Lincoln   warned   the   South   when   he   was   elected:  “In  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow  countrymen,  and  not  in  mine,  is  the  issue  of  civil  war.  The  government  will  not  assail  you….   You   have   no   oath   registered   in   Heaven   to   destroy   the   government,  while   I   shall   have   the   most   solemn   one   to   preserve,   protect   and   defend   it.”  Lincoln   thought   that   the   South’s   desire   for   secession   was   illegal,   and   he   was  willing  to  use  force  to  defend   the   Constitution   and  the   Union.   When   Confederate   cannons  fired  on  Fort  Sumter  and  forced  its  surrender,  he  called  on  the  states  for  75,000  volunteers.   Four   more   slave   states   joined   the   Confederacy   but   four   remained   within   the   Union.   The   Civil   War   had   begun.  The   son   of   a   Kentucky   frontiersman,   Lincoln   had   to   struggle   for   a   living   and   for   learning.   Five   months   before   receiving   his  party’s   nomination   for   President,   he   sketched   his   life:  “I   was   born   Feb.   12,   1809,   in   Hardin   County,   Kentucky.   My   parents   were   both  born  in  Virginia,  of  undistinguished  families-‐-second  families,  perhaps  I  should  say.  My  mother,  who  died  in  my  tenth  year,  was  of  a  family  of  the  name  of  Hanks….  My  father  …  removed  from  Kentucky  to  …  Indiana,  in  my  eighth  year….  It  was  a  wild  region,   with   many   bears   and   other   wild   animals   still  in  the  woods.  There  I  grew  up….  Of  course  when  I  came  of  age  I  did  not  know  much.  Still  somehow,  I  could  read,  write,  and  spell  …  but  that  was  all.”  Lincoln   made   extraordinary   efforts   to   attain   knowledge   while   working   on   a   farm,   splitting   rails   for   fences,   and   keeping   store   at  New  Salem,  Illinois.  He  would  often  walk  over  4  miles  to  school.  He  was  a  captain  in  the  Black  Hawk  War,  spent  eight   years   as   a  lawmaker   in   Illinois,  and   worked   in   the   courts   for  many  years.  His  law  partner  said  of  him,  “His  ambition  was  a  little  engine  that   knew   no   rest.”  He  married   Mary   Todd,   and   they   had   four   boys,   only   one   of   whom   lived   to   maturity.   In   1858   Lincoln   ran   against   Stephen   A.  Douglas   for   Senator.   He   lost   the   election,  but  in  debating  with  Douglas  he  gained  a  national  reputation  that  won  him  the  Republican   nomination   for   President   in   1860.  As   President,   he   built   the   Republican   Party   into   a   strong   national   organization.   Further,   he   rallied   most   of   the   northern  Democrats  to  the  Union  cause.  On  January  1,  1863,  he  issued  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  that  declared  forever  free  those  slaves  within  the  Confederacy.  Lincoln   never   let   the   world   forget   that   the   Civil   War   involved   an   even   larger   issue,  slavery.  This  he  stated   most   movingly   in  dedicating   the   military   cemetery   at   Gettysburg:    “that   we   here   highly   resolve   that   these   dead   shall   not   have   died   in   vain-‐-‐that   this   nation,   under   God,   shall   have   a   new   birth   of  freedom-‐-‐and   that   government   of   the   people,   by   the   people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth.”  Lincoln   won   re-‐election   in   1864,   as   Union   military   triumphs   heralded   an   end   to   the   war.   In   his   planning   for   peace,   the  President   was   flexible   and   generous,   encouraging   Southerners   to   lay   down   their   arms   and   join   speedily   in   reunion.  The   spirit   that   guided   him   was   clearly   that   of   his   Second   Inaugural   Address,   now   inscribed   on   one   wall   of   the   Lincoln   Memorial  in  Washington,  D.  C.:    “With   malice   toward   none;   with   charity   for   all;   with   firmness   in   the   right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  strive  on  to  finish  the  work  we  are  in;  to  bind  up  the  nation’s  wounds….  ”  On  Good  Friday,   April   14,   1865,   Lincoln   was   assassinated   at   Ford’s   Theatre   in   Washington   by   John   Wilkes   Booth,   an   actor,   who  somehow  thought   he   was   helping   the   South.   The   opposite   was   the   result,   for   with   Lincoln’s   death,   the   possibility   of   peace   with  magnanimity   died.