REMEMBERING NON-REVISED HISTORY: NOVEMBER 23, 2013

Abraham Lincoln

Sixteenth President of the United States (1861-1865)
First Republican President
Father of the Republican Party

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Biography

Abraham Lincoln February 12, 1809 – April 14, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its greatest constitutional, military, and moral crises—the American Civil War—preserving the Union, abolishing slavery, strengthening the national government and modernizing the economy. Reared in a poor family on the western frontier, Lincoln was self-educated, and became a country lawyer, a Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator during the 1830s, and a one-term member of the United States House of Representatives during the 1840s.

After a series of debates in 1858 that gave national visibility to his opposition to the expansion of slavery, Lincoln lost a Senate race to his arch-rival, Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln, a moderate from a swing state, secured the Republican Party presidential nomination in 1860. With almost no support in the South, Lincoln swept the North and was elected president in 1860. His election was the signal for seven southern slave states to declare their secession from the Union and form the Confederacy. The departure of the Southerners gave Lincoln's party firm control of Congress, but no formula for compromise or reconciliation was found. Lincoln explained in his second inaugural address: "Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the Nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came." » Full Bio

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This Day In History 264 Years Ago
American Revolution - November 23, 1749

Reluctant Patriot Edward Rutledge Is Born

At age 26, Edward Rutledge was the youngest American
to literally risk his neck by signing the Declaration of Independence

On this day in 1749, Edward Rutledge, one of South Carolina's representatives to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, is born in Charleston.

Contrary to the majority of his Congressional colleagues, Rutledge advocated patience with regard to declaring independence. In a letter to John Jay, one of New York's representatives who was similarly disinclined to rush a declaration, Rutledge worried whether moderates like himself and Jay could "effectually oppose" a resolution for independence. Jay had urgent business in New York and therefore was not able to be present for the debates... » Full Article

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Lead Story:
First Issue Of Life Is Published

On November 23, 1936, the first issue of the pictorial magazine Life is published, featuring a cover photo of the Fort Peck Dam by Margaret Bourke-White... » Full Article

Significant Events This Day In History

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