The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln

Governing the Nation During the Civil War

Apr 29, 2008

President Abraham Lincoln, Public Domain

Abraham Lincoln's terms as President were dominated, of course, by the American Civil War. It is here that he earned his title as one of America's greatest Presidents.

To summarize all of Abraham Lincoln's wartime accomplishments in a limited amount of space would certainly fail to do justice to the vastness and importance of his time in office.

The two terms of this great President, who quickly rose from being an unknown local politician from Illinois to a major player in national politics, might be best served with only a quick summary of just a few of his more important accomplishments while in office, as he presided over a divided nation and one of the most brutal wars America has ever fought.

The Situation at Fort Sumpter

By the time he arrived in the White House, Lincoln was already aware that seven southern states had seceded from the Union, organizing themselves into a new union - the "Confederate States of America."

Lincoln, like James Buchanan before him, decried this action, but unlike his predecessor, who felt that he had no authority to do anything about the situation, Lincoln stated early on that it was his job to defend the Union at all costs, which included those states who believed themselves no longer part of it.

Lincoln was sworn in on March 4th of 1861. Over the next months, all northern troops had been removed from these territories, but for a small garrison at Fort Sumpter, a fortified position on a small island in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.

When, on April 12th of that year, just over a month after Lincoln's term began, Confederate troops from South Carolina opened fire on the fort, thus signaling the first official military action of the Civil War. A truce was called in the short battle a day later, but the damage had been done. Lincoln called on the Governers of all union states, asking them to provide militia units in order to aid in preserving the Union, which was now under attack.

The war had begun.

The Emancipation Proclamation

While it would be another three years before slavery was officially abolished in America by way of the thirteenth amendment to the constitution, Lincoln famously issued a proclamation in September of 1862 which freed all the slaves in the states which had seceded from the Union.

The effectiveness of the proclamation was mixed. While the notion of freeing the slaves surely appealed to Lincoln's belief in the immorality of slavery, the proclamation itself might have been issued for practical reasons more than anything else - to encourage slaves to rise up in the south and to join the army of the north in fighting for their own freedom.

The Emancipation Proclamation was surely the most expansive piece of legislation ever issued by a President, with consequences that were both immediate and far reaching.

Finding a General for the Army of the Potomac

One of the great challenges Lincoln found himself facing as he capably (for the most part) commanded the armies of the North from Washington, was in establishing capable Generals to manage the troops themselves. While in the west he found himself with a surprisingly capable man in the form of Ulysses S. Grant, the Eastern army (the Army of the Potomac) was a different story altogether.

Lincoln dismissed three commanders; George McClellen Joseph Hooker and George Meade, all of whom earned victories, but refused to go on the offensive as Lincoln urged them, before bringing Grant to the West and sending his protege, General William Sherman, to the south.

Through it all, though, Lincoln showed admirable skills at military leadership for a man who had only served two months himself.

The Gettysburg Address

Perhaps the most memorable words ever spoken by a President were issued when Lincoln arrived at the new Soldiers' National Cemetary at the site of the famous Battle of Gettysburgh, which had occurred only four and a half months earlier.

This greatest battle of the war, which had given the Union army a decisive victory against the Confederacy, had claimed the lives of nearly 10,000 troops on both sides, had been a pivotal turning point in the war, and those few words that Lincoln provided that Thursday in November, 1963, was a pivotal turning point in the history of the nation.

The address, even at only 272 words, declared Lincoln's continued support for the union, and for democracy. His intent, which was successful, was that the people of the north might have their spirits renewed regarding the war, and that those in the north who opposed their efforts (known as "copperheads") might be silenced.

This address exemplified well Lincoln's handling of the Civil War, and his unwavering belief in the cause of freedom and the importance of the American union. Though the war would continue for more than a year after this, much credit should be given to Abraham Lincoln for its finish, and the eventual reuniting of the union.

The Assassination

On April 14, 1865, just days after the final resolution of the Civil War, President Lincoln was assaniated by John Wilkes Booth while watching a play at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. Booth, a southern sympathiser, was killed 10 days later after a massive manhunt.

While Booth may have succeeded in assassinating the President and bringing his far inferior Vice President, Andrew Johnson, to power, the war was already over. His efforts proved fruitless.

President Lincoln, though elected a Republican, had done wonders to bring the nation together, both Democrat and Republican. When running for reelection in 1864, he had even set aside his partisanship for a time, running as part of the "National Union" party, with Johnson, a Democrat, as his running mate.

The war between the states had dominated Lincoln's entire administration, and surely no other President in history can possibly claim to have presided over a period which changed the nation more than this one. The nation in which Lincoln died was far different from the one in which he had first been elected President.

(Edited by the author on 4/30/08)