1844)
- 1940 - Berton Churchill, Canadian actor (b. 1876)
- 1964 - Eddie Cantor, American singer and vaudeville performer (b. 1892)
- 1964 - Heinrich Neuhaus, Soviet pianist (b. 1888)
- 1970 - Édouard Daladier, French politician (b. 1884)
- 1971 - John Cawte Beaglehole, New Zealand historian (b. 1901)
- 1978 - Ralph Metcalfe, American athlete (b. 1910)
- 1979 - Christopher Evans, British psychologist and computer scientist (b. 1931)
- 1979 - Paul Paray, French conductor (b. 1886)
- 1983 - Ralph Richardson, English actor (b. 1902)
- 1985 - Yul Brynner, Russian-born actor (b. 1915)
- 1985 - Orson Welles, American director and actor (b. 1915)
- 1998 - Clark Clifford, United States Secretary of Defense (b. 1906)
- 2000 - Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka (b. 1916)
- 2002 - Teresa Graves, American actress and singer (b. 1948)
- 2003 - Eugene Istomin, American pianist (b. 1925)
- 2004 - Ken Caminiti, baseball player (heart attack) (b. 1963)
- 2004 - Christopher Reeve, American actor (b. 1952)
- 2004 - Arthur H. Robinson, American cartographer (b. 1915)
- 2004 - Maurice Shadbolt, New Zealand writer (b. 1932)
- 2005 - Wayne Booth, American literary critic (b. 1921)
- 2005 - Milton Obote, President of Uganda (b. 1925)
Holidays
- RC Saints - Saint Thomas of Villanueva? ; Saint Paulinus of York (in England)
- Also see October 10 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Canada - Thanksgiving Day of 2005 (second Monday of October)
- Republic of China (on Taiwan) - National Day (Double Tenth Day 雙十國慶)
- Fiji - Fiji Day (National Day)
- United States - Columbus Day of 2005 (second Monday of October)
- Japan - National Health-Sports Day
- World Mental Health Day
External links
- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/10 BBC: On This Day]
----
October 9 - October 11 - September 10 - November 10 - more historical anniversaries
ko:10월 10일
ms:10 Oktober
ja:10月10日
simple:October 10
th:10 ตุลาคม
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the President's Cabinet.
The current Secretary is former United States National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
History
On January 10, 1781, the Second Continental Congress created the office of Secretary of Foreign Affairs to head a "Department of Foreign Affairs". This office ceased operation on March 4, 1789, when the Articles of Confederation gave way to the Constitution.
On July 27, 1789, George Washington signed a congressional bill into law reauthorizing an executive Department of Foreign Affairs headed by a Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Congress then passed another law giving certain additional domestic responsibilities to the new Department and changing its name to the Department of State and the name of head of the department to the Secretary of State, and Washington approved this act on September 15, 1789. The new domestic duties assigned to the newly renamed department were receipt, publication, distribution, and preservation of laws of the United States, custody of the Great Seal of the United States, authentication of copies and preparation of commissions of executive branch appointments, and finally custody of the books, papers, and records of the Continental Congress including the Constitution itself and the Declaration of Independence.
The title of Secretary of State is British in origin. At the time of American independence, "Secretary of State" was a title given to senior members of the King's cabinet (e.g., "Secretary of State in Charge of Colonies"). The position of "Secretary of State of The United States" was thus intended to be the most general and important office in the US government, behind the Presidency.
Functions
cabinet
Most of the original domestic functions of the Department of State have been transferred to other agencies. Those that remain in the Department are: storage and use of the Great Seal of the United States, performance of protocol functions for the White House, drafting of certain Presidential proclamations, formally accepting notice of the president's resignation, and replies to public inquiries. In addition, the Secretary performs such duties as the President is required, in accordance with the United States Constitution, relating to correspondence, commission, or instructions to U.S. ministers or consuls abroad, and to conduct negotiations with foreign representatives. The Secretary has also served as principal adviser to the President in the determination and execution of U.S. foreign policy and in recent decades has become responsible for overall direction, coordination, and supervision of interdepartmental activities of the U.S. Government overseas, except for certain military activities.
As the highest-ranking Cabinet member, the Secretary of State is fourth in line to succeed the Presidency, after the Vice President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and President pro tempore of the Senate.
Oath of Office
The Oath of Office for the Vice President, Secretary of State, and other federal employees is as follows:
"I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."
Lists of Secretaries of State
In addition to the President listed, this Secretary of State served for a brief period of time (8 days or less) under that President's successor until a replacement could be named and confirmed.
Acting Secretaries of State
If the Secretary resigns, the United States Deputy Secretary of State serves as Acting Secretary of State until the President and Senate approve a formal replacement.
External link
- [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/po/1682.htm List of Secretaries of State]
State
United States, State, Secretary of
Secretary of State
Category:Foreign ministers
ja:アメリカ合衆国国務長官
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865), sometimes called Abe Lincoln and nicknamed Honest Abe, the Rail Splitter, and the Great Emancipator, was the 16th President of the United States (1861 to 1865), and the first president from the Republican Party.
Lincoln staunchly opposed the expansion of slavery into federal territories, and his victory in the 1860 presidential election further polarized an already divided nation. Before his inauguration in March of 1861, seven southern slave states seceded1 from the United States, formed the Confederate States of America, and took control of U.S. forts and other properties within their boundaries. These events soon led to the American Civil War.
Lincoln is often praised for his work as a wartime leader who proved adept at balancing competing considerations and at getting rival groups to work together toward a common goal. Lincoln had to negotiate between Radical and Moderate Republican leaders, who were often far apart on the issues, while attempting to win support from War Democrats and loyalists in the seceding states. He personally directed the war effort, which ultimately led the Union forces to victory over the Confederacy.
His leadership qualities were evident in his diplomatic handling of the border slave states at the beginning of the fighting, in his defeat of a congressional attempt to reorganize his cabinet in 1862, in his many speeches and writings which helped mobilize and inspire the North, and in his defusing of the peace issue in the 1864 presidential campaign. Critics vehemently attacked him for violating the Constitution, overstepping the traditional bounds of executive power, refusing to compromise on slavery in the territories, declaring martial law, suspending habeas corpus, ordering the arrest of some opposing state government officials and a number of publishers, and for being a racist.
Lincoln is most famous for his roles in preserving the Union and ending slavery in the United States with the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. All historians agree that Lincoln had a lasting influence on American political values and social institutions. He redefined republicanism, democracy and the meaning of the nation. He destroyed secessionism and greatly weakened states rights.
Lincoln's administration established the U.S. Department of Agriculture, created the modern system of national banks, and encouraged farm ownership with the Homestead Act of 1862. During his administration West Virginia and Nevada were admitted as states.
Lincoln is usually ranked as one of the greatest presidents. Because of his role in ending slavery, and his guiding the Union to victory in the civil war, his assassination made him a martyr to millions of Americans.
Early life
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in a one-room log cabin on a 348 acre (1.4 km²) Sinking Spring Farm in the Southeast part of Hardin County, Kentucky, then considered the frontier (now part of LaRue Co., in Nolin Creek, three miles (5 km) south of Hodgenville), to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks. Lincoln was named after his deceased grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, who was scalped in 1786 in an Indian raid. He had no middle name. Lincoln's parents were uneducated illiterate farmers. Later, when Lincoln became more renowned, reporters and storytellers often exaggerated the poverty and obscurity of Lincoln's birth. In fact, Lincoln's father Thomas was a respected and relatively affluent citizen of the Kentucky backcountry. He had purchased the Sinking Spring Farm in December 1808 for $200 cash and assumption of a debt. His parents belonged to a Baptist church that had pulled away from a larger church because they refused to support slavery. Accordingly, from a very young age, Lincoln was exposed to anti-slavery sentiment. However he never joined his parents' church, or any other church, and as a youth ridiculed religion.
Three years after purchasing the property, a prior land claim filed in Hardin Circuit Court forced the Lincolns to move. Thomas continued legal action until he lost the case in 1815. Money spent on the lawsuit contributed to family difficulties. In 1811, they were able to lease 30 acres (0.1 km²) of a 230 acre (0.9 km²) farm on Knob Creek a few miles away, where they then moved. In a valley of the Rolling Fork River, this was some of the best farmland in the area. At this time, Lincoln's father was a respected community member and a successful farmer and carpenter. Lincoln's earliest recollections are from this farm. In 1815, another claimant sought to eject the family from the Knob Creek farm. Frustrated with litigation and lack of security provided by Kentucky courts, Thomas decided to move to Indiana, which had been surveyed by the federal government, making land titles more secure. It is possible that these episodes motivated Abraham to later learn surveying and become an attorney.
In 1816, when Lincoln was seven years old, he and his parents moved to Spencer County, Indiana, he would state "partly on account of slavery" and partly because of economic difficulties in Kentucky. In 1818 Lincoln's mother along with others in the town, died of "milk sickness". Nancy Hanks Lincoln was only thirty-four years old when she died, and her son Abraham was nine. Soon afterwards, Lincoln's father remarried to Sarah Bush Johnston. Sarah Lincoln raised young Lincoln like one of her own children. Years later she compared Lincoln to her own son, saying "Both were good boys, but I must say -- both now being dead that Abe was the best boy I ever saw or ever expect to see." (Lincoln, by David Herbert Donald, 1995)
In 1830, after more economic and land-title difficulties in Indiana, the family settled on government land on a site selected by Lincoln's father in Macon County, Illinois. The following winter was especially brutal, and the family nearly moved back to Indiana. When his father relocated the family to a nearby site the following year, the 22-year-old Lincoln struck out on his own, canoeing down the Sangamon to Sangamon County, Illinois (now in Menard County), in the village of New Salem. Later that year, hired by New Salem businessman Denton Offutt and accompanied by friends, he took goods from New Salem to New Orleans via flatboat on the Sangamon, Illinois and Mississippi rivers. While in New Orleans, he may have witnessed a slave auction that left an indelible impression on him for the rest of his life. Whether he actually witnessed a slave auction at that time or not, living in a country with a considerable slave presence, he probably saw similar atrocities from time to time.
His formal education consisted of perhaps 18 months of schooling from itinerant teachers. In effect he was self-educated, studying every book he could borrow. He mastered the Bible, Shakespeare, English history and American history, and developed a plain style that puzzled audiences more used to orotund oratory. He avoided hunting and fishing because he did not like killing animals even for food and, though unusually tall and strong, spent so much time reading that some neighbors thought he must be doing it to avoid strenuous manual labor. He was skilled with an axe and a good wrestler.
river
Early career
Lincoln began his political career in 1832 at the age of 23 with a campaign for the Illinois General Assembly as a member of the Whig Party. The centerpiece of his platform was the undertaking of navigational improvements on the Sangamon River in the hopes of attracting steamboat traffic to the river, which would allow sparsely populated, poor areas along and near the river to grow and prosper. He served as a captain in a company of the Illinois militia drawn from New Salem during the Black Hawk War, although he never saw combat. He wrote after being elected by his peers that he had not had "any such success in life which gave him so much satisfaction."
He later tried and failed at several small-time business ventures. He held an Illinois state liquor license and sold whiskey. Finally, after coming across the second volume of Sir William Blackstone's four-volume Commentaries on the Laws of England, he taught himself the law, and was admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1837. That same year, he moved to Springfield, Illinois and began to practice law with Stephen T. Logan. He became one of the most highly respected and successful lawyers in the prairie state, and grew steadily more prosperous. Lincoln served four successive terms in the Illinois House of Representatives, as a representative from Sangamon County, beginning in 1834. He became a leader of the Whig party in the legislature. In 1837 he made his first protest against slavery in the Illinois House, stating that the institution was "founded on both injustice and bad policy." [http://www.hti.umich.edu/l/lincoln/]
Lincoln shared a bed with Joshua Fry Speed from 1837 to 1841 in Springfield. While many claim it was not uncommon in the mid-19th century for men to share a bed (just as two men today may share a house or an apartment), C. A. Tripp's 2005 biography, The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, suggesting that their relationship may also have been sexual, has generated a great deal of controversy. However, even when Lincoln was bitterly reviled for any number of faults by many enemies during the Civil War, not one ever suggested he had ever engaged in homosexual activities.
In 1841 Lincoln entered law practice with William Herndon, a fellow Whig. In 1856 both men joined the fledgling Republican Party. Following Lincoln's assassination, Herndon began collecting stories about Lincoln from those who knew him in central Illinois, eventually publishing a book, Herndon's Lincoln. He never joined an antislavery society and denied he supported the abolitionists. He married into a prominent slave-owning family from Kentucky, and allowed his children to spend time there surrounded by slaves. Several of his in-laws became Confederate officers. He greatly admired the science that flourished in New England, and was perhaps the only father in Illinois at the time to send his son Robert Todd Lincoln to elite eastern schools, Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard College.
Marriage
On November 4, 1842, at the age of 33, Lincoln married Mary Todd. The couple had four sons.
- Robert Todd Lincoln: b. August 1, 1843, in Springfield, Illinois; d. July 26, 1926, in Manchester, Vermont.
- Edward Baker Lincoln: b. March 10, 1846, in Springfield, Illinois; d. February 1, 1850, in Springfield, Illinois.
- William Wallace Lincoln: b. December 21, 1850, in Springfield, Illinois; d. February 20, 1862, in Washington, D.C.
- Thomas "Tad" Lincoln: b. April 4, 1853, in Springfield, Illinois; d. July 16, 1871, in Chicago, Illinois.
Only Robert survived into adulthood. Of Robert's three children, only Jessie Lincoln had any children (two: Mary Lincoln Beckwith and Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith). Neither Robert Beckwith nor Mary Beckwith had any children, so Abraham Lincoln's bloodline ended when Robert Beckwith (Lincoln's great-grandson) died on December 24, 1985.
[http://members.aol.com/beaufait/biography/geneology.htm]
Towards the presidency
1985
In 1846 Lincoln was elected to one term in the House of Representatives as a member of the United States Whig Party. A staunch Whig, Lincoln often referred to Whig leader Henry Clay as his political idol. As a freshman House member, Lincoln was not a particularly powerful or influential figure in Congress. He used his office as an opportunity to speak out against the war with Mexico, which he attributed to President Polk's desire for "military glory — that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood."
Lincoln was a key early supporter of Zachary Taylor's candidacy for the 1848 Whig Presidential nomination. When his term ended, the incoming Taylor administration offered Lincoln the governorship of remote Oregon Territory. Acceptance would end his career in the fast-growing state of Illinois, so he declined. Returning instead to Springfield, Illinois he turned most of his energies to making a living at the bar, which involved extensive travel on horseback from county to county.
By the mid-1850s, Lincoln had acquired prominence in Illinois legal circles, especially through his involvement in litigation involving competing transportation interests — both the river barges and the railroads. In 1849, he received a patent related to buoying vessels.
Lincoln represented the Alton & Sangamon Railroad, for example, in an 1851 dispute with one of its shareholders, James A. Barret. Barret had refused to pay the balance on his pledge to that corporation on the ground that it had changed its originally planned route. Lincoln argued that as a matter of law a corporation is not bound by its original charter when that charter can be amended in the public interest, that the newer proposed Alton & Sangamon route was superior and less expensive, and that accordingly the corporation had a right to sue Mr. Barret for his delinquent payment. He won this case, and the decision by the Illinois Supreme Court was eventually cited by several other courts throughout the United States.
Another important example of Lincoln's skills as a railroad lawyer was a lawsuit over a tax exemption that the state granted to the Illinois Central Railroad. McLean County argued that the state had no authority to grant such an exemption, and it sought to impose taxes on the railroad notwithstanding. In January 1856, the Illinois Supreme Court delivered its opinion upholding the tax exemption, accepting Lincoln's arguments.
Lincoln's most notable criminal trial came in 1858 when he defended William "Duff" Armstrong, who was on trial for the murder of James Preston Metzker. The case is famous for when Lincoln used judicial notice, a rare tactic at that time, to show an eyewitness had lied on the stand, claiming he witnessed the crime in the moonlight. Lincoln produced a Farmer's Almanac to show that the moon on that date was at such a low angle it could not have produced enough illumination for the would-be witness to see anything clearly. Based upon this evidence, Armstrong was acquitted.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which expressly repealed the limits on slavery's spread that had been part of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, drew Lincoln back into politics.
Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, the most powerful man in the Senate, proposed popular sovereignty as the solution to the slavery impasse, incorporating it into the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Douglas argued that in a democracy the people of a territory should decide whether to allow slavery or not, and not have a decision imposed on them by Congress.
It was a speech against Kansas-Nebraska, on October 16, 1854 in Peoria, that caused Lincoln to stand out among the other free soil orators of the day. He helped form the new Republican party, drawing on remnants of the old Whig, Free Soil, Liberty and Democratic parties.
In a stirring campaign, the Republicans carried Illinois in 1854, and elected a senator. Lincoln was the obvious choice, but to keep party unity he allowed the election to go to his colleague Lyman Trumbull.
In 1857-58 Douglas broke with President Buchanan, leading to a terrific fight for control of the Democratic party. Some eastern Republicans even favored the reelection of Douglas in 1858, since he led the opposition to the administration's push for the Lecompton Constitution which would have admitted Kansas as a slave state. Accepting the Republican nomination for the Senate in 1858, Lincoln delivered a famous speech [http://www.nationalcenter.org/HouseDivided.html] in which he stated, "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other." The speech created a lasting image of the danger of disunion due to slavery, and rallied Republicans across the north.
The 1858 campaign featured the Lincoln-Douglas debates, a nationally noticed discussion on the issues that threatened to split the nation in two. Lincoln forced Douglas to propose his Freeport Doctrine, which lost him further support among slave-holders and speeded the division of the Democratic Party. Though the Republican legislative candidates won more popular votes, the Democrats won more seats and the legislature reelected Douglas to the Senate (this was before the 17th Amendment proscribed popular vote for Senate seats). Nevertheless, Lincoln's eloquence transformed him into a national political star.
Election and early Presidency
17th Amendment
Lincoln was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate for the 1860 election for several reasons: because his views on slavery were seen as more moderate; because of his Western origins (in contrast to his main rival for the nomination, the New Yorker William H. Seward), and because several other contenders had enemies within the party. During the campaign, Lincoln was dubbed "The Rail Splitter" by Republicans to emphasize Lincoln's humility and humble origins, though in fact Lincoln was quite wealthy at the time due to his successful law practice.
On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the 16th President of the United States, beating Douglas, Breckenridge, and Bell. Lincoln was the first Republican president. He won entirely on the strength of his support in the North: he was not even on the ballot in nine states in the South — and won only 2 of 996 counties in the entire South. Lincoln gained 1,865,908 votes for 180 electoral votes, Douglas 1,380,202 for 12 electoral votes, Breckenridge 848,019 for 72 electoral votes, and Bell 590,901 for 39 electoral votes.
Even before Lincoln's election, some leaders in the South made it clear that their states would leave the Union in response to a Lincoln victory. South Carolina took the lead followed by six other Southern states. They seceded before Lincoln took office, forming an entirely new nation, the Confederate States of America. President Buchanan and president-elect Lincoln refused to recognize the Confederacy.
President-elect Lincoln survived an assassination attempt in Baltimore, Maryland, and on February 23, 1861 arrived secretly in disguise in Washington, D.C. Southerners ridiculed Lincoln for this subterfuge, but the efforts at security may have been prudent. At Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, 1861, the Turners formed Lincoln's bodyguard; and a sizable garrison of federal troops was also present, ready to protect the president and the capital from Confederate invasion.
Confederate
In his First Inaugural Address, Lincoln declared, "I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments", arguing further that the purpose of the United States Constitution was "to form a more perfect union" than the Articles of Confederation which were explicitly perpetual, and thus the Constitution too was perpetual. He asked rhetorically that even were the Constitution construed as a simple contract, would it not require the agreement of all parties to rescind it?
Also in his inaugural address, in a final attempt to unite the Union and prevent the looming war, Lincoln supported the proposed Corwin Amendment to the constitution, of which he had been a driving force. It would have explicitly protected slavery in those states in which it already existed, and had already passed both houses. Lincoln adamantly opposed the Crittenden Compromise, however, which would have permitted slavery in the territories, renewing the boundary set by the Missouri Compromise and extending it to California. Despite support for this compromise among some Republicans, Lincoln declared that were the Crittenden Compromise accepted, it "would amount to a perpetual covenant of war against every people, tribe, and state owning a foot of land between here and Tierra del Fuego."
Because opposition to slavery expansion was the key issue uniting the Republican Party at the time, Lincoln is sometimes criticized for putting politics ahead of the national interest in refusing any compromise allowing the expansion of slavery. Supporters of Lincoln, however, point out that he did not oppose slavery because he was a Republican, but became a Republican because of his opposition to the expansion of slavery, that he opposed several other Republicans who were in favor of compromise, and that he clearly thought his course of action was in the national interest.
After Union troops at Fort Sumter were fired on and forced to surrender in April, Lincoln called on governors of every state to send 75,000 troops to recapture forts, protect the capital, and "preserve the Union", which in his view still existed intact despite the actions of the seceding states. Virginia, which had repeatedly warned Lincoln it would not allow an invasion of its territory or join an attack on another state, now seceded, along with North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas. The slave states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware did not secede, and Lincoln urgently negotiated with state leaders there promising not to interfere with slavery in loyal states.
Slavery and the Emancipation Proclamation
Fort Sumter, 1862.]]
Lincoln is well known for ending slavery in the United States and he personally opposed slavery as a profound moral evil not in accord with the principle of equality asserted in the Declaration of Independence. Yet, Lincoln's views of the role of the federal government on the subject of slavery are more complicated. Lincoln had campaigned against the expansion of slavery into the territories, however, he maintained that the federal government could not constitutionally bar slavery in states where it already existed. During his presidency, Lincoln made it clear that the North was fighting the war to preserve the Union, not to abolish slavery. He was criticized both at home and abroad for his refusal to take a stand for the complete abolition of slavery. On August 22, 1862, a few weeks before signing the Proclamation, and after it had already been drafted, Lincoln responded by letter to an editorial by Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune which had urged abolition:
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. [http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/greeley.htm]
With the Emancipation Proclamation issued in two parts on September 22, 1862 and January 1, 1863, Lincoln made the abolition of slavery a goal of the war. Lincoln addresses the issue of his consistency (or lack thereof) between his earlier position and his later position on emancipation in an 1864 letter to Albert G. Hodges[http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/hodges.htm]
Lincoln is often credited with freeing enslaved African Americans with the Emancipation Proclamation. However, territories and states that still allowed slavery but were under Union control were exempt from the emancipation. The proclamation on its first day, January 1, 1863, freed only a few escaped slaves, but as Union armies advanced south more and more slaves were liberated. Lincoln signed the Proclamation as a wartime measure, insisting that only the outbreak of war gave constitutional power to the President to free slaves in states where it already existed. Acting entirely on his presidential powers, he did not ask or receive approval of Congress for the declaration. He later said: "I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper." The proclamation made abolishing slavery in the rebel states an official war goal and it became the impetus for the enactment of the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution which abolished slavery. Politically, the Emancipation Proclamation did much to help the Northern cause; Lincoln's strong abolitionist stand finally convinced the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and other foreign countries that they could not support the Confederate States of America.
Important domestic measures of Lincoln's first term
Confederate States of America
Lincoln believed in the Whig theory of the presidency, which left Congress to write the laws. He signed them, vetoing only bills that threatened his war powers. Thus he signed the Homestead Act in 1862, making available millions of acres of government-held land in the west for purchase at very low cost. The Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act, also signed in 1862, provided government grants for agricultural universities in each state. The most important legislation involved money matters, including the first income tax and higher tariffs. Most important was the creation of the system of national banks by the National Banking Acts of 1863, 1864 and 1865. They allowed the creation of a strong national financial system.
Lincoln sent a senior general to put down the "Sioux Uprising" of August 1862 in Minnesota. Presented with 303 death warrants for convicted Santee Dakota who had massacred innocent farmers, Lincoln affirmed 39 of these for execution (one was later reprieved).
1864 election and Second Inauguration
After Union victories at Gettysburg, Vicksburg and Chattanooga in 1863, many in the North believed that victory was soon to come after Lincoln appointed U.S. Grant General-in-Chief on March 12, 1864. Although no president since Andrew Jackson had been elected to a second term (and none since Van Buren had been re-nominated), Lincoln's re-election was considered a certainty.
However, when the spring campaigns, east and west, all turned into bloody stalemates, Northern morale dipped and Lincoln seemed less likely to be re-nominated. Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase strongly desired the Republican nomination and was working hard to win it, while John Fremont was nominated by a breakoff group of radical Republicans, potentially taking away crucial votes in the November elections.
Fearing he might lose the election, Lincoln wrote out and signed the following pledge, but did not show it to his cabinet, asking them each to sign the sealed envelope. Lincoln wrote:
This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterwards.
The Democrats, hoping to make setbacks in the war a top campaign issue, waited until late summer to nominate a candidate. Their platform was heavily influenced by the Peace wing of the party, calling the war a "failure," but their candidate, former General George McClellan, was a War Democrat, determined to prosecute the war until the Union was restored, although willing to compromise on all other issues, including slavery.
McClellan's candidacy was soon undercut as on September 1, just two days after the convention, Atlanta was abandoned by the Confederate army. Coming on the heels of David Farragut's capture of Mobile Bay and followed by Phil Sheridan's crushing victory over Jubal Early's army at Cedar Creek, it was now apparent that the tide had turned in favor of the Union and that Lincoln may be reelected despite the costs of the war.
Still, Lincoln believed that he would win the electoral vote by only a slim margin, failing to give him the mandate he'd need if he was to push his lenient reconstruction plan. To his surprise, Lincoln ended up winning all but two states, capturing 212 of 233 electoral votes.
After Lincoln's election, on March 4, 1865, he delivered his second inaugural address, which was his favorite of all his speeches. At this time, a victory over the rebels was within sight, slavery had effectively ended, and Lincoln was looking to the future.
Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether"
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
Civil War and Reconstruction
Conducting the war effort
The war was a source of constant frustration for the president, and it occupied nearly all of his time. Lincoln had a contentious relationship with General George B. McClellan, who became general-in-chief of all the Union armies in the wake of the embarrassing Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run and after the retirement of Winfield Scott in late 1861. Lincoln wished to take an active part in planning the war strategy despite his inexperience in military affairs. Lincoln's strategic priorities were two-fold: first, to ensure that Washington, D.C., was well-defended; and second, to conduct an aggressive war effort in hopes of ending the war quickly and appeasing the Northern public and press, who pushed for an offensive war. McClellan, a youthful West Point graduate and railroad executive called back to military service, took a more cautious approach. McClellan took several months to plan and execute his Peninsula Campaign, which involved capturing Richmond by moving the Army of the Potomac by boat to the peninsula between the James and York Rivers. McClellan's delay irritated Lincoln, as did McClellan's insistence that no troops were needed to defend Washington, D.C. Lincoln insisted on holding some of McClellan's troops to defend the capital, a decision McClellan blamed for the ultimate failure of his Peninsula Campaign.
McClellan, a lifelong Democrat who was temperamentally conservative, was relieved as general-in-chief after releasing his Harrison's Landing Letter, where he offered unsolicited political advice to Lincoln urging caution in the war effort. McClellan's letter incensed Radical Republicans, who successfully pressured Lincoln to appoint fellow Republican John Pope as head of the new Army of Virginia. Pope complied with Lincoln's strategic desire for the Union to move towards Richmond from the north, thus guarding Washington, D.C. However, Pope was soundly defeated at the Second Battle of Bull Run during the summer of 1862, forcing the Army of the Potomac back into the defenses of Washington for a second time. Pope was sent to Minnesota to fight the Sioux.
Panicked by Confederate General Robert E. Lee's invasion of Maryland, Lincoln restored McClellan to command of all forces around Washington in time for the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. It was the Union victory in that battle that allowed Lincoln to release his Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln relieved McClellan of command shortly after the 1862 midterm elections and appointed Republican Ambrose Burnside to head the Army of the Potomac, who promised to follow through on Lincoln's strategic vision for an aggressive offensive against Lee and Richmond. After Burnside was stunningly defeated at Fredericksburg, Joseph Hooker was given command, despite his idle talk about becoming a military strong man. Hooker was routed by Lee at Chancellorsville in May 1863 and also relieved of command.
After the Union victory at Gettysburg, Meade's failure to pursue Lee, and months of inactivity for the Army of the Potomac, Lincoln decided to bring in a western general: General Ulysses S. Grant. He had a solid string of victories in the Western Theater, including Vicksburg and Chattanooga. Earlier, reacting to criticism of Grant, Lincoln was quoted as saying, "I cannot spare this man. He fights." Grant waged his bloody Overland Campaign in 1864, using a strategy of a war of attrition, characterized by high Union losses at battles such as the Wilderness and Cold Harbor, but by proportionately higher losses in the Confederate army. Grant's aggressive campaign would eventually bottle up Lee in the Siege of Petersburg and result in the Union taking Richmond and bringing the war to a close in the spring of 1865.
Lincoln authorized Grant to use a scorched earth approach to destroy the South's morale and economic ability to continue the war. This allowed Generals William Tecumseh Sherman and Philip Sheridan to destroy farms and towns in the Shenandoah Valley, Georgia, and South Carolina. The damage in Sherman's March to the Sea through Georgia totaled in excess of $100 million.
Lincoln had a star-crossed record as a military leader, possessing a keen understanding of strategic points (such as the Mississippi River and the fortress city of Vicksburg) and the importance of defeating the enemy's army, rather than simply capturing cities. However, he had little success in his efforts to motivate his generals to adopt his strategies. Eventually, he found in Grant a man who shared his vision of the war and was able to bring that vision to reality with his relentless pursuit of coordinated offensives in multiple theaters of war.
Lincoln, perhaps reflecting his lack of military experience, developed a keen curiosity with military campaigning during the war. He spent hours at the War Department telegraph office, reading dispatches from his generals through many a night. He frequently visited battle sites and seemed fascinated by watching scenes of war. During Jubal A. Early's raid into Washington, D.C., in 1864, Lincoln had to be told to duck his head to avoid being shot observing the scenes of battle.
Homefront
Lincoln was more successful in giving the war meaning to Northern civilians through his oratorical skills. Despite his meager education and “backwoods” upbringing, Lincoln possessed an extraordinary command of the English language, as evidenced by the Gettysburg Address, a speech dedicating a cemetery of Union soldiers from the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. While the featured speaker, orator Edward Everett, spoke for two hours, Lincoln's few choice words resonated across the nation and across history, defying Lincoln's own prediction that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." Lincoln's second inaugural address is also greatly admired and often quoted. In these speeches, Lincoln articulated better than any of his contemporaries the rationale behind the Union effort.
During the Civil War, Lincoln exercised powers no previous president had wielded; he proclaimed a blockade, suspended the writ of habeas corpus, spent money without congressional authorization, and frequently imprisoned accused Southern spies and sympathizers without trial. Some scholars have argued that Lincoln's political arrests extended to the highest levels of the government, including an attempted warrant for Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, though the allegation remains unresolved and controversial (see the Taney Arrest Warrant controversy).
Lincoln was the only U.S. President to face a presidential election during a civil war (in 1864). The long war and the issue of emancipation appeared to be severely hampering his prospects and pessimists warned that defeat appeared likely. Lincoln ran under the Union party banner, composed of War Democrats and Republicans. General Grant was facing severe criticism for his conduct of the bloody Overland Campaign that summer and the seemingly endless Siege of Petersburg. However, the Union capture of the key railroad center of Atlanta by Sherman's forces in September changed the situation dramatically and Lincoln was reelected.
The reconstruction of the Union weighed heavy on the President's mind throughout the war effort. He was determined to take a course that would not permanently alienate the former Confederate states, and throughout the war Lincoln urged speedy elections under generous terms in areas behind Union lines. This irritated congressional Republicans, who urged a more stringent Reconstruction policy. One of Lincoln's few vetoes during his term was of the Wade-Davis Bill, an effort by congressional Republicans to impose harsher Reconstruction terms on the Confederate areas. Republicans in Congress retaliated by refusing to seat representatives elected from Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee during the war under Lincoln's generous terms.
"Let 'em up easy," he told his assembled military leaders Gen. Ulysses S. Grant (a future president), Gen. William T. Sherman and Adm. David Dixon Porter in an 1865 meeting on the steamer River Queen. When Richmond, the Confederate capital, was at long last captured, Lincoln went there to make a public gesture of sitting at Jefferson Davis's own desk, symbolically saying to the nation that the President of the United States held authority over the entire land. He was greeted at the city as a conquering hero by freed slaves, whose sentiments were epitomized by one admirer's quote, "I know I am free for I have seen the face of Father Abraham and have felt him."
On April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. This left only Joseph Johnston's forces in the East to deal with. Weeks later Johnston would defy Jefferson Davis and surrender his forces to Sherman. Of course, Lincoln would not survive to see the surrender of all Confederate forces; just five days after Lee surrendered, Lincoln was assassinated. He was the first President to be assassinated, and the third to die in office.
Assassination
assassinated, Mary Todd Lincoln, Lincoln, and Booth.]]
Lincoln had met frequently with Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant as the war drew to a close. The two men planned matters of reconstruction, and it was evident to all that they held each other in high regard. During their last meeting, on April 14, 1865 (Good Friday), Lincoln invited Grant to a social engagement that evening. Grant declined (Grant's wife, Julia Dent Grant, is said to have strongly disliked Mary Todd Lincoln). The President's eldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, also turned down the invitation.
John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and Southern sympathizer from Maryland, heard that the president and Mrs. Lincoln, along with the Grants, would be attending Ford's Theatre. Having failed in a plot to kidnap Lincoln earlier, Booth informed his co-conspirators of his in | | |
