Part 2: The Voice from the Prairie

They say that when you hit rock bottom, there are only two ways to go: you either stay there and let the mud swallow you whole, or you claw your way up, inch by painful inch. After my business failed and I was left with nothing but debt and a bruised ego, I chose to claw.

I realized something during those long, hungry nights in Illinois. I might not have had a penny to my name, I might have had a face that only a mother could love, and I certainly didn’t have the pedigree of the aristocrats back East. But I had something else. I had a voice.

It turns out, for a man who looked like a scarecrow and walked like a laborer, I could speak. And when I spoke, people listened.

The Awakening of a Lawyer

I didn’t go to a prestigious law school. I didn’t sit in lecture halls with ivy growing on the walls. My classroom was a dim cabin, and my professors were dusty, borrowed books that I read by the flickering light of a dying fire. I was a “strange guy,” remember?. No money, no education. But I had a hunger.

I threw myself into the study of law with a ferocity that surprised even me. I worked odd jobs to survive—cadastral surveying, working as a representative in New Salem—anything to keep the wolves from the door. But every spare moment was dedicated to those classic books on law. I wasn’t just memorizing statutes; I was trying to understand the architecture of justice. I wanted to understand how a society could function fairly, how the weak could be protected from the strong—perhaps because I had seen my own father helpless against those in power.

The sky did not disappoint my efforts. In 1834, I successfully became a lawyer and was elected to the State Legislature. Two years later, I was admitted to the United States Bar.

For a moment, just a brief moment, stop and picture that. The farm boy, the rail-splitter, the failed shopkeeper, now standing in a courtroom, arguing cases. It felt like I was wearing a costume at first, but soon, the courtroom became my theater. I discovered an outstanding eloquent ability that I didn’t know I possessed.

I wasn’t the most polished man. My suits didn’t fit right. My hair was always a mess. But I learned that if you speak the truth, and you speak it with passion, it cuts through all the superficial nonsense. I found that I could make the local people’s jaws drop. It wasn’t magic; it was just honesty wrapped in a story.

The Young Politician and the “Dictator”

My ambitions didn’t stop at the courthouse door. I had a vision for this country. I was a loyal member of the Whig Party (the “Quynh” party as some called it back then). We were the progressives of our time. We believed in modernizing the economy, building banks, and using protective taxes to strengthen American industry.

I wanted to be part of the engine that drove America forward. But being a politician in Washington is a different beast than being a lawyer on the prairie.

I was the only member of the delegation from Illinois to become a member of this noble party. I felt like a fish taking to water. I wanted to prove myself. I wanted to show them that this tall, awkward man from the West had ideas.

But Washington was also where I saw the true face of power, and it wasn’t pretty.

The issue that burned in my gut was the war with Mexico. The President at the time, James Polk (who we often called “Jim Pope” in our heated circles), was, in my eyes, a dictator. He was a man obsessed with military fame, chasing a “bloody illusion” .

He told the American people that Mexico had started the war, that they had shed American blood on American soil. But I looked at the maps. I looked at the facts. And I didn’t see it.

I stood up in Congress—me, the freshman from Illinois—and I called him a liar. I didn’t use those words exactly, but I might as well have. With sharp arguments, I exposed his fabrications. I demanded he show us the “spot.” I asked the President to present authentic evidence of this war being prepared by Mexico.

I thought I was being a patriot. I thought truth mattered more than blind loyalty.

I was wrong. Or at least, I was wrong about how the game was played.

The request was not approved by the US Congress. The press ignored me. The incident faded into oblivion for them, but not for me. I became a thorn in the side of those in power. I was branded as unpatriotic, a traitor to the boys fighting at the front. Danger was lurking for me at any time. To preserve my political life, I was essentially forced to apologize, to back down.

It was a humiliating lesson. I learned that being right isn’t enough if you don’t have the power to back it up.

By the end of 1846, the political path for me had become very narrow. The party’s position was declining, and I felt the walls closing in. So, amidst the cycle of the times and the dangers lurking around, I decided to resign.

I packed my bags. I left Washington. I went back to Illinois. It seemed that the life of the “great man” was over before it began. I was returning to mediocrity.

The Wilderness Years: The Prairie Lawyer

For the next few years, I was just “Lincoln the Lawyer.” And honestly? Those were some of the most important years of my life.

I returned to the Springfield area, successfully exiting the “mud of politics”. I traveled the circuit, riding from town to town on a horse that was probably as tired as I was, sleeping in taverns where the food was bad and the beds were worse.

But out there, on the prairie, I reconnected with the American people. I handled disputes that arose from day to month in the Western region. I wasn’t dealing with treaties or wars; I was dealing with neighbors fighting over fences, debts, and cows.

I built a reputation. They called me “The Lawyer of the Prairie” (Thao Nguyen region). My reputation for honesty and fairness spread far and wide. I wasn’t just trying to win; I was trying to find justice.

I remember one case vividly—a boat sinking case due to a collision with a bridge. It went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. That was me, the country lawyer, standing in the highest court in the land.

And it wasn’t just law. My mind was always working, always tinkering. Few people know this, but I’m actually something of a ship engineer—well, an amateur one. In 1849, I was actually granted a patent for a device to help boats navigate over shoals. It was never commercialized, but I remain the only President to ever hold a patent. It just goes to show you—I was always looking for a way to lift things up, whether it was a boat stuck on a sandbar or a nation stuck in a moral crisis.

During those years, I appeared before the Illinois Supreme Court in 175 cases. I won 31 of the 51 cases where I was the sole defense attorney. I was good at this. I was comfortable. I was making a decent living. I had a family.

I could have stayed there. I could have grown old and gray as a respected, small-town lawyer, fading into history as just another name on a tombstone.

But history wasn’t done with me. And the issue of slavery wasn’t done with America.

The Sleeping Giant Awakes

For a long time, I had held a deep sympathy for the slave class. Ever since I was a boy, witnessing the cruelty of the world, I felt a connection to those who had no voice. But for years, I felt powerless. My voice had been ignored in Washington.

I had watched as slavery was gradually considered legal in the South, but I took comfort in the fact that it had lost influence in the West. I thought, perhaps naively, that it would die out on its own. That the “better angels of our nature” would eventually prevail.

Then came 1854.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed.

This law, pushed by men who cared more for political expediency than human rights, overturned the Missouri Compromise. It allowed the settlers in those territories to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery. They called it “popular sovereignty.” I called it a moral abomination.

It hit me like a thunderbolt. The idea that one man could choose to enslave another, and that this could be called “liberty” or “self-determination,” was a perversion of everything the Declaration of Independence stood for.

All my proposals, all my hopes for a gradual end to slavery, seemed to come to a standstill.

But as they say, when one door closes, another opens.

The passing of that act lit a fire in my belly that I hadn’t felt since I was a young man reading law books by firelight. I realized that if I wanted to win freedom for the powerless, I couldn’t just be a lawyer in Springfield anymore. I was forced to become a voice in society—not just in one small state, but in the entire United States.

I had to go back. I had to return to politics.

The House Divided

The political landscape had changed. The Whig party was dying, torn apart by the very issue that was tearing the country apart. I needed a new vehicle.

I started looking for allies. I cooperated with veteran Senator Stephen Douglas—ironically, the man who would become my greatest rival. But our cooperation was short-lived.

Douglas was the champion of that “self-determination” idea. He proposed letting the local people decide whether they accepted slavery or not.

I rejected it. I rejected it with every fiber of my being.

I understood something that Douglas didn’t—or perhaps, something he refused to see. If I agreed with Douglas, if I accepted that slavery was just a matter of local preference like a zoning law, then the fight for human liberty would become the “greatest farce in American history”.

Racial discrimination was deep in the American soul. It was complicated. If we left it to “self-determination” in that dark period, it was almost certain that white people would never accept living peacefully and equally with black people. Some lawmakers even considered the advancement of black people to be a sin, an insult to white people.

If we let the majority vote on the rights of the minority, the minority would always lose. Slavery wasn’t a political question; it was a moral one.

On October 16, 1854, in Peoria, I gave a speech that changed everything. I declared my anti-slavery stance publicly. I drew a line in the sand. I wasn’t just a politician anymore; I was a crusader.

But the road was rocky. I ran for the US Senate as a Whig. I led in the first six rounds of voting in the Illinois legislature, but then my support weakened. I watched the prize slip away again.

I realized the old parties were broken. The Whigs couldn’t hold the weight of this issue. To gain strong support, I decided to help form a new political party.

We called it the Republican Party.

I worked to convince members of the national party that we needed to build on a policy of freedom and democracy. It was a ragtag coalition of abolitionists, former Whigs, and disillusioned Democrats. But we had a cause.

In 1856, at the party convention, I was the “second runner-up” for the Vice Presidential nomination. I didn’t get it, but it showed I was rising.

A year later, I gave a speech that I believe defined my soul. I spoke to the slaves—in spirit, if not in person—and declared that everyone was equal in skin color, body shape, intelligence, moral development, and social ability.

I looked out at the crowd and told them the hard truth: “The division between classes in society will inevitably lead to war and misery for the people”.

I didn’t know how prophetic those words would be.

The Battle of the Giants: Lincoln vs. Douglas

The year 1858 arrived, and with it, the challenge of a lifetime. I was running for the Senate again, and my opponent was Stephen Douglas.

Douglas was everything I wasn’t. He was short, stout, powerful, famous, and rich. They called him the “Little Giant.” I was tall, lanky, poor, and relatively unknown outside of Illinois.

We embarked on a series of debates that would become the most famous in American history.

Imagine the scene. Seven towns across Illinois. Thousands of people standing in the heat, the dust, the mud. No microphones, just our voices booming across the crowds.

I went on the attack. I warned that slavery threatened Republican values. I accused Douglas of bending the values of the Founding Fathers.

“In principle, all people are born equal,” I thundered.

Douglas countered with his “popular sovereignty.” He emphasized the right of local residents to self-determination—to see if they accepted slavery or not. He played to the fears of the crowd. He painted me as a radical, a man who wanted to destroy their way of life.

The debates were extremely heated. I could feel the tension in the air, thick enough to cut with a knife. I wasn’t just fighting for a Senate seat; I was fighting for the soul of the nation.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand,” I told them. I didn’t believe the government could endure permanently half slave and half free.

I poured my heart out. I used every ounce of that “eloquent ability” I had discovered years ago. I used my logic, my humor, my passion.

And the result?

I lost.

Douglas was re-elected. He won because he protected the rights of white people, the people who had the absolute voice in American society at that time.

Luck, once again, did not smile on me.

The Failure That Was a Victory

I was devastated. Despite many years of efforts, the prize had disappeared. I was nearly fifty years old. I had lost two Senate races. I had failed in business. By any standard metric of success, I was a loser.

But something strange happened.

While I lost the election in Illinois, the transcripts of those debates were being read all over the country. My words had traveled further than my voice ever could. With my exceptional ability, I had truly become famous in the national political arena.

People in the North, people who hated slavery but didn’t know how to articulate it, began to see me as their champion.

In early 1860, I received an invitation. Party leaders in New York invited me to give a speech at the Cooper Union.

This was the big league. New York City. The center of finance, culture, and influence. And they wanted the “prairie lawyer” to speak to an audience of influential figures.

I was terrified. I bought a new suit, but it still looked ill-fitting. My boots pinched. When I walked onto that stage, I felt the eyes of the elite judging me. I looked like a country bumpkin.

But then, I opened my mouth.

I didn’t give them a stump speech. I gave them a history lesson. I argued that the Founding Fathers had little interest in “popular self-determination” regarding slavery, but rather, they frequently sought to restrain it. I proved, fact by fact, that the men who wrote the Constitution intended for slavery to eventually die, not to spread.

I looked those powerful men in the eye and emphasized that the moral foundation of Republicans required us to resist slavery and all temptations to adopt a “middle ground” between right and wrong.

There is no middle ground between freedom and bondage. There is no compromise with sin.

The room went silent. Then, it exploded.

No one had ever made such a strong impression as I did that night. That speech—that display of intellectual leadership—brought me and my group of politicians to the forefront of the Party.

It paved the way for me. It cleared the path for the unthinkable.

I had walked into Cooper Union as a curiosity. I walked out as a contender.

The genius man’s presidential campaign—my campaign—was about to begin. The golden pages of history were about to be written. The slaves, watching from the shadows of the South, were beginning to see the sunshine of their lives.

I didn’t know it yet, but the hardest climb was still ahead. The climb to the top of power, and the reform that would bring America through its darkest ages.

I was Abraham Lincoln. I was a failure. I was a country lawyer. And I was about to become the President of the United States.

(To be continued in Part 3…)

Part 3: The House Divided

The Silence of the Candidate

May 1860. The Republican National Convention in Chicago. I wasn’t there. Tradition dictated that candidates stay home, feigning disinterest while their futures were decided by men in smoke-filled rooms. I sat in Springfield, pretending to work, but my ear was tuned to the telegraph office.

When the news came—that on the third round of voting, I, the “Rail Splitter” from Illinois, had secured the nomination—it felt less like a triumph and more like the first heavy drop of a coming storm. I was to be the standard-bearer for a party that half the country viewed as an existential threat.

The campaign that followed was unlike anything America had ever seen, and perhaps, unlike anything it will ever see again. My advisors told me: “Say nothing, Abraham. Let the record speak.”

And so, I stayed silent.

It was an unprecedented incident in the history of the United States. While my opponents toured the country, shouting until their voices were hoarse, I did not give a single campaign speech. It was a mysterious strategy to some, but I understood it. My words had already been twisted enough. Every sentence I had uttered in the debates with Douglas was now being dissected. To speak more was to give ammunition to those who wanted to tear the Union apart.

Instead, I let the people speak for me. And what a noise they made!

The Republican machine, fueled by the fervor of men who believed in free labor and free soil, went to work. They didn’t just sell a candidate; they sold a legend. They moved a lot, forming major groups throughout the North. They printed thousands of leaflets, advertisements, and newspaper commentaries.

They took the story of my life—the “poor childhood” that I had been so ashamed of—and they turned it into a badge of honor. They called me “Honest Abe.” They called me the “Rail Splitter.” They emphasized my background to show the outstanding power of the right to free labor.

It was a strange feeling, reading about yourself in the papers. A writer for the Chicago Tribune wrote a biography of me that sold nearly 200,000 copies. People bought it so fast it didn’t even hit the shelves. They read about a boy who rose from the mud of the frontier through his own efforts. They saw in me the American Dream before it even had a name.

There is nothing more wonderful than when the policies of a party are personified by their candidate. The free labor I had performed with my own axe and maul became the symbol of the party’s soul. It touched the hearts of the American people.

While I sat in Springfield, a “strange guy” with a melancholic streak, the country was falling in love with a hero that my supporters had constructed. Belief, I learned, often controls reason. The opposition, fractured and fighting among themselves, was severely weakened.

The Funeral Bell of Victory

November 6, 1860. The day of reckoning.

I sat in the telegraph office in Springfield as the returns trickled in. The numbers painted a picture of a nation already broken.

I defeated a series of fierce opponents: Stephen Douglas of the Democratic Party, John Breckinridge of the Southern Democratic Party, and John Bell of the Constitutional Union Party.

The final tally was etched into my mind: I received 1,866,452 votes. Douglas had 1,376,957. Breckinridge had 849,781. Bell had 588,789.

I had ascended to the pinnacle of fame. I was to be the 16th President of the United States.

But looking at the map, I felt a cold chill. My victory was based almost entirely on the North and the West. In ten Southern states, my name wasn’t even on the ballot. To them, I wasn’t a President; I was a conqueror. I was a “Black Republican” coming to destroy their way of life.

The day I was elected was the day the first underground waves of the tsunami emerged. I knew, with a certainty that settled in my bones like ague, that the biggest campaign in history was over, but the challenge with Lincoln—the challenge for the soul of America—had truly begun.

The Winter of Secession

I wasn’t even President yet. I was just a citizen waiting in Illinois. But the country couldn’t wait.

Those who advocated for the “Lee Force”—the secessionists—made their move before I could even take the oath of office. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina passed the deposition law and seceded.

It was like watching a house catch fire while you are chained to a fence post, unable to move.

By February 1st, 1861, they were gone: Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. Six states adopted a constitution, declared themselves a sovereign nation, and created the Confederacy. They elected Jefferson Davis as their President on February 9.

I watched as the sitting President, James Buchanan, did nothing. He said secession was illegal, but he also said he had no power to stop it. He was a ghost haunting the White House, waiting for me to come and relieve him of his burden.

Tensions escalated to the extreme. There were desperate attempts at compromise. The Confederacy, or at least their sympathizers in Congress, proposed dividing the country into “free areas” and “slave areas” permanently.

They wanted me to agree to this. They wanted me to enshrine slavery in the Constitution to save the Union.

This went against everything I had fought for. It went against the policy of an equal society. It went against the dream that whites and blacks could live together peacefully.

I drew my line. I sent letters to my allies in Congress. “Entertain no compromise on the extension of slavery,” I told them.

I declared: “I would rather die than accept any concession or compromise to be able to possess this government”.

I was willing to protect slavery where it already existed—that was the law, and I was a lawyer. I even urged governors to support a bill maintaining slavery in those specific areas to prevent war. These were my last efforts to save America from the fire.

But I would not let it spread. I would not let the cancer grow.

The Long Train to Washington

The journey to Washington for my inauguration was a nightmare. I wasn’t greeting cheering crowds; I was dodging bullets.

I became a thorn in the side of those in power, and danger was lurking at any time. The hatred directed at me was visceral. They didn’t just hate my politics; they hated my existence.

Just weeks before the inauguration, the threats turned real. There was a plot to kill me in Baltimore. I, the President-elect, had to sneak into my own capital city like a thief in the night.

I was assassinated—or nearly so. Luckily, I escaped death because a bodyguard helped me avoid the shot.

That moment was the drop of water that made the cup overflow. It brought America into its darkest period. I arrived in Washington not as a conquering hero, but as a man hunted.

April 12, 1861: The War Begins

The crisis was unprecedented—economic, political, military. My young government faced a challenge that would have broken stronger men.

And then, the telegram came.

April 12, 1861. Confederate forces attacked the federal military base at Don Samter (Fort Sumter) in South Carolina.

The American Civil War had officially begun.

The fort fell quickly. My administration was shocked; we didn’t think the alliance would attack so quickly. We thought there was still time for talk. We were wrong.

The time for talk was over. I had spent my life using words to solve problems, but words cannot stop cannonballs.

Three days later, I called on the states to send 75,000 soldiers to take over military posts and protect Washington. I was trying to maintain the existence of the United States of America.

But that call for troops was the final straw for the border states. Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas—they left. My peace efforts went down the drain.

America was divided into many parts. War had actually broken out.

The Dictator of Necessity

I am a man who hates war. I love peace. The idea of taking up arms against my own people, against the countrymen of Washington and Jefferson, sickened me.

But in times of chaos, the defeated are the heroes if they stand firm. I decided to deal with this unstable situation with violence if necessary.

I recognized the importance of taking direct command. I became the Commander in Chief in more than just name. I wielded unprecedented power.

I did things that haunt me still. I extended special rights in war. I imposed a blockade on all commercial ports of the Confederacy. And, most controversially, I ordered the imprisonment without trial of thousands of people suspected of being pro-Confederate.

They called me a tyrant. They called me “King Lincoln.” They said I was destroying the Constitution to save it.

Maybe they were right. But I swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. I could not let the government fall apart because I was too afraid to use the power it gave me.

The National Assembly and Northern public opinion largely supported me. But the pressure was crushing. I struggled to consolidate support from the border states that still had slaves. I had to walk a tightrope—if I moved too fast against slavery, Kentucky and Maryland would leave, and the war would be lost. If I moved too slow, my own party would abandon me.

The Democratic Party criticized the war, saying it happened because I refused to compromise. The progressive faction in my own Republican Party said I was too cowardly, too slow in abolishing slavery.

Both parties turned their backs on me at times, forcing me to bear the brunt of the fate of America alone.

I walked the halls of the White House at night, unable to sleep. I could hear the distant rumble of artillery from across the Potomac. I read the casualty lists—names of boys who would never go home to their mothers.

The Turning of the Tide: Antietam

For the first year, we were losing. The Union generals were hesitant, slow, and often incompetent. The Confederate generals, especially General Lee, were brilliant.

But adversity creates heroes. Forced to the extreme, I calmly directed the army. I shuffled generals like a deck of cards, looking for a man who would fight.

Then came 1862. The war gradually turned.

My army crossed the Potomac (Port Hope River) and entered Maryland. We met the Confederates at Sharpsburg, along Antietam Creek.

The Battle of Antietam. It was the bloodiest battle in American history.

The cornfields were leveled not by scythes, but by bullets. The sunken road was filled with bodies like a mass grave. But when the smoke cleared, Lee was retreating.

It wasn’t a total victory, but it was enough. It completely reversed the strategic balance.

And it gave me the opportunity I had been praying for.

The Emancipation Proclamation

I had made a covenant with God. I told myself that if the rebels were driven out of Maryland, I would issue a proclamation to free the slaves.

I understood the legal limits. The federal government’s power to free slaves was limited by the Constitution. Before 1865, this power was reserved to the states.

Early in the war, I tried to persuade the border states to accept emancipation with compensation, but only Washington accepted.

But as Commander in Chief, I had war powers. I could seize enemy property. And under the twisted laws of the South, these human beings were considered “property.”

So, I decided to use the war to end the sin that caused the war.

I rejected the proposal to limit liberation by geographical area. I wanted to strike at the heart of the rebellion.

In June 1862, with my support, Congress banned slavery in the territories. In July, they passed a law freeing the slaves of those supporting the rebels.

I signed it, even though I didn’t believe Congress had that right. I did it to show support for the legislative branch.

But I knew a law wasn’t enough. I needed a Proclamation.

I discussed the content with my cabinet in July. I viewed it as a necessary and favorable military measure.

On September 22, 1862, five days after the slaughter at Antietam, I issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. I warned the South: return to the Union by January 1st, or your slaves will be free.

They did not return.

So, on January 1, 1863, the Proclamation officially took effect.

I sat at my desk in the White House. My hand was trembling—not from fear, but from shaking hands with hundreds of visitors that morning. I put the pen down. I waited until I could hold it steady. I didn’t want anyone to look at my signature later and say, “He hesitated.”

I signed it.

“Every individual held in bondage in the confederate states shall henceforth and forever be free”.

It was the wisest decision of my life.

The effect was immediate. As the federal army advanced South, the slaves were freed. They put down their hoes and picked up rifles. More than 3 million slaves were eventually liberated.

The war was no longer just about preserving a political map. It was a holy crusade. It was about making the United States a land of peace, where all peoples could coexist.

American history had turned a page.

Gettysburg: The New Birth of Freedom

But the war didn’t end. The killing didn’t stop.

In July 1863, the war reached its crescendo. General Lee marched North again, into Pennsylvania. He met our forces at a small town called Gettysburg.

For three days, hell opened up on earth. But this time, under the direction of General George Meade (George Smith), we held the line. We disrupted the alliance’s attack efforts.

It was the most important turning point in the American Civil War.

Four months later, on a Thursday afternoon, November 19, 1863, I traveled to Gettysburg to dedicate a national cemetery for the fallen soldiers.

The featured speaker was Edward Everett, a famous orator. He spoke for two hours. He was brilliant, learned, and polished.

Then, it was my turn.

I was calm as I stepped up to the podium. I took a piece of paper from my pocket. I had written a few words—just 271 words.

I spoke for three minutes.

I didn’t speak of strategy or politics. I spoke of time.

“Four score and seven years ago…”

I emphasized that this country was born not in 1789, when the Constitution was ratified, but in 1776, when we declared our independence. It was conceived in freedom and dedicated to the conviction that all men are created equal.

I looked out at the fresh graves. I saw the cost of that conviction.

I told them that the war was a sacrifice for the principles of freedom. I told them that freeing the slaves was part of that effort.

I announced that the death of these brave soldiers was not in vain. I promised them a “new birth of freedom”.

I concluded with a phrase that I hoped would ring through the ages. I said that this “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the face of the earth”.

The applause was scattered. Some thought it was too short. The press called it “dishwater.”

But I knew what I had said. I had redefined the war. It wasn’t just a Civil War anymore; it was a test. A test to see if a democracy could survive.

The Grinding End

After Gettysburg, the momentum shifted. The heroic prose I wrote provided added motivation for everyone, especially the brave slaves who stood up against oppression.

My army, under my direction, enthusiastically attacked. I found a new general, Ulysses S. Grant. Together, we devised the Overland campaign.

We didn’t just fight battles; we fought a war of attrition. Lee’s army was tough, but they did not have abundant resources. They depleted with each battle, while my army grew stronger.

We destroyed their base without mercy. We burned farms, tore up railways, and destroyed bridges. We turned the South into ruins to stop the economic engine of the rebellion.

It was brutal. It was terrible. But it was necessary.

By 1864, the political sharks were circling again. My term was ending. The war was dragging on.

I had to unite the factions. I spent hours consulting with politicians from across the country. I built consensus.

I even changed the name of the party for the election. We ran under the “National Union Party” banner. I chose a Democrat, Andrew Johnson (Henry Ronson/Johnson), as my running mate to show unity.

There were moments when I thought I would lose. I thought the people were tired of the blood. I prepared a letter admitting defeat.

But then, Atlanta fell. The victories started coming.

I won the election of 1864. I was re-elected.

On March 4, 1865, I stood on the steps of the Capitol again. The dome was finished now, a symbol that the Union was whole.

I gave a speech about human rights and freedom. I didn’t speak of vengeance. I spoke of “malice toward none, with charity for all.”

I could see the end. The darkness was lifting. The slaves in the South were seeing the sunshine.

But as I looked out over the crowd, I felt a strange heaviness. I had saved the Union. I had freed the slaves. But I was tired. So very tired.

And the shadows were lengthening, even as the sun began to rise.

(To be continued in the Conclusion…)

Part 4: The Last Full Measure of Devotion

The Walk Through the Fire

By the spring of 1865, I felt older than the Republic itself. The mirror in the White House hallway reflected a face that was no longer just “strange” or “rugged”; it was a landscape of deep ravines carved by four years of sleepless nights and the weight of six hundred thousand souls. I was tired. A tiredness that went beyond the bone, settling deep into the marrow of my spirit. But it was a tiredness born of labor, not despair.

The war was winding down, but the violence had not yet ceased. On April 1, 1865, a major battle broke out between the Union and Confederate armies. It was the final heave of a dying beast. My generals, men like Grant who understood the terrible arithmetic of war, pushed forward. Finally, victory in this great battle belonged to the Union army under my command.

The news that followed was what I had prayed for since the first shot was fired at Sumter. The Confederate government was completely devastated, forcing evacuation from all sides. Richmond, the heart of the rebellion, the city that had defied us for so long, was falling.

I knew I had to go there. My advisors told me it was madness. They said snipers still lurked in the ruins, that the city was a tinderbox waiting for a spark. But I needed to see it. I needed to see the end of the nightmare with my own eyes.

I visited the capital of the “Union” (the Confederacy) when it fell. The scene that met me was biblical. The city was burning, the smoke curling up into the April sky like a dark offering.

As I walked the streets, a strange and powerful thing happened. The white people, the citizens who had supported the rebellion, looked cold towards me. They peaked from behind curtains, their eyes hard with hate and humiliation. I was the “tyrant” in their eyes, the man who had destroyed their world. I understood their pain, even if I despised their cause. Defeat is a bitter pill, and they were swallowing it dry.

But then, I saw the others.

Free blacks welcomed me as a hero. They surged around me, reaching out to touch my coat, weeping, singing. They called me “Father Abraham.” For the first time in my life, the abstract concept of “liberty” had a face. It was the face of an old woman with tears in her eyes, thanking God and thanking me. It was the face of a man who showed me the scars on his back and told me he was free.

I walked through the streets of Richmond not as a conqueror, but as a liberator. I didn’t want a parade. I just wanted to stand in the place where slavery had ruled and know that it was dead.

The Surrender at Appomattox

The final act of the military tragedy played out a few days later. On April 9, 1865, at the Appomattox Coastal Village (Court House), General Lee surrendered to the Union army.

When the telegram arrived, the relief was so profound I almost collapsed. General Lee was a formidable opponent, a man of dignity who had fought on the wrong side of history. His surrender marked the end of the Civil War.

American history was turning a page. The bloodshed was over. The boys could come home. The Union was whole again, at least on the map.

But now, the real work began. Lincoln’s Reconstruction officially began.

I knew that winning the war was only half the battle. Winning the peace would be harder. I didn’t want to punish the South. I didn’t want mass executions or a military occupation that would last a century. I wanted to heal.

I was extremely private with all my heart after the surrender. I spent long hours thinking about how to bring the brothers back together. The greatest President in history—as some were already calling me—had a duty not to gloat, but to continuously urge for a peaceful election and reunification.

I issued amnesty proclamations to the generals of the Southern army. I wanted them to go home, to plant their crops, to rebuild their lives. I wanted them to become Americans again. These proclamations were continuously published as an affirmation of my ideals for a peaceization process.

“Let ’em up easy,” I told my generals. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.

The Thirteenth Amendment: The Seal of Freedom

While the guns were falling silent, another battle was being fought in the halls of Congress. This was a battle not of bullets, but of votes, and it was just as critical for the soul of the nation.

The Emancipation Proclamation had been a war measure. It freed slaves in the rebelling states, but it stood on shaky legal ground once the war ended. I couldn’t risk the possibility that some future court might overturn it, sending millions back into chains.

Under the influence of the Emancipation Proclamation on the vast majority of American territories, I increased pressure on Congress to issue an amendment that outlawed slavery throughout the territory.

I became a whip-cracker. I used every ounce of political capital I had earned. I called in favors. I made promises. I twisted arms. I declared that such an amendment would solve the whole problem. It wasn’t just a law; it was a moral imperative. It would be the premise for America to take a step out of the black hole of the end times.

The debate was fierce. There were those who said it was too soon, that we should wait. There were those who feared it would destroy the social order. But I knew that if we didn’t drive a stake through the heart of slavery now, while the iron was hot, it would rise again.

With tireless efforts, the day I had been waiting for finally arrived. On December 6, 1865 (ratified later, but passed Congress earlier), the wish of my whole life came true.

The Amendment was passed and became the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution.

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude… shall exist within the United States.”

When I heard the final vote count, I felt a peace I hadn’t known in years. American history officially entered a new page. We had done it. We had wiped the stain from our flag. We had proven that a government of the people could correct its own original sin.

A Vision of the Future

With the war over and slavery abolished, my mind turned to the future. I didn’t just want a unified America; I wanted a strong, prosperous America where every man, black or white, had a chance to rise.

My peaceful efforts were truly effective. The economy and agricultural production, along with heavy industry, were developing every year. We had regained our unique position throughout the United States.

I looked at the systems we had built during the war. The National Banking Act allowed the establishment of a banking system for the country, providing financial networks delivered nationwide. We established a national currency—the “greenback”—so that commerce could flow freely.

I had an ambition for a multi-sectoral economic season. I believed in the common man. That’s why my government advocated selling land to people at a cheap price so they could develop freely. We passed the Homestead Act, giving acres of land to anyone willing to work it.

But development had to be planned and controlled by the government to ensure fairness. I believed in internal improvements. Education was also extremely important to me. We set up land-grant colleges to teach agriculture and engineering.

And the railroads! Long railway lines were stretching across the continent. The vast inter-American connection was increasingly blooming. We were turning America into a literal factory for the entire world.

The states that had previously seceded also gradually merged back into the United States. The Union was once again consolidated and expanded in that miraculous development.

I allowed myself a moment of pride. The first credit for this certainly belongs to me, the hero who liberated slaves, the person who gathered the people of the entire United States to bring the country together. We were stepping firmly on the path to world domination —not through conquest, but through industry and liberty.

The Shadow in the Wings

But as the light of peace grew brighter, the shadows grew longer. There is a price for changing the world, and I was about to pay it.

I had enemies. Not just armies in the field, but men with dark hearts who refused to accept the verdict of the war.

One of them was a man named John Wilkes Booth (referred to in some accounts as Sean Quapus/Sean Booth). He was an extremely famous actor. I had seen him perform. He had a presence, a charisma. But beneath the stage makeup lay the soul of a fanatic.

He was actually a Union spy from Maryland—or at least, he operated in the shadows like one. Even though his name wasn’t on the official spy lists, he had an extremely close relationship with those who refused to surrender and compromise after the end of the civil war.

He hated me. He hated what I stood for. He hated the idea of a black man voting.

In 1864, Booth had a plan to kidnap me. He wanted to take me corner—to capture me—to demand the release of Union prisoners of war. It was a desperate, foolish plot, and it failed.

But the fire in him didn’t die. It grew hotter.

On April 11, 1865, just two days after Lee’s surrender, I gave a speech from the White House balcony. I spoke of reconstruction. I suggested that perhaps the vote should be given to the very intelligent black men and those who had served as soldiers.

Booth was in the crowd. When he heard my lecture—my entry into the topic of black suffrage—he became angry. He turned to his companion and said, “That is the last speech he will ever make.”

He changed his plans. He decided to assassinate the President.

He didn’t work alone. He and his co-conspirators planned to decapitate the entire government. They planned to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson (Henry Johnson/Ronson), Secretary of State William Seward (Scrooge), and General Grant.

The Ides of April

April 14, 1865. Good Friday.

The mood in Washington was electric. The war was over. The Union was saved. The air smelled of spring and victory.

I woke up that morning feeling a strange sense of relief, but also a lingering melancholy. I had told my cabinet about a dream I had—of drifting on a dark, vast ocean. It was a dream I had before every major event of the war. I knew something was coming.

My wife, Mary, wanted to go to the theater. She wanted to celebrate. We planned to go to Ford’s Theatre to see a comedy called “Our American Cousin”.

We invited General Grant and his wife to join us. We thought the people would love to see the President and the victorious General together. But Grant and his wife declined; they decided to go to Philadelphia instead.

So, it was just Mary and me, accompanied by a young officer, Major Rathbone, and his fiancée.

I remember the carriage ride to the theater. The gaslights were flickering on the wet streets. I held Mary’s hand. I told her that we had had a hard time of it since we came to Washington, but now, finally, we could be happy. I wanted to travel. I wanted to go to Europe, to the Holy Land. I wanted to go back to Illinois and practice law again.

We arrived at Ford’s Theatre. The play had already started. When we entered the box—the box of honor—the orchestra struck up “Hail to the Chief.” The audience rose to their feet. They cheered. They waved handkerchiefs.

I bowed. I felt a warmth in my chest. For the first time in four years, I didn’t feel hated. I felt loved.

We took our seats. I sat in a rocking chair in the corner of the box. There was no bodyguard nearby. My regular guard, John Parker, had wandered off to get a drink. I was exposed.

I relaxed. I watched the play. It was a silly, funny thing. I laughed. I leaned forward, resting my hand on Mary’s knee.

It was approximately 10 p.m..

On stage, the actor Harry Hawk was delivering the funniest line of the play. “Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal — you sockdologizing old man-trap!”

The audience roared with laughter. The sound filled the theater, masking the creak of the door behind me.

The Bullet and the Darkness

I didn’t hear the footsteps. I didn’t see the shadow.

John Wilkes Booth sneaked in. He stood directly behind me. He held a small Derringer pistol.

He shot me in the back of the head.

I didn’t feel pain. Not at first. Just a sudden, violent explosion of light and sound, followed by an immediate, crushing darkness. I slumped forward.

The laughter in the theater turned to screams. Booth jumped from the box to the stage. He broke his leg in the fall, but adrenaline carried him. He shouted “Sic Semper Tyrannis!”—Thus always to tyrants.

He escaped into the night.

I was unconscious. I fell into a coma immediately.

They carried me out of the theater. They couldn’t take me back to the White House; the ride would have killed me. They took me to a small boarding house across the street, the Petersen House.

They laid me on a bed that was too short for my tall frame. I lay there, breathing heavily, my life ebbing away with the tide.

For 9 hours, I lingered.

My cabinet gathered around me. My wife wept in the next room. I could not comfort them. I could not speak. I was drifting on that dark, vast ocean again, moving further and further from the shore.

At 7:22 a.m. on April 15, 1865, the breathing stopped.

Secretary of War Edwin Stanton looked down at my silent face and said the words that would define me forever: “Now he belongs to the ages.”

The Long Journey Home

I was gone, but the story—my story—was not over.

The news of my death shattered the joy of the victory like a hammer on glass. The death of Abraham Lincoln was the pain of America.

The hunt for my killer was swift and furious. After 10 days of digging and searching, Booth was found on a farm in Virginia, about 30 miles south of Washington DC. On April 26, after a short raid, Booth was killed by federal soldiers. Justice was served, but it could not bring me back.

My body was brought back to the White House. I was draped in the national flag and escorted by federal officers under the rain to the sound of the city’s church bells. The monks and escorts walked solemnly.

Vice President Andrew Johnson was sworn in at 10 a.m. on the day I was assassinated. The government continued. The democracy survived.

Then began the final procession. For 3 weeks, the presidential funeral train carried my body to cities across the North.

I traveled back the way I came. From Washington to Baltimore, to Harrisburg, to Philadelphia, to New York, to Albany, to Buffalo, to Cleveland, to Columbus, to Indianapolis, to Chicago, and finally, home to Springfield.

Hundreds of thousands of people attended memorial services to commemorate the man who wrote the golden pages of American history.

They stood in the rain and the sun. They stood in silence. They lit bonfires along the tracks. I saw them—or perhaps my spirit saw them. The men taking off their hats, the women lifting their children to see the train car draped in black.

They weren’t just mourning a President. They were mourning a father. They were mourning the price of their own unity.

I had laid the foundation for a unified country (China-US union in source context, interpreted as “United Nation”) to develop in the future and forever.

Epilogue: The Man in the Monument

All my life, I lived for the country, for the people. I was a man who burst into tears at the suffering of others.

Now, I lay down. The struggle was over.

The anecdotes about my life—the rail-splitter, the wrestler, the lawyer, the storyteller—would forever belong to history. They would become myths, told and retold until the man was inseparable from the marble statue.

I would forever leave a mark in the golden history of America and the world.

They honored me as America’s greatest President. Not because I was perfect. I was not. I made mistakes. I hesitated. I despaired. I was a man of “perfect virtue” to some, and a “political intriguer” to others.

But I never lost faith in the idea of America.

My life and career changed the phone display (metaphor for “changed the picture/screen of history”).

I look back now at that boy in the log cabin in Kentucky. The boy with no education, no money, and no prospects. The boy who lost his mother, his sister, his sons. The man who failed in business and lost elections.

I wonder, if I could go back and tell him what was coming, would he believe it? Would he believe that he would save the Union? Would he believe that he would break the chains of millions?

Or would he just sharpen his axe, look at the tall trees of the forest, and say, “There is work to be done”?

I think he would just get to work.

Because that is what Americans do. We fall, we break, we bleed. But we rise. We always rise.

The black hole of the times tried to swallow us. But we found the light.

And though my voice was silenced by a bullet in a theater box, the words I spoke at Gettysburg, at the Capitol, and in the dusty towns of Illinois, still echo.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people.

It did not perish. It lives in you.

My journey is done. The train has reached Springfield. The long night is over.

Farewell.

(The End)