Lincoln on Democracy

Chronology

358 LINCOLN, THE NATION, AND THE WORLD Chronology 1809~ Lincoln Lincoln is born on the morning of February 12 in a primitive, one-room, dirt-floor log cabin on Nolin Creek near Hodgenville , in central Kentucky. He is the second child and first son ofThomas Lincoln, carpenter and farmer (b. 1778), and Nancy Hanks Lincoln (b. ca. 1784). Thomas is able only to "bunglingly sign his own name," as his son will disparagingly put it; Nancy uses an "X" on legal documents. The Nation James Madison is inaugurated March 4 as the nation's fourth president; Elizabeth Seton founds Sisters of Charity; Revolutionary War philosopher Thomas Paine dies in poverty; poet Edgar Allan Poe and inventor Cyrus McCormick are born. The World Papal States are annexed by Napoleon. Among the world figures born this year: teacher of the blind Louis Braille, in France; novelist Nikolai Gogol, near Mirogorod, Russia; naturalist Charles Darwin (on the same day as Lincoln), in Shrewsbury , England; poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in Somersby, Lincolnshire ; and in a comfortable home in Liverpool, William Gladstone, who would become prime minister of Britain three years after Lincoln's death. 1811~ Lincoln His family relocates to a new farm, eleven miles to the north, along Knob Creek, "on the road from Beardstown, Ky. to Nashville, Tenn." The Nation Future president William Henry Harrison defeats Indians at Battle of Tippecanoe; Harriet Beecher Stowe, future author of Uncle Tom s Cabin, is born in Litchfield, Connecticut. The World Austria faces bankruptcy crisis; Duke of Wellington turns back the French at Fuentes de Oiioro and Albuera; King George III of England goes insane, son becomes prince regent. Lincoln, the Nation, and the World 359 1815* Lincoln At age six, he attends a so-called "ABC" school for the first time; students "blab" their lessons aloud. The Nation General Andrew Jackson defeats British at Battle of New Orleans , fought after Treaty of Ghent ending War of 1812 had already been signed but not yet communicated to U.S.; future women's suffrage advocate Elizabeth Cady Stanton born in Jamestown, New York. The World Wellington and Gebhard von Bliicher crush Napoleon at Waterloo; Napoleon is exiled to St. Helena; Congress of Vienna proclaims parts of Poland a kingdom in union with Russia; Otto von Bismarck is born in Schonhausen, Germany; in England, surveyor John McAdam builds first roads of crushed stone. 1816* Lincoln The family moves again in December, this time to "an unbroken forest" on Little Pigeon Creek across the Ohio River in southwestern Indiana, "partly on account of slavery," Lincoln later recalls, but "chiefly on account of the difficulty in land titles in Kentucky." They clear woods and build a cabin. "A., though very young, was large of his age, and had an axe put into his hands at once; and from that till within his twentythird year, he was almost constantly handling that most useful instrument...." The Nation Indiana becomes the nineteenth state in the Union; Second Bank of U.S. is chartered; President Madison signs protective tariff legislation; James Monroe is elected the nation's fifth president. The World Polish patriot and American Revolutionary War hero Tadeusz Kosciuszko (Lincoln born the same day, 63 years later) spends final year of life campaigning for freedom for Poland; Gioacchino Rossini's The Barber ofSeville debuts in Rome; Lord Byron writes third canto of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." 360 LINCOLN, THE NATION, AND THE WORLD Lincoln 1818 «