Abraham Lincoln's Manual Labor

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Abraham Lincoln was born February 12th 1809 in a small log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky. His parents, Thomas and Nancy, named him after his grandfather who had brought the family to Kentucky in the late 1780’s. Abraham Lincoln spent most of his childhood living in log cabins all over Kentucky and into Indiana, as his father searched for better land. For Abraham and his sister Sarah, life was an endless journey of manual labor. As he grew up, Lincoln began to develop an ambition to do better than his father did for his family by getting an education and earning a living through ways other than manual labor. It was more than the manual labor that bothered Lincoln, it was the way his father treated him. Lincoln would speak about how his father …show more content…

He became known for hard work and honesty. The other lawyers called him honest abe. His fellow lawyers began to call him honest Abe. Lincoln became a very successful lawyer and politician due to his warm personality and self deprecating humor. He eventually bought a house in 1844 for fifteen hundred dollars. The kind of marriage that the Lincolns had inside the house is debated amongst many historians. Most believe that it was a terrible marriage. William Herndon, Lincoln's law partner described the marriage as a “scorching, burning hell”. Others believe that William Herndon hated Mary and deliberately exaggerated the slight problems they had with their marriage. Many historians believe that Lincoln was so involved in the public life that it led to him not giving Mary the proper attention that she needed, causing increased tension in the relationship. Lincoln would often treat his first son distantly in the same way his father treated him due to the fact that he had just begun his career as a lawyer and politician. In 1846, the Lincolns had a second son Edward. That same year Abraham Lincoln decided to enter politics at the national level winning the whig party nomination for a congressional seat. So the Lincolns moved from Illinois to Washington. He and his family began to fall in love with Washington, which of course led to an increase in his great ambition. It was there in Washington that Lincoln first encountered slavery. He could not walk from his boarding house to the capital without seeing the slave auction houses. Lincoln proposed a referendum to end slavery but was forced to drop the idea when it won almost no support. After serving one term in congress Lincoln found himself back in Springfield. Being out of politics, his last dealings with his father, and the death of his second son Edward, led Abraham into a depression. Abraham finally got rid of

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