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The Rail Splitter or: How Lincoln learned to stop worrying and love the South



Considered to be one of the most consequential politicians of 19th century America, Abraham Lincoln, also known by his nickname "the rail splitter", due to his hard-working attitude, led the way for perhaps the deadliest conflict in American continental history.

He was born on February 12, 1809, to Thomas Lincoln, a well-respected member of the county of Hardin located in Kentucky, and Nancy (Hanks) Lincoln, a descendent from a planter household in Virginia. Born on a the family property near Hodgenville, inside a small log cabin, which would be his home for the next few years, he was brought up into his families way of life, living with what they could, and his experiences here would later influence his "hard, rail splitter" personality later on in life. During this time, his father was acquiring property throughout the county, and by 1811, the family moved to a far more fertile property by the name of Knob Creek Farm. It would be here in which Lincoln would recount some of his earliest memories, such as the death of his newborn brother, Thomas Lincoln Jnr. who died a few days after his birth in 1812.


Thomas Lincoln pictured in 1849

For a number of years, Thomas Lincoln was being embroiled in a number of large scale boundary disputes by surrounding farmers, and by the mid 1810's, he was beginning to fear he would lose all that he owned and bought up to that point. Comfort from continuing disputes would come in the summer of 1816, when he finally won a court battle with a neighbouring farm over the rights to his Knob Creek Farmland, and by the winter of that same year, due to becoming the annual road surveyor, he would become one of the richest property owning men in the county.

It was also during these years of the early-mid 1810's in which Abraham's mother, Nancy, began to teach the young child to read and to write. Lincoln's own recollections from these years were that his mother was an extraordinary teacher, and to some, she was a more pious, more honourable person than her husband, and for where Abraham received his "sweet and forbearer" personality. Tragedy struck however, for in the autumn of 1818, the 9 year old Lincoln would witness his mother’s final breaths as she was taken front her families grasp by the death winds of Tuberculosis. Over a period of 14 days, she went through a number of various stages, falling, then as suddenly, waking to sound of her husband rushing to her side. Finally, she fell asleep for the final time on November 19, 1818, and after a few minutes, she was dead.

Standing besides their mother, Sarah, Lincoln's older sister, as well as Lincoln himself, began to enter a state of melancholy. Thomas also suffered during this time, with his health declining as well as the aloofness of his two children, he began to search for new opportunities in life. It was around this time, following the burying of his late wife, in which he turned to his Church; the Baptist church. Following the death of his father in 1786, the young Thomas began to seek out help from Church and faith. This came in the form of the Baptist church, which held a pro-slavery view. Whilst his brothers attended the Primitive Baptist church, which held a strict moral code against slavery, he began to be initiated with the so-called southern way, and by his mid 20's, he was vocally supporting the plantation system.


A young Lincoln reading by the fireplace

Over the years, and especially after his wife's death, he began to seek out new help on his farm, as his 10 year-old son could not achieve much work, his 12 year old daughter was not expected to, and his failing health was not helping his cause. So on March 16, 1819, using much of money he had gained over the past decade, Thomas Lincoln purchased a slave, a move that would change the family forever. Named "Jeremy", he was used around the farm to help with planting and harvesting crop that Thomas grew when he was not working. Over the next few months, Thomas', as well as the young Lincoln's (to an extent) view on the African-Americans began to change, deform, and warp, to perhaps a nearly identical view of slaves and slavery as those found in the deep south. This early initiation into slavery and the racism of such would profoundly affect the young child for years, and even decades to come.
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