Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, near Hodgenville, Kentucky, and rose to prominence surrounded by Kentuckians. Even after moving to Illinois, he turned to them again and again for friendship, guidance, and support, and he courted and married Mary Todd, a Lexington native. When the Civil War came in 1861, Lincoln’s own family became a house divided, as many of Mary Todd’s relatives supported the Confederacy. Lincoln was deeply troubled by slavery, recalling the torment of seeing enslaved people shackled together on a steamboat trip from Louisville to St. Louis in 1841, and on January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Sharing in the wounds of the nation, he anticipated in his Second Inaugural Address the need for true reconciliation.
