Abraham Lincoln 3 Essay Research Paper Abraham

Abraham Lincoln 3 Essay, Research Paper

Abraham LincolnEvery male child and miss who knew Abraham Lincoln loved him as a friend. All the kids around his place in Springfield, Ill. , and around the White House in Washington felt that & # 8220 ; Mr. Lincoln & # 8221 ; understood them and genuinely liked them. Work force and adult females who knew him admired him and called him & # 8220 ; honest Abe. & # 8221 ; Peoples throughout the universe said he was one of the greatest work forces of all clip. He was an unusual adult male in many ways. One minute he would wrestle with his boies or state a gag and slap his bony articulatio genuss in laughter. The following minute he might be deep in idea and non notice anything around him. He was soft and patient, but no 1 was more determined. He was tall & # 8211 ; about six pess four inches & # 8211 ; really thin, and stooped. He spent less than a twelvemonth in school, but he ne’er stopped analyzing. All his life he was a & # 8220 ; learner. & # 8221 ; Born in a log cabin on the frontier, he made his ain manner in life and became the president who kept the United States united.His Family Came from EnglandThe foremost of the Lincoln household to come to America was Samuel Lincoln. He had been a weaver & # 8217 ; s learner at Hingham, England. He settled in Hingham, Mass. , in 1637. From there the household spread due south to Virginia, where Abraham & # 8217 ; s male parent, Thomas Lincoln, was born in 1778. When Thomas was four old ages old the household moved to Kentucky. There his male parent, who was a husbandman, was killed by Indians. Thomas grew up in Kentucky. He ne’er went to school, but he learned to be a carpenter. He was a strong, heavy-built adult male, who sometimes spoke aggressively and at other times entertained his friends with gags and narratives. Some historiographers have called him shiftless. True, he moved many times in his life, but he worked difficult plenty at woodworking to purchase farms. He did non, nevertheless, make much of a life, because most of the land he cleared was excessively hapless for good crops.Marries Nancy Hanks, Mother of AbrahamIn 1806 Thomas married Nancy Hanks. She had been born in Virginia, but small else is known of the Hanks household. Nancy was merely a babe when her female parent Lucy brought her to Kentucky. When Nancy married Thomas Lincoln she was 22 old ages old, tall, and slender. Some historiographers say she could neither read nor compose, which was non unusual for pioneer adult females. Others say that she read the Bible day-to-day. Thomas and Nancy settled in Elizabethtown in Hardin County, Ky. Their first kid, Sarah, was born at that place. In 1808 Thomas bought a half-cleared farm at Sinking Spring on the Nolin River near Hodgenville. He hopefully moved his household to this first farm & # 8211 ; a rolled stretch of thin, hapless land on a alone river.Abraham Born in a Log CabinAbout dawn on Feb. 12, 1809, the boy of Thomas and Nancy Lincoln was born. They named him Abraham after his gramps Lincoln. Abraham & # 8217 ; s place of birth was a one-room log cabin, 16 pess long and 18 pess broad. The logs were chinked with clay and visible radiation came indistinctly through the individual window. The floor was earth, packed down hard, and the bed was made of poles and cornhusks. A howling fire on the fireplace and unsmooth bearskin covers kept Nancy and her boy Abraham warm on that cold winter forenoon. In the spring of 1811 Thomas Lincoln moved his household to a farm he had bought on Knob Creek, approximately 10 stat mis north-east of Sinking Spring. In ulterior old ages Abraham Lincoln said that the Knob Creek farm was the first place he remembered and he loved it. Like all farm male childs in those busy yearss immature Abe learned to works, hoe, chaff maize, construct hearth fires, carry H2O, and chop wood. When he was six old ages old, Sarah and he tramped & # 8220 ; up the route a piece, & # 8221 ; some two stat mis each manner, to a log schoolhouse. Here he learned to read, compose, and & # 8220 ; make amounts & # 8221 ; ( arithmetic ) . He liked composing best of all. Later he said that he practiced composing & # 8220 ; anyplace and everyplace that lines could be drawn. & # 8221 ; He wrote with wood coal on the dorsum of a wooden shovel and even in dust and snow. Between chores immature Abe climbed the bouldery drops at Knob Creek, roamed among the dark cool pines and cedar trees in the vale, or waded in the pebbly brook. Sometimes he stood in the hot, dust-covered clay to watch the covered waggons transporting colonists along the nearby Cumberland Trail. His buckskin knee pantss were pulled high on his lank legs and his thin weaponries stuck out from his unsmooth linen shirt. There were no close neighbours. Abe got used to being entirely. He did non mind because he loved the hills and the quiet hollows and the trees & # 8211 ; particularly the trees. He learned so good to state the many sorts that many old ages subsequently, on his walks around Washington, he would indicate out their differences. He smilingly told visitants, & # 8220 ; I know all about trees in visible radiation of being a backwoodsman. & # 8221 ; Lincolns Move to IndianaIn December 1816 Thomas took his household across the Ohio River to the back countries of Indiana. For the last few stat mis Thomas, likely helped by Abe, had to cut a trail out of the wilderness of trees and tangle of wild pipelines. That winter in Indiana was so cold that people remembered it as the twelvemonth of & # 8220 ; eighteen hundred and stop dead to death. & # 8221 ; The Lincolns settled on Little Pigeon Creek in Spencer County, approximately 16 stat mis from the Ohio River. Young Abe and Sarah helped their male parent construct a & # 8220 ; half-faced camp. & # 8221 ; This was a shed of poles and bark, with one side left unfastened toward a boom log fire. They had to maintain the fire combustion twenty-four hours and dark. They needed it for heat, cookery, and drying their snow-soaked apparels and mocassins. While the household huddled in their lean-to through the freeze winter, Thomas and Abe worked every twenty-four hours constructing a log cabin. Abe was merely eight old ages old, but really big for his age, and he rapidly learned to swing an ax. They cut and hewed logs for a cabin 18 pess by 20, so chinked the logs with clay and grass. Once in a while the male child shot a wild Meleagris gallopavo, for the household lived largely on wild game, with a small maize. He ne’er became much of a huntsman, nevertheless, as he did non like to hit to kill. With Sarah he picked berries, nuts, and wild fruits for the household and trudged a stat mi to a spring for H2O. All around them was the unbroken wilderness. Abraham & # 8217 ; s Fine Stepmother & # 8211 ; SarahIn the fall of 1818 Nancy Hanks Lincoln died of the apprehension frontier disease called & # 8220 ; milk sickness. & # 8221 ; Sarah, merely 11 old ages old, took over the cookery and cabin jobs while Thomas and immature Abe cut lumber to clear farm land. After a twelvemonth the small household was in regretful form. They needed a adult female & # 8217 ; s assist. Thomas rode back to Elizabethtown, Ky. , and married a widow, Sarah Bush Johnston, whom he had known since boyhood. He brought her and her three kids to the shabby small log cabin in Indiana. Abe and his sister Sarah rapidly learned to love their 2nd female parent. She was a big-boned adult female, with clear tegument, friendly eyes, and a quiet manner of acquiring things done. She cleaned up the untidy cabin. She had Thomas do a wood floor and chairs and construct a bed for the plume mattress she had brought from Kentucky. Young Abe and Sarah had ne’er lived in a cabin so homelike. Thomas did better on the farm, excessively, and the kids began to eat and dress better. Sarah Lincoln did all this without any unfavorable judgment or impatient words. She knew good that the household needed her. Best of all, she encouraged Abe to analyze. She was non educated, but she saw how eager he was to larn. In ulterior old ages he said of her: & # 8220 ; She was the best friend I of all time had. . . . All that I am, I owe to my angel mother. & # 8221 ; Sarah Lincoln told people: & # 8220 ; He was the best male child I of all time saw. I ne’er gave him a cross word in my life. His head and mine, what small I had, seemed to run together. & # 8221 ; Abe Grows Up with BooksSarah made Thomas direct the gangling 11-year-old to school. There was no regular instructor. When some adult male came along who knew a small about the three R & # 8217 ; s, he might learn the male childs and misss for a few hebdomads & # 8211 ; normally in the winter when farm work was slack. Whenever & # 8220 ; school kept & # 8221 ; at Pigeon Creek, Abe hiked four stat mis each manner, his cowhide boots splashing in the snow. He did non mind this long, uncomfortable hiking to and from school because he was glad to be larning. All topics fascinated him. In all his life his schooling did non add up to a twelvemonth, but he made up for it by reading. A cousin, Dennis Hanks, who came to populate with the Lincolns, said: & # 8220 ; I ne’er seen Abe after he was 12 that he didn & # 8217 ; Ts have a book somewheres around. & # 8221 ; By the clip Abe was 14 he would frequently read at dark by the visible radiation of the log fire. His first books were the Bible, & # 8216 ; Aesop & # 8217 ; s Fables & # 8217 ; , and & # 8216 ; Robinson Crusoe & # 8217 ; . When he was 15 old ages old he was so tall and strong that he frequently worked as a hired manus on other farms. Normally, while he plowed or disconnected fencing tracks, he kept a borrowed book tucked in his shirt to read while he lunched or rested. He could turn in a good twenty-four hours & # 8217 ; s work when he had to. Many neighbours, nevertheless, called him lazy, stating he was & # 8220 ; ever readin & # 8217 ; and thinkin & # 8217 ; . & # 8221 ; Once Abe grinned and told his farm foreman, & # 8220 ; My male parent taught me to work, but he ne’er taught me to love it. & # 8221 ; A husbandman loaned him & # 8216 ; The Life of George Washington & # 8217 ; , by Parson Weems, and Abe left it in the rain. To do up for his sloppiness, Abe shucked maize for him for three yearss. All his life Abraham Lincoln made every attempt to make the just thing. He could ne’er acquire adequate to read. He said: & # 8220 ; The things I want to cognize are in books. My best friend is the adult male who & # 8217 ; ll acquire me a book I ain & # 8217 ; t read. & # 8221 ; Once he tramped about 20 stat mis to Rockport to borrow one.Storyteller, Ferryman, and Law & # 8220 ; Listener & # 8221 ; After supper Abe frequently walked down the route to Gentryville to fall in the & # 8220 ; boys & # 8221 ; at Gentry & # 8217 ; s shop. His humourous narratives, sometimes told in idiom, were popular with the immature work forces lounging against the log counter. He loved to copy travellers and local characters and would throw back his caput with a flourishing laugh. In his ain address he pronounced words as he had learned them on the Kentucky frontier, such as & # 8220 ; cheer & # 8221 ; for & # 8220 ; chair & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; git & # 8221 ; for & # 8220 ; get. & # 8221 ; That was the manner all Southern woodmans talked. Between farm jobs he helped to run a ferry across the Ohio River to Kentucky. When he was 18 he built his ain scow and rowed riders over the shoals to soft-shell clams out in the river. Always he kept learning himself new things. He became interested in jurisprudence. Borrowing a book on the Torahs of Indiana, he studied it long into the dark. He strode stat mis to the nearest courthouse to hear attorneies try instances. He even crossed into Kentucky to listen in tribunal. Every visit taught him more about the ways of attorneies and furnished him with new narratives. Throughout his ulterior life as a attorney, politician, and solon he astutely drew on this rich fund of narratives to do a legal point or to win audiences. Down the Mississippi to New OrleansWhen Abe was 19 he got his first opportunity to see something of the & # 8220 ; outside world. & # 8221 ; James Gentry, the proprietor of the state shop, hired him to take a barge of lading to New Orleans, so a affluent metropolis of some 40,000 people. With Gentry & # 8217 ; s boy, Allen, Abe cut timber, hewed great boards, and built a barge called a & # 8220 ; broadhorn. & # 8221 ; New Orleans was 1,000 stat mis down the writhing Mississippi River. From dawn to sundown the two brawny immature work forces pulled the long oars & # 8211 ; about 40 pess long at bow and austere. Often they hastily hauled back on the side sweeps to swing the boat from snags, gawky barges, or spare soft-shell clams caught in the shifting currents. They lived on board, cooking and kiping in a rickety lean-to on deck. At dark they tied up to a tree or stump on the boggy bank. In New Orleans Abe saw his first auction of slaves. At that clip bondage was lawful in all the United States South of the Ohio River. The tall, thoughtful immature adult male winced at the sight of slave packs in ironss being marched off to plantations. Subsequently he said, & # 8220 ; Slavery is a continual torture to me. & # 8221 ; To Illinois and Splitting RailsBack from New Orleans, Abe clerked portion clip at Gentry & # 8217 ; s state shop and helped his male parent acquire ready to travel to Illinois. The Indiana farm had non been a success. Through the winter the work forces built waggons and thoraxs and made yokes and harness. In March 1830 they started their 200-mile trek. Fording rivers and brook, the heavy waggons frequently broke through the ice. Lincoln subsequently said: & # 8220 ; Once my small Canis familiaris jumped out of the waggon. . . broke through, and was fighting for life. I could non bear to lose my Canis familiaris, and I jumped out of the waggon and waded waist deep in ice and H2O, and got clasp of him. & # 8221 ; The household settled on the Sangamon River, some 10 stat mis south-west of Decatur, Ill. Once more Abe helped to unclutter a farm. With a cousin, John Hanks, he so split 3,000 tracks to fence some neighbours & # 8217 ; land. He was genuinely & # 8220 ; right Handy with an ax. & # 8221 ; His efforts with an ax on the Illinois prairie led his political protagonists to name him, subsequently in life, the & # 8220 ; inveigh splitter. & # 8221 ; Even in his last old ages, as president, he could keep an ax heterosexual out at arm & # 8217 ; s length & # 8211 ; something really few immature work forces could do.Starts His Own Life at New SalemAfter a winter of cold and illness Thomas Lincoln once more moved, about 100 stat mis south-east into Coles County. This clip Abe did non travel. He was 21 old ages old and ready to populate his ain life. Loving the river, he once more took a barge to New Orleans, loaded with porc, maize, and unrecorded pigs. On his return he hired out as a clerk in the small town shop at New Salem, Ill. The bantam colony stood on a bluff above the Sangamon, approximately 20 stat mis north-west of Springfield. Here he lived for six old ages ( 1831-37 ) . For $ 15 a month and a dormant room in the dorsum, he tended shop and a gristmill. Narratives sprang up fast about Lincoln in the New Salem yearss. Peoples spoke about his rigorous honestness and his elephantine strength. Some told how he one time walked six stat mis to give back a few pennies to a adult female who had overpaid for dry goods. Whenever a colonist bought pelts, or an oxen yoke, gun, tea, or salt knew he would acquire his money & # 8217 ; s worth from & # 8220 ; honest Abe. & # 8221 ; He would besides bask a laugh at one of Abe & # 8217 ; s narratives. Lincoln & # 8217 ; s employer boasted of Abe & # 8217 ; s strength and wrestle ability so much that a pack of street fighters in nearby Clary & # 8217 ; s Grove challenged him. Work force trooped in from the adjacent small towns to see the lucifer. The Clary & # 8217 ; s Grove title-holder was Jack Armstrong, a thickset, powerful adult male. He had ever thrown all comers. He rushed at Lincoln, seeking to hurtle him off his pess. Lincoln held Armstrong off in his long weaponries, so grappled and threw him to the grass where they rolled over and over. After a heaving, grunting hassle Lincoln Lashkar-e-Taiba travel of Armstrong and, harmonizing to some narratives, said: & # 8220 ; Jack, allow & # 8217 ; s quit. I can & # 8217 ; t throw you. You can & # 8217 ; t throw me. & # 8221 ; Armstrong shook Lincoln & # 8217 ; s manus, stating he was the & # 8220 ; best lumberman that of all time broke into this settlement. & # 8221 ; They became good friends. In lucifers with other powerful grapplers Lincoln frequently merely tossed them over his caput. With his great long legs he was the fastest pes race driver, and when he had to contend with his fists he did.

Captain in Black Hawk WarWhen the Black Hawk War broke out I

n April 1832 Lincoln and the Clary’s Grove men enlisted. The war was a series of border raids by Sauk and Fox Indians led by chief Black Hawk. They crossed from Iowa into Illinois and attacked and scalped settlers. (See also Indians, American, “Centuries of Struggle Between Indians and Whites.”)The Clary’s Grove men elected Lincoln captain of their rifle company. The honor pleased him, but he knew nothing about military life. Once he could not think of the order he should give to march his company through a gate in formation. Scratching his head, he finally commanded: “Halt! this company will break ranks for two minutes and form again on the other side of the gate.”When Lincoln’s term of enlistment ended in 30 days he re-enlisted as a private. In all, he served three months. He never fought in a battle, but he twice saw the horror of bodies scalped by the Indians. His army experience, learned on long marches and in rough camps, taught him sympathy for soldiers’ hardships in the field. In later life, when he was commander in chief in the Civil War, he treated soldiers’ failings with great understanding.Loses in Politics; Opens a StoreJust before the outbreak of the Black Hawk War, Lincoln had decided to run for the Illinois legislature. After his war service he again started his campaign. He was 23 years old, lanky and so tall that his cheap linen pants never reached his ankles. His coarse black hair was always mussed and his dark-skinned face was already deeply lined. In a circular he sent out to voters, he wrote: “I was born and have remained in the most humble walks of life.” While he was speaking at one political rally a fight broke out. Lincoln strode up to the man who had started the brawl, seized him by the neck and seat of the pants, and hurled him out of the crowd. Lincoln then calmly went back to his speech, saying: “My politics are short and sweet, like the old lady’s dance.” In just two or three sentences he told what he would vote for and ended by saying: “If elected I shall be thankful; if not, it will be all the same.” He did not carry the district, but his local popularity gave him nearly every vote in New Salem. Meanwhile the New Salem store failed. Lincoln was out of work. He thought of learning to be a blacksmith, but another New Salem store was put up for sale. Lincoln, with William Berry as partner, bought it on credit. Neither one, however, was much interested in tending to business. Lincoln preferred to visit with the few customers or to lean against the door and read. After several months Berry died, leaving Lincoln more than $1,000 in debt. Eventually he paid back every cent, but it took him years. Becomes Postmaster and SurveyorFailing as a storekeeper, Lincoln again was “hard up.” In May 1833 his friends got him appointed the postmaster of New Salem. The job paid only about $50 a year, but it took little of his time and gave him the chance to read all the incoming newspapers free. He read every issue and was particularly interested in the political news. To earn his board and lodging, he also split rails and worked as a mill hand and hired man. In every spare moment he read or made political talks. In the autumn of 1833 Lincoln gladly took an appointment as deputy county surveyor. To learn the work, he plunged into books on surveying and mathematics. By studying all day, and sometimes all night, he learned surveying in six weeks. As he rode about the county, laying out roads and towns, he lived with different families and made new friends. The wife of Jack Armstrong, the Clary’s Grove “champion,” said: “Abe would drink milk, eat mush, corn bread and butter, and rock the cradle. . . . He would tell stories, joke people at parties . . . do anything to accommodate anybody.”Elected to Legislature and Becomes LawyerIn 1834 Lincoln’s old friends in New Salem and his new friends throughout Sangamon County elected him to the Illinois General Assembly. They reelected him in 1836, 1838, and 1840. Before his first term began in November 1834 he borrowed 200 dollars to pay the most pressing of his debts and to buy a suit for his new work. Vandalia was then the capital of Illinois. Lincoln soon became popular in the legislature. One representative said that Lincoln was “raw-boned . . . ungraceful . . . almost uncouth . . . and yet there was a magnetism about the man that made him a universal favorite.” By the time he started his second term he was a skilled politician and a leader of the Whig party in Illinois. A fellow Whig declared: “We followed his lead; but he followed nobody’s lead. . . . He was poverty itself, but independent.”Encouraged by friends in the legislature, he determined to become a lawyer. Between terms he borrowed law books and returned them in New Salem in order to study. Often he walked the 20-mile (32-kilometer) round trip between Springfield and New Salem just to return one law book and to get another. He was doing what he advised a young law student to do years later: “Get the books . . . and study them till you understand them in their principal features. . . . Your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.” He took some time from his studying to serve as New Salem’s postmaster and did some surveying work. On Sept. 9, 1836, he received his law license. In New Salem Lincoln boarded in the log inn kept by James Rutledge. Rutledge’s daughter Ann was tall, slim, and blue-eyed, with auburn hair. Legend says that she was Lincoln’s sweetheart and that when she died in 1835, at the age of 19, he nearly lost his mind in grief. The legend apparently grew from a lecture given by William Herndon, Lincoln’s last law partner, a year after Lincoln’s death. Historians today, however, are not convinced that Ann Rutledge promised to marry Lincoln. At the time of her death, from what was called “brain fever,” she was engaged to one of Lincoln’s friends, John McNamar. Two years before Anne’s death Lincoln had met in New Salem a visitor from Kentucky. She was Mary Owens, the well-educated daughter of a wealthy farmer. She was slightly older than Lincoln. He escorted her to quiltings, huskings, and other social events, but sometimes forgot to help her cross creeks or climb steep hills. Apparently his absent-mindedness did not suit Mary Owens. When, in the summer of 1837, he proposed to her in a rather indecisive way, she “respectfully declined” to marry him.Lincoln in SpringfieldIn 1837 Lincoln led the drive to have the capital transferred from Vandalia to Springfield. The legislature did not meet there until 1839, but in April 1837 Lincoln left New Salem to make his home in Springfield. He put his few belongings into saddlebags and rode a borrowed horse to the thriving town on the prairie. (See also Springfield, Ill.)He was 28 years old and so poor that he did not have the 17 dollars needed to buy the furnishings for a bed. Joshua Speed, a storekeeper, recalled that when Lincoln said he could not afford it, “The tone of his voice was so melancholy that I felt for him.” Speed immediately invited Lincoln to share his own lodgings. This kindness was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. By 1839 Lincoln was established a reputation for himself as a lawyer in Springfield and was taking part in the busy social life of the city. One of the society belles was a young lady named Mary Todd. She had come from her home in Lexington, Ky., to live with her sister and brother-in-law, son of the governor of Illinois. At that time Mary was 21 years old–small, plump, pretty, and unusually well educated–but also temperamental and nervous. Lincoln first met her in the winter of 1839 at a dance. He was immediately attracted to her and said, “Miss Todd, I want to dance with you in the worst way.” Later, she told friends, “And he certainly did!”Courtship and MarriageSoon Lincoln was spending every free moment with Mary Todd. They both loved literature and poetry, especially Shakespeare and Robert Burns. Lincoln delighted in reciting passages from memory. He had always been, as he said, a “slow learner,” but he never forgot what he learned. He was also pleased that Mary took an interest in politics. Mary Todd was also being courted by Stephen Douglas, a prominent lawyer, with whom Lincoln was later to debate dramatically (see Douglas, Stephen). Her wealthy, aristocratic family was opposed to Lincoln, who was considered to be “uncouth, full of rough edges.” Mary, as always, knew exactly what she wanted. By the spring she was devoted to Lincoln and told friends, “His heart is as big as his arms are long.” She was also so sure of his remarkable abilities that she predicted he would someday be elected president of the United States. After a series of temperamental clashes between them, Mary Todd, the Kentucky belle, and Abraham Lincoln, son of the frontier, were married on Nov. 4, 1842. They were living in one room at the Globe Tavern in Springfield when their first child, Robert Todd, was born in 1843. During the next year Lincoln bought a light tan frame house on the edge of town. There Edward, William, and Thomas (Tad) were born in 1846, 1850, and 1853. The Lincolns’ home life was often stormy. Both of them were at fault. An extremely sensitive, high-strung woman who was afflicted with migraine headaches, Mary frequently gave way to rages of uncontrollable temper. Sometimes they may have been justified, for Lincoln had trying habits. Most arose from his enormous power of concentration. When he became interested in a book or a problem, he forgot everything else. Once when he was pulling his baby sons in a wagon and reading a book as he walked, one of the boys fell out. Lincoln did not notice the child’s frightened howls until Mary rushed to pick up her son, then censured the surprised father. Lincoln went to bed at all hours and got up at all hours. Often he came home two or three hours late to dinner, then was startled to find Mary upset over his tardiness. When he took off his stovepipe hat, his notes and legal papers spilled over the neat parlor floor. (He usually carried his work in his hat, which he called his “walking office.”) If the parlor stove went out when he was lost in thought, he never noticed the cold. For no apparent reason he sank into black, silent moods for hours, and sometimes days, at a time. When he thought of it, however, he would do anything to please her. Patiently, he let her teach him the social graces. He was extremely careless about his dress and knew that this bothered Mary, who wanted to take pride in him as a rising young lawyer. Every morning before walking slowly to his untidy law office, he stood in the doorway to let her inspect him. His shirt, which she made, must be fresh, his boots polished, his suit and stovepipe hat brushed. In wet weather she made him carry his baggy umbrella; on cold days, his gray shawl. He knew she was terrified by thunder. No matter how busy he was, he would hurry from his office at the first warning of a storm. Rushing home, he would stay at her side until it ended. Like Mary, he enjoyed entertaining. He neither drank nor smoked but loved music and people. Although he cared nothing for food and had to be prodded to eat, he liked to have friends in for supper. As he prospered in his law practice, Mary and he gave large dinner parties and became noted as generous and gracious hosts.Devotion to FamilyMary and Abe Lincoln were blindly devoted to their four sons. They thought the boys could do no wrong, but the children were hopelessly spoiled and annoyed the whole neighborhood. On Sundays, while Mary was at church, Lincoln took the youngsters to his law office. While he worked unheedingly on his papers, they raced, wrestled, spilled ink, and overturned furniture until Lincoln’s law partner, Herndon, told friends, “I’d like to wring their necks!” He never complained to Lincoln, however. At home Lincoln gave them boisterous “romps,” or read aloud to them while they climbed over him, thumping him enthusiastically. In the yard they chased around him while he curried the horse or milked the cow. When he went to market to help Mary, grocery basket in hand, they trailed along swinging from his long arms or riding his shoulders. Often the noisy procession stopped while he and the boys and neighbor children held hopping contests. Springing with his great long legs, Lincoln “in three hops could get 40 feet on a dead level.”Elected to Congress, Retires to Resume LawIn 1847 Lincoln went to Washington, D.C., as a representative from Illinois. The Mexican War was on (see Mexican War). Lincoln opposed it. His antiwar speeches displeased his political supporters. He knew they would not reelect him. At the end of his term in 1849 he returned to Springfield. He sought an appointment as commissioner in the General Land Office in Washington, but failed to get it. Later that year he was offered the governorship of the Oregon Territory. He refused, convinced that he was now a failure in politics. Returning to the law, he again rode the circuit, which kept him away from home nearly six months of each year. He missed his family but loved the easy comradeship of fellow lawyers staying in country inns and delighted in the sharp give-and-take in court. Wherever he went he could make the jury and courtroom weep or split their sides with laughter. Even more important to his success was his reputation for honesty. Honest Abe would not take a case unless he believed in his client’s innocence or rights. He became an outstanding lawyer. During this period he successfully handled important cases for the Rock Island Railroad and the Illinois Central Railroad. His most famous case, perhaps, was his victorious defense of “Duff” Armstrong, who was accused of murder. Duff was the son of Jack Armstrong, Lincoln’s old wrestling foe. The accusing witness said he had seen Duff bludgeon and kill a man with a “slung shot” one night in the “bright moonlight.” Lincoln opened an almanac and showed it recorded that the moon on that night had set long before the scuffle.Returns to PoliticsThe threat of slavery being extended brought Lincoln back into politics in 1854. He did not suggest interfering with slavery in states where it was already lawful. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, however, enabled the people of each new territory to vote on whether the territory would be slave or free, thus threatening to extend slavery (see Kansas-Nebraska Act). Lincoln began a series of speeches protesting the act. In 1856 he helped to organize the Illinois branch of the new Republican party, a political party formed by people who wanted to stop the spread of slavery (see Political Parties). He became the leading Republican in Illinois. When the Republicans nominated John C. Fremont for the presidency of the United States, Lincoln received 110 votes for nomination as vice-president (see Fremont). This brought Lincoln to the a