The Lincoln Institute provides resources for scholars and groups involved in the study of the life of America's 16th President, Abraham Lincoln, and the impact he had on the preservation of the Union, the emancipation of black slaves, and the development of democratic principles. We also encourage the use of primary sources about Abraham Lincoln for use by students and scholars along with understanding of the contemporaries with whom Lincoln worked.
Visit The Lincoln Institute sites for specific information and resources on Abraham Lincoln's life including Abraham Lincoln's White House, Abraham Lincoln & Friends, Abraham Lincoln & New York, Abraham Lincoln & Freedom, as well as Abraham Lincoln's Classroom for teacher resources.
Journalist Noah Brooks claimed that in early November 1863 he accompanied the President Abraham Lincoln to a sitting with photographer Alexander Gardner. "Just as we were going down the stairs of the White House, the President suddenly remembered that he needed a ...
Mr. Lincoln not only had to manage the slavery issue, he had to manage a wide spectrum of opinion about the slavery issue among Union supporters. As President, he did not have a great deal of experience with the people he needed to manage. The pre-interviews in l...
The scope of the President's "visits" around Washington rather limited. He arrived in Washington at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Station, near the capitol, which was the only railroad station in Washington, from which one could only take trains to and from the No...
Thurlow Weed was not an easy friend for the President to keep. He was often out of sorts with Mr. Lincoln on patronage, policy, political or personal reasons - and took umbrage even when Mr. Lincoln thought he had given none. Within two months of taking office, ...
On September 9, 1848, Congressman Lincoln left Washington for a speaking tour of New England on behalf of Whig candidates. Little is known of his trip until he arrived in Worcester, Massachusetts, on September 12, but he undoubtedly arrived in New York City by t...
Abraham Lincoln was a friendly man. Critical to Mr. Lincoln's ability to forge friendships was the warm way that he greeted new and old acquaintances. Journalist William O. Stoddard recalled meeting Mr. Lincoln in Champaign, Illinois in 1859: "He greeted me cordi...
They were big men. George Washington was 6-foot-3. Abraham Lincoln was almost 6-4. Their ambitions were equally big -- first for themselves, and then for the nation they would lead.
As young men, both future presidents trained as surveyors at periods when Americans were preoccupied by the development of the frontier and the acquisition of land. Historian John Ferling wrote: "Starting around age fifteen, George learned surveying through self-help books, such as `The Young Man's Companion,' and it is probable that he was tutored by some of the surveyors employed by the Fairfaxes." In his search for self-improvement, 16-year-old Washington famously wrote out the rules for life and behavior from "Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation." That pursuit would continue the rest of his life.
Surveying helped define both men. In 1834 Abraham Lincoln was named as a deputy surveyor of Sangamon County in Illinois; George Washington had been appointed as Culpepper County surveyor in 1749. Ferling observed that, "surveying ... was a respectable and often lucrative occupation in Washington's Virginia, as the population was growing and new frontiers were opening steadily."
Lincoln at Peoria explains how Lincoln's speech at Peoria on October 16, 1854, was the turning point in the development of his antislavery campaign and his political career and thought.
May 23, 1863 Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles writes in his diary: “Met the President, Stanton, and Halleck at the War Department. Fox was with me. Neither Du Pont nor General Hunter has answer the President’s dispatch to them a month since. Halleck does not favor an attack on Charleston unless by the Navy. […]...Read More
