THE MAN ABRAHAM LINCOLN

By Godwin Eigbe

Born into poverty 200 years ago in a one-room log cabin on the 12^th of February, 1809 in Hardin County Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln conquered poverty, failures and defeats to become the 16^th president of the United States of America. With an irrepressible spirit he matched unswerving for the actualization of his dreams. He was an epitome of hard work, one for whom the saying that ‘hard work doesn’t kill but makes you stronger’ holds true.

 Lincoln was the only child of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks and his formal education consisted only about 18 months of schooling but he was an avid reader and was largely self-educated. His path to Presidency was not rosy but relentlessly he staged his match willing to try every way that seem good and reasonable to him. On this journey he lost eight elections before he was elected President of the United State in 1860. As he once put it, “I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep doing so”

At age 22 in 1831, young Lincoln left his parents in Coles County Illinois and struck out on his own. He canoed down the Sangamon River to the village of New Salem in Sangamon County and was hired by Denton Offutt a New Salem businessman for whom Lincoln ferried goods from New Salem to New Orleans via flat boats. Later Denton made Lincoln his clerk at the store in New Salem and he did a good job at the store for some months before Denton over-extended himself financially and ran the business to the ground. Thus by the Spring of 1832 Lincoln had lost his job.

Unflinching Lincoln ventured into politics and ran unsuccessfully for the Illinois State Legislature as a member of the Whig Party. This failure did not in anyway undo him. Doggedly he matched on and later that year he served as a captain in an Illinois Volunteer Militia Company in the Black Hawk War. Lincoln never gave up trying for he was a staunch believer in the counsel that failure is a stepping stone to success. Unfaltering he ran again for the State Legislature in 1834 and won, securing the second-highest vote in a field of thirteen candidates where those with the four highest votes became legislators. While in the legislature, Lincoln came across the ‘Commentaries on the Laws of England’ which ignited his passion for law and forthwith, he started to study Law.

In1835 at age 26, Lincoln lost his sweetheart – Miss Ann Rutledge. Her death was said to have affected him profoundly. Few months later he had a nervous breakdown but pulled through to campaign for a seat at the Illinois State Legislature and was re-elected. The State’s Supreme Court licensed him to practice law in 1837 and same year he made his first protest against slavery in the Illinois House; stating that the institution was founded on both injustice and bad policy. He later teamed up with John T. Stuart at Springfield, Illinois to practice. He had a reputation as a formidable adversary during cross-examinations and in closing arguments and with these he became successful.

However his days of defects and setbacks were not over. In 1838 – 1839 legislative sessions, Lincoln’s bid for the Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives failed. This for Lincoln was not a loss to grieve about. He concentrated his effort on his legislative duties and in 1840 was returned to the House. By 1841, he joined a new partner, William Herndon who was his fellow Whig Party member in his law practice.

In 1843 Lincoln recorded another defeat as he failed to get nominated to run for the United States Congress at the May 1843 Whig District Convention. Thereafter he channeled his energy to his law practice and became famous for his accomplishments as an advocate. At the age of 37 in 1846 he made another try for Congress, got nominated and also won the election. He however could not return to Congress in 1848 as a result of an agreement reached by the Whig Party for Members to serve one term and give others the opportunity to hold public offices. Lincoln then sought appointment as a Commissioner for the General Land Office, a federal position but was not favoured by the Interior Secretary in 1849.

Lincoln’s dream to be a U.S. Senator failed in 1854 when he fell six votes short of the requisite majority vote and two years later in 1856 he lost a nominal election for Vice President at the Philadelphia Republican Convention. As though these were not enough, he again lost a second bid for the Senate in 1858. Characteristic of his indefatigable nature, Abraham Lincoln summed it this way: “My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failures.” Lincoln was convinced that real failure comes only when you give up on your dreams and aspirations.

In 1860 at the age of 51, Lincoln against all odds, took a shot at the number one seat in America and got nominated on the platform of the Republican Party and in the general elections defeated Stephen Douglas, a Northern Democrat to whom he had lost his Senate bid, John Bell of the Constitutional Party and John Breckinridge of the Southern Democratic Party to be elected President. His success rolled on to 1864 when he ran under the National Union Party’s banner and in a land slide victory was returned President for a second term.

As President of the United States, Lincoln fought to preserve the Union and defeated the Confederate States in the American Civil War which devastated the country from 1861 to 1865. In his fight against slavery, Lincoln issued the famous Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy.

No man is ever loved by all. Many in Southern America at the time saw Lincoln as a tyrant as he blatantly refused to compromise on his stand on slavery. On Good Friday, April 14, 1865 at the Ford’s Theatre Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, an actor. 

This article as written by Godwin Eigbe was first published in Executive Travels Nigeria magazine, issue No. 19, 2010