Lincoln What was Lincoln doing between 1855 and 1860?

peteanddelmar

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I don't guess he was a professional politician like today.
I have read biographies of him that are old and I am old.

What they taught in school was that he should be almost worshipped.

I am not asking for a political statement only so I guess I have posted on the wrong forum, but I primarily think of him as a politician. What was he doing during this time frame? Any quotes from this time? Was he playing racquetball? I really don't know.
 
I don't guess he was a professional politician like today.
I have read biographies of him that are old and I am old.

What they taught in school was that he should be almost worshipped.

I am not asking for a political statement only so I guess I have posted on the wrong forum, but I primarily think of him as a politician. What was he doing during this time frame? Any quotes from this time? Was he playing racquetball? I really don't know.

Nobody would play racquetball with him because his arms were too long. :giggle: Seriously, though, this was a very key time in Lincoln's life and career. He had retired from politics in the late 1840s, but after Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, he jumped back in, and soon joined the brand new Republican Party. Professionally speaking though, he remained a lawyer throughout this period.

But yes, he gave boatloads of speeches during this interval - some of the most eloquent speeches of his career and virtually all about slavery. In 1858 he ran for Senator of Illinois against his arch-rival, Stephen Douglas. It was during this interval that he engaged in the Lincoln-Douglas debates that propelled him to national attention. Even though he barely lost that election, some people had started thinking about him as Presidential material. But it would be his speech to the Cooper Union in New York in 1860 that really got people mentioning his name as a possible candidate.

Here's an excerpt from a letter he wrote to a slaveholding friend in 1855, explaining his reentry into politics in an anti-slavery party:

In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio, there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continued torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border. It is hardly fair for you to assume, that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union.

I do oppose the extension of slavery, because my judgment and feelings so prompt me; and I am under no obligation to the contrary. If for this you and I must differ, differ we must.


- Abraham Lincoln, letter to Joshua Speed, August 24, 1855

Source: <http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/speed.htm
And here's an excerpt from his Cooper Union speech, at the end of your time interval:

All they ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this?

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored - contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man - such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which all true men do care - such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance - such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.


- Abraham Lincoln, Cooper Union address, February 27, 1860

Source: http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/cooper.htm
 
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Don't forget he was working as an Illinois lawyer until 1861, when he got kinda busy with another job out of state.

This site has a timeline of some of his career highlights in that period (and before), though I'd expect there was lots of lesser legal work in between:

SEPTEMBER 19 - 26, 1855
Attends trial in Cincinnati, Ohio, (McCormick v. Manny) but Edwin Stanton prevents his participation

DECEMBER 1, 1856
Takes place of David Davis as judge in Sangamon County circuit court

MARCH 31, 1857
Helps prosecute murder case in which defendant claimed insanity (People v. Wyant)

JUNE 18, 1857
Receives $5,000 fee in Illinois Central Railroad case but had to sue to get it

SEPTEMBER 8, 1857
Present at opening of "Effie Afton" steamboat trial (Hurd v. Rock Island Bridge Co.)

MAY 7, 1858
Uses almanac to clear Duff Armstrong of murder charge (People v. Armstrong)

SEPTEMBER 3, 1859
Clears Peter Cartwright's grandson of murder charge (People v. Harrison)
 
[QUOTE="peteanddelmar, post: 1147666, member: 13677"
I am not asking for a political statement only so I guess I have posted on the wrong forum, but I primarily think of him as a politician. What was he doing during this time frame? Any quotes from this time? Was he playing racquetball? I really don't know.[/QUOTE]




All well and good, but, in fact, to me, to examine Lincoln's life(or career) completely divorced from politics would miss the essence of the man himself.
Lincoln was a political animal of the first order. He craved political office where he could influence and/or exercise political power. But, his political ambition was principled, he would not say or do anything to gain office, he and his policies were meant to stand for something other than simply gaining and retaining office. Thus he was a life long Whig, in largely Democratic State.
As already noted, he retired from active politics after the passage of the 1850 Compromise, settled the issue of further expansion of slavery in all existing United States territories(very imperfectly, but acceptably, to Lincoln). But reentered active politics with the introduction of Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which with its popular sovereignty provision,(which both nullified the 1850 Compromise And specifically abrogated the 1820 Compromise) effectively opened all U.S. territory to slavery.
After 1855. Lincoln was effectively running for political office First as U.S. Senator for Illinois and then for President of the United States, with side trips to earn his living as a practicing attorney. He earned his living as an attorney, but his life was politics.
 
...his life was politics.

Nicely put.

1854 -- tried to win nomination to be Senate candidate from Illinois; lost to Trumbull
1856 -- candidate for Vice President nomination by Republican Party; received second most votes at convention.
1858 -- nominated by Republican Party for Senate from Illinois; lost to Douglas
 
[QUOTE="peteanddelmar, post: 1147666, member: 13677"
I am not asking for a political statement only so I guess I have posted on the wrong forum, but I primarily think of him as a politician. What was he doing during this time frame? Any quotes from this time? Was he playing racquetball? I really don't know.




All well and good, but, in fact, to me, to examine Lincoln's life(or career) completely divorced from politics would miss the essence of the man himself.
Lincoln was a political animal of the first order. He craved political office where he could influence and/or exercise political power. But, his political ambition was principled, he would not say or do anything to gain office, he and his policies were meant to stand for something other than simply gaining and retaining office. Thus he was a life long Whig, in largely Democratic State.
As already noted, he retired from active politics after the passage of the 1850 Compromise, settled the issue of further expansion of slavery in all existing United States territories(very imperfectly, but acceptably, to Lincoln). But reentered active politics with the introduction of Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which with its popular sovereignty provision,(which both nullified the 1850 Compromise And specifically abrogated the 1820 Compromise) effectively opened all U.S. territory to slavery.
After 1855. Lincoln was effectively running for political office First as U.S. Senator for Illinois and then for President of the United States, with side trips to earn his living as a practicing attorney. He earned his living as an attorney, but his life was politics.[/QUOTE]

He might have had principles to get into office, but did he what he had to to stay in office. He was the political President up through maybe TR(?).
 
He might have had principles to get into office, but did he what he had to to stay in office. He was the political President up through maybe TR(?).


Not so sure about that. On his most controversial decisions, he always anchored them in the Constitution and its laws.
I will admit though, that the application of law(or the Constitution) are not always the same in peace time, as in a National Emergency, i.e., as in a bloody Civil War.
 
I don't guess he was a professional politician like today.
I have read biographies of him that are old and I am old.

What they taught in school was that he should be almost worshipped.

I am not asking for a political statement only so I guess I have posted on the wrong forum, but I primarily think of him as a politician. What was he doing during this time frame? Any quotes from this time? Was he playing racquetball? I really don't know.

Keep in mind that neither professional politicians nor politics itself were exactly "like today". In the Nineteenth Century it was considered bad form to actively campaign for office, especially the Presidency. (The higher the office, the more disinterested one should appear.) That's the reason Judge David Davis was such a key player in Lincoln's 1860 bid: he effectively ran the campaign for Lincoln at the Republican Convention - Lincoln wasn't even present! That's also apparently how Lincoln got saddled with New York's Simon Cameron as Secretary of War: Lincoln didn't want the oily and politically tainted Cameron, but Davis made certain political "deals" that had to honored. The recent book Team of Rivals goes to great length demonstrating and explaining just how things were done then.
 
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