The Long Road to Washington

In fifty-one years of life, Abraham Lincoln lived in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois and worked as a store clerk, store owner, postmaster, militia captain, surveyor, lawyer, and politician. He lived in a one-room log cabin, the back room of a store, inns, taverns, and finally a house in Springfield. He enjoyed victories and suffered losses, persevering in an educated world despite never having attended college and having less than one year of formal education. He never stopped working to better himself and achieve his goals, and he believed every American had the right to do the same. On March 6, 1860, he said that free society allowed a person who started poor to better his condition and that a black man was entitled to that chance as well. On February 11, 1861, he began his journey to the nation’s capital to lead a nation on the verge of civil war, a conflict over who could experience the same kind of road he had traveled. On the way to Washington, he stopped at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where he said his political feelings sprang from the sentiments of the Declaration of Independence, which promised that the weights would in due time be lifted from the shoulders of all men and that all should have an equal chance.

Springfield, Illinois · United States